Claiming Your Calm: Practical Tips for Inner Peace

One thing I have learned is that YOU have got to Claim Your Calm. Ain’t noooooobody gonna give it to ya or do it for ya! Not your loved ones, lovers, children or parents. Not your job, vocation, career or obsession. Calm is a Well that Flows within. As you learn to access that well, you begin to be able to tap into it at will.

So how exactly, do you claim your calm? What are some practical tips for connecting to Inner Peace? Happily, there are many roads to this beautiful state of Being. Yoga, immersing in Nature, meditating, dancing, and doing things you love are avenues. Inner Peace can be more readily available if you’re in a relaxed and Joyous state of mind.

What’s more challenging is being in that space in the midst of “getting things done.”

Chopping Garlic…A Lesson in BEING PRESENT

One day while chopping garlic and extremely focused upon getting it done, I began to wonder. How many times a day is that our mindset? Get it done get it done JUST GET IT DONE! Get the s*** done so I can move on to the next thing and get that done and the next thing done and then and then…

IT’S ABOUT CHECKING THINGS OFF THAT NEVER-ENDING TAH-DO LIST!!!! That can become the be all and end all. But what about Living? Anywho…

Gritting my teeth in reminder of how much I just LOVE chopping up stuff and OMG how TIME consuming it is, it began to dawn on me to see if I could cut the garlic and implement breathing deeply at the same time. Besides getting a nose full of garlic, that decision reconfirmed that the claiming of our calm can be satiated with some Mindfulness within the execution of the tasks at hand.

I ended up cuttin’ that garlic like I didn’t have a care in the world or a destination to get to. And, before I knew it, I was finished with that task, off to the next.

But I took a moment to acknowledge and savor that accomplishment and how it felt so stress-less…because it wasn’t about chopping the garlic to get to the next thing, it was about chopping the garlic. Period. No strings attached, no destination. The chopping of the garlic was the destination.

Breathe, Baby Breathe!

Ok Bird, but really, what are the tips??? ANNOUNCEMENT: the easiest and most accessible way is to start with BREATHING. You may think, ‘oh please’ or ‘yeah ok but I breathe all the time otherwise I’d be dead!’

Sure, that’s one way to look at it. But if you want to be able to access Inner Peace and claim your calm, you want to consider putting more Conscious Deep Breathing into your day. And what I mean when I say ‘Conscious’ is that you intentionally make and take the time to do this. That you feel each breathe as it moves into and out of the body. That you hear the soft sound. That you feel the relief and reset.

When you stop to take a deep breath and let it out slowly, it’s like putting a mental vacuum cleaner into use. It clears things up and gives you a bit of space to focus, hear your Intuition and to take better action. It helps you to be more proficient and efficient with what you have to do and/or say.

Becoming More Aware of What You Think Is Another Practical Tip

THOUGHT AWARENESS. Ya know, we are our own worst enemies with all the negative self-talk that sifts through our brains. When you keep an ear out on the type of thoughts you think, you begin to gain control. You cannot be in the Inner Peace Well with runaway thoughts.

The good news is, as you become more Aware of the thoughts in your mental sphere that do not serve you and shift to thoughts that are more in Alignment with where you want to be, the more of Your Calm You Will Claim.

This allows you to be the master of the ship as opposed to being a passenger hurled every which way the wind blows. When you can redirect or pivot thinking patterns that go off in another direction than the one you want, your Vibe changes in a big way.

And it is soooooooooo incredibly Empowering.

Ask Yourself Questions to Point You to Inner Peace

Grab a pen and paper and ask yourself:

1) Are you regularly engaged in doing things that you Love? No? Why not? No excuses, be honest

2) If not, and the absence of Abundance is the hang up, what things would you be doing if money were not an issue?

3) What aspects of those things can you start to incorporate right now? Be CREATIVE

4) Maybe you hate your job or career and have dreams of doing something else. What steps can you take right now toward your desire(s)?

5) Is there a hobby you used to do as a child or wanted to do that could bring you Joy now? I have a friend who took up crochet and she says it helps to calm and soothe her like crazy (helping her to tap the Inner Peace Well)

6) Are there people in your Life that drain you? What can you do to mitigate this? What are the things that you can change in your behavior and/or approach in dealing with them? Saying NO when you mean no instead of saying yes is a good place to start!

Simplify, Simplify, SIMPLIFY

We make things sooooooooo complicated. We’re often not happy unless tons of mental stuff is blowing around inside our heads. The other thing is we have so much stuff, things we don’t need. Simplifying, letting go of stuff both mentally and possession-wise clears a path to the claiming of your calm.

And it can be HARRRRRDDDD simplifying because sometimes we’re afraid to let go of things we think we may miss or need later. I remember many years ago when going through a turbulent divorce, I held on to our house even though being there put me in danger. My friends were screeching for me to move out but I wouldn’t, I wasn’t going to give up my house.

Well guess what? The Universe stepped in and after a few years (yes, a few years) we lost the house (I did eventually move beforehand though). But instead of feeling destroyed, which is what I’d kept telling myself, when I got the news that the marshall had slapped that eviction notice on the door, I was RELIEVED. It was over. The long fight to hold onto something was ovah!

Less baggage on my back, I was free to begin the Healing Journey.

And The Practical Tips in Summary Are…

Implementing the tips I have mentioned above will definitely begin to Raise Your Vibration. If you don’t already have a meditation practice, that is definitely something to include in your toolkit. Now I know meditation is challenging for many but you’ve come to the right place! I have a plethora of tools including a book, guided mediation tracks, music, etc. Be sure to drop into my shop!

So here’s an action list summary of Claim Your Calm: Practical Tips for Inner Peace:

1) DEEP BREATHING. CONSCIOUS deep breathing

2) BE PRESENT. Do things for the sake of doing them, not as a means to an end (this is actually a form of meditation!)

3) TAKE INNER INVENTORY. Get clear on who and what you’re about and move forward

4) BE AWARE. What kind of stuff do you feed yourself mentally? Even if you only have snatches of moments of Awareness, that’s a start!

5) SAY NO WHEN YOU MEAN NO. It may be hard at first but ya know, practice makes perfect (and it becomes easier!)

6) SIMPLIFY. Simplify and clear out stuff you don’t need or want–in other words, things that don’t serve you one whit! Let go of shh* ya don’t need!

Enjoy That Inner Peace!

Being able to Claim Your Calm and Connect to Your Inner Peace is sooooooo important for your mental and physical health. Something to cultivate in our daily lives, and even in the midst of chaos, you will have access to your ever-present Well.