We are living in uncertain times. There is so much suffering, fear and bad news every time you turn around. Social media can make us feel less-than and can throw us into a negative spiral of comparison. We’re still living in a global pandemic which seems to be dragging on past what any of us probably imagined. While there have been blessings in the changes that have occurred in our lives there has also been loss and despair. Because of this, it’s more important than ever to learn to control your mindset and not just survive but thrive in times of uncertainty.
Recently a client told me I have a calming personality. Though I may have always appeared calm, I didn’t always feel that way on the inside. Thankfully, with the help of of hypnosis and a daily practice of mediation and mindfulness, my outer calm is now matched by an inner peace and confidence. This inner peace helps me to stay level headed, think calmly and focus on solutions instead of problems. It helps me in parenting, in business, and in all of my relationships. How does this tie into organizing and simplifying your life?
Inner peace is an amazing tool for life because it helps provide clarity, guides all of your decisions and cannot be taken away from you no matter the outside circumstances. As Victor Frankl wrote in his book Man’s Search for Meaning about his time as a prisoner in a concentration camp, “everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms – to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances.”
Inner peace doesn’t mean ignoring problems. It isn’t toxic positivity, or pretending that everything is always fine but rather that you control what you can control and let go of the rest. It doesn’t mean you don’t work to fight injustice or try to change bad situations. In fact, it’s the opposite. When you have inner peace, you actually fight harder for what you believe in because you know at a deep level what you believe in and care less about pleasing others at the expense of your own truth. Inner peace give us the tools to handle anything life throws at us and to respond with equanimity and perspective.
Back in late March/early April when we had been living with the pandemic for a year, I began to feel crushed by the weight of responsibility without the normal support systems in place. I was doing too much on my own, not asking for help and struggling with feeling burdened and trapped. Even though I desperately needed it I wasn’t taking time for myself and was neglecting my own needs. As many Moms did and still do, I began to grow weary and feel overwhelmed by daily life and the responsibility of holding it all together when our lives as parents were turned upside down. Everything seemed uncertain, social connections had faded after zoom fatigue, I worried about my kids and the toll this was taking on them and missed seeing my friends and family from afar. The pandemic felt never-ending, the news depressing, and the sameness of every day was beginning to take a toll on my mindset. Essentially because I couldn’t control the circumstances, it forced me to confront what was going on within.
Around this time, I joined an app called Clubhouse (an audio only app where you can listen to people speak on topics and can join the conversation or ask questions). One Saturday, I became intrigued by a room of hypnotists talking about tools you can use to control your emotions. Once I entered the room and began listening, I was immediately fascinated by the message and wisdom of those speaking. They talked about how to identify limiting beliefs (yes we all have them) and pointed out how many of us are not living intentionally but instead are following a program that was set in early childhood without really thinking about why we were doing the things were doing or why we were living the life we were living. I began following a few of these hypnotists on Instagram and found the content of one particular person really resonated so I scheduled a consultation with him to see if I could get some help with the feeling of overwhelm.
Before the consultation call, I was a little apprehensive and nervous but immediately felt at ease when I met Lance, the hypnotherapist. While talking to Lance, I was impressed by his wisdom, insightfulness, listening skills and the way he provided clarity and offered a solution to my issue. I felt excited and hopeful and made the decision to invest in myself and signed on for a four week journey of hypnosis to help gain control over my mindset and emotions. I didn’t consciously realize it at the time but I had left behind the lighthearted, happy version of myself after too many years of putting my own needs last and carrying the weight of the world on my shoulders, constantly worrying about the future. Essentially I was focusing on the things I couldn’t control, not the things I could. The work I did with Lance over those four weeks profoundly changed my thinking, my life, made me a happier, calmer person and has truly benefited everyone around me.
During my first session I learned about the way the mind processes thoughts/beliefs and how those thoughts create our reality and emotions. At the end of the session Lance suggested integrating a meditation practice into my life. The only meditation I really did was after a power yoga class when I was so physically tired that I was finally able to quiet my mind. But just sitting to mediate always felt excruciating to me. My mind would race with all of the things on my to-do list or I’d begin replaying past circumstances or thinking about the future. It became abundantly clear during mediation that I wasn’t living in the present moment. So I committed to 5 minutes a day of meditation. Initially, I felt antsy and uncomfortable and the time seemed to drag on forever. Gradually though, my mind began to quiet faster and I began to actually enjoy the silence and peace. Now when I meditate it is truly the best feeling and my day doesn’t feel complete without it.
Meditation is not only good for your stress level but actually improves your mental and physical health which is more important now than ever. A recent study found that meditation can decrease levels of inflammatory chemicals called cytokines, which are released in response to stress. Inflammation has been said to be the root cause of most disease including heart disease, cancer and diabetes and also makes you more susceptible to infectious disease.
