Archives for February 2019

Peace of mind is one of the most important experiences we can have.   It’s what I call a state of internal harmony.  That is, no matter how stressful your circumstances, your mind is able to feel harmony, or in sync with its different aspects.  It’s like the experience of being inside a well-built car while it’s moving at 70 miles an hour: though a lot of motion and noise are going on outside, at the same time, with the doors and windows shut, you can be in a quiet environment with just a little hum going on.  All the various parts of the car are synced with each other and everything is running smoothly.

Unfortunately, peace of mind is often hard to come by.  We live in an anxious age, where we often feel fear, debilitating anxiety, panic, and phobias.  Nothing good comes from this. So here are some tips to help you develop better peace of mind.

Identify what is causing anxiety or a feeling of stress.  Global anxiety is a vague sense of unease, and it’s hard to deal with.  It’s always better to pinpoint exactly where the stress is coming from A financial issue?  A work challenge? A family problem? A health situation? You will notice a decrease in anxiety, and an increase in peace, just from that simple step.

Take problem-solving steps.  Even if a challenge can’t be totally solved, our peace increases when we take initiative and do some action steps to resolve them.  The more passive we are, the more we live in our amygdala, and we become increasingly anxious to a sometimes overwhelming degree. Initiative and moving on something, almost anything positive really, will increase peace and move us from the amygdala mode to the pre-frontal cortex mode, where we are calmer and can think more clearly.

Pull away several times a day.  Since we live in a highly stimulated world, our brains don’t have a chance to calm down and center ourselves naturally.  So just make that a quick habit. Take a “pull away” break, one in the morning, one in the afternoon, and one in the evening, get away from the stress, and think about the actual good in your life (don’t make stuff up, I mean the actual good !):  you have a body that works, you have people that care, you have choices and freedoms. This little habit will make a significant difference.

Call your resilience to mind.  Resilience means that you’re strong enough to handle the hard stuff.  You have a history of facing challenges. Remember your wins and recall that you have made it through other stressors.  

Make vulnerable contacts.  Every day, stress or no stress, have a brief supportive conversation with someone who cares about you, and whom you care about.  Be vulnerable, meaning be open with the negatives: what is stressing you and what you fear. Don’t ask the other person for solutions. Instead, tell them you just want to know they “get it”, and have them convey that to you. Internal harmony comes from this sort of conversation, in which we experience that we aren’t alone.  

Life will always be stressful to some degree.  But work on experiencing the hum of that well-running engine in your head.

Have you ever made a mistake in relationships or at work, and then said to yourself, “I was clueless!”  We all do, and it’s all tied up in having problems in being self-aware (of which cluelessness is a part).  People who have healthy self-awareness tend to have better relationships, be generally more content, make better decisions, and focus better at work.  And people who suffer from low self-awareness tend to not only make mistakes in life, but they repeat them and repeat them, even when those mistakes have a negative impact on those they care about.  But things can change. Here are some tips to help increase your capacity to observe yourself.

Practice a mindfulness exercise. I have a habit that has paid off for my own self-awareness.  On a daily basis, get a few minutes away from people and tech and ask yourself these 9 simple questions, takes about a minute:

1. What am I seeing?
2. What am I hearing?
3. What am I smelling?
4. What am I touching?
5. What am I tasting?
6. What positive feeling am I experiencing about myself?
7. What negative feeling am I experiencing about myself?
8. What positive feeling am I experiencing about someone else?
9. What negative feeling am I experiencing about someone else?

You will be surprised about how “in touch” you will become about your body and your interior life.  There is a lot of information there to be aware of.

Develop the habit of asking “Why?”  Curiosity is one of the highest level developers of self-awareness.  It helps us search out our motivations behind our actions and cures cluelessness.  When you make a mistake, instead of beating yourself up, or blaming others, just ask yourself “Why?”  Why did I snap at her in the meeting? Why did I keep answering emails and avoid finishing the report?  Why did I shut down and not say anything when I went out on that blind date? The very practice of “why” will help you figure out what kind of person you are, and help you make better decisions as well.

Deal with fear.  Often, individuals with low self-awareness are afraid to stop and look in the mirror, for they fear they won’t like what they see.  They don’t scrutinize their behavior or check out how they come across. Inside them, they are pretty sure the answer is painful, as in “I am a selfish failure who is useless to anyone in my life.”  So they basically put the engine of life on autopilot, and run through their days running into things and people, but never stopping to figure it out. The answer here is to be able to tolerate the bad news about ourselves in the community of good people who won’t cast you aside and judge you.

Ask for feedback.   Getting info from a few safe and honest people in your life can be extremely helpful in developing self-awareness.  Simply say to them, “I’m working on improving my self-awareness. I’d like your opinion on situations when I seem to show a lack of awareness of how I’m coming across or impacting people.”  I did this with my wife Barbi and she said, “When we are talking and you start thinking about something, you look over my shoulder.” I had no idea! Now I look at her eyes, and things are better.  

Know thyself.  It pays off.