3 Stages To Peace Of Mind

This audio explains the 3 stages to peace of mind so that you can stop the overthinking and feelings of overwhelm that come with an unmanaged mind. You'll learn how to identify what stage you're in and take the action that is most beneficial in this situation. Our thoughts have a way of running the show, but when you're able to direct your thoughts, you also get to feel better and stop the mind chatter that is often negative. These tools can be practised daily and will take you out of overthinking so that you get to enjoy life more.

Transcript

Welcome to three stages to peace of mind.

Stop overthinking and start feeling good.

My name is Katrina Horn.

I'm a life coach and I help my clients create the peace of mind that will help them feel good and to let go of the overthinking that doesn't really solve any problems,

That doesn't create any joy.

Did you know that 57% of women overthink?

They worry and this leads us to overwhelm.

I get it that we want peace of mind and we still want the things to get done.

We still want impact but we want the impact without the headache.

I'm going to show you how that is possible doing it all but differently.

I'm going to explain the three stages to the peace of mind that you're seeking so that you can see where you fit in and what tools are the most powerful to use at the stage you're in.

But before that,

A few points I want to make.

First of all,

For this to be useful you have to give up the belief that thinking about something will solve the problem.

You have to let go of the urge to worry.

When you perceive you've got a problem,

You can identify a solution and then you can go into problem solving.

So there are really two things you can do.

One,

You can do something now,

Right away or two,

You have to wait.

You have to wait because you don't have all the information that you need to make a decision or you don't have access to all you need access to to make a decision or to take action so you have to wait.

If you decide to wait,

Most likely you're going to start doubting.

Now I'm going to show you how you can leave the doubt and start trusting yourself.

Trusting yourself to make the right decision.

Once you've decided whether one,

You're going to take action now or two,

You're going to postpone doing anything about it,

Waiting for more information,

Waiting for whatever needs to be in place the more you think it over,

The more you're feeding the doubt.

So that's why you have to train your mind to let go of the problem.

Once you've decided either one to take action or two to wait,

There are two things you can do.

As I said,

There's one,

You can take action to solve the problem and once you've taken the action,

You must leave it and let your action do its work.

There's nothing gained by going over your action again and again,

Regretting it or thinking,

Oh,

I could have done something different or I could have done it differently.

Or number two,

You've decided you have to wait and now you have to wait without going over and over this waiting period.

You have to wait till the new elements you're looking for present themselves.

So whatever goes on in your brain after the decision is a waste of effort,

Attention and energy.

I know you understand this,

But how can you implement it in your everyday life?

I believe that we think worry is useful.

Think about it.

If you've got children,

You might be worrying about them.

You might be worrying whether they're going to school safely,

Whether they're being bullied,

If they're getting up to no good or you could be worrying about how they're handling society,

How they're handling everything in their stride.

Even if they're older,

Your children could still be a source of worry because are they going to get a job or are they going to get laid off?

Are they with the right partner?

All these things can cause worry and what I would like to suggest is that worry is simply a lack of trust.

In other words,

You don't trust your children,

In my example,

To do the right thing or to be well equipped to handle whatever comes their way.

In other words,

You want to control something that is beyond your control and that's why you worry.

You feel disempowered.

There's nothing you can do.

There is no action you can take.

So you feel that the next best thing is to worry,

Meaning that I want to worry it away or I want to control it.

So,

One of the first things we must learn to do is to determine whether something is within our control or whether something is out of our control so that we don't go about trying to control what we cannot control.

Such as with my example,

Will my child catch his bus to school or will my child like his dinner at school or lunch at school?

All those things that we cannot control we have to let go of them.

Are you with me on that?

So,

Think about it.

When you're making your decision,

What can you control and what can't you control?

So,

Taking action is only useful if the outcome is something you can influence.

If you've got absolutely no control over the outcome it's futile to start telling yourself that you should be doing something.

It's futile to start worrying about it.

So,

Let me go into the three stages I see happening.

The three stages that really prevent you from having that peace of mind that helps you go into overthinking and the overthinking that robs you of joy.

The first stage,

Stage number one,

Is the one I call grievances.

