When was your tipping point?
It’s that moment you declared: Enough is enough! I want to stop suffering and find peace.
The pain has lasted for too long. You can’t do it anymore.
For me, that moment happened in 2009, at the end of yet another day of brutal arguments with my partner. I just wanted the misery to stop as quickly as possible.
Now that I’ve made peace with much of my shadow, I’m taking pleasure in reflecting on my attempts to find serenity.
These are 4 potent tips that I would’ve given my younger self to speed up my spiritual growth and avoid years of suffering.
1) Know your mind
It seems so obvious now—become acutely aware of your thoughts, emotions, triggers and limiting beliefs.
Mindfulness meditation helps you take stock of your mind, so that you can stay calm more often. You learn how to create breathing room between an upsetting thought or event and yourself.
That space lets you pause before saying or doing something unhelpful. You gain more power to make the right decision. It also helps you process difficult emotions like anger, grief and powerlessness.
In the beginning, do sitting or walking meditation everyday to feel grounded in your body and soul.
Then, remove the crutches as much as possible and become present in every waking moment.
2) Understand how trauma works
Most of your issues come from traumatic experiences.
That time you were bullied. When your dad gave you another stern look. All those times you deeply felt not good enough.
Your feelings are valid, whether it was a ‘big t’ or ‘little t’ trauma. “Trauma” is simply any event or ongoing situation that causes distress, fear and powerlessness.
The event doesn’t necessarily make it traumatic—it’s your subjective perception of the event.
That said, examples of trauma can include:
- relationship problems
- conflict with a colleague
- childhood neglect
- financial worries
- experiencing discrimination
- loss of job/business
- moving to a new home
- chronic illness
- humiliating experiences
- vicarious trauma
- physical/sexual assault
- accidents
When you experience too much stress, your body activates the fight-flight-freeze response. Your muscles tense up and your heartbeat races, so that you can protect yourself from a physical or emotional danger.
When your body can’t fully process the experience, the brain and nervous system become stuck in trauma, always on the lookout for the next threat.
In other words, your body gets stuck in the past. Talk therapy and confiding in others can only do so much. (If I had known this, I could’ve avoided years of rehashing the same issue!)
“Trauma has nothing whatsoever to do with cognition. It has to do with your body being reset to interpret the world as a dangerous place. It’s not something you can talk yourself out of.” —Bessel Van Der Kolk
This stress derails your immune system, self-esteem and how you see the world.
That’s why it can be so hard to finish projects, heal from that physical illness, feel connected to your body or be vulnerable in relationships.
It’s not your fault.
Your body is doing its job.
3) Safely release the past
You can make good progress with meditation, yoga or qi gong.
Though you might find that those fuzzy feelings won’t last long (at least for me).
The next time your partner says you’re wrong or your boss criticizes your work, you’ll still get that overwhelming feeling of shame. And then you’ll beat yourself up for hours. It’ll feel like you had made no progress at all.
Or you inch forward, then take 2 steps back. Sigh… They say you just have to cycle through the same lesson a million times before you’re free.
I wish I’d known that there’s an easier and quicker way.
The best tool I’ve found to safely release trauma from the body is EFT (Emotional Freedom Techniques or tapping). Tapping on certain acupuncture points while focusing on an issue calms your nervous system and restores your well-being.
This study shows that a 60-minute EFT group session reduced participants’ cortisol (the “stress hormone”) levels by a whopping 43%. Supportive listening from a therapist reduced participants’ cortisol levels only by 19%.
Physical pain quickly disappears. You can swiftly process difficult emotions (without reliving the event) and move on. Bothersome memories stop haunting you.
Did you know that money flows more, once you tap on your scarcity mindset?
EFT dives deep into the subconscious and body to transform our blocks. It accelerates healing and rebalances the body.
Please note that I encourage self-healing, but working with trauma without appropriate training and experience can cause retraumatizations and abreactions and worsen symptoms.
Research shows that Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) and somatic experiencing are also effective to heal trauma.
What’s more, it’s helpful to set up regular calls with a good friend to celebrate your progress. Connection with kindred souls is vital to healing.
There’s no shame in seeking support.
4) Live as if you had created it
Spiritual teacher Eckhart Tolle encourages us to live our lives, as if we had chosen the good and bad.
It’s a universal spiritual concept: Everything is unfolding perfectly.
But Tolle’s reframe pleased my rational mind. Live as if we had created it.
“The paradox of trauma is that it has both the power to destroy and the power to transform and resurrect.” —Peter A. Levine
I decided to play a game with myself… What would happen if I owned my past experiences? What could I learn?
After the initial tsunami of shock and victimhood, I began to connect the dots. What if these hardships had a greater purpose? Why would my soul choose to experience this?
The answers breezed in through Netflix episodes, conversations, during showers—the signs were everywhere.
Little by little, I trained myself to see the opportunity in each obstacle. The more I released the past, the clearer I understood how everything is interconnected.
My blooming self-love caused my compassion for others to bud. So much that my heart sometimes feels like it’s on fire.
Nowadays, I continue letting go more of expectations and control. I’m deepening my faith in the unknown and enjoying the peace that it brings.
10 years ago, I would’ve never thought it’d be possible.
Inner peace and challenges co-exist
Finding inner peace doesn’t mean we don’t experience challenges.
Obstacles exist for our growth and we can feel serene among chaos.
We also might end up reacting sometimes—we’re all learning.
But becoming aware of our mind, understanding how trauma works, releasing the past and living consciously transform our lives.
We build resilience to embrace hardships and strengthen our sense of inner peace.
And above all, we can enjoy the present moment.
Want some free support?
I’m offering free EFT Tapping sessions in exchange for a short interview via Zoom.
I enjoy connecting with other women and learning about their challenges related to confidence, boundaries and relationships.
In the first 15 minutes, I’ll ask questions like “How did you discover me?” for new content ideas. In the last 15 minutes, you’ll get an EFT session to feel calm and clear. (Yes, things can shift that quickly.)
This offer isn’t a discovery call, where we discuss my paid services. It’s a fun opportunity to connect and support each other!
If you feel inspired to work with me, we can book a free call to make sure we’re a good fit.
I look forward to connecting with you!
Further reading to find inner peace: