Jemma Speg (3:01)
Welcome back. We are going to get into this week's mantra in just a minute, but before we do, I want to fill you in a bit on what's been going on with me lately and how this particular mantra has been showing up in my life. I feel like no matter what time of the year it is, I always am busy. I'm always saying, oh, I'm busy because it's the new year. I'm busy because it's the middle of the year. I'm busy because it's the end of the year. But for me, the start of the year is definitely my busy season. I think with a new season always brings new priorities for me and new ideas and new routines and new ways of seeing my life. It is always the case when we turn into a new year and we enter into a new chapter that I think we have these moments of contemplation and thinking and considering what we actually want from our life. And then that combined with family obligations, going back to work, launching new projects, everything is always up in the air, never sitting firmly in my lap. It always feels like there are a million things on my to do list and not much space to spare for myself. But something that I'm really focusing on, being intentional about at the moment is romanticizing my time alone. I used to be someone who was almost fearful of solitude and fearful of time spent by myself because I think I had this very human aversion to loneliness and I started to confuse solitude with loneliness. So in order to feel less afraid of that loneliness, I would fill my days with people with events, with commitments. There would be something to do in the morning, someone to see at lunch, someone to see in the evening, a meeting to do late at night. Whatever it is, I didn't really want to be alone with my thoughts. The way that I've been doing this has been really trying to to romanticize and be almost sentimental about my alone time, make it a non negotiable for me. So that means taking my Sunday afternoons off to be entirely my own. No lunches, no dinners, no seeing friends and not having anything planned and just sitting in that space and allowing myself to be quiet and calm and slow and intentional. I've also been really thinking about some upcoming solo travel opportunities. I think that solo traveling is one of the most uplifting, difficult, but also really transformative experiences. And for a long time, you know, it went hand in hand with that natural aversion to loneliness I was describing, I would always be waiting until someone was ready to come on these trips with me. But in this new year in 2025, I really want to just do it myself and just go and enjoy whatever experience it is that I want to have out of my travels. And through that, I think that romanticization of my alone time and treating my solitude is quite sacred. I have been finding a lot of inner peace, and I've been finding a lot of space to really reflect on my future and what I want from my life. And it's been quite comforting to actually have that time to myself. And it also links very perfectly to. To this week's mantra, which is a huge reason why I chose it. I Cultivate peace within. To dive into the meaning behind these words, I think it's helpful to first consider what peace really is. I know that I've already offered a loose description in what I was describing before, but I really want to emphasize that peace isn't just the absence of chaos or. Or conflict. It's a grounded, intentional state of being that comes uniquely and specifically from within. Cultivating peace within ourselves means that despite what may be happening around us, we actively choose to stay centered, calm, and resilient. And that is very, very hard at times. I'm not going to sugarcoat it because I really think that we'll all learn soon enough, or you already know that. Discovering, finding, searching for inner peace can actually be quite a violent emotional experience because we are actively choosing to not respond in a way that our instinct calls us to. With anger, with bitterness, with resentment, by running away. And that involves fighting against very loud emotions and choosing to look at the things that deeply hurt us or scare us and respond differently. That's a hard thing to do. Think about this as it applies to a conflict in your life. Fighting with friends, fighting with family, fighting with a partner. That's a huge burden on our ability to find peace. And it's also one that is very, very common, because the people that we love the most, that's often where the most friction comes up as well. So in those moments where you're experiencing conflict, tension that feels like it's draining your ability to find peace, you have two options. You can either fight and you can push back, and you can create more rage and more anger, and you can respond to every little thing and bring all of these heightened emotions to the table, or you can sit back in this inner pool of peace, the one that you will hopefully begin to cultivate from this episode. And when you Sit back in your inner peace and you recognize that nothing can really impact you unless you let it, and that you can control how you respond. I think this really changes our attitude towards so many things. Not just conflict, but issues at work, busyness in our schedule, people not behaving, responding, acting the way that we want them to, even small everyday stresses. This mantra is really a reminder that peace is something that we create. It's not something that we wait for or that we hope to stumble upon. It is an active choice. But when we choose peace, we experience a new level of awareness where we know that we can trust ourselves. We know that everything will be okay. We know that sometimes our reactions are part of the problem, but we can control them. We know what it means to accept what we can't control, namely, what other people choose to do, what other people choose to say, believe, how they choose to behave, what the world throws our way, what fate has in store for us. We understand that those are things that we cannot control. But we are like a surfer. We ride the wave of our emotions, we ride the wave of our experiences and our discomfort and our stress. And I want us to eventually notice how that choice, that choice to ride the wave rather than to fall into the surf, how that changes things for you emotionally, mentally, even physically. So how do we start cultivating peace in our daily lives? Well, it begins with small, consistent practices. Mindfulness. It gets such a positive reputation for a good reason. It is one of the most powerful tools for finding peace. And it doesn't actually require a huge amount of time or effort or even a special place to go to in order to practice it. Simply paying attention to the present moment, our breath, our surroundings, even our thoughts, those things that are always around us or within us, they can be a really important anchor. When we're mindful, we create space between ourselves and our reactions, which allows us to respond thoughtfully instead of reacting impulsively. I also like to use this mindful space where I am anchored in my thoughts, by my breath, by my surroundings, to reflect on past experiences and past experiences where peace was definitely not the defining feeling or the defining emotion. I think of it like I'm sitting in a chair in a large cinema all alone, and I'm watching a moment play out in front of me whilst I'm in this mindful state. And whilst I watch it play out, I get to see clearly how I wish I'd acted, what I could have done that would have been better. And I invite myself to think