This is where you are very busy proving that you've got a good cause to suffer.

You keep going over your past,

You refer to your past in your mind,

In your conversations with other people,

You keep going over your past,

Dragging in evidence from your past of why things are the way they are.

So,

Your mind reverts to what went wrong in your past.

What's wrong now?

And you could be trying to numb out.

You could be trying to distract yourself from the feeling that something went wrong in your past.

And that's why you're in this predicament now.

So,

Something that would be vital for you to start doing in stage one,

If you're in this kind of mode,

Where your past is extremely important and where your present and your future are heavily influenced by what happened in your past,

Is that you can focus on how to stop feeling good.

So,

What I would suggest you do is to think about a lot of things that could have you feel good in the moment and then explore how you could create more of them.

So,

What could have you feel good in the moment?

It could be setting your timer to every hour,

Two hours,

Ten hours,

Ten minutes,

Whatever feels good to you and just have that moment where you focus on feeling good.

You could be looking at a photo of a loved one.

You could be listening to a song you really like.

You could be singing a song you really like or you could be getting up from your chair dancing around.

It could be something as simple as opening the window to take a breath of fresh air.

It could be anything.

My examples are things that could be done really quickly so that they don't take up a lot of your time,

But they manage to shift your mood,

Which is so,

So,

So important.

You have to train your brain to focus over where something is nice so that it doesn't always revert to what isn't nice.

So,

It's like a muscle you're training in your mind.

You're telling your mind,

Your brain,

To focus on what is good.

And,

Of course,

You're still aware of what is not good,

But you're sort of flexing the muscle over on the good side so that you get more time spent on the good side,

If that makes sense.

So,

You're retraining your mind to focus on positive things and to stay there for longer and longer.

Now,

I used to teach positive psychology,

And can I just mention that positive psychology is not about sugar-coating something.

It's not about making something dreadful appear good.

It's not about suppressing negative emotion.

It's not about overriding your emotions.

It's simply about focusing your mind somewhere where it can feel good.

Not denying what's not good,

But just not spending as much time there.

So,

You will see,

If you start doing that,

If you start training your mind to go to positive things,

Well,

You'll spend more time being positive.

And the more time you spend being positive,

The more access you will have to this inner peace,

This peace of mind.

Another thing you could practice at this stage is mindfulness.

And by mindfulness,

I mean being present,

Present in what you're doing.

So,

The first thing to abandon is multitasking.

Even if you're making yourself a cup of coffee,

Please be present with that action.

You can smell the coffee,

You can listen to the coffee maker make its noises,

You can be just with the action you're taking with your present environment.

And not spend the moment where you're making your coffee to go over something,

To ruminate over something.

We call it past grievances or worries about the future.

So,

You spend more time in the present moment on the little things,

The little things that can actually feel really good.

Because the truth is,

In the present moment,

All is well.

And when we focus on that,

We can really start practicing that inner peace,

That peace of mind.

Another good practice at this stage,

Stage number one,

Is to follow guided meditations.

To listen to guided meditation.

And here on Insight Timer,

You have got a plethora of the most useful and delightful guided meditations.

So,

These are also a good way to help your mind focus somewhere else than on your problems.

A practice that is not very useful here is distractions.

So,

By distractions,

I mean numbing out with food to avoid feeling bad,

Or binge watching television or films or series,

Or whatever it is you like watching.

Or doing things to excess,

To distract your mind from something,

From somewhere it wants to go.

These are what I call negative distractions,

Because in the long term,

They won't serve you.

Whereas mindfulness,

Whereas guided meditations,

Whereas putting your mind onto something positive in the long term,

Will still have a positive and beneficial effect.

Numbing out with food or drink,

Shopping,

Watching your screen,

Scrolling on social media,

Or anything of that kind that in the long run doesn't really serve you well,

That is not where you want to spend most of your time.

But I get it.

If you're used to spending a lot of time there,

It can be very,

Very challenging to change.

But what?

But why not try?

Why not try spending a little more time doing something that is useful for your future,

Which is beneficial in the moment,

And will be beneficial in three years from now?

That bringing more and more of it in.

