The Art Of Being Unruffled: 3 Simple Ways To Live A Peaceful Life
Ionela Mat | Unsplash Does this sound like you? Maybe you’ve been on retreats, read self-help and self-improvement books, been to church (and maybe out of church), taken seminars, had energy work, bodywork, listened to podcasts, read articles, filled out questionnaires, taken tests, gotten certifications, hired a life coach (or two), meditated, prayed, and/or done therapy … and yet, that lasting inner peace is still elusive.
I’ve got both good news and bad news for you. The good news: All the work you’ve done has brought you here, to this day and this time. The seeds of the solution to inner peace lie buried inside the discontent you are currently feeling.
The bad news: You’ve been looking in the wrong places. This is not to say that the work you’ve done is wrong. The work you’ve done is wonderful. This is to say you’ve been looking in the wrong places for the answers. You’ve been looking to other people, to other work, to external conditions. The answers lie within you.
Here are 3 simple ways to live a peaceful life:
1. First, you notice when you have any involuntarily tight muscles somewhere in your body
Remember, involuntarily tight muscles are the signal that you are in fight or flight and unable to access a state of inner peace. The best way to do this is to make a habit of doing a quick body scan.
Starting at the top of your head, check in. Any tight muscles? Go down through your face, neck, torso, arms, hands, back, hips, legs, ankles, feet. Anything tight that doesn’t need to be? Make a mental note.
This is an act you want to do hundreds of times a day. Attaching to another habit will make you more successful. Things like: Every time you pick up your phone, before reading an email, standing from sitting, sitting from standing. You get the idea. Your capacity to find inner peace depends on your willingness to shift your habitual responses.
The more you practice this, the more your nervous system learns the route back to calm. It gets easier to shift out of that fight-or-flight mode and into what is called "rest and digest." And it's not just a feeling: one study found that the more time people spent focusing on relaxation responses (i.e., abdominal breathing, meditation, visualizations, etc.), the less anxious they became and the less reactive they were to stress.
2. Second, ask yourself this question: Am I safe, right here, and now?
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Get real with yourself here. Is someone threatening to hit or hurt you right now? Are you in a burning building? Yes? Then you shouldn’t be reading this! Point being, if you are in danger now, as in imminent physical danger, get out and get safe!
The rest of the time, notice that you are indeed safe at this moment. Remember, inner peace can’t be had in the past or the future. It can only be had in the present. You deserve it. Notice that you are safe.
When you stay anchored in what's actually happening right now, rather than spinning out about what might happen or replaying what already did, something shifts. Research shows this kind of present-moment awareness is linked to lower stress, anxiety, and depression.
3. Third, once you’ve identified that you are safe, intentionally relax your tight muscles
We’re looking for relaxation progress, not perfection. This is one of the five ways I teach clients to do this: Starting at the top of your head, go back over your body scan, and one by one, invite the tense muscle to relax. See the muscle as a limp piece of spaghetti, and intend that it let go of the tension. Tell the muscle it’s okay, we’re safe.
When that switch happens, your heart rate slows and your blood pressure drops; your body is literally standing down from high alert. Researchers reviewed 46 studies involving over 3,400 people and found that this kind of deliberate muscle relaxation reduces stress, anxiety, and depression.
Make sure to practice your simple 1-2-3 process. This 1-2-3 process of noticing tense muscles, reconfirming safety, and relaxing takes less than 30 seconds to do, and with practice, only 5-10 seconds. It’s invisible, so you can do it anywhere.
The benefits go beyond the momentary achievement of inner peace. When you relax in the presence of a perceived threat, not only do you restore your parasympathetic nervous system, you increase your capacity to think, you diminish the power of the same stimulus to trigger a threat response in the future, and perhaps the best of all, you heal your painful past learning.
That’s right, you get to heal your past in the present, just by relaxing while taking action. This technique is deceptively simple. It will restore your inner peace right now, and if you stick with it, that restoration will be long-lasting. You will find lasting inner peace, greater life satisfaction, and be in a state of emotional regulation.
Now, when you work with your coach, go on retreats, take the seminar, meditate, pray, etc., you can harness even more benefits from these experiences. You will deepen your inner peace because you’ve already found it.
Tara Brown is a Yale- and MIT-trained architect, Certified Life Mastery Consultant, Certified Parent Educator, and Religious Science Practitioner, certified by both the Brave Thinking Institute and the Emerson Institute.
