CHOOSING PEACE
Welcome to the Small Jar Podcast, where we moms of teens find the power to step off the emotional rollercoaster between motherhood and the empty nest. I'm your host, Jennifer Collins. Episode number 130.
Hello, friends. If you are listening to this episode right after Thanksgiving, I hope you had a lovely holiday and that you're finding some time to relax a little before the holiday season gets into full swing. Although even as I say this, I'm realizing with Thanksgiving falling so late this year, we're already launching right into December and the mad rush to the next set of holidays and the end of the year.
Can we take a collective breath out? Just for a minute, let's give ourselves a little grace, a little time to just be, to not need to be doing anything or getting anything to happen. I recently did a masterclass on creating peace. And at one point, I shared with the group that creating peace is a decision you get to make.
A decision. It doesn't seem like it could be that easy, does it? That it's something that you can simply choose. If you look up the definition of decision, it says, the action or process of deciding something or of resolving a question.
The verb decide means to make a final choice or judgment about something. Deciding involves a judgment, a choice, actually. So could it be that you have a choice about peace? I mean, what are the alternatives? Peace versus anxiety? Feeling calm versus angry or irritated? Tranquility versus conflict? The choice, if there is one to be made, seems like it would be really easy.
The problem is feeling peace doesn't seem like a choice. We'd all probably love to cultivate more of a peaceful, present feeling. And that's not just true over the holidays, of course.
I don't know. Is it the ever-present Christmas music talking about peace or the expectation that we're supposed to feel happy during the holidays that puts this added pressure on us actually feeling peace, to feel grateful and happy? These shoulds are really just a thinly veiled way to raise the bar on the expectations we have for ourselves. But let's talk about this feeling of peace.
What are the sensations you actually feel in your body when you're at peace? Because when it comes down to it, this is how we experience any emotion, as a series of physical sensations. The sensations you'd most likely identify with peace also align with a sense of calm, safety, and well-being. Your muscles might feel relaxed.
Your breathing would be steady and your heart rate would be slow and regular. You can feel a sense of lightness. Sometimes we'll describe it as if the weight of the world has been lifted off of our shoulders.
Our posture can actually be better. Our shoulders dropped. Our minds are quiet, free from racing thoughts.
When you feel peaceful, there aren't butterflies in your stomach. You don't feel too hot or too cold. It's this Goldilocks feeling of just right.
Sign me up, right? What's pretty clear when you talk about these physical sensations is that the opposite looks a lot like what we consider fight or flight. Muscles tense, faster breathing, and a faster heart rate. Almost a heaviness, like you're weighted down.
Your shoulders might be tensed. You might feel like you're hunched over, almost closing in on yourself. Your mind could be racing with a pit in your stomach.
Maybe you're feeling hot or too cold. Not right. The opposite of peace is this feeling like you're unsafe, like things aren't well, that they're chaotic.
When I was working with one of my clients and we set about defining her goals for our work together in my coaching program, she said, I want to learn how to be calm when the chaos hits. So well said. I mean, when life is calm and everything's moving in the right direction, it's actually not that hard to find peace.
There are times in life when we're supported and surrounded by the right people who show how much they care about you. It's not hard in these moments to feel a sense of safety and belonging. Of course, safety also comes in times when life is predictable, when you know what to expect, when you have enough money, and of course, when everyone you love is physically safe and healthy.
When life is free of conflict, when you feel like you know what you want to do with your time and you're getting everything done on schedule, when you have help when you need help. Sounds like a bit of a fairy tale, but there are definitely moments, fleeting though they may be, where you experience this. Life really does align at times to give you a glimpse of peace, those moments when everyone is safe at home.
I feel this way when I know both of my boys are home in bed on a Saturday night. I feel at peace when we're finally all sitting around one table at Thanksgiving, everyone I love together in one room. Those moments when I've finished a big task or gotten through a stressful event.
