Keeping our cool in uncomfortable or stressful circumstances can do several things for us. One, we are much more apt to find solutions to the problems we are experiencing. Two, if there are others involved we have a mellowing effect on them. Three, whatever upset we are experiencing doesn’t last as long and definitely won’t drag on unnecessarily. And four, as we don’t allow outside circumstances to shake us, over time our peace can become unshakable; this leads to an increase in happiness, better creative/manifestation capability and a Life experience that can really mirror this peace and joy back to us via people and situations.
So in a nutshell, here are 10 Ways to Find Peace In Stressful Situations:
1) Calm and center yourself. In other words, find your happy-place. Even if it means taking 10 minutes to sit down and bring awareness into your body, or listening to the soothing sound of rain, this will have a major impact on your stress levels and on the situation as a whole.
2) Don’t bring the ‘I’ into it…AKA Don’t make it about you. Oftentimes, the thing that causes the most stress is when we take things personally. Most upsets are simple miscommunications or misunderstandings and when we bring the ‘I’ into it, or when we start thinking about how it is affecting us we get caught in a downward spiral of undesired emotions and stress. Even if it APPEARS to be about you, it doesn’t. That may sound strange but it is true. Even if you hear that someone was gossiping about you, it has nothing to do with you. That is a reflection of them and their behavior~ and even if they think it is personal…it isn’t. It never is. =)
3) Express and exhaust the Stress if needed. Sometimes we catch ourselves a little late in the stress game. It could be we didn’t even noticed we were stressed until we are feeling really emotional or our bodies are shaking. If this is the case, take 10 to 20 minutes to sit down and feel it all the way through. Once our experience of a problem becomes denser and emerges as emotions, the best we can do is ride it out. Feel them, express and exhaust them until you notice that the emotions are a subtle level 1 or level 2 intensity (as opposed to level 10 code red). From here, you can begin calming and centering yourself so that you can focus on the solutions instead of the problem.
4) Remind yourself that this too shall pass. In the end, this won’t last forever. Some of the most stressful situations we have been through we end up laughing about later in Life. Keep this in mind; whether you do something about it or not, it will change. There is only one permanent thing in the Universe, and that is that everything changes. With this in mind, a person can breathe a little easier and relax into the situation. Think of a problem like a really hot bath. You don’t have to jump in immediately~ you can ease your way in little-by-little until you are comfortable. And without even trying, you notice after a little bit of time that the water cools down on its’ own. =)
5) Talk it up: find the good in it. It can be difficult to see the blessings in the issues that bother us the most, but there is always a good reason for it. Sometimes we need to have a breakdown in order to have a breakthrough. This is nature’s way of clearing out what is no longer working for us, or that which we have grown out of. Find something to laugh about in the situation or remember that we need upsets in order to find the gifts in it. Often these gifts are lessons of forgiveness, compassion, understanding or defining boundaries. A butterfly struggles for hours in order to free itself from the cocoon; but without the struggle, the butterfly would not build the muscles necessary for it to be able to fly.
6) Remind yourself that there is always an upside to pain. Pain always is a calling for us to rise to something greater than we already are. As many masters have said, pain is inevitable, but suffering is optional. If we can look at pain in a way that we don’t resist it, but praise its’ presence in our life, now we can change our experience of it completely. This is why some people experience a lot of pain and suffering in divorce, and others experience freedom and joy in it. It is all in how you look at it.
7) Remember that with a problem there is always a solution available. Problems cannot exist without a solution. Black cannot exist without the other colors, up cannot exist without down and so the relations in the Universe are. In fact, to find a point in 3 dimensional space we need 6 other points; 7 points to chart a course. With this in mind, we cannot have a problem without one or more solutions. All that is needed is for us to make ourselves available for the solution and to tap into it. =)
8) BREEAATTHHHEEEE and meditate on it. Meditation is something that does so much for us. It teaches us to slow down, to be mindful, to be aware of ourselves and our environment, and it teaches us to focus. These are just a few of the countless benefits of meditation, but it also does another thing~ it is a stress-reliever. Our brain, as dynamic and complex as it is, has trouble focusing on more than one thing. Granted there are a few things we do out of our subconscious such as driving, showering, brushing our teeth and so on, but when it comes to the conscious level, it can be very difficult for us to focus on more than one thing for an extended period of time. So meditate! Bring all your focus to your breathing and just sit and be for a little while. Then re-enter the situation with renewed energy.
9) Exercise and disperse the energy. Stress can build up in the body, so it is important to again express and exhaust whatever nervous energy is making itself aware to you. Do some yoga, go for a run, walk around the block a few times or do jumping jacks for 5 or 10 minutes. What usually happens is after this energy is exhausted, we don’t have a lot of energy left over to be upset about. We can more easily relax, and when we relax into a problem this is usually when a solution makes itself known.
10) Remember to shine in a crisis. A good reminder would be this: we are born problem-solvers. As humans, our creative capability is endless. There is usually not just one solution to a problem, but many MANY solutions to a problem. Some people can get into this zone when they are under stress~ a sort of grace under pressure. If you can access this space and become the excellent problem-solver you were born to be, there isn’t a problem in the world that you can’t solve.
In summary, there is no such thing as a ‘big’ or ‘small’ problem. In fact, problems only exist within the mind. So when we look at it from the viewpoint of the Universe, suddenly our problems seem non-existent. And in the end, no matter what you think you are going through, we cannot solve a problem with the same level of thinking that created it (Albert Einstein). So think differently!