Finding Peace Amid The Storm

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Some days it can feel as though stress is coming at us from every direction. From family life, to work life, to the ongoing influx of news and social media, it can seem very difficult to find peace among the storm of stress. Thankfully, increasing the peace in our lives can be easier than we tend to think!

Here are three More2Life Hacks for increasing peace in your daily life:

Don’t Confuse Quiet & Peace–When things are going badly, we have a tendency to want to escape, to just ignore the problems and runaway. The temptation to do this is understandable, but it’s problematic because it assumes quiet and peace are the same thing. They’re not. Quiet is just the absence of conflict. That doesn’t SOUND like a bad thing, but if all we do is avoid conflict, eventually the problems pile up and cause even more stress, worry, and anxiety.  St Augustine said that peace is actually “the tranquility that results from right order.”  If we want peace, we have to work for it. We have to actively address the problems in our lives, address the conflicts, and make a plan for handling our responsibilities. Peace does not come from running away or pretending things are OK when they’re not. It comes from doing what’s necessary to make sure our relationships are genuinely loving and that we are being responsible for maintaining our corner of God’s kingdom.

Find Your Center–Peace is not just what happens when all our problems finally go away. That’s called “death.” But here’s the good news. You don’t have to wait for the end of your life to find peace, you can actually find it right now, even in the middle of the crazy. Peace doesn’t come from outside us. It comes from maintaining your center in the middle of the storm. How do you do that? You hold on to God. You reach out to the people who love you. And you work hard to remember what it means to be your best self in this moment. If you want to increase your peace when your stress temperature is starting to rise ask yourself three questions. 1) How can I know that God loves me right now and how can I draw closer to that love? 2) What do I need to do to remember that the people in my life love me and how can I draw closer to their love? 3) What would I need to do to love myself by acting more like my best self right now– even if I don’t feel like it? These questions will help you find your center and claim your peace even when Satan and the whole world seems to be aligned against you.

Practice Surprise-Proofing–We often lose peace because we underestimate our capacity to be surprised by the same goshdarn problems happening over and over again. We pretend that that thing that irritated us yesterday is gone for good, and then we’re SHOCKED!  Shocked I tell you, that that same problem had the audacity to show up again. Peaceful people practice surprise proofing. They make a note of the things that didn’t go according to plan. They assume that those things are going to happen again. They make a plan for how they are going to learn from their experience and handle it even better next time. And finally, they mentally rehearse their plan in the times before those problems are most likely to occur.  No, we can’t plan for everything. But we can learn from our experience and often, that’s enough. Being mindful in this way allows us to anticipate problems, see them as opportunities for growth, and then head them off at the pass instead of allowing the same problems to bushwhack us again and again, making us feel foolish and incompetent.

For more on how to increase your peace, check out God Help Me! This Stress Is Driving Me Crazy! and be sure to tune in to More2Life—weekdays, 10am E/9am C—on EWTN, SiriusXM channel 130!

Be Still My Anxious Heart

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Anxiety comes in all shapes and sizes. It can be a creeping whisper or an overwhelming feeling. No matter how it presents itself, the feeling of anxiety can be intrusive and disruptive to our daily lives. So how do we calm our anxious hearts?

Theology of the Body reminds us that anxiety is not God’s will for us. Before the Fall, even though Adam and Eve were completely vulnerable, they were confident in God’s care and their love for one another. Only AFTER the Fall, when they were separated from God, each other, and themselves did they feel exposed, ashamed, and ANXIOUS. Confronted by the bigness of the world and their own sense of smallness and insufficiency when separated from God they hid cowering behind the bushes. How often do we feel that way. TOB reminds us that while worry and anxiety are common enough experiences in the modern world, the answer to our worries is to recenter ourselves in the loving arms of ABBA, daddy, the Father who loves us, cares for us, and shelters us from the storms of life–especially when we feel alone, scared, and helpless.  That’s why Pope Saint John Paul II, was constantly reminding us “Be Not Afraid.” Yes, the task before us is great, but God’s love and providence is greater. In the face of life’s battles, let our battle cry be, “ Jesus I trust in You!”

Here are three More2Life hacks for combating anxiety:

Focus on the Right Target–Resist the temptation to think that your anxiety is caused by all the things going on around you or happening to you–the overwhelming amount of work that has to be done, the weight of all your responsibilities, the problems that you face. Yes, these are real things that need to be taken seriously, but they can’t cause anxiety in and of themselves. Anxiety is created in us when we let external events distract us from the need to maintain our internal sense of wellbeing. If you are feeling anxious, it is not because you have too much to do or too many problems to face. It is because you are forgetting to take care of yourself in the face of those responsibilities and problems. Instead of focusing exclusively on all the external things that need to be addressed, ask yourself, “What do I need to do to take care of myself while I handle these situations?  How will I pace myself?  How can I approach these challenges in a way that will allow me to stay reasonably cheerful and connected to the people that I love? How will I face all the things I have to deal with in a way that allows me to be my best self–mentally, physically and spiritually?” Don’t brush these questions aside and say, “I can’t worry about that. I have too much to do!” It is exactly that tendency that causes anxiety. Remember, you can’t solve any problem or accomplish any task well if you are allowing yourself to get rattled, sick, hostile, and stressed. The MOST important job you have to do is make sure you are keeping your head and health about you even while you handle all the things life is throwing at you.

Tame the Tornado–When we’re worried and anxious, our mind spins between “I have to get control of this!” and “There’s nothing I can do!” Tame this mental tornado not by focusing on the ultimate solution, but merely the next step. What is the next tiny step you can take that nudges you toward a satisfying resolution, gathers new resources, and enlists more support? If you can refocus enough to identify the next step, then the next, and the next, God will help you tame the tornado in your mind and help you find the answers–and the peace–you seek. Don’t try to solve the whole problem at once. Focus your mind on addressing the next tiny step in front of you and then celebrating that small success. The more you concentrate on breaking big problems down into bite-sized pieces and celebrating the little successes you achieve along the way, the more your peace will increase.

