146. When Peace Feels Wrong: Healing After Chaos and Betrayal

Hello. Hello, my amazing, beautiful listeners. Welcome. Thanks for being here with me.

I really hope today's episode is helpful. It's a tricky one. It's a, it's an episode that I feel like is a little bit more nuanced than others. These episodes make me hesitate sharing because I worry so much when. When I speak, when I put stuff out there.

That someone's experience is going to feel invalidated or someone's gonna be listening going, yeah, but my experience, and I just have to keep reminding myself, like my therapist says, like everybody's different. I do know that even the things that I share and the concepts and principles that I share are also going to be interpreted so differently.

I hear that in comments when I get comments from people. About a certain episode, there'll be times when I'm like, oh yeah, I don't, I don't remember saying that, or I don't remember making that my point. But what we hear, what our brain offers, what our brain latches onto is exactly what our brain needs.

And that's one of the things that I love, even in brain spotting when I'm working with my clients. I will say. Your brain and body know what to heal, what to process, what to show you, and it knows when it's ready. sometimes concepts that I share over the podcast, your brain, your body might not be ready.

when it's not ready, it's gonna resist. When it's not ready, it's going to discount, it's going to reject. . I hope with this episode and any episode that you listen to, you take the parts that you need, the parts that help right now, oftentimes coming back and listening to different episodes, you'll get something different out of it because you're gonna be in a different place.

Your brain and body will be ready to hear something different in what I share. So also keep that in mind as well. Today I wanna talk about how to live in peace after chaos, and the reason why my brain did some gymnastics on this one, because I know some of you are in active chaos and truly feel like you're never gonna find peace again, I wanna validate that and I'm gonna try to keep validating and honoring different places and stages, that each of you are in. I know that ultimately, at least all of y'all that come to me will say like, I just wanna feel peace. I just wanna get to that place. Will I ever get to that place of peace again?

And so even those of you that might be looking to this episode and listening and in chaos, hopefully gives you hope that there is peace to come. In my experience there, and you've heard me say this so many times, I don't believe there's an arrival to any of this meaning. It's always a comma, not a period.

My mother likes to say that again. Yep. We're gonna just put a comma after that, not a period, because we're ongoing. We're ever changing. We're ever growing. We're ever learning. We're ever becoming. I think that's the beauty of being human, is that we get to evolve. We get to continue learning from our past.

Which is why it's those three principles of healing that I offer. Awareness, acceptance and agency are also not a period after that either. if ever you feel stuck, if ever you feel like you don't know what to do next. That first pillar of healing awareness always go back to that. It's like going back to the basics, going back to ground zero.

Whatever phrase suits you best. But if we become aware of what is happening rather than ignoring what is really happening and just focusing on the doing that often keeps us spinning and cycling in unhealthy patterns. So today is one of those where I feel like it's gonna be a bit cyclical. Because we are ever searching for that peace.

And oftentimes chaos will continue in these kinds of lifesaving divorces. We might have moments of peace. The chaos might look different. it might not be the same, But generally speaking, in this kind of divorce, the, the largest part of our chaos tends to die down. we might not necessarily be in the eye of the largest storm, so to speak, but we might be experiencing some of those aftershocks I grew up in, in, California. and we had earthquakes. And growing up it was always like the big earthquake. then the teachers or our parents would say, get ready for the aftershock, where it's not quite as big as the original earthquake, but it's still a little shaky.

that is, in all honesty, what I tend to see happen the most and what we experience, Again, overall, so many of you are asking this question and looking to know how to find peace after the chaos. Will there be peace after the chaos? sometimes when we're going through the eye of the storm, the hardest part, we're holding our breath, we're barely making it.

We're trying to just get by. I was thinking about this the other day. We had a really, really huge thunderstorm, and Texas doesn't get, I'll tell you the, the craziest thunderstorms that I have ever experienced in my life is when I lived in Kentucky. I lived in Kentucky for about 17 years which is why sometimes my little accent comes out, but.

