Conflict on the Inside, Conflict on the Outside.
Is inner peace possible?
Do you have bad days? I’m sure you do. We all do. We worry, and sometimes, we worry about things we cannot change or control. Right now, my dog Maya is limping and in pain. I’m figuring out how to help her without being able to ask her or learn from her how to help her best. I’m observing, I’m guessing, and I'm asking for advice from my vet. When friends ask me how I'm doing or what's happening, Maya is at the top of my mind.
Maybe you can relate to something in your life right now: aging parents or kids who face challenges you cannot fix for them, friends with a difficult diagnosis, a team member going through a divorce, or someone facing some of the same challenges as you.
To unlock our human advantage, we must include the reality of life instead of trying to “stay positive” because when we struggle on the inside, things on the outside might not be going well.
However, when we struggle on the inside, we tend to see things on the outside through that lens, and other challenges will feel more complicated, too.
Some argue we must compartmentalize. I agree that it’s helpful at moments throughout the day when we need to bring our full attention to what we are doing, be that a meeting, a task, or a conversation. At such times, we can pause and choose to put our worries aside by giving it a timeframe. That tells our mind that we know it's important; however, right now, we are putting it aside and will return to it.
Completely ignoring and suppressing how we feel and rejecting what we worry about creates conflict on the inside. When that happens, we get triggered into reaction faster; we are more impatient, maybe even more angry or depressed, and we meet other challenges with that mindset.
We cannot ignore what we worry about because what we worry about is also what we care about.
You have probably heard me say that many times before; however, it’s a reminder to listen to our worry and use it as information to reclaim agency over what we can do. Even when all we can do is wait.
For now, short of fixing the situation and getting her into surgery right away, all I can do is keep her comfortable and navigate what I think she might need. It’s not easy to see her struggle, and it’s certainly troublesome to see her unable to do what she loves: roam around sniffing the grass. But she can lay outside in the shade and the grass and enjoy the smells and sounds.
Reminding ourselves to accept reality for what it is and work with what we have is crucial to finding inner peace.
As the Buddhists say, “Peace on the Inside, Peace on the Outside.”
We can think of the relationship between our inner doubts and confusion and our outer discomfort or even chaos as the reality of being human rather than thinking we are doing it wrong. By doing so, we can reset our attention to what’s possible.
ACCEPTANCE IS KEY TO RECLAIMING AGENCY.
Accepting our challenges can seem like we are giving up, but we are not. We are simply giving up the struggle. Many who struggle with anxiety know the feeling of not having control over something, and here I am telling you to let go of control. I’m telling you to let go of worry and focus on what you care about and what matters. We tend to try to fix the urgency, but with that, we cannot focus on what matters.
That’s where Power-Pausing comes in.
At work and in life, we can quickly get sucked into reacting to what's urgent, and we might even pride ourselves on being fixers and fast reactors. However, there’s a good chance we are constantly feeling stressed and under attack. The feeling of constant stress creates a sense of not feeling safe, and with that, the world becomes a challenging place.
When we pause for a moment and allow the nervous system to calm down (1-3 breaths), we can then use the Power Pause to acknowledge what we worry about and reset our focus and attention on what we can do about it, aligned with what matters, what we care about.
Right now, I’m keeping Maya comfortable until she can get her surgery. In the meantime, I’m learning what I can about her recovery. That brings me peace on the inside, and I can spend more quality time with her and create peace on the outside.