Peace. I think the tragedy is that we're somehow raised to believe that we have to wait for life to align itself almost perfectly so that we can get the chance to feel peace. Think about it, one of the reasons we associate peace with the holidays, beyond the Christmas carols, is that we know, or hope at least, that we'll get to spend time with the people we love most in the world.
We'll feel that sense of connection and belonging that may not always be something we get to feel in our day-to-day lives. We also know that at some point we're going to hopefully have some downtime, those days after Hanukkah and Christmas and before the kids get back to school, when we can have late mornings and time together that doesn't have to be planned or organized. Just the thought of having everyone together again gives me a sense of peace and joy.
So the parts of the holidays that relate to the world slowing down and the chance to be physically closer to those we love will, again hopefully, give us moments of peace. In other words, we can hope that the circumstances of our lives will align so that we get to feel peace. But I wonder how much stress you anticipate as you get there.
What is the cost of creating that peace? Or what are the reasons you think it's going to be hard to capture that peace? You could be facing some difficult life circumstances, health, or other big challenges, the loss of a loved one, the first holiday without a loved one. If this is true for you, my heart goes out to you. There are some hurts that we just have to love ourselves through.
And certainly there can be opportunities to lean into peace and gratitude even when we're in pain. But we also have to honor that pain. Today I want to focus on those things that steal our peace that truly are optional.
Things that do, in fact, involve a choice. When it comes down to it, the one thing that's stealing your peace that's truly a choice are your expectations. Typically we blame other people for stealing our peace.
Our teens for being disrespectful or lazy. We blame our husbands for being grumpy and unhelpful. We blame our siblings, our in-laws, our friends, our bosses.
All those people, what they did and what they said. But truly, whatever it is that they did or said, you can tell yourself they shouldn't have done it or that they should be better. But the truth is, whatever reality is, that's just the truth of what happened.
No more interesting than the day of the week or the time of the day. It's just what is. The only reason it's ever a problem is because we have an expectation that the truth would be different.
We have expectations of other people, and frankly, we have expectations of ourselves as well. You can feel like it's your responsibility to create a special holiday for everyone else. And of course, everyone has their own unique needs.
So catering to all of this, making everyone happy, can often feel like a thankless and impossible task. Often we haven't even clearly articulated all of the expectations we're trying to live up to, but we're constantly chasing that elusive place when we get to decide we've done enough. Think about how much pressure all of these expectations cause, how much effort is required to meet all of these expectations, both of others and of your own.
Peace can feel elusive. We can think, if I can just get everything done, or if I can just get my team to open up to me, if I can figure out what's wrong and solve it, then I'll finally feel at peace. But consider this, that the way we typically try to create peace is to outwork ourselves.
We can think that there's something we can do or say to get that other person to change, to feel happy or to do something different, that there's something we can do so that we can feel different. So if the obstacle is some other person, your teen or a relative, whoever it is, you try to manage them. You try to think about how you can show up so that they'll be happy.
How many times have you found yourself wide awake at night thinking about how to help or support your team? Then the next day you try that new strategy. You remind them again. You try to get them to open up.
You can think that there's a right approach that will magically unlock your teen's mood or allow you to feel like you've supported them in the right way. With relatives, especially over the holidays, we can do a lot of people-pleasing, essentially agreeing to things we don't want to do, bending over backwards to try to avoid conflict. We can try to read people's minds, try to guess their expectations so that then we can meet those expectations ahead of time and avoid criticism or conflict.
One of my clients recently shared that in the past it's felt easier to just give in and say yes. On the one hand, it makes sense. If you think there's a problem with your teen or you anticipate conflict with a relative, then maybe the right thing to do is to try to do something to make the situation better.
I'm not suggesting that you're wrong for trying, but it's just interesting to take a step back and notice in your relationships how much of your energy you spend trying to get other people to either feel something or do something different. Let me put it another way. Think about how much energy you put into getting other people to meet your expectations of them, how you think they should feel or how they should act.
