5 Tips to Living A More Peaceful Life | Episode 127: Syd the Expert
We all desire more peace in our lives, however at times it feels like peace is somewhere in the future once we reach our desires.
In this episode of the Carrying Connected Conversations podcast Syd is bringing her expertise in emotional wellness to the listener. Syd wants everyone to stop waiting for peace to happen and to start actively living a peaceful life right now. She is guiding co-host Ang and the listener through the main 5 tips everyone needs to create peace in the present. It’s important to know that your personal development journey is a process of learning to live a life you love by being the most authentic real version of yourself. The true you is a peaceful and joyous person. Syd is giving you the permission to start pursuing the joy you desire in life.
Listen to the episode now to hear Syd explain the top 5 tips to start living a more peaceful life.
You can continue reading about the conversation Syd & Ang had on the podcast through the transcript below.
Ang: Hello and welcome back to another episode of Carrying Connected Conversations. I am so excited for this one because on episode 127, Syd is going to be the expert. If you did not tune in to last week’s episode, well first of all, listen to this but don’t forget to listen to last week. That is where I share my expertise in fitness. For today’s topic, this one is so good, it’s 5 tips to living a more peaceful life. Now I have the tips in front of me, but I don’t have Sydney’s knowledge and wisdom in front of me. This is where I am so excited to be announcing each one of these tips, but she is going to be bringing that wisdom and guidance forth. So get ready, if you want to get a pen and paper nearby. We aren’t going to jump into it just yet as we are going to introduce Syd.
Syd, how are you doing? My beautiful co-host and of course BFF.
Syd: I am doing really well. I am really excited to be here for today’s topic and to be guiding everyone through, like you said, the wisdom and expertise that I have on living a more peaceful life. I am here for it, I am ready and as a disclaimer for everyone, yes we have 5 tips that we are going to be talking about today that will help you to live a more peaceful life. I want the listeners and even you Ang, to be able to walk away from today’s conversation really feeling like you are already on the journey of living that peaceful life. What I mean by that is that I am going to be using you Ang as an example on how to create that peaceful life. I will be asking you questions based on the 5 tips, but I am also going to be posing those questions to the listeners. For the listener, if this is an episode you are listening to while driving the car, that is okay. The best way to soak in this episode is if you are able to sit down with a journal and a pen in front of you so I can really guide you through the process of living a peaceful life.
Ang: Oh! I am a little nervous now because you said you are bringing me into this and here is me starting off the conversation saying I know nothing. Hahah!
Syd: That is okay! That is okay.
Ang: I am ready for this first step and it hits home for me because I definitely have some examples I can go to. So let’s jump in. Knowing your triggers, oooo I love this tip because it’s the awareness piece of it all.
Syd: Exactly Ang. That is exactly it. I think the main issue that people experience when they are wanting to live a peaceful life is they say, “once this happens then I can live at peace”. They are always projecting the peaceful life to some future moment and to some external situation. I am here to remind you that peace is a state of being. It’s something that you can create internally. As a spiritual mentor I am constantly reminding myself and my clients that when we can create an internal condition that feels good, then our external environment will reflect our internal condition.
Knowing your triggers is really about what it is that is guiding you out of peace. What is triggering you to make you feel anxious, overwhelmed, stressed out, pressured, angry, frustrated? Think about all the things that are not peaceful and what is triggering you.
I am going to pose that question to you Ang. Do you have a specific trigger that comes to mind, that makes you feel anxious or overwhelmed, or any of the heavy harsh feelings?
Ang: I do. This is a little teaser for next week's episode about my check in. It’s about my current living situation, so there is a lot of anxiety when it comes to me thinking of where I am making my next move. I know that whenever that topic comes up, from outside of me, when someone asks me. Not necessarily from myself, but when someone else asks me where I am going or what my position is going to be, I get this anxious feeling. A little bit of overwhelm too because it comes from the uncertainty from essentially not knowing 100%, but kind of knowing.
Syd: That is perfect. For you listeners, now would you be a great time for you to write down a trigger you have experienced in your life. Ang, thank you so much for sharing that because it really helps me to take your example and use it as we move through the steps. As you said, whenever somebody brings up the topic of moving, living situations, it triggers you to feel anxious and overwhelmed because there is a lot of uncertainty in what that means for you. So that is your trigger that is causing you to not feel at peace. Is that correct?
Ang: Yes. Yes it is.
Syd: Perfect. What is the next tip Ang?
