Tuning in to Inner Peace: The Surprisingly Fun Way to Transform Your Life (6 page)

When you pay attention to how fear feels, you’re likely to feel fear in your gut. We already know this and talk about this. We say we feel butterflies in our stomach, queasy or nauseous as we’re waiting to make a speech or do something we fear.

When your mind is racing with worries, you can use a body-based strategy to physically discharge your fears. Deep breathing, dancing, sitting on the ground, and acupuncture are just a handful of the possible solutions.

In Sahaja Yoga, we were taught to simply sit on the ground when your mind is racing. For me, sitting on the ground directly, instead of on a chair or a cushion, always helps me quickly feel …grounded!

I also learned simple techniques from books by Dr. Ann Marie Chiasson.  One is just bouncing up and down and
letting your arms and head go. The result is that as you hit the ground each time, your whole body seems to flop and jar gently like jumping on a trampoline. This is exactly what we learned in African dancing …and maybe one reason that style of dance feels so profoundly good to me.

Gay Hendricks teaches about fear and relationships. His insights about the few types of fear, breathing exercises and strategies for moving through it all, are inspirational and helpful.

After a Pause, Pave a New Path

When you worry, you are digging a rut in your future. As you imagine the mishaps, and worse and worse consequences, you will start to spin out of control and you’ll feel it in your gut.

First, take a physical approach to pause your fears. Then, work with your thoughts. Rewind and try again.

Not sure where to start?
Byron Katie is an author and master at the process of inquiry. Her methods show you how to examine your thoughts effectively.

When you imagine a surprising blessing, a fortuitous meeting or a smooth resolution, you’ll feel better immediately. And you’ll know you’re on the right path.

It’s really that easy.

If worrying is what you’ve done since birth, it’s going to be a bit difficult to find a new route. That’s where your new friends come in. Find teachers that offer solid advice in person, or find books, audio books or DVDs with guided imagery and affirmations that resonate with you.

So, really, if you love me, don’t worry about me.

Exercises

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Justifying worries

If I tell you, “Don’t worry,” what do you say? List your justifications for worrying. Analyze them and see if you really believe them or not.

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Physical fear

How does fear register in your body? Make a note of it. Do you feel it in your gut as a tightness or queasiness, or something else? Is it different at work or in intimate relationships?

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Flipping a worry over

When you feel yourself starting to worry about something, pause. Flip it over. Replay the story with “hope”.

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Justifying hope

Come up with three benefits to giving up worry and replacing it with hope. Think of the physical ramifications for your own body and the impact you’ll have on yourself and loved ones.

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Gratitude

Can you see the silver lining of the thing you are worrying about? There is always one! Find it and be thankful for it.

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Releasing fears

What are some things you used to be afraid of, that you aren’t afraid of now? How did you move beyond those fears?
Ask your friends for strategies too. Develop a toolbox of fear-busting affirmations and exercises.

Of all the bad habits you can pick up, perfectionism has very little to show for itself on the upside.

Other bad habits at least let you enjoy your life, if briefly. If you’re lazy, you can sleep in. If you’re going for a big drinking fest, you can enjoy the beer or the feeling of escape for awhile.

But perfectionism never gives you a break. It won’t let you rest when you do your best, and even worse, pesters you to give up on your dreams before you’ve even tried.

No matter how well you’ve done, there’s still a reason for
a good beating. The perfectionist keeps hounding you to go, go faster, try harder to attain perfection. Like a dog chasing tail, you’re trying to achieve an unattainable goal.

Beating Ourselves Up

The perfectionist critic has a constant supply of new material to hound us with. Because, nobody’s perfect!

Perfectionism finds something to berate in the normal activities of a day. When we make a mistake, forget to make a phone call, or send out an email with an error, we feel stupid, terrible, and are likely to beat ourselves up.

Beating ourselves up…what a strange way to live!

Speaking a
s you would never dare speak to a friend or, even enemy, the internal rants begin. “You stupid idiot!” “I can’t believe you did that!”…and on and on. Even for the smallest mistakes, the perfectionist critic is blasting away.

But even in areas where you have worked diligently and achieved a level of skill and success, perfectionism can ruin the best of moments.

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Compose a ballad. It could have been better.

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Win an award. Sure, but now you’re going to need to work harder for district competition, then state, then national.

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Anything less than number one is a failure, and even number one is temporary so there’s no time to rest.

Perfectionism is the party pooper we keep inviting. It’s  the uncle that farts during the toast at an otherwise-perfect wedding.

Obstacle to a Dream: Demanding Guaranteed Success

But possibly even worse than hounding you for what you have done, perfectionism can convince you to give up on your dreams.

Instead of encouraging you with a “Life is meant to be enjoyed! Go for it! Try it!,” kind of support, perfectionism dumps a bucket of water on the sparks of creativity and passion that might just be connecting you to your purpose for living.

You’re not talented enough, smart enough, rich enough. You’ll never make it. Do you have any idea how unlikely it is that you’d actually be able to do that? You’ll just be wasting time and money. Just give up and take the sure thing.

But dreams come true only for those that take the chance.

Lady Gaga, at age 25, is a familiar and beloved pop musician with fans all over the world. She wrote her first song at age 13, performed singing at open mic shows and with her church, and studied music in college. She released her first album in 2008, at age 22, and the album reached number one on the record charts of six countries. This kind of thing still happens! It’s not all about the politics of the music business. At the core of this story, is a woman who did not cosign on her inner critic or any critic.

If a girl born as Stefani Germanotta, had required guaranteed success before making an album, Lady Gaga would not now be an international household name. She chooses styles and writes and performs songs that others loudly demean, but one thing is sure. She continues to be her own authentic self with no apologies.

Perfectionism asks you to prove that what you want to try will be a success. But the most rewarding things you try, you can’t prove that you will succeed at and might even be worthwhile if you fail.

The High Cost of P
erfectionism

Normal striving towards perfection helps you feel better and encourages you to reach your goals.

But perfectionism as the unrelenting taskmaster can have
devastating consequences, including depression. You lose that sense of the intrinsic value of a person, and may give up entirely trying to achieve the impossible, ever-expanding to-do-perfectly list. Depression takes the joy out of living and is a dominant cause of suicide.

Depression can be healed. Tools may include medication, but always include some form of cognitive therapy to help retrain a person's thinking. Helping people get off the path of unrealistic and overly critical thinking is fundamental. This retraining is at the core of relief, allowing the person to enjoy life again.

Everybody makes mistakes.

Embracing mistakes

My meditation instructor once forgot my name when introducing me in a group. Later, he apologized, and said his ego must have been getting overblown. He explained that making a ‘stupid mistake’ has the benefit of quickly humbling him. It’s a quick way of detaching from the headstrong, prideful aspects of character, and instantly becoming more centered.

Perfectionism demands the unattainable and wants us to be superhuman in all endeavors 24/7, as well as instantly great and guaranteed to succeed at anything we try.

The deeper self knows that the level of skill and the admiration earned from doing something well, are not what life’s all about anyway.

So, as we move through life, and trip up here and there, maybe there’s a higher purpose. Maybe this keeps us from attaching our identity to being the great fill-in-the-blank. Being The Great One in any area of life sets us up for feeling self-important, for that manic drive for more success, and often thinking less of others.