Texas will have some pretty good thunderstorms, but nothing like Kentucky. So we're having a pretty doozy storm here in Texas, but it reminded me of the thunderstorms in Kentucky and how scary there were. We lived through, oh my gosh, so many tornadoes, tornado warnings. there were a couple times when I remember thinking, this is it.

Our roof's coming off. This is it. I don't know if we're gonna make it kind of moments where the weather and the elements outside were absolute chaos.

I mean so close where the street next to us actually had the touchdown I. I if you've never experienced this, for those of y'all that have never lived in a state where there are tornadoes or who have been close to a to tornado, or you've driven by where that tornado has touched down where you can hear it's so close, it sounds like a train.

It literally sounds like a train coming down your road and then aftermath of that destruction of their tornado is just indescribable. it's just hard to put words to honestly, unless you've seen it and when you've seen it on tv, it still does not do justice When you are walking through the rubble, and what the tornado decides to leave standing and what it decides to destruct is also really just mind blowing.

There can be an entire house ripped apart. One tree right next to that house looks like it hasn't even been touched.

I feel like my experience of going through a lifesaving divorce was like I. The chaos that the tornado of this kind of divorce brings in its path is just pure devastation.

what always blows my mind is how after one of these kinds of storms where The lightning is nonstop. The thunderclap makes you be your bands. You jump so high, the rumble sound of that tornado passing by again, sounding like a train can create so much damage. then the next morning the sky is blue. It's clear, it's crisp, it's as if nothing. Happened. When you look up to the sky after a tornado and you look around,

it is clear. It is beautiful. There's no sign of scary, of destruction, of chaos. But then you look down and you look around at the destruction and it is devastating. then it's cleanup time. It's time to get to work, it's time to help neighbors. It's time to clean up the mess and try to rebuild. But in the meantime, when all of this chaos is surrounding you, you're in shock. You're in survival mode, and similarly, when you're experiencing betrayal and abuse, that goes along with betrayal post-divorce.

Abuse is like a tornado ripping through your life. Sometimes the tornado isn't just one massive event. It's like I mentioned with the earthquake, it's smaller storms, one after another, inside your own home and inside your own relationship. I wanna share a little bit of my own experience here, because maybe you'll see parts of you in this as well, but in my old relationship, when I would share my feelings, share my feelings with my partner, uh, my heart, my hurt, uh, things that I, I.

Was experiencing things that he was doing where I felt hurt by, or I, wasn't feeling seen around. It was like calling down a storm. If I were to express that and share that, sometimes I'd try to keep it simple like how I felt hurt, ignored, or. Sometimes I would do a really good job at, spending days thinking about how I would present this hurt, how I would formulate the words to make it sound nicer, or it didn't come across as mean, or it didn't come across.

Now look, I I'm not saying that we don't need to, check our lens to which we are. Filtering our feelings through before we share. That's why I statements work. Here's what I'm noticing and here's what I'm making it mean. That kind of phrasing can really go a long way in a relationship. This was beyond that, right?

This, and many of you could relate to this. This was really double, triple checking the weather, so to speak, of trying to make sure that what I said was not gonna create a storm. I was not gonna create a tornado, yet out of nowhere, sometimes that tornado would come in rage. I remember one time specifically where we were supposed to have a date night, but we ended up stopping by his office at first, and I sat there waiting for an hour while he worked When I genuinely shared how I felt, how I was feeling ignored, and we were supposed to go on a date, and here I am sitting alone sharing how I felt about that unseen. Little bit dismissed. Uh, he came at me with a clenched fist. I moved fast enough that the hand slammed into an oak door instead of me, and he broke his hand that night.

where did I then find myself in a hospital? Comforting him. In fact, creating a story that we could tell friends our children, because the real story couldn't be told. What really happened had to stay silent. I was the one soothing, not only him, but creating a story to make sure others were soothed.

Others wouldn't know about what just happened. Others wouldn't know. that for a moment, a really scary tornado came at me and left some destruction. I was the one minimizing my own hurt and hiding the reality, I spun it into a playful incident to protect him and to protect myself. That night taught me something deep in my bones. That honesty about my feelings isn't safe in a relationship, that my feelings can cause harm, so don't have them and certainly don't express them.