So when you're transitioning from stage 1 into stage 2,

You will find that you're getting more and more willing to focus on the positive or neutral rather than keep reminding yourself of your grievances.

So you've got a willingness to take some responsibility for your life,

Willingness to let go of how you think your life should look like,

How people should behave.

You've got a willingness to give up the struggle.

Stage number 2 is where you're feeling good about who you are and life,

Most of the time.

Most of the time you're focused on creating direction in your life and you're focused on what you want your life to look like.

You feel you've got power over your life.

You feel that you're in charge.

You no longer feel upset about everyday occurrences and you're willing to let go of the need to control them.

You're eager for life,

For using your skills and talents.

Now,

In stage 2,

What would be really useful for you to do is to hone your decision-making skills so that you can start building trust in yourself,

Trust in you,

But not from that controlling angle where you think you have to control circumstances that are out of your control.

You are taking responsibility for what you can control and you trust yourself to be able to handle whatever comes your way.

So,

Here's a quick overview of a decision-making process you can adopt.

So,

When you perceive you've got a problem,

You can think about,

Well,

What is the solution?

The first step here is to become aware of what your best guess at how to solve the problem is.

You can write it down and I'm going to challenge you to write down several solutions to your problem because it's not true that there's ever just one solution.

You might not like all of the possible solutions,

But there are always more.

So,

Please write down any number of solutions.

I would suggest 10.

10 ways of solving your problems.

They could be realistic solutions or solutions you find highly unrealistic,

But make sure that you're in charge.

Please don't think about solutions such as winning the lottery or something that is beyond your control.

You are in charge here.

Write down 10 solutions that you think are possible and then choose the solution you think,

This is really the one that would get me out of this pickle.

Number 2 to this decision-making process,

With this solution in mind,

You're going to ask yourself on a scale of 1 to 10,

How confident am I that this is one of the possible solutions?

On a scale of 1 to 10,

1 being I'm not confident at all and 10 being I am certain that this is the solution.

Find out where you situate the solution you've picked.

So,

It could be anywhere,

2,

5,

8,

Whatever.

And I would recommend that unless you are an 8 or over,

You take no action.

Because if you don't believe that this action will solve your problem,

You are most likely to take what I call half-hearted action,

Taking action that you don't really believe in,

That you're not fully behind.

And so this action will prove not to be useful.

You really have to believe to a very high degree that the action or the solution you are applying is something that will actually solve the problem.

If you are an 8 or over,

Please take action and that really leads me to my third point.

Now you need to create an implementation strategy as the third step in this decision-making process.

You have to plan ahead and,

Most importantly,

You have to schedule it in.

The fourth step is when you fall off the schedule because you will fall off if there are several steps to your action plan.

You will fall off and you will have to get yourself back on it.

When you are experiencing doubt,

You have to create belief.

You can go back to reminding yourself why you thought this was a possible solution to your problem.

You came up with a solution.

You've got a solution in mind.

You picked the best one.

You were certain or almost that it was a good solution.

You created a plan,

A strategy,

And now you have to implement it.

All our strategies,

If they are over time,

We are likely to not always implement them which is not really a problem if you make sure you get back onto the implementation process.

So that once you've implemented everything,

You can now evaluate and that evaluation is my fifth step.

You can evaluate and ask yourself,

Well,

What really worked in my solution?

What didn't go well and what do I want to do differently next time?

Also,

Most importantly,

If something didn't work out,

Well,

What is your theory of why it didn't work?

When you've got this solid decision making process in place,

This solid way of solving your problems,

You can really start trusting yourself that you've got this.

You've got it from A to Z.

You are the one implementing the solution,

So you've got control.

Makes sense?

How would you feel if you were the person who could solve all her problems?

You could solve all your problems because you have a very clear strategy in place.

You're not giving in to doubt.

You've trained your mind to focus where you want it to focus so you can just get on with that.

Another useful exercise in stage number two is to imagine yourself on the other side of your problem.

So,

You're seeing your problem behind you because you are on the solution side.

You've no longer got that problem.

Feel the feelings on the other side.

On the side where you have no problem any longer because you solved it.

What would be different?