Ang: So, the next tip… Ooooo I think I see where this is going Syd. Oh I am so excited. Listeners, you better have that pen to paper because this is so good.
Tip number 2 to living a more peaceful life is being willing to heal emotionally.
Syd: Yes. Whenever we feel triggered it’s because we feel triggered emotionally. Like I said you feel overwhelmed, stressed, uncertain. Maybe it’s triggering a worry, a fear, a doubt and an insecurity you have. Ultimately the trigger is triggering an emotion that you carry. Most likely the emotion you carry is actually tied to some sort of past pain that you’ve experienced in your life. If it’s not a past pain that you’ve experienced, it could actually be an emotional trigger that you’ve taken on from your ancestors. Maybe you’ve taken on the emotional pain from your parents. They may have raised you in a belief system that is tied to their own emotional pain and their emotional triggers.
For you, when you are being triggered to feel overwhelmed Ang, in this situation you are saying, “when someone brings up moving and my living situation, that triggers a sense of overwhelm and uncertainty”. In saying that, what are the emotions that you feel in your body when that trigger happens?
Ang: For sure, anxiousness. I definitely feel anxious. I feel a little bit of stress, I want to say. Those would be the top two.
Syd: Okay. So in this concept of being willing to heal emotionally in order to live a peaceful life, what I am saying is the reason why you are unable to experience peace right now is because you feel anxious and stressed out. You cannot experience peace at the same time that you feel anxious and stressed out. What happens with most people in life is they say, “okay well when I have my living situation figured out, once I’ve made the decision and I’ve made the change that needs to be made, then I can feel at peace”. Whereas I am saying, “why can’t you feel at peace in the process?” Why can’t you be able to center yourself and guide yourself in a state of peace while you are making the decision about your living situation? This way you aren’t making the decision from feeling overwhelmed, stressed and pressured, instead you are making the decision from feeling calm, centered and aligned. It is peace that is driving your decision.
In being able to heal emotionally, I am saying we need to be able to move through the process of releasing those heavy emotions of overwhelm and stress and anxiousness in order to get into that peaceful state, so you can live peacefully before making that decision. How is that resonating with you Ang?
Ang: Yes that definitely makes sense because there are moments where I feel peaceful in making the decision. There are other moments where I have family members asking me, “what are you doing for a living again?” and I am thinking, “Oh my gosh this question again”.
Syd: Right, so what I do with my one on one clients is that I create a very safe and sacred container to dig into that emotional healing. There is not a whole lot that I can do right now on this podcast because I do want to get into the other tips. The concept of healing emotionally is about diving into understanding the root cause. Why is it that you feel unsafe when someone brings up this topic of conversation? What we have already discussed is pretty surface level. You feel the sense of anxiousness around your living situation when someone asks you what you are doing for work or where you are going to be living. It is quite surface level. When I talk about healing emotionally it’s about going deep. I say, why? Why is this emotion coming forward? What fear is driving this emotion? Ultimately the emotions we feel is our body telling us that we are unsafe and something is not in alignment with the direction that we are moving forward in, or the situation all together. The reason why your body is telling you it’s unsafe is because you have a subconscious belief that is being triggered that is telling you that you need to have security in order to feel safe. Again, I don’t want to get too deep into that. There really is a lot of depth in healing emotionally so you can feel at peace rather than constantly feeling triggered by those conversations.
Ang: I love that! It kind of helps our listeners right now that do have that pen to paper, to ask themselves why. Why are they feeling the way they feel? In order to help themselves to heal emotionally. Of course they can do this with you Syd in a one on one container. If you are hear listening to the podcast then you can start to try and lead yourself through the process on your own. I love that you are guiding us through this.
Okay, tip number three. We are already halfway there, this is crazy. Pursuing your joy. Again, pursuing your joy to live a more peaceful life.
Syd: Yes. This one is really important because being triggered is heavy and it’s hard. Guiding yourself through the emotional pain is heavy and it’s hard and it doesn’t always feel good. An issue that I ran into in my life is I went deep into shadow work. The shadow work is healing the pain and fear and doubt and insecurities. Is it important? Yes, 100% because the pain and insecurities, fear and worry is what is blocking us from experiencing peace on a daily basis. It is important to do that shadow work. Where the peace really strengthens is when we feel confident and courageous and inspired and motivated in our life. The way you feel confident, inspired and motivated is by pursuing your joy.
