The ultimate measure of your wisdom and strength? How calm you are when facing any given situation. Yes, calmness is a human superpower. The ability to not overreact or take things personally keeps your thoughts clean and your heart at peace, which instantly gives you an upper hand regardless of your circumstances.
Thus, the biggest and most complex obstacle you will ever have to overcome is your own mind. If you can overcome that, you can overcome almost anything. And by “overcoming,” I’m referring to the skill of mindfulness, and learning to effectively control your emotional responses to life’s unexpected tests. Because most of your deepest pain and frustration on a daily basis will come from the way you respond, not the way life is.
I was introduced to meditation when I was thirteen years old by a family therapist. Growing up with a sibling diagnosed with schizophrenia and drug/alcohol addiction was hard, often leaving me as a bystander to countless fights and screaming matches between her and my parents for hours each night. Because I was only in middle school and unable to leave a stressful situation, my therapist taught me to go into my closet (or, my preference, outside) and turn off the lights and meditate. I learned that while I couldn’t control the situation happening downstairs, I could control my own thoughts and lower my anxiety level. Meditation became a way to escape the material world and transcend into a perfectly architected realm of my own imagination.
Of course, being calm and mindful is easier said than done, especially when we’re under pressure in this day and age. Not everyone can just leave society to sit in their closets like my middle school self. High stress, relentless worry over work and life, and various forms of social anxiety are all a part of the modern way of being.
The good news is, I have since learned to focus my
mind more resourcefully throughout the day- without a dark closet-- and so can you.
Here a few reminders that do wonders with handling stress that I've discovered over the years:
1. Calmness begins the moment you take a deep breath and choose not to allow another person or event to control your thoughts.
2. Happiness is letting go of what you assume your life is supposed to be like right now, and sincerely appreciating it for everything it is. Just live right now in the moment.
3. No matter what, you can always fight the battles of just today. It’s only when you add the infinite battles of yesterday and tomorrow that life gets overly complicated.
4. Calmness does not mean to be in a place where there is no chaos, trouble, or hard realities to deal with. Calmness means to be in the midst of all those things and still remain mentally, emotionally, and physically centered.
5. Be selective with your energy. If you can fix a problem, fix it. If you can’t, then accept it and change your thoughts about it.
6. Most of the time the problem is not the problem—the problem is the incredible amount of over-thinking and over-analyzing you’re doing with the problem. Pause, and breathe, again.
7. Life is too short to argue and fight. Count your blessings, value the people you love, and move on from the drama with your head held high.
8. If you don’t like someone’s behavior, stay away, but don’t hurt them. Don’t be abusive and disrespectful. That’s a sign of weakness.
9. People are much nicer when they’re happier, which says a lot about people who aren’t very nice to you. Wish them well and be on your way.
10. You won’t always be a priority to others, and that’s why you need to be a priority to yourself. Learn to respect yourself, take care of yourself, and become your own support system.
11. Give yourself the space to listen to your own voice—your own soul. Too many people listen to the noise of the world and get lost in the crowd.
12. Just breathe, be, and pay attention to what it’s like to be YOU. Nothing to fix. Nothing to change. Nowhere else to go. Just you, breathing, being, with presence, without judgment.
13. Don’t compare your progress with that of others. We all need our own time to travel our own distance. Just focus on the step you are presently taking.
14. Take life day by day and be grateful for the little things. Don’t get caught up in what you can’t control. Accept it and make the best of it. When you stop worrying about what you can’t control, you have more time to change the things you can
15. Life changes every single second, and so can you. Every moment gives us a new beginning and a new ending. You literally get a second chance every second.