How important is your peace?

I love my work.

For reals. I love that I get to hold someone’s hand and heart as they step into whatever the fuck it is they want. The relationship, the job, the acceptance, the respect, all of the above.

Aside from being a front-line motivator for a woman looking for more, you know why I do this work. Because I was there, and because I was there, I see when I’m getting in my own way or someone or something else is in the way of my sense of peace.

Peace is really what it’s all about, right? There is nothing worse than connecting with others or being in relationship with them, and feeling like our nervous system is being literally strangled. Believe me, when that happens, it matters little that we don’t like it. It only matters that we feel like shit. There is absolutely zero peace there.

Knowing that, I often think about what it is that stops us from changing our own trajectory and therefore our experiences with peace. And you know what keeps coming up for me?

Shame. Plain old, crappy-feeling, hot-cheeked, praying that the floor will rise up and swallow you, kind of shame.

Are you feeling that? Man, I feel it just writing about it.

It’s an all too familiar feeling when we’ve been shut down or hushed in any way. And it can linger for hours, if not days at a time, every time our mind wanders to what that silencing felt like.

Then the silencing episodes stack up. Whether it’s a complicated encounter or just someone being rude to you, it’s all the same to your nervous system. It all brings back the shame we felt the very first time.

Honestly, the very best thing we can do to begin to help ourselves from constantly living in survival mode is to learn everything about ourselves and our voices. What’s behind the fear we feel when we want to speak our own truth? Who or what are your biggest triggers and leave you on to the couch when something goes south? What can pull you out of a nervous system going into full-on protection mode?

Helping ourselves can be hard, for sure. But it’s much harder to pull ourselves out of that gut-wrenching place after any voice challenge. Helping is admitting that it’s our job to love ourselves through everything we experience, and learn how to support our bodies, minds, hearts and souls when they need peace. I know, I’ve done both. And now I want to teach you the same thing.