A simple question to protect your personal peace

There are weeks – months even – when I’m like a wind-bent palm tree, ever so barely remaining upright. Complete and tattered chaos. Gale force winds dictate my movements, versus embodying the wind in order to move things. The consequences are exactly what you’d expect – drained, a loss of creative energy, closed-hearted encounters, suffering over the minutia instead of grateful for the macro, not my best self. I call in the chaos in a variety of ways:

Saying yes to things I had wanted to say no to (mainly in the form of creative projects that I do technically have interest in but that I do not technically have the energy or capacity for based on my priorities). 

Absorbing the chaos of other people’s lives. By making their problems my problems. I’m just out here trying too hard to solve their problems for them (because hi, I’m brilliant, and I can absolutely speed up your learning process for you…can’t I? Can’t I?) I can’t. Because we’re all on our own journey to understanding. 

Rehashing. Good god the rehashing that I’m capable of. I could re-tell the drama 22 times in a week if I let myself. And with every version of last week’s truth, the emotion gets bigger. The frustration gathers. Pretty soon I’m not the one in control of the energy any more, all in the name of sharing. 

These choices – and they’re active, deliberate choices by yours truly – rob me of my own personal peace. I engage with the fall out, with overthinking and the drain and the discontent and the frustration and the overwhelm that comes from making these choices. So I make more choices that fracture my energy, which results in dropping meditations, pushing off creative endeavors, skipping workouts, being reactionary…and eating cookie dough as a meal (duh). 

What a spin! Especially because I’d sure as hell rather be calm, steady and still when the world around me is revolving quickly, which it always is. Always will be. 

It is mandatory that we find calm amidst chaos around us – chaos of global events and uncertainties, chaos of other people’s heartbreak or struggles, chaos of projects and travel schedules. Because it is possible. But it requires thoughtfulness, of breaking patterns instead of defaulting to our old ways.

Three years ago, in what seems now like a different life, I hosted a #WomanON gathering where our guest Genevieve Leighton-Arham posed a guiding question to the group: Is this worth my personal peace? The moment she said it, a current passed through the room. We all knew the power that sentiment wielded. In just six short words, she strung together the potential for total luminosity as to how we orient our days. 

That question – is this worth my personal peace? – can be used as a pause, giving you enough time to process. It can be used as a filter, informing priorities. It can be used as a guide, leading you to personal peace above all else. And ultimately, it can be used as a gut check, are you becoming the storm or choosing the calm within it?

Your personal peace is paramount. And you are worth saying yes to only that which is worth your personal peace.