The Basic Steps to be at Peace

In today’s world, it is not uncommon to feel overwhelmed, depressed, and stressed out. With the state of the economy, it generally takes two incomes to pay the bills. With all the hard work, is there any time left to care for yourself? If you find yourself playing games on your cell phone or computer for hours, when your house looks like a bomb just went off and you have no energy to do a thing about it – it is time to do what we call “a personal attitude ectomy”.

Learning To Deal With Ourselves And Be At Peace

For, even the average person, it is a full-time job trying to keep yourself happy, or maybe that is too strong of a word. Perhaps, it is really about keeping yourself at peace. The more people in your life to deal with, the more stress there is. As we focus on pleasing others, we may not be pleasing ourselves and the only way to deal with them is learning to deal with ourselves. It is easy to be at peace on the mountaintop, but the real issue is being at peace in the valley.

It takes effort to be at peace. Try this: for the next five minutes, sit down, relax and clear your mind.

Come on – it only takes five minutes.

Here’s how to do it – Take in a deep relaxing breath, exhale, center yourself in yourself, and simply relax your muscles.

(When completed, continue with the reading)

How was that for you?

This is luxury. When you calm your body and your mind, it has huge health benefits. The more stressed out we are, the more the blood moves away from the internal organs and into the muscles to prepare for “fight or flight”. As we relax, we digest our food better and our blood moves into those tiny areas that need it the most. This is not to mention reducing blood pressure and oxygenating the brain. A healthy dose of relaxation each day does wonders. What gets in the way of relaxation are unresolved emotional issues.

Dealing With Our Emotions Emotionally

As you sat there, trying to relax, what happened in your mind? Were you flooded with thought afterthought? This is a symptom of emotional turmoil. Do you know how to work through this turmoil? Many don’t. What do you do to help yourself feel emotionally better? Exercise? Exercise is a physical endeavor and it only feeds your physical body. Positive thinking? Thinking is, of course, a mental endeavor and we cannot think our way out of an emotional wound. We need to deal with our emotions emotionally.

In working on emotions, you need to learn emotional tools. Given that we are emotional beings (even though we may think we are intelligent beings) and are only as strong as our emotional make-up, our relationships will reflect our emotional condition. Do you trust people? Is it easy to connect socially with others? Do you feel flawed and less than others? These qualities cannot be out thinked – if out thinked is a word. To work through these emotional issues the first step is applying love to the part of you that actually believes you are no good.

Can you walk up to a stranger and say hi? If no, there is work for you to do. Do you feel others are judging you harshly? Do you believe that it is easier to connect with others if you are smoking or drinking something? Take a look at that. You’ve taught yourself to injure yourself in order to bond with others.

This brings us back to you sitting with yourself in the silence. Do you like you? Do you even know who you are? Are you a reaction to the others in your life? Do you change yourself to please others? If so, the metamessage you are telling yourself is that other people are better than you. Is anyone better? The reality of life is – we are all the same. Nobody is above or below another person. All we have really done is create a mindset that makes believe we are better or worse but in all actuality, we are a product of the experiences we have had in our lives. And think about your life path. To this point you have been amazing, worked through some very difficult situations, and above all, are a survivor. Have you acknowledged yourself for this?

Healing With Proper Instruction And Support

Working on emotions, unfortunately, is unique in psychotherapy. There are only a percentage of people who use Gestalt Therapy, NLP Aspect Work, Psychosynthesis, and Play Therapy. When therapists haven’t done deep work on themselves, how can they do so with clients? We often hear that therapists turn people away who are suicidal or have traumatic issues from their past. Or, these therapists work with these people but stay on the surface and avoid the work that the client came to therapy for in the first place. Helping someone apply love to the part of them that went through difficulty is heartwarming and life-changing. People heal given proper instruction and support. People can learn how to do this by themselves once they get the proper instruction.

Here is our challenge. Sit down each day and meditate for a minimum of five minutes. This will get you in tune with yourself. However, this will not affect your emotions because it is a Spiritual endeavor. To find the emotional peace you desire, let us step you through the process.

Here’s an example:

There was a person that attended a residential program I worked at that complained about having multiple personalities. They asked if we could take group time to work through the constant battle inside of them. Ten or so chairs were placed next to them and each chair represented one of the alter aspects. I took the time to help them interact with each aspect until all of them agreed to work for the betterment of the person. When they were all in agreement there was a quickening of energy in the room that everybody felt. The person was amazed because they finally were at peace.

Yours may not be as drastic but there is hope for you. Please let us help you help yourself.

Compassionate Care is Always Available

There are many more tools and strategies you can use in your pursuit of happiness. Here is where we come in. Contact us at Basic Steps Mental Health and let us support and educate you on this journey back to your loving heart center. Imagine living a heart-centered life, regardless of what is happening externally. We’d love to be of help.

For 25 years, Dr. Scott Alpert, the clinical director of Basic Steps Mental Health, has treated over 7,000 people with mental health and addiction problems, using a Psychological approach that mixes and matches ten of the top approaches used in the industry.