I also learned that calm can't be trusted because it doesn't last and it's not really calm. I entered a cycle. If I share a feeling I get rage, then I apologize for needing or having a feeling. Trying harder to be better. Trying harder to do different. Say it different. Be different.

Hoping for calm only to get hit with the storm again. Over time, my nervous system learned to live raced it, learned to expect that even the calm wasn't real calm. It was just the eye of the storm. Temporary, too dangerous to trust. Fast forward years later, even after leaving the marriage, even after hiring a lawyer to act as a barrier, even after blocking his number.

Technically, I had space. Technically, I wasn't in the eye of that storm. Technically, I wasn't in line of that tornado destruction, but my nervous system didn't know that yet, I had found myself habitually checking my phone. Even though those messages were no longer coming through, I had them routed to my lawyer.

I was still feeling restless. I was still feeling very unsettled, unsafe because not knowing what he was thinking or planning or even accusing me of felt more dangerous than taking the blows. How many of you are in that spot right now where ignoring the text, not responding, not knowing where he is, not knowing what he is doing, not knowing how he is reacting, not knowing how he's responding to even the children because you're not there.

This feels more dangerous to your nervous system than to gray rock or yellow rock to let go. To ignore, to not concern yourself. It feels so much more dangerous. That's what a life in chaos does to you. It teaches you that. Being hit, knowing the hits coming, knowing what to expect.

And even if you dodge it and doesn't actually hit you, it's still there. You saw the fist. You know what to expect. That's better than being blindsided. when your body learns that even peace isn't peace at first, it's disorientation. When your body learns that peace isn't peace at first,

when you don't know what peace really is, when you haven't experienced that physiologically, when your central nervous system truly hasn't had enough time and space from the chaos. From the spin because you keep picking up the rope or the rope is tight around your throat. When your body does not know what that's like, when your central nervous system does not know what that's like.

When you get that space, when things start to calm down after the storm, it's not going to feel like peace in your body. At first. It's going to feel like disorientation. it's like pulling the blanket off of you that you used to cover you in the storm through that tornado.

as you lift that blanket off, you don't hear the train, you don't hear the thunder, you don't see the lightning, you don't feel the rain. you feel like it's safe to come out. You lift that blanket off of you and you look around and it's disorienting because you don't see a house, you don't see the car in the driveway, you don't see what's always been there. You don't see the pattern,

and it's disorienting. It's not going to immediately feel like peace when you start to hold your boundaries, when you start to move further and further away from this destructive relationship when less and less communication is necessary with your partner because you're not co-parenting your parallel parenting when more and more space between your life and his starts to be created when maybe he moves on And is ignoring you and not really coming at you as much because he's got another woman in his life. And so there's more and more distance. It is going to feel disorienting rather than peaceful at first. Many of you are gonna feel like you're standing in the silent battlefield and you're just waiting for that enemy that you can't see anymore.

But you know it's gotta come. When is it gonna come? your central nervous system. Is looking for, waiting for it. this is why so many of you are saying, I finally have space. I'm not in the storm anymore. Why don't I feel free yet? I'm divorced, the papers are signed. Why don't I feel free? Because your nervous system is still wired for chaos the space feels disorienting, not soothing. It took me years after my divorce to realize this.

I remember one day lying on my bed sobbing, not from fear, not from grief, but from relief because for the first time in decades, I could feel my own breath in my body. I could breathe without monitoring someone else's reactions. I could think my own thoughts, my feel, my own feelings without having to filter them, twist them.

Or worry that they would make me wrong or cause me harm. That was the day that I knew this is what real peace feels like. It was unfamiliar, it was breathtaking. It was mine. It was my peace. when the chaos ends, when you leave, when you divorce. You find yourself alone with access to calm. It is going to be strange.

Something strange is going to happen. Peace doesn't feel peaceful. It might feel wrong, unfamiliar, unsettling, even terrifying. This is when I oftentimes hear clients say, I'm afraid of being alone. I'm gonna be alone forever. They start clinging onto their children. They start worrying more about their children, trying to connect even more to their children, being more involved because of this disorienting feeling, we're still trying to find that sense of calm, but we're still trying to find it in other people or other things.

