Written by: Tracy Renee Stafford, Executive Contributor
Executive Contributors at Brainz Magazine are handpicked and invited to contribute because of their knowledge and valuable insight within their area of expertise.
Though it may seem like an impossible task, or even a selfish one, finding inner calm while the world is in great turmoil is not only possible, it’s needed.
Thich Nhat Hanh, the Vietnamese Buddhist monk who dedicated his life to teaching peace to both Eastern & Western cultures, said it best: “Become an island of peace & compassion and you may inspire other people to do the same. It's like a boat filled with people crossing the ocean: If they encounter a storm and everyone panics, the boat will capsize. But if there is one person in the boat who can remain calm, that person can inspire other people to be calm. And then there will be hope for the whole boatload.”
This is a time when we all have the right to say that we’re tired. After 2 years of the pandemic, we now have to check on the daily news with a mix of fear, sadness, & anger as we watch a new war & refugee crisis take place. It’s 1 more on the list of tragedies happening throughout the world at any given time. This, on top of our own ongoing personal challenges, is quite a lot to deal with, to say the least.
Why inner peace is important, even & especially when the world seems lost
Becoming overwhelmed with everything that’s happening in our inner & outer world is absolutely understandable. It’s completely valid that we might wish to hide our head in the sand, to lose ourselves in distraction, or to succumb to anger & frustration. But none of this truly helps us feel better, and it certainly doesn’t help alleviate the original problem.
Finding inner strength, resilience, joy, & peace does take practice & effort even in the best of circumstances. It can also take time to discover our own unique path to it. But it is possible, and it does make a difference. Little by little, with baby steps & in micro-moments, we can calm the boat. We can calm the boat that’s inside of us, traversing our own inner storms. And we can contribute to calming the boat that all of us are sailing on collectively together.
Making the commitment to cultivating our own inner peace, joy & resilience is just what the world needs right now. Or, to say it another way, what the world does not need right now is more reactivity, despair, cynicism, & resignation. The cost of giving up on peace in the outer world is very high, but it’s also very high for us in our inner world. Our physical, mental & emotional health suffer greatly when we feel stressed & off the rails. It’s true that we cannot change many of the outer circumstances of life, but we can make changes within.
Self-care is not selfish
If it feels selfish to focus on inner work while the sky seems to be falling all around us, we might consider how beneficial it can be for those around us to receive our strong & calm energy. Our moods & attitudes are contagious, after all. We might also consider dedicating our ‘inner peace project’ to those with significant struggles - someone we know, or perhaps a group of people who face big obstacles. We do our work in honour of them. Our inner peacemaking lets them know that, while it’s not necessarily easy, it’s possible & it’s worthwhile.
How to do it?
Let these 8 ideas be a launching pad to discovering your own pathway to peace. Notice how you feel personally as you practice each one, and how it affects your interactions with the world around you.
1. Anchor
Take a mini moment or 2 each day to feel the connection of the feet on the ground, to rest the attention on the rhythm of inhaling & exhaling, & to choose 1 simple calming word or phrase to silently repeat.
When the mind is racing with thoughts, when we feel like we’re bobbing around like a toy duck in an ocean of chaos, finding a simple, tangible anchor is a crucial first step in our personal peace process.
Anchoring within the body can provide an immediate, palpable sense of grounding. Feeling the rise & fall of the belly with the breath, doing a simple scan to sequentially relax the body (Here is a short Body Scan Meditation Practice), or simply feeling the weight of the hands resting on the thighs while sitting can be very helpful in bringing us into the present moment, and out of ‘thinking mind’, which is often stuck in ruminating on the past or fearing for the future.
If there’s a lot of inner storminess within the body & mind, however, it can feel safer & more secure to find an anchor that’s outside the body. Feeling the connection to the ground, to nature, or to a spiritual figure that you resonate with can provide a very profound sense of support.
Sometimes the best anchor can be found in the heart of another person. Reaching out to a trusted dear one, therapist, or mentor can be just the kind of caring connection we need to see below the stormy waves.
2. Create Space
A common turn of phrase that’s heard in mindfulness circles, is to ‘let go’. But this does not mean that our worry, grief, or even our anger need to ‘go’ anywhere. It simply means that we hold on to them less tightly. We relax our grip on our thoughts & feelings, allowing there to be more space around them. This allows us to see things from a bigger perspective, which in turn allow us to respond more wisely, instead of reacting reflexively.
The breath can be a perfect entry point into letting go. We feel the breath come & go. We let the breath travel in the spaces between the muscles & bones, and between the thoughts & feelings. We can let the breath gently loosen up whatever is feeling tight inside. Once there’s more space, thoughts, feelings, & sensations are free to stay, to go, to transform, or to do whatever is needed.
