6 Tips to Regain Your Inner Peace After a Negative Experience

With so many negative events in the news, I’d like to help you regain your inner peace when your thoughts and emotions are running wild and threaten to swamp you at times like these.  Energetically, I’d like to reach through cyberspace to find out what is going on for you.  Have you been affected by the devastating storm or the news coverage of recent events?  Or has a personal situation driven out thoughts of anything else?

Pause for just a moment.  Consider your physical state.  Feel your body.  Feel the pressure of where chairs, sofas and floors touch your body.  Feel your breath moving through you.  Do you have any discomfort?  As you body to send such discomfort into a far corner of your mind.  Not to worry, you will return for it.  For now, realize that although you have a body, you are not just your body.  You are much more than your body.

You also have emotions.  Notice the emotions that are affecting you right now.  There may be so many.  A time of crisis evokes a variety of strong, painful feelings.  Acknowledge fear, loss, anger, despair, hopelessness.  Acknowledge love, hope and gratitude if you feel them.  And as before, ask your emotions to recede into a decent part of your mind.  Not to worry.  You will come back for your feelings but for the moment, you are realizing that although you have feelings, you are not just your feelings, you are much more than your feelings.

You also have thoughts.  What are you thinking right now?  Are your thoughts filled with negativity?  Are they confused, searching for answers and solutions?  Are you trying to pull together all the sensory input coming at you at this moment?  Stop.  Ask your mind to send this wild mix of thoughts to a deep recess in your mind.  Not to worry, you will return for them.   You have thoughts, but you are not just your thoughts.  You are much more than your thoughts.

You are a centered being of Light and Love and Power.  Experience the sensation that remains when you have quieted all the rest.  It is a calm, peaceful place.  Here your subconscious mind links to the field of all possibilities.  From here you can receive guidance and insight.

Return now to your conscious mind and your earlier realization that yes, we have emotions, but we are not just our emotions.  We value our emotions.  They are a barometer of where we are and where we want to be.  Fear can be an alert system or enslave us, if we let it.  Frustration and anger can be healthy motivators or destructive, if we let them.  Therefore, it is important to recognize that while we have emotions, we are much more than our emotions.

When we are in the middle of a crisis of any kind, it is wise to observe each situation as it unfolds, identify how we would prefer it to be, as well as what we can do about it.  What resources can we find?  What can we help change?  Who else can help?  With an idea of those things, we can develop a plan to change where we are in a situation and get more of what we want right now.

Once again, disaster has affected at least 1 million people, probably more.  It is early yet.  We are at the stage of search and rescue.  First responders are walking, boating and flying to make an estimate of the damage done, the lives affected and those who need immediate assistance.  An accurate count is impossible.  Those who escaped may still be listed among the missing, with too few communications channels open to let people know.  Only when they check in will the numbers become real and, for some, relief from worry.

Where are the survivors?  The clock is ticking for those who were unprepared and for those affected beyond their ability to prepare enough for a storm of this magnitude.  If we are not first responders, we are still being asked to stay away right now.  There is such a sense of helplessness when you hear the news and have no immediate channel to provide assistance.

Still, it is the precise point when we can begin to tame negative emotions and negative self-talk.  The first priority of the subconscious mind is to keep us alive, to keep the autonomic systems operating and keep us out of harm’s way.  When faced with such overwhelming catastrophe, it can paralyze us.

We have to snap out of it!  First responders are trained to do this.  They know how to mobilize, arrive, evaluate a situation and plan how to take appropriate action.  They are already at work, long before we tame the inner beast of negative emotions and mental confusion.  You have the power to snap out of it!  You have the power to help.  Here are a few ways you can do it:

1. Calm the mental beast. Stop saying negative things.  Catch yourself and flip your thinking.  Use Afformations, positive why questions:  Why am I able to help?  Why am I  able to make a difference?
2. Change your perception emotionally by looking at what has happened, what we feel, what we would have preferred to have happen, and what will have to happen for that preference to become the reality.
3. Address the mind loop of fear and worry. When we are caught up in this loop we are either revisiting a prior negative experience or projecting that experience into the future.  Past failures and successes are no guarantee of future outcomes.  It is up to us to live in the present, finding ways to handle immediate needs in ways that will ensure the best outcomes possible.  Begin to look for solutions.
4. Pray, meditate, center. Ask for guidance.  Ask to be shown what you can do.  You can start alone or join others.
5. Move your feet.  Start to help right where you are.  If you see something that needs to be done or someone who needs assistance, help them.  Don’t leave it for someone else to do.  They may be busy helping others.  Pick up the trash.  Bring a meal to an ailing friend.  Watch and listen for calls for assistance in your area, online and via media reports.  Give what you can.  It doesn’t have to be money.  You can donate things you have, time and energy to help in the response, or money.   When you are helping others you have less time to experience fear and worry.
6. There are several stages during which you can help: the search and rescue stage, the stabilization phase, the rebuilding phase, and, if you are fortunate to be part of it, the time when a person or community can begin to thrive toward a new and expanded existence. If you have the ability, participate in search and rescue.  Help people stabilize.  At first, the shelters will need assistance.  Later, basic needs will be required for a length of time.  The Red Cross works to get people into safe, stable housing as soon as possible.   FEMA works to replace housing for potentially long term periods.  Food, water and clothing will be needed, available at community distribution centers set up for this purpose.  Like the pioneers, the community will come together to rebuild.   Small businesses will need assistance to rebuild, restock and carry on.  Who knows?  You may change your life in the process.  You may be led to do something you enthusiastically support that puts you into the mindset to thrive!

There are lots of questions to ask in the wake of adversity.  While you are answering them, stay active.  You can regain your inner peace and go on to do more than survive or rebuild.  You can go on to Thrive.

I believe in you,

Susan