Now. I also want to pause here and say that again because I know some of you right now are listening and going, but Amy, I'm not in peace. My ex is still emotionally abusive. they're still chaos. He's still texting, constantly, dragging me in and out of court. Manipulating the kids, violating boundaries.

That doesn't feel like a calm sky. You're absolutely right. That is real. That is valid for so many of you. Leaving doesn't seem like the end of abuse. Sometimes it's just changing its form, you might still be caught in the whirlwind of all of that, because you're constantly being pulled back into it because he knows exactly which strings to tug at, which ropes to pull and yank and wrap around you.

Here's what I want you to consider, that even when the chaos does slow down, even when you don't have to respond to his, to his text messages, or check the shared calendar every day, or answer the phone every time he calls, your body might still be operating as if you do. Your central nervous system may still be living in the storm even when you're technically out of it.

sometimes we don't even realize that we're still bracing for that impact. We don't recognize the calm because we've been programmed not to trust it. And for those of you that have complex trauma where this has also been part of your growing up experience,

holy moly, of course you're not going to feel or know what calm or peace really is. Here's something that might be hard to admit. But I say this with so much love and zero judgment, sometimes we will even seek out chaos because it's what's familiar. It's what our nervous system's been wired to expect. It can feel strangely comforting even when it's destructive.

How might that look? Checking a social media, even though it triggers you responding to texts that you don't need. To respond to, there was an episode I did with family court lawyer and judge, Michelle Locke, where she was even talking about how few things we really do need to legally respond to, but your body doesn't know that your central nervous system doesn't know that many of you were replaying arguments in your head and imagining new ones. What I should have could have said creating conflict even with safe people because real calm doesn't feel safe, feels too much, something's wrong. This doesn't mean if you're relating to this, this does not mean you're doing something wrong. It means your system is trying to stay in the pattern that it knows. It's trying to feel safe by doing what it's always done, even if it's not actually safe.

Going to the hospital and caring for him and making sure that he's not mad anymore creating a story to tell everybody to make sure that nobody knows what really happened was safe.

That was calm, that was peace when we could laugh. Ha. Oh my gosh. Isn't that a funny? What a great story you just made up. Good job. Ha ha, ha. then we try it out on the doctor, and the doctor laughs. It works. My nervous system was rewired that way. Becoming aware of it is the first most powerful step, first pillar of healing.

Because now, because You can choose differently. You get to teach your body what real peace feels like, not the chaos disguised as connection that you have lived in and with for so long.

this is why it is imperative for those of you who are, who are unfamiliar with what real central nervous system piece feels like. To not get into another relationship. Unless you have been able to rewire your central nervous system, somebody else will not rewire that Now I say that and I have experienced and will say that when you can experience a, an emotionally corrective experience with someone else, it can help rewire a central nervous system.

But only because that of how that person is showing up in their own life. We're not doing this because someone is making us feel a certain way. when we do start to create safety with ourself and we connect with other people who have their own secure attachment style, the way that they show up in their life can help us learn what regulation feels like.

Sometimes this happens often in sessions when a client is highly activated when her central or his central nervous system is spinning I stay regulated in my own central nervous system, it slowly can start to help my client regulate. Because I'm not getting worked up too. I'm not getting defensive.

I'm not getting offended. I'm not being judgy. I am staying regulated and strong and grounded in my own body, and naturally it helps the other person in front of me start to regulate themself. This is all still about learning how to self-regulate.

what I'm really wanting to validate , I guess, is the space that I know I experienced and I see so many of my clients experience where they're coming out of the chaos and it feels like peace. What you're most likely experiencing is not real peace, but the absence of the chaos. there's a difference between what real peace feels, feels like versus just absence of chaos.

I hope that I can help you start to introduce what that calm, peaceful, central nervous system in a healthy way, uh, feels like, and how you can very slowly. Gently introduce that into your body

into a body that isn't quite sure perhaps what to do with that just yet.