What is it that makes you happy? What is it that excites you most in life? This is how you make decisions for the best of you. I am coming from a position of saying screw logic and rational reasoning. We are not making decisions based on how we are taught to make decisions in what seems most logical. As a Spiritual Mentor I guide and support people to make decisions that are most aligned for them in their life. The way you determine your most aligned decision for you is that you know what brings you joy. Well, if you don’t pursue your joy then you don’t know what brings you joy.
So, Angie, what are the things, give me a quick list of things in your life that make you happy? You feel like you are pursuing joy when you do those things?
Ang: I love that. Based on my situation, I’m not going to go into it, I am going to list off the things that make me joyful. Being around kids, being outdoors, being somewhere near a mountain, having the flexibility to roam around and do things while also having a set schedule. Those are just some things off the top of my head.
Syd: Okay, perfect. For the listeners I suggest you do the same. List out a bunch of things that make you feel joyful. In regards to your example Ang, you said these are the things without getting into the details of your situation. Yes, it’s important to know what brings you joy in relation to the decision that is overwhelming you right now. It’s also about knowing what brings you joy in general in your life. For you it’s being outside in nature, whether that’s surrounded by mountains or trees. Being with kids and spending time with kids. These are some of the things that bring you joy.
In the process of living a more peaceful life you have to know what makes you feel joyful and what makes you feel excited and inspired and motivated. This is because it is allowing you to be your own light. When you are wanting to live a more peaceful life, usually we are trying to figure out how to make our environment peaceful. What I am saying is in order to actually live a more peaceful life, you need to make yourself more peaceful. Angie, what’s more peaceful to you than spending time outside? Not a whole lot right?
Ang: I was going to say is that a question?
Syd: Well that is the whole point. When you think about what brings you joy and then you ask yourself if there is anything else that could make you more at peace, the answer is probably no.
Ang: Which is probably why it took me a while to think about it. I don’t have any answer to this.
Syd: Exactly. If you already know that pursuing your joy allows you to experience peace in that moment. Well, the definition of peace is to have freedom from disturbance. It’s this concept of harmony in the absence of hostility and violence. So when you are being triggered by someone bringing up that topic of conversation that makes you feel stressed and anxious, you are in the energy of hostility. Your mind and your emotions are a hostile environment because your body is literally saying, “ahhhhh this doesn’t feel good I don’t like this”. Whereas when you pursue your joy, which for you Ang one of the things that allows you to pursue joy is being outside. In that moment you feel at peace because your body and your mind are saying, “oh my gosh this feels so good”. Does that resonate with you?
Ang: Absolutely it does! It’s funny because it brings me back to a place of peace, which is why I am laughing. It makes me feel very peaceful knowing that whatever decision I am needing to make has to incorporate those things that make me feel at peace. It’s not that it makes my decision easier, it helps me bring myself back to a calmer peaceful state, to then choose which one of those places I’d like to move to in a calm state.
Syd: Exactly. Exactly. On top of that, I am saying you don’t have to wait until you make that decision to then be in nature. What I am saying is that you already know that being in nature makes you joyful. Is it part of your decision making process? 100%. At the moment, right now you don’t have a decision made. If you were feeling overwhelmed, stressed and anxious, this would be a moment I would say to go outside. You already know that being outside brings you joy. Go outside, get yourself into a peaceful state now, so that way when you are reflecting on which decision to make, you're not reflecting from an anxious and overwhelmed state. You are actually reflecting from a state of peace which is what allows you to live a more peaceful state.
Ang: Oh my gosh I love this. It makes so much sense. It makes so much sense because we are here to live a more peaceful life or to try and create more peace in our life. So if we know what makes us feel at peace, then all we need to do is the thing that makes us feel at peace. It seems so simple when we talk about it like this.
Let’s jump into Tip number four. I am really excited about this one. Journaling is better than over-thinking. Ya, that is just hashtag truth right there.
Syd: Exactly. Exactly with what you said earlier, we want to live a more peaceful life. These tips are meant to help you to start living a more peaceful life right now. Not to wait until you’ve made the decision, you have the money, or the job promotion. Whatever it is that you’ve been placing your peace on as the future moment you need to get to, I am saying screw that. Let’s be more peaceful right now. I said at the beginning that knowing your triggers is really important because that’s what pulls you out of peace. When you are triggered emotionally it’s because the anxiousness, frustration, anger, whatever emotion is triggered within you, it is that moment that is pulling you out of peace. Understanding your triggers is really important because then you can create boundaries, do deeper healing work. When you know your triggers you can connect the dots.
Ang: I was going to say that even sounds like a perfect topic for us to dive deep into at another point. Just maybe star that in your notebooks.