Of course, other people you care about might seem to have expectations of you as well. Even if you just think they have these expectations, it can feel hard to let them down. But also, sometimes it can feel like no matter what you do, it's actually not good enough for the other person.
Whether you're hoping someone else will change or show up differently or if you're trying to meet your perceptions of other people's expectations of you, even if you're talking about the expectations you have for yourself, it can feel like the solution is to work harder, to try harder. My friend, is that what peace requires? That if we just work hard enough and do enough to make everybody happy, that then we'll get to feel peace? Just think about how this shows up for you over the holidays, when every element from the decorating and hosting to the gift-giving and the merrymaking, that every part of it seems to require so much energy and effort. What we want to create over the holidays is connection, joy, a bit of peace.
But we literally try to work our way to create that peace, doing everything we can to make everyone else happy, thinking if we can just work hard enough, we'll eventually get to enjoy ourselves. I fall into this reasoning all the time, by the way. This feeling that I have to earn the right to feel peace, that peace is something I have to achieve, the result of having solved the problem or work to get past the hurdle.
When it comes to relationships, this approach to finding peace can have pretty negative impacts. Think about the relationship you have with your team. How often do you think that there's something you can say or do that will get them to feel a certain way or act differently? Not control them, we would never want to control them, but we definitely hope that we can influence them.
We do this all the time with our teams, and then I think we're confused about why they push back. And think about all this effort you make over the holidays, wanting to make it special for everyone, hoping that all your effort will result in everyone else thinking or acting a certain way. But this is actually not in your power to do.
You can't control how other people think, you can't control how they feel, or how they show up. But the truth is, sometimes it feels like all of the effort that we put in truly is worth it. Sometimes our teams do open up to us or take our advice.
Sometimes we do get the right gift and it's clear the other person really appreciates it. Sometimes that big holiday dinner you plan goes off without a hitch and everyone is happy and appreciative. In those moments, all of your effort really does feel worth it.
But the opposite can also be true. You can go out of your way, try your best, invest endless amounts of energy trying to please and support everyone, and when it doesn't work, you can feel hurt, unappreciated, and frustrated. The problem here isn't that we want to make the holidays special for the people we love.
The actual problem is our expectation around what it looks like for other people to engage with the effort that we put in. Whether or not they seem happy or appreciative, whether they connect with us in the way that we hope, the way we expect people to feel and act, it's really hard to let people be who they are. You can spend so much time choosing the perfect gift and your team could mumble thanks and go back to scrolling on their phone.
You can agree to spend time with your in-laws and they can still say to you, you guys never spend time with us. You can ask your husband to help with the holiday decorations and he could drag his feet and just not help. You could literally spend every moment from now until the end of the holidays running around, picking up the slack for everyone, thinking of everything, and you could still find yourself not feeling at peace at the end of the day.
Honestly, we're so conditioned to believe that peace has to be earned, that it's a place we get to once everything is okay, when everyone's happy and safe, when the hard work is done. Peace happens when the war ends, right? It requires hard work, sacrifice even. As I say this, I think about how many different areas of my life this has shown up for me, for sure with my kids.
I have dedicated so much of my effort to helping them be safe, happy, and successful. I mean, just last night, my husband was talking to my son about the college interview he's having today. I walked in and I hugged my son goodnight and meant to leave the room.
I didn't need to add pressure to my son and truly believe he's got this. But then I heard my husband say something I disagreed with and I couldn't help but weigh in. It could be so easy for me to wait to feel at peace until my son gets into a college that makes him happy.
How often do you wait to choose peace until your kid has proven that they're okay? And just notice how often this has to happen. Because our teens are on the roller coaster of life, constantly experiencing highs and lows, just like all of us, by the way. And we're on the roller coaster with them, working hard to get them up when they're down, on a high of relief when they're up, but waiting for the shoe to drop again.