Because right now your nervous system is most likely prioritizing survival. Over safety still in many areas of your life. What does that look like?

Chronic fight, flight or dorsal? Shut down. Freeze collapse. State hypervigilance, hypervigilance as a default, you are always scanning for danger. Even in the quiet. Maybe you're going through the grocery store and you're still scanning the aisle for. That threat. Maybe it's a woman that's a threat, maybe it's a man that's a threat.

Maybe it's an ad on the magazine in the checkout line that is still feeling like a very deep threat. this part of you is Hyper vigilantly attuned to that and trying to still protect you. You might have a lot of dopamine, cortisol patterns That wired you to crave the highs and the lows of trauma bonding

because your brain has begun to believe that alert always on alert is alive and calm is unsafe. going back to that example that I gave you that I experienced when he broke his hand, it, we were in the hospital, we're making up a story to cover, we're joking, we're laughing. Uh, and that felt calm because it wasn't the other side of the pendulum where he's coming at me with a fist. So in short, because peace, genuine, calm, and peace, because that isn't familiar, it's not gonna feel safe just yet. It's gonna feel weird and if you do start to experience it, say with, say you meet a healthy person, it's gonna feel weird.

You might even question whether or not this person is, is legit, is real, is fake. You might misinterpret their intention. When you're in this space, Maybe you can relate to some of this where, you might be in the, you might be experiencing calm and peace in a relationship, and it's gonna feel boring. Because he's kind and consistent, or maybe you're always waiting for the next shoe to drop, whether you're in a relationship, whether just in life, on a, on a day-to-day basis, do you find yourself just bracing against peace and calm because your system is waiting for the next hit.

Maybe it's calm and it's quiet and that feels very unsettling, or you find yourself constantly feeling anxious, and as you lean into anxious and kind of get curious about it, there's really no present day reason to feel anxious. This is just your system doing what your system knows to do.

Again, these aren't signs that something's wrong with you. This is your nervous system trying to learn a new language because it wasn't taught this language in chaos.

So how do we learn? To recognize and adjust our nervous system to peace Well,

I think first, the good news is that it can, your system can adapt, just like it adapted to survival and chaos. It can relearn how to settle into safety. First, we gotta see the pattern. We have to name it, call it out, say it out loud. If and anytime you can saying out loud, like it makes sense that peace feels unfamiliar when chaos is all my body knows.

Being able to first be aware

I'm not doing peace wrong just because it feels uncomfortable. I am relearning. I'm in a relearning phase. Being able to name the pattern, call it out, and then lovingly talk your way through it. The other thing you can do is start creating these micro moments of safety, because again, I wanna validate that some of you are still actively experiencing abuse from the other partner.

Depending on where you're at in your journey, many of you still might be in conflict, especially if you're going through that tricky divorce mediation where a lot of times those behaviors amp up. I still stand by what I said before. I think there's a lot of chaos. You know, tornado storm that we put ourselves in or allow ourselves to be in when we really don't have to.

But again, we're still navigating the familiarity of it and don't quite know how to get out of it. I don't say that with judgment or even like you shouldn't be in that space. I just think it's good to recognize that you don't have to be in there. Uh, I didn't know that. I'll just be honest. If I look back on my court days, it was so chaotic.

It was absolutely chaotic, and I felt very, very powerless. It's easy for me to look back now and realize and recognize that there were a lot of things that I was scared of. Where fear really guided me and led me, because of that paralyzing fear, because of the, the threats, empty threats, but threats nonetheless, when my system was so used to that, it just needed to amp up more and guard and protect more.

I don't regret it. I don't fault myself for it. It's just good to look back. Realize that I really did have way more power than I knew, so I couldn't give that to myself at the time. I'm just offering that to you so that you can maybe pause and recognize that you have more power than perhaps you're allowing yourself to believe that you do.

right now, creating these micro moments of safety can be really empowering and helpful. Moments where your body can start to practice, what real healthy peace looks like. Wrapping your A blanket around you and just breathing slowly in a space that is yours and a space that you can look around and look at the walls, the boundaries, the space that you're in and encompassing you, feeling the points of contact of your body maybe sitting in the couch or in your bed.

having something very tangible to hold onto like a blanket, uh, and, and wrapping that blanket around you and being with your breath feeling that genuine sense of calm in your body can create a micro moment of safety.

