Calm

For as many years as I can remember, being calm was challenging for me. What occurs when you can’t find peace is irritability, anxiety, health issues, and the list.

In my research, the critical ingredient is learning to be calm to find peace in my own life. Calm under fire!

When you learn to master the skillful art of remaining calm under fire, you can overcome anything that life throws at you.

How, might you say?

First, you need to learn how to breathe and focus on breathing in stressful situations.

Box Breathing:

• Breathe in, counting to four slowly. Feel the air enter your lungs.
• Hold your breath for 4 seconds. Then, try to avoid inhaling or exhaling for 4 seconds.
• Slowly exhale through your mouth for 4 seconds.
• Repeat steps 1 to 3 until you feel re-centered.

Simple Breathing:

• In through the nose and out through the mouth. Nice easy breaths.

Keeping your fingertips together while breathing has also been helpful for me. As stress elevates, I rub my fingertips together slowly. It’s calming.

Breathing will help relieve the stress that can cause pain in the neck and back.

Why all this is so important, you may ask.

Our mind functions way faster and more alert when our head is not spinning. Have you ever noticed that in a quiet space, for example, your head won’t shut up? We all have. I wrote an article called When Silence Screams.

Getting to a relaxed place will have incredible value for you. Your decision-making will be more spot-on when your head is quiet. Stress will be minimized in all aspects of your life. There is a difference between healthy and unhealthy habits.

Imagine being able to summon calm—stress response vs. calm response. Think about your dad. Would he respond more favorably to a stressed-out crazy response or a clear, favorable, collected response?

Like anything new, this will take time to learn. At first, you will undoubtedly suck at being calm in the face of adversity. Then, however, you will gain confidence as you apply to breathe into your life.

As you learn new life skills, you must be easy on yourself. Set reminders that say “breathe.” Doing so will help shorten your learning curve. Make this part of your everyday!

Breathing will help you change your outlook from doom to I got this! Everyone you meet will be amazed that you don’t rattle. You learn to improvise, adapt and overcome any situation with a sharp mind.

Take time daily to meditate when you can to calm yourself. Meditation will help clear the stress and open your mind to receive intelligent thoughts. Not a mish-mosh of “Oh God, the world is over.” Vs. Clear, sharp, and concise.

Meditation should also become part of your everyday life. So, give yourself the gift of forty-five minutes of calm.

Now that you have read this short article. It’s time to get going. Set a reminder right now to breathe. Just doing breathing exercises throughout your day will begin to have positive progress.

My life has changed immeasurably by doing what I just wrote for you. Friends say my face does not look stressed; people near me say I am not as snappy as I might have been carrying stress.

It’s not hard; get to it!