3. Rest in Compassion
Once we’ve anchored ourselves and begun to create space within our mind, heart, & body, we can start to notice all sorts of things that have been hiding inside of us. Some of it we might feel tempted to label as ‘bad’ or ‘good’, as ‘acceptable’ or ‘unacceptable’. Let the spaciousness that you’re resting in be warm, allowing, & non-judgmental. By allowing whatever’s here to be here, by not judging anything as of right or wrong, things become even more loose & spacious. This is a beautiful pathway to being able to see things with even a broader perspective & to respond even more wisely.
If compassion is difficult for you to give to yourself, or if the thoughts, feelings & sensations you’re opening up to are traumatic or overwhelming, again you might consider reaching out to a dear one, therapist, or mentor. Compassion for oneself, sadly, is something that our culture is still new at, and so it can take some support, guidance, & practice.
4. Don’t Take Things Personally
This is one of Don Miguel Ruiz’ ‘Four Agreements’. If you are not familiar with this timeless work, I strongly recommend reading up on it!
We can imagine that our thoughts & feelings travel through us like winds. These winds - of worry, sorrow, impatience, anger, lust, envy, fear - travel through all of us. No one is exempt. It’s not personal.
When we rest in compassionate spaciousness, we allow these winds to come & go through us without letting them get stuck inside us. They’re not ours, after all. This is another important piece of being able to see things from a wider perspective so that we can respond considerately instead of reacting impulsively to these winds that pass through us all.
5. Take Care of the Body
All of these practices described so far can sound like lovely ideas, but they can be much harder to put into practice when the body is tight, tired, & disconnected.
The daily physical practices of making sure we get enough rest, that we practice both vigorous & restorative exercise, and that we eat simple food that’s close to the earth go a long way in keeping the muscles, heart, lungs, & nervous system healthy & happy. Stress might start in the mind, but it often gets trapped in the body. Fortunately, by taking care of our physical body, almost always ripples out to our mental & emotional bodies.
Consider what aspects of your physical health could use more care & attention, and what simple strategies you could realistically put into place. Perhaps it just means packing a little extra fruit in your lunch, that some of the weekly errands become opportunities for walking, or that all screens are turned off a little earlier each night, giving time for the mind to calm down for a better night’s sleep.
6. Work with the Mind
Anchoring & creating compassionate space can be done in mini moments throughout the day, but taking some more concentrated time to rest in stillness & note all the things that we’re grateful for today, to consciously slow the breath down (inhaling for 4, holding for 4, exhaling for 4, holding for 4 - aka Box Breathing), or to have a regular meditation practice (Here is a simple 12-minute practice) can allow us to develop a profoundly radiant inner peace that spreads out beyond just ourselves.
As a long time meditator, I can attest that sitting still for even a short time each day has allowed me to be more productive in my work, to be more present for those around me, to suffer fewer effects of stress, and to see beyond my day to day troubles & worries to a more timeless sense of what it means to be alive in this world. The time taken is absolutely worth it.
7. Take Compassionate Action
Getting involved in our community & offering help where it’s needed does wonders to calm our own nervous energy, while also being of absolute benefit to others. There’s clearly plenty of injustice & suffering in the world. Doing what we can is important.
However, if we’re waiting for things to be a certain way before we can feel good or before we can relax & feel joy, we will be waiting forever. Cultivating our own inner peace needs to go alongside working in our communities, otherwise, we risk burning out & becoming lost in despair & cynicism.
Just imagine if all the work being done around the world for peace was being done by people who actually had a sense of it already inside themselves...
8. Enjoy Your Joy
Finding peace does not need to be a serious chore, nor should it be. Joy, laughter, delight, & humour all remind us how much life force is hiding within us, just waiting to reveal itself. This life force is so powerful. It is the fuel for practicing peace. It is one of the most precious gifts that we can offer to others. We must not feel guilty for our joy, and we must not hide it. The world needs to hear our laughter & see our smiles.
If any of the ideas I offer here resonate with you, I invite you to click here to receive the 5 Day Introduction to Fully Embodied Living. Each day includes guided stretching, breath practice, meditation, & support for intuitive eating & personal growth.
Tracy Renee Stafford, Executive Contributor Brainz Magazine Tracy Renee Stafford is a coach in Fully Embodied Fitness a weave of yoga, pilates, dance, & functional exercise and in Fully Embodied Living based on 4 Pillars of Well Being: Connection to Body, Nourishment, Presence & Growth. Her mission is to help people discover how they can make self care a celebration, rather than an obligation, & enjoy the body for how it feels, rather than just for how it performs or looks. She ran her own studio in the Canadian Prairies heartland for 20 very rewarding years where she taught various forms of fitness, with a specific interest in injury prevention & rehabilitation and empowering students with information on HOW the body works best. She is a Mindful Movement, Holistic Living & Nutrition Coach, weaving together all of her expertise into her Fully Embodied Living Programs. She currently lives in Buenos Aires and keeps her passion for dance alive by studying Argentine Tango.