Lighting a candle. I know that sounds so simple. Almost too simple. But lighting a candle just sitting with the candle. As you watch the flame as you watch, the flames slowly burn, and you watch the wax get hot and melt dissipate. Feeling that sense of calm in your body, placing your hands on your heart, letting your hands feel the beat of your heart pressing into your heart just enough to feel the beat of your heart and saying, I am safe.

In this moment. Those of you who have pets, how many of you have pets how many of you have watched your pet sleep? I have a little dog. She's a little multi poo. She's actually, if you are watching me on YouTube, she's snuck in my office and she's sitting right there. Her little, her little yellow bows.

But just right now, for those of you who are on YouTube, you can do this with me right now. Looking at her sleep. She's curled up in my chair, pressed into that crevice of the chair. Notice her little face is shoved up into that chair, and you probably can't really see it on video, but watching her body rise and fall with every breath that she takes, there's something very, very real about, pets and how they can help us heal.

They can help us regulate. they don't have the same central nervous systems that we do, they can really help us regulate when we are dysregulated. So if you have a pet, not sure about a cat. I don't. It's been a long, it's been several. It has been several years since I've had a cat and I don't remember a cat calling me. I remember my cat just.

In psycho, but , this little puppy here. it's been really beautiful to watch her with my kids. No, you don't have to get a pet. But if you do, then this is another way.

Very simple, very easy, very cheap micro. Moment of feeling that safety and that peace in your central nervous system when you can slow it down, these are those glimmers that gently start to rewire your system. Another thing that you can practice is learning to distinguish peace. From boredom or numbness. 'cause this, oh my gosh, I cannot tell you how many times, clients will get stuck here or confused. And it's easy to do, like I said, when you have had so much chaos, you're in that interim of trying to navigate all of this, this can be a little confusing.

Because if it's not chaos. It's easy to assume that it must be peace and then you feel confused, numb, or even disappointed.

in betrayal and relational trauma, your body learned how to cope through that protection. Not presence, not being in the present moment. It was living in that protective mode. So when things finally slowed down, or at least get less volatile, it is common to think that maybe this is peace.

Many of you who literally lived in that abuse cycle, this is what we call the honeymoon space. It feels like things are calm. It feels like things are going well. Many of you lived in that space, in that cycle for so long, and this honeymoon phase quote, calm kept you in the relationship for quite a while because you can experience that honeymoon phase or that calm for quite some time.

Some of you, even a couple years before an incident would repeat itself and you're back in the cycle, it can be really confusing.

Because in all honesty, it wasn't actually calm that I'm trying to help you recognize today. It was still part of the abuse cycle.

This is where a lot of you were love bombed. Manipulated gaslit.

the emotional numbness is that protective part, stepping in to keep you from feeling too much. It's the dissociation, that feeling of foggy or checked out or disconnected. It's the shutdown or the freeze response that feels quiet, but it's not grounded. even boredom, can be easily confused with peace because without drama or those emotional spikes, the system is understimulated and uncomfortable.

So to be clear. Peace is not the same as numbness. Calm is not the same as collapse, and boredom is not the same as safety.

When you've been driving 90 miles an hour for years. Adrenaline always pumping cortisol, always going, always scanning for road crashes, and then suddenly you're told to take the exit ramp and drive 25 miles an hour. Your whole system is like, uh, is this it? This feels weird. This feels slow. Something is wrong.

That discomfort is not a sign that something's wrong. It's a sign that you're slowing down your just body just doesn't know how to be in that new rhythm yet.

True peace. It isn't loud. True peace doesn't demand your attention. It doesn't come with fireworks. It's subtle but strong. It's spacious. There's room to breathe, room to feel, room to think. It's gentle because it doesn't rush you. It's steady because it's not about just feeling good all the time. It's emotional consistency.

