Last March I was in deep.
Overwhelmed and oversaturated with information, opinions, feelings, and obligations.
I was struggling.
Usually I love to feel & fix & share, but it was all too much.
Our family escaped for a week & I resolved to put my phone away.
I had been entertaining so many thoughts and ideas from so many people, I had lost touch with myself.
As I disconnected, my own spirit, mind & heart reemerged.
I felt grounded, grateful & capable.
And a constant refrain stayed in my mind:
“Protect Your Peace.”
So I started figuring out how.
Here is what helped me:
1. Read news from trusted sources that don’t cause contention & skip comments. No more letting Joe23572 ruin my day.
2. Clean out social media often and stay proactive about what is allowed there. More on how to do that HERE.
3. Turn to a small group of trusted, respected people to work out difficult & confusing issues. This doesn’t mean you need to live in an echo chamber, that isn’t helpful and often just fans the flames. So, engage with people who are interested in listening, explaining and learning in a respectful way regardless of their opinions.
4. Seek the good and fill your life with as much uplift as possible. When life is heavy, it is important to balance that with hope. Embrace it and share it.
5. Bring hard questions to God and listen for answers. Be okay when He answers differently people differently.
6. Realize you are capable of deciding how you feel about issues. You don’t need to be a follower or jump on bandwagons and can take as long as you need to research and understand. It’s okay to be unsure of how you feel about something.
7. You don’t have to share your every opinion publicly to prove how you feel. There are lots of ways to support things that are important to you and your public voice is only one of those ways. You can change your mind when new information comes. Doing this shows maturity and a willingness to learn.
8. See the good in & truly love people who believe differently from you. Keep them in your life and seek to understand them.
9. Understand you do not have the capacity to care about or fix everything. You must let some things go and let other passionate people fill those needs. Everyone working together on things that matter to them most affects great change.
10. Refuse to judge people on one moment, one quote, or one sound bite. Choose to see people as feeling humans instead of unfeeling objects and act accordingly. Remember how often you require grace and how grateful you are to not be remembered for only your worst moments.
11. Take breaks from input. It is not selfish, it is spirit sustaining. You do not owe the world our constant attention.
12. Do something! Deliberate efforts to make a difference daily erases hopelessness. and helplessness. Who you decide to be each day matters. Never underestimate the power one person has to change the world.
These 12 steps have brought peace and hope back to my life and allowed me to confidently seek the good when the whole world feels unstable.
It isn’t easy.
But, it’s a battle worth fighting.
How do you protect your peace?
To see an interview I did on this subject, click the link HERE.
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