Worrying about our teens. I think this is just one of the parts of motherhood that we're not going to entirely let go. I don't actually ever want to let go of the responsibility I feel to help support my boys, to do what I can to help them be safe, happy, and successful.
But that worry is actually about me. It's about my hopes and expectations for my boys. It's actually not my son's job to meet my expectations so that I can be happy.
So life with our teens, that's a big area where we can feel like we're never off of the hook for working to get the right to feel at peace. How about the effort you put into keeping your home together or the finances together, thinking that peace requires the home to be organized and clean, that you might get to feel at peace when you finally get to the gym on a regular basis or lose that stubborn weight. You'll get to feel peace once you've checked everything off of the to-do list, when your husband finally gets that promotion or solves that problem that's been hanging over your heads.
My friend, life is going to continue to present you with circumstances that don't meet your expectations. Other people are constantly going to fail to meet your expectations and you can definitely decide to make that a problem. Look, you get to be mad at that person who keeps letting you down.
You get to resent the sister who keeps guilt-tripping you and you can absolutely be frustrated with your teen for not being more motivated or not wanting to connect with you as much anymore. All of these feelings are perfectly normal and valid, only they rob you of feeling peace. My friends, as you head into this holiday season, I want to invite you to consider that peace is a choice.
The most precious gift you can give yourself is to witness your life for exactly as it is. Your teen doing their best, whatever that looks like, even if it doesn't quite look good enough to you right now. How could it also be true that even if you hope for more for them, that they are doing their best right now in this moment? What if there's nothing for you to fix? Your partner, your relatives, they are also doing their best, even if that's not even close to meeting your hopes and expectations of them.
This is the truth of how they're showing up right now. What if it's not your job to fix or change any of it? Your work is understanding how your expectations are setting you up for disappointment. If your expectation is important enough to set a boundary around, by all means do that.
You don't have to accept being treated poorly. You get to leave the room. If someone's asking you to do something you don't want to do, you get to say no.
The way you show up in your life is 100% in your power. You can't control or change other people, but you can take responsibility for your expectations and the boundaries that you set around them. And consider that you get to set boundaries with yourself too.
How hard are you working to make the holidays special for everyone? What expectations are you setting for yourself? If you truly owned that you can't make other people happy, but instead if you decided that the reason you're making any effort is because it makes you happy, then by all means do all the things. But where can you decide to let yourself off the hook? Peace isn't found in more work, in more effort. It's found in understanding where your power lies and making the decision to choose peace.
This is the work I do with my clients in my coaching program, Mom 2.0. There is so much more in your control than you give yourself credit for, but we're often spending energy on the wrong problem. We're focused on trying to control the world to change other people so that we can feel better, but we actually haven't learned how to take responsibility for what is actually in our control. Peace is a decision you get to make.
It's letting go of needing to control things that simply aren't in your power to change or control. It's accepting the reality of your life as it is right now while also stepping into your power to make decisions around how you will show up to that life, the way you want to support your kids and family, the way you want to support yourself. Consider, my friend, those moments when you truly feel at peace.
What you're doing is giving yourself permission. You're saying to yourself, I've done all that I can do. I've done enough.
All is well. My friend, you don't need anyone else's permission to believe this other than your own. Can you let where you are right in this moment be enough? That doesn't mean that you make the decision to do nothing.
Peace doesn't require you to give up and put in zero effort. Peace comes from honoring your decision around what is enough. Throughout this holiday season, when you think of it, check in with yourself and ask, what is enough? In every moment, you get to make a decision.
Make it consciously. Don't keep working, running on the hamster wheel, waiting for peace to come to you from some external validation or permission. Give that permission to yourself.
Peace is deciding this moment is enough, and you are the only one who ever needs to give this permission to yourself.
Until next time, my friend.
If you enjoyed this podcast, please leave a review and check out our coaching program, Mom 2.0 at www.thesmalljar.com. You have more power than you think, my friend.