It's quiet, but very grounded because it doesn't feel like you're shutting down. It feels like you're anchored but if you are feeling, uh, flat or uninspired or checked out just like you're going through the motions. That's not peace. That's likely a protective response doing its job again to keep you safe while you heal How do we notice the difference?

Ask yourself, when I feel calm, do I feel connected to myself? Am I present or am I checked out? Is there, uh, is there a softness in my body or just empathy? Do I feel curious? Do I feel curious about my inner world or am I muting it out? Am I ignoring it? Shoving it?

Another thing that you can do To start cultivating real peace is using those somatic anchors. Peace is a body experience, not just a mindset, not just a thought. try pressing your hands together, like you're praying. And if you can't see me on YouTube, it's putting your hands together like a prayer and pushing them together.

Push, push, push, push, push, push, push five seconds. Release, push, push, push, push, push five seconds. Release. When you do that, you might notice yourself, I just did it. You might notice yourself do a little bit of a gasp, a little bit of a jolt or a breath or a reset, maybe even a yawn. That's your central nervous system starting to calm down.

You can also name five things that you can see right now. I like colors. I always, this is always my go-to. Just starting to name colors until I get that deep breath. So I'll just start yellow, red. Brown. Sometimes it might be red, yellow, brown, white, blue, right? Notice that there's some intensity behind that, and I'll keep doing that until I start to say In Slower.

Slower. Or I notice that white, that deep breath that's automatic is your central nervous system doing a little bit of a reset. Another little trick somatically is humming or gargling. This activates your vagus nerve. I cannot tell you how much singing saved me. It absolutely saved me.

That's why I love music. It's why I love songs. having a mood playlist because when you need to get in your body and experience a little bit more of that piece,

singing, humming, moving those vocal chords or garing with water, activates that vagus nerve and it starts to settle it down. The other thing that of course I'm going to mention because I love it. I love it, I love it. Brain spotting. Brain spotting if you are able to utilize that modality.

I love it. And the way I do it, I incorporate Alexander deep brain reorienting techniques along with that where again, we're really getting into your body, we're squeezing your body, we're releasing some of that shock. Allowing your body to ground and be in a safe space. The last thing I'll offer is give peace a personality, get playful.

What if peace is a part of you? What if it's wise, warm, and shows up with gentleness? what would this part say to you? What would this part look like? What would she sound like?

What would this part never, ever rush you into? This can be especially Powerful for those of you who do work with parts Leaning into this part because peace may feel very foreign, like a very foreign part of you. So we need to become familiar with this part over time.

first to be very clear, I. Peace is not perfection.

It doesn't mean that you're not busy doing life or free from conflict. Peace is the absence of threat in the body. It is a softness in your inner world where you have access to connect to your higher self. Peace is the ability to pause and not be hijacked by that panic, even if chaos is existing outside of you, and peace is trusting your body enough to rest, even if it's just for a moment.

I still to this day have this sticky note. I usually filter through sticky notes quite often, but the one that I have that is by my bedroom door light switch is stop. Breathe and go in peace. When I see that it is that reminder to pause, to stop, to slow down, to take a breath and be with my body and connect to my breath, then I can move forward and I can move forward, connected to myself.

That is peace. It is not a performance. It is being present. Present with you. You did what you had to do to survive the chaos, so I hope that there is zero judgment parks showing up for you. If they are, please ask them to sit down over here with my Stella on the chair and take a break because it is not useful.

You did what you had to do to survive the tornado. The tornado that you didn't choose. Your nervous system is brilliant. It protected you, but now you don't have to survive. Now you get to heal, and healing means showing your body what peace feels like. You have to learn it. It is your responsibility, your opportunity, your right, your privilege to start showing your body what peace feels like.

Not just once, over and over until it starts to trust that quiet until it starts, until it starts to trust you. You are not broken because peace feels uncomfortable. You are healing because you're staying with it anyway. You're moving forward.

  📍 You're moving forward as the chooser, and you get to choose moments of peace and experience that because you can take care everybody.