An example would be if you want to go and spend your holiday in Paris,

But your bank account says you can't.

See yourself in Paris.

See yourself enjoying yourself,

Reveling in everything you want to enjoy in Paris,

And then ask yourself,

Well,

How did I get here?

It's so much easier to find the way to something we want once we're there.

Imagine yourself being there and then ask yourself,

Well,

What did I do to get here?

When you're moving from stage two to stage three,

You are tuning in to your desires and you're letting go of the need to prove or justify.

In stage number three,

You've realized that you've created your problems.

You've also realized that they're not real problems because you've got the solution.

You take on full responsibility for what your life looks like without blaming yourself for any discrepancies between what you want and what you've got.

I believe that,

As an example,

I'm eminently suited to inhabit the world I live in.

I'm like a plant planted in the best soil for all its needs,

Or I'm like a fish in a fish bowl content to be a fish,

Not wishing to be a bird,

If you see what I mean.

I trust my environment to support me fully.

I have curated it.

I have curated people,

Places.

I have chosen all of it.

If ever I notice something that doesn't suit me,

It's simply a sign that I want to change it.

In this environment,

I can't have a problem because if I'm cold,

I can do something about it.

If I'm hungry,

I can do something about it.

I'm aware that there's never only one solution.

There are always more.

This is such a good thing to remind myself of because when I start believing that there's only one solution to my problem,

I start feeling constrained.

I start feeling constrained or anxious to find the right solution and there never is just one right solution.

There's only the solution you make right by making sure that all your choices align with that solution and that you can feel good about it.

And that really brings me to my last point which is that all the three stages have something in common and that is that your feelings and emotions are there to guide you.

You immediately know if what you're thinking is making you feel bad,

It can't be true.

There's a misunderstanding.

Now,

You can learn how to change what you think so that you can feel good.

If I see a problem,

I'm telling myself that there's been a misunderstanding.

If somebody's not behaving the way I would expect them to,

I just immediately think,

Oh,

There's something I'm misunderstanding or maybe they are misunderstanding something.

There's some kind of misunderstanding going on and once I'm aware of that,

I can get curious.

I can get curious about what the misunderstanding is and I can go about finding out the root causes and once I can see what the misunderstanding is,

Well,

There really is no problem.

So,

If you're in stage 3,

You can always ask yourself,

What am I making this behavior or this outcome,

This circumstance mean?

What am I making it mean?

And if it's something that doesn't have you feel good,

Well,

Then you know that there must be a misunderstanding and the misunderstanding is often what we make it mean.

So,

Imagine somebody was rude to you.

You might make it mean that they don't respect you.

You might make it mean that they don't appreciate you.

You might make it mean that they think you've made a mistake.

All of that is not very nice.

So,

It doesn't make you feel good.

There must be another reason and often the reason is that the other person isn't feeling good.

The other person is speaking from his or her not feeling good or what I call his or her wound and it's your wound that is responding and then both of you don't feel good.

So,

It's obviously a misunderstanding.

What is good to practice in stage 3 is meditation,

Slowing down and creating that stillness.

Creating the stillness to enjoy and expanding your capacity to enjoy.

Reflection.

Anything that has you dive into that calmness,

Where peace of mind is always prevalent.

Having access to that peace just by commanding your mind to go to the place where there is peace that is powerful indeed.

I hope that these 3 stages have been useful to you.

That you have identified what stage you're in and that you have picked one or more tools that you could start practicing now to start feeling more of that peace of mind.

Drop the overthinking and switch to start feeling good most of the time.

Please remember that it's never an all or nothing situation.

We all go through stages.

We've all been through all the stages and we've perhaps all had access to most of them but we go in and out of them and when we know how to identify these 3 stages we can choose the best tool to do something about them to shift us out of that turmoil,

Out of that overwhelm,

Out of that overthinking that 57% of women go into.

So over to you.

What are you going to do today to feel more of the peace of mind that is really what you want?

What are you going to do to train your mind not to focus on problems but to focus on solutions?

What are you going to do today to feel so much better?

Thank you for having listened.

I enjoyed talking to you immensely.

I hope to connect with you in the future.

Bye for now.