Recall God’s Mercy–We often get anxious because we allow the stress of this moment to obliterate our memories of all the other things we’ve been through, all the other times God saved us, supported us, and carried us even though we thought we were overwhelmed, doomed, or done for. Before throwing yourself into this next pile or problems, take a moment to remind yourself of all the past times in your life when you felt overwhelmed, stressed, defeated, and not up to the task and remember how God helped you make it through all those past times, even when you weren’t sure how you were going to do it. Chances are, at least some of those situations turned out really well. At the very least, you made it through. In both cases, God was present and he provided for you. Remind yourself that this time isn’t any different. God loves you. He has demonstrated his love to you by delivering you from your troubles and overwhelming responsibilities time and time again. Bring that love with you into this latest challenges. When you start feeling anxious, take a moment to close your eyes, thank God for all the times he has carried you through your past worries and ask him for the grace to face the challenges in front you with courage and peace. The more you remember to intentionally recenter yourself in God’s mercy, providence, and grace–especially in the middle of all the craziness–the more your peace will increase.

For more on how to calm the anxiety in your heart, tune in to More2Life—weekdays 10am E/9am C on SiriusXM 130 or check out God Help Me This Stress Is Driving Me Crazy!

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Coming Tues 5/7 on More2Life Radio: SERENITY NOW! The Quest for Peace.

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COMING TUES ON More2Life–SERENITY NOW!  We all want peace in our hearts and in our relationships.  But peace is hard to find and we often settle for quiet.  There’s an important difference between the two, however, and mere quiet can never satisfy our hunger for true peace.

 

Today on More2Life we’ll look at the quest for peace.   We’ll explore what peace really is and what it takes to create it in our hearts and in our lives.

 

M2L FB Q of the D:  Where would you like to have more peace in your life and what is keeping it from you?

Call in from Noon-1pm Eastern (11am-Noon C) at 877-573-7825 with your questions about creating a more peaceful life.

 

Can’t get M2L on a Catholic radio station near you? YOU CAN STILL HEAR US!
~ Listen via our FREE AveMariaRadio IPhone or Android App (Check your app store!),
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How Do We Respond to Moral Failures?

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Over on the Patheos Atheist Channel, Dan Fincke of Forward Thinking asks an interesting question….

How and when (if ever) should we take it upon ourselves to punish someone in our lives for a moral failure? How does this vary depending on various possible relationships we might have to the the morally guilty party? Consider, for example, how or whether we might punish our friends, our partners, our parents, our colleagues, strangers we encounter, etc. What sorts of values and principles should guide us when we presume to take it upon ourselves to be moral enforcers?

For the traditional Christian (as opposed to the po-mo Christian, for example) the answer is love.  We have absolutely no right to “punish” people for moral failings (c.f., Matt 5:7; 7:1).  “Punish” comes from the Latin root, “punire”  meaning, “to inflict pain.”  It is simply not our place to inflict more pain on a guilty person than they are already experiencing in their guilt.

That said, we do have a right, and even an obligation rooted in love (defined as the commitment to work for the good of others) and justice (defined as the virtue that ensure that each person receives what is rightfully theirs), to hold people accountable to themselves (if their moral failing hurts them) and/or to us (if their moral failing has damaged us or our relationship.

But holding someone accountable–in the classical Christian context–simply means seeing that the person is committed to healing the damage caused by their actions and, ideally, giving them the skills to not make the same mistake again. This is the heart of the principle of “restorative justice” which has deep roots in Catholic Social teaching and forms the basis of the Christian response to both personal and social failings.  But what does all this look like in practice in your life and relationships?

The old Ignatian practice of “charitable interpretation” can be helpful here.  Rooted in the idea of loving the sinner bur hating the sin, Charitable interpretation doesn’t mean making excuses for bad behavior.  Traditionally, it means attempting to interpret another person’s behavior in the most reasonably generous way possible, while still being willing to address any issues/problems that stem from the behavior.

One way to apply the principle of Charitable Interpretation is to assume that every behavior, even the obnoxious, irritating, frustrating, sinful, and destructive behaviors, represent someone’s flawed attempt to meet an otherwise positive intention or need.  If I can work with someone to figure out what they were trying to do, and give them more efficient, more respectful ways to meet that intention or need, the bad behavior should go away. It isn’t always quite that easy, but even in more complicated situations, the process is fairly straightforward.   Generally speaking if you help someone find a more efficient, less offensive, way of meeting their needs, they are more than willing to take it.

For instance, if a dad  tends to yell at his kids, often it’s because he doesn’t have a better way to get them to behave.  If someone can help that dad find a more effective way to parent that doesn’t involve yelling, he can stop yelling.  Or, if a friend indulges in some offensive habit, it’s usually to meet some need (cope with stress, bid for help or attention, etc.)  If I can help my friend identify the need and help him find a more efficient, less offensive way to meet the need, the obnoxious habit should stop.

Again, it’s rare that things are ever this straightforward and I talk about how to apply these principles at some length in my book, God Help Me, These People Are Driving Me Nuts!  Making Peace with Difficult People.  But the bottom line is that the Christian can do a lot more good by helping an offender find more efficient and godly ways to meet the needs that underlie moral failings than we can by inflicting pain on the offender.   It’s all part of the way we cooperate with God’s grace as we seek to create a healthy peace between us and others.  A peace that is grounded in justice and love.