During my next session with Lance, he explained what hypnosis was and how the process worked so I felt comfortable. Hypnosis sometimes gets a bad rap from movies as being “woo woo” or something that makes people do ridiculous things like act like a chicken on stage. But in reality, it’s a powerful and effective tool and its effectiveness is based on real science and gets results (often much faster than traditional talk therapy) because it helps rewire programmed beliefs in your subconscious that may have been there since childhood. With hypnosis you are not unconscious as some might think. It’s actually a state of mind where you are highly focused and receptive to positive suggestion. According to Lance, “in this state of mind, you become aware of things you weren’t aware of, leading to important insights and mental clarity. These insights help you feel more secure and confident in everything you do and help align what you want with how you feel so you can more easily follow through on your goals” Since only 5% of the mind is conscious, 95% of our behaviors, thoughts and emotions are controlled by the subconscious mind.
During my hypnosis sessions, I was aware of what was happening and being said (although now it’s a little bit fuzzy) and actually was extremely focused. I found hypnosis to be a beautiful and transformative experience. I wasn’t expecting to enjoy it as much as I did or immediately feel as good afterward. Hypnosis revealed some things to me that I hadn’t consciously known about myself. I felt a huge burden had been lifted and felt a tremendous sense of gratitude. I began to appreciate things I had taken for granted before under the fog of overwhelm. I felt empowered and full of clarity. My previous tendency toward perfectionism was suddenly gone as was any anxiety I had previously felt. I felt free, light and happy. I joke with friends that I couldn’t even conjure up anxiety if I tried now. That’s a bold statement given the current state of things in the world. I attribute that to the inner peace I now can draw upon no matter the circumstances happening around me.
Since then, I’ve keep up a daily meditation and self hypnosis/visualization practice. Now when I meditate, some days I still feel agitated at the beginning but that feeling passes and eventually I have a feeling of peace which feels like coming home to myself. My mediation practice (which is now a part of my daily routine just like drinking water and working out) has helped me be very intentional about how I want to spend my days, my life, who I want to spend time with, what my priorities are, where I put my energy, what I can learn, how I can grow, what my intuition is telling me, what I want my legacy to be, and how I can be of service to others.
If you don’t have a mediation practice, I highly recommend starting one! It truly is one of the best ways to tap into a sense of peace no matter what is happening. When you have inner peace it creates a positive ripple effect on those around you and on the world.
Here are the highlights of what I learned in the past four months through my work with hypnosis and meditation:
- Life is a process of letting go. We are on this earth for a short time and the only constant is that things will change. The less attached we are to things or circumstances we can’t control, the happier and more free we will be. Sometimes we hold on too tight to possessions or try to fill emptiness with more things. Letting go of the need to consume and hang on to things past their usefulness is freeing and allows us to focus on our true priorities.
- Don’t believe everything you think. Just because you think a thought does not make it true. We have to examine our thoughts and run them through a process to see if we’re generalizing, distorting the truth or deleting the positive. Many of our thoughts didn’t even come from us – they came from childhood programming or a past experience.
- You have control over very little in life except for your mindset, responses and actions. When you realize this, you suffer less. When you learn to control your reactions to things it is very empowering. As Victor Frankl said, “between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.”
- We are all subconsciously influenced by what we see, hear & read. The more aware you are of that fact, the easier it is to be more intentional about what information you let into your mind, whether it’s from social media, advertising or the nightly news which consists of 99% negative stories because fear sells. Unfortunately the news rarely broadcasts all that is good, decent and working well in the world. The more tuned in you are to yourself and those that inspire you, the less influenced you will be outside forces or sophisticated marketing tactics used to sell you things that you really don’t need.
- Mindfulness is a practice. You have to do it every day, multiple times a day. Life will give you great opportunities to practice (I know this because I live with teenagers!) If you see life’s setbacks, obstacles and annoyances as opportunities to practice taking control over your mindset and being a problem solver, life gets easier, more fun and more rewarding.
- Life is more beautiful when you’re mindful. You begin to notice things you hadn’t noticed before. The beauty of the butterfly, the way the clouds form in the sky, how every sunset is unique, the way a conversation flows, the people who spark something in you, the miracle that is being alive on this planet that we forget when we’re busy going through our routines. If you stop and notice, life begins to put beautiful things in your path. You’ll begin to laugh more, you’ll experience all five senses more vividly instead of dulling out with distraction and this leads to a richer, more abundant life.
- Gratitude is key. An antidote to anxiety, ruminating and worrying about future is just to stop, observe the present moment and name what you’re grateful for. When you begin feeling anxiety, switch to appreciation for the big things or even the tiniest things. It’s impossible to feel anxiety and appreciation at the same time so this works wonders. “All suffering ends when we focus on something outside ourselves and practice appreciation.” – Lance Sinclair
- All we have is now. If the pandemic has taught us anything it’s that nothing is guaranteed and the present moment is truly all we have. We get one life. Time is precious. So do the thing you know you want or need to do but have been putting off. Start now. Prioritize your health and happiness. Move your body every day in a way that you enjoy. Sing, dance, create, live your purpose, serve others, tune in, be really present with yourself and everyone you interact with and you will not only have inner peace but you will spread it to everyone you meet and change the world.
I hope this post left you with some insight and ideas for action if you are feeling overwhelmed or stuck or burdened. Below are links to the resources I mentioned as well as some apps that help with mediation, hypnosis and mindfulness.
Hypnosis:
lancesinclair.com/hypnosis
Hypnocloud app
Mindfulness:
Stoic App. https://www.stoicroutine.com
Meditation:
https://www.ilivethelifeilove.com/10-best-guided-meditations/