Syd: Totally! As you said, tip number four is that journaling is better than over-thinking. Once we become triggered what happens is that we are in the emotion and we tend to avoid our emotions. We’ve been taught to ignore our emotions because emotions are a sign of weakness. That is one of the reasons why healing our emotions is really important. What ends up happening is once we’ve been triggered and then an emotion comes forward, when we don’t heal it or release it, that energy stays stagnant within our body. We end up living the rest of our day, and possibly the rest of our life, with that emotion sitting within us. When that emotion is sitting within our body it triggers our mind because we avoid it. We don’t want to avoid the emotion. To avoid the emotion we stay in our mind. It triggers this process of over-thinking.
For your example Ang, let’s say you were triggered because someone asked your question and you did not take a moment to release the emotion that came forward. What happens for you is that you overthink. How do I know what decision to make? How do I know where to move? I’m trying to gather all the information. I could go here and it’d be like this. I could go there and it’d be like that. Your mind is spinning and spinning and spinning on the hamster wheel which is triggered from anxiousness and stress.
Journaling is better than over-thinking because it’s a tip inside of a tip. Journaling can help you release your emotions. When you catch yourself in a moment of overthinking that can be a trigger for you to say, “woah! I am over thinking right now, I am stuck in my thoughts and I don’t feel peaceful. I know I will not be able to determine the most aligned decision for myself and my life if I am not at peace. If I am coming from pressure, overwhelm and stress, I am going to make the wrong decision 100% of the time”. That is when you grab your journal. You can journal about anything. You can write out all of the things that have been sitting in your mind. Write out all of the thoughts. That is you releasing them.
In this process of journaling, maybe you’ve purchased one of my guidebooks which are filled with journal prompts. The journal prompts are meant to prompt you on what to journal about so you can connect the dots in your own life. In this process you end up shifting from ego, which is very fear based, into spirit, which is very purpose based. Journaling is meant to shift you from that space of overthinking, over-analyzing, which is overwhelming, into that peaceful state of spirit. This is where you can find purpose and joy to lead you in your decision making process.
Ang: Oh my gosh, I love this. This is funny because it’s really putting me in the situation. I know I am living my life and I am in it, but it really helps me to think a lot deeper into all of these steps. Understanding what the triggers are, the awareness piece, being willing to heal myself emotionally. I am asking myself if I know my triggers, am I healing myself emotionally, am I pursuing my joy. Then I opened up my journal too. I am thinking yes yes yes Syd! Without one there isn’t the other one.
Which brings us into the next step. I am excited about this one because I find I can teeter totter on doing it and not doing it. So, for those of you that are wanting to create more peace in your life, this tip is to live with presence. Take it away Syd.
Syd: Yes! I think the most important thing to remember with this tip is that if you are wanting to live a more peaceful life, peace is an emotion. It is a state of being. The only way that you can experience it is if you are present in the moment. If you are stuck in your mind then you are not present. If you are stuck overthinking all the things then you are not present. If you are avoiding your emotions, this is really key, if you are ignoring your emotions you won’t be able to experience peace. This is because peace is an emotion, a state of being. If you are ignoring and avoiding the harder emotions what makes you think you will be able to experience the good emotions? You are literally numbing yourself from being able to experience your emotions.
The concept of living with presence is about learning to accept what is. What I mean by this is that in order to live with presence, you have to be able to accept that this is the moment. This is your current reality. If you are going to be in the victim mindset of, “I don’t like where I am and I want to be somewhere else”, you are literally creating dysfunction in your mind. You are creating hostility yourself. Living with presence is the key to living a peaceful life because in that space you are learning to accept this moment for what it is, then you are allowing yourself to make the moment the best that it can be.
In this state of peace and presence you are saying, “oh my gosh I am in my thoughts right now, I can’t make an aligned decision when I am in my thoughts, I am not present. Shit! I am going to go outside and I am going to become present. I know being outside is how I can pursue joy.” At that moment you are saying that you don’t have any answer yet and it’s okay because you are choosing to find peace right now and you are choosing to trust the answer will come when you are ready to make the decision.
Ang: Oh my gosh I love this! If you don’t mind Syd, I’d love to bring my example forward because I know you listed them from start to finish, but the way I want to explain myself here is that I found myself going in and around all of these numbers one to five. It wasn’t in order, it kind of jumped.