about how I could do that in the Future. Let me use like a really benign example here of missing your train and being late for a meeting, right? Who isn't stressed by that? In that moment, you can sit in your cinema and you can see two plots play out. The one where you get really flustered and you panic and you get angry at yourself for not leaving earlier. You get angry at the person on the street who was walking slow. You get angry at your day. Anger, anger, anger. All of that is flooding your body with cortisol and stress hormones and it's creating tension and arousal. That's option one. Option two is a scene where you just pause for a second, you breathe in deep, you relax your shoulders and you say, I can't control this now. I'm just gonna have to wait for the next train. Maybe you shoot a message to your boss or your co worker saying, I'm going to be late. And you focus on watering that inner garden and taking this time that you were already going to be delayed. Sitting in the uncomfortable emotion until it becomes appeal. Peaceful emotion. In both options, you're going to get to the same destination at the same time anyway. You're already late. The consequences have already been set. But in the second option, you don't spoil your mood for the rest of the day. You enter your meeting without being flustered. You're able to think clearly. So in that mindfulness cinema, as those scenes play out, you get to pick one and you get to pick the one that brings you the most peaceful. Another way to really cultivate peace is by setting boundaries. This could mean carving out quiet time for ourselves. As I was speaking about at the beginning, it has been such a helpful practice for me, or just respectfully communicating our limits to others. When we set boundaries, we are protecting our energy and we're creating the conditions that make inner peace possible. Boundaries also come from a place of love. I think a lot of people feel almost scared of setting boundaries because they believe that they are going to be offensive, they're going to upset other people, they're going to make them difficult to work with or to be with. Actually, boundaries provide people with a manual and a blueprint for how we can operate best with each other. And it is an act of love and respect to say, I want this work relationship to work out. I want our relationship to work out. And in order for that to happen, I need you to treat me a certain way. Of course, this isn't always going to be easy. I think one of the most difficult aspects of cultivating peace is that it often challenges our Instincts for chaos and our instincts to fight and to flee and to feel angry. And also our habits, our ingrained habits that we've been taught since we were children, or that we have been taught in work or in school. Our natural response to stress is typically reactive. When we feel threatened, we want to fight, we want to flee, we want to fix the situation. That's natural, that's normal. It's our body encountering a stressor and wanting to remove it instantly. Choosing peace in that moment can feel counterintuitive, especially if we're used to solving problems immediately or reacting quickly to issues. But over time, you start to realize that although it might take a little bit longer, the outcome mentally is often a lot more rewarding. When someone criticizes us, for instance, our instinct might be to defend ourselves, to get angry, or to counterattack. However, cultivating peace within ourselves means that we are actually providing ourselves with the opportunity to step back, to assess, to decide how our best self would respond in a way that aligns with our values. This doesn't mean ignoring conflict, but rather choosing how we handle it in a way that actually, actually maintains our sense of calm, our sense of self respect. There are a lot of situations in everyday life that call us to cultivate peace within. Think about that experience of being stuck in traffic, very similar to the train example. It's a situation where we have very little control. It's easy to get frustrated, it's easy to get stressed or angry. However, if we choose to approach it with peace, we can shift our perspective. We can use the time to listen to our favorite podcast, take that as a hint if you will, or to practice breathing exercises. Additionally, in situations where we face criticism or challenges at work, instead of reacting defensively or letting the stress build and actually end up almost creating toxicity in the relationship, we can pause, we can breathe, we can maybe even take a moment to ourselves and respond in a way that keeps us calm and grounded. And really, what I think inner peace comes down to is a choice. Do I want to be angry and bitter and resentful and frustrated? Or do I want to be someone who flows with the challenges? Do I want to be someone who observes before reacting? It's still a choice. You get to make it whichever one you think is best. I'm obviously very much leaning towards the former. Another common struggle with cultivating peace is the fear of appearing weak or passive. Sometimes people equate staying calm with avoiding issues or letting things slide. Peace is anything but passive. It requires a lot more strength than being reactive, and it requires a lot of self awareness to choose calmness over chaos. True peace allows us to approach issues from a place of deep inner strength when we're not just reacting out of fear or anger or the first thing that comes up. Rather, we are waiting and pausing and letting those initial reactions and instincts flow through us. We're still being impacted by them, but we are letting them flow through us before we choose a decision from a place of clarity and purpose. So cultivating peace doesn't mean we ignore issues or that we allow others to take advantage of us. It means we address these issues with a centered approach that respects both our well being and the well being of others. Cultivating peace can be especially challenging when it comes to relationships, but it's also where this practice, I believe at least can make the most difference. When conflicts arise with friends, family, partners, co workers, it's easy to get swept up in emotion, especially if the situation feels personal or hurtful, which it's bound to Choosing to cultivate peace means taking a step back, listening, actively responding with empathy rather than defensiveness. This approach often leads to healthier, more meaningful conversations and can help de escalate potential conflicts. And in turn, we also model a way of interacting that inspires others to approach us with that same level of calm and respect. I cultivate peace within that mantra is about recognizing that whilst we may not have control over every situation, we do have control over how we approach it. It's a commitment to making a choice that reflects our desire for harmony, for balance, for resilience, and for peace. So when we make this mantra part of our daily lives, we're not only enhancing our own sense of well being, we're also contributing to a calmer, more compassionate world and peace. In this sense, I really believe it becomes contagious. The more we embod it, the more it influences those around us as well. All right, now that we have broken down what this means, we have a lot more to get into coming up. Let's get personal. I'm going to get real about how this mantra has played out in my life. Continues to play out in my life. From setting boundaries that protect my peace to mindful routine. So stay tuned after this brief pause.