I knew what my trigger was in a family setting. I knew that if they were going to ask me that it would make me feel stressed. As soon as they asked me, yes anxiousness came forward, but then I immediately put myself into living with presence. I said “I am going to accept my situation for what it is. I know that I don’t know where I am moving and that is okay. I know it’s okay because I am still in the process of deciding”. I feel like this helped me to give an answer in a very calm manner that didn’t continue to make me feel anxious and stressed. Does that make sense?
Syd: 100% I am really glad that you explained it in that way. You are right, these are tips, they are not a step by step process. It’s not that you move from one step to the next step. They are tips in saying that all of these are important in the process of living a more peaceful life. There is not one that is more important than the other.
What you are saying Ang is exactly how I would guide my clients. I would ask them what happened to make them feel overwhelmed. I would tell them moving forward the best thing they can do for themself before heading into that situation would be to protect their energy. That is something I teach my clients, is different protective strategies. This way when you are in the environment, something that once triggered you, you are able to be grounded and rooted and present in the moment. You are able to be aware and say, “oh this is a situation that would normally trigger my emotions. I already know that I am working through and I am healing my emotions. I know that I haven’t made a decision yet. I don’t need to overthink the decision right now because I am doing the work. I am doing the inner work on my own time. For me, something that makes me joyful is being with family and spending time with family. I can carry peace right now by being present and enjoying the time with my family. Recognizing that something happened that could easily trigger me and I am choosing to not be triggered.”
Ang: I love that you expressed that it doesn't have to be from start to finish. Correct me if I am wrong, but it would make sense to start to finish if you are just discovering what those triggers are. For myself, something that has worked through this trigger in specific it’s okay to jump back and forth. Wherever I am at in these tips it’s going to depend on the situation.
Syd: That makes sense. I will say at the same time that if you don’t know what your triggers are, awareness can come through journaling. If you find yourself overthinking all of the time and you have no idea what your trigger is, then sit down with a journal and a pen and ask yourself what emotions you are feeling. What situations happened that brought forward those emotions? Is this a trigger? Are you harboring something that is creating a lot of anxiousness within you that you need to heal? Journaling could be the first step that you end up taking, but it really is about finding what resonates with you right now. Everyone listening, you know what step you are at in your life. You know your situation, I don’t know your situation. The best thing you can do is grab your journal, based off the five tips I shared today, which one feels the most resonate to you when I say it or when you read it back. Do you get a full body yes? Do you get the “oh my gosh I needed to hear that”? Those are tell tale signs that it was the tip you need to focus on in this moment of your life.
Who knows, maybe in a week’s time a different tip is going to resonate. Maybe it will take a couple of months and that is okay. Your healing journey is just that, it’s a journey. The point I wanted to bring this topic forward today is because you don’t need to wait to live a more peaceful life. You can start living a more peaceful life right now and these tips will be your support system in that process.
Ang: I love this so much Syd! This topic is… well it makes sense why you are the expert on this and it makes sense why you do this, especially in a one on one container. You just showed everybody how you can guide and support when you are on your own through journaling. But having this ability to do this with your clients hands on is completely next level. I just want to say thank you. Probably for the listeners more so than for myself. Thank you for showing us how we can guide and support ourselves in the moment when we feel anxiousness, fear and the uncomfortable feelings. There is a way to guide and support ourselves but we have to be willing to choose to do so. I know that we all are because we are here to find out how we can live a more peaceful life.
Thank you thank you thank you!
Syd: Yes! You are so welcome! A reminder for everyone: it's about one step at a time. If all of these steps or tips are overwhelming you, take a deep breath and go do something that makes you feel joy. Taking action from overwhelm is never the answer. It’s never the answer, especially if you want to live a peaceful life. I am so glad that I could bring this topic forward and I really hope that everyone listening can take these tips and apply them to their own life.
Ang: Oh I know that they are! You know where you are going because you are going to figure it out. You are co-creator of your own life. Now that you know how to live a more peaceful life it’s a matter of putting those practices into place. What an amazing episode. Episode 127 check in the box, concluded. Which means next week is going to be about my check in. You are going to hear about what I am going through at the moment. Then the week after will be Syd’s check in.
From now until next week, if there was a tip that definitely stood out for you, I want you to hit that 5 star rating button right now. Whatever you are doing, stop journaling, hit that 5 star rating because I know you are going to benefit from this moving forward. If you’d like to comment on what that tip was then let us know. From now until next week, we are sending you all the love, positive vibrations and support that you need right now. We love and we will chat to you then!
Syd: Bye everyone!
Ang: Bye!