QUESTION
When I'm confronted with a challenging person or situation, I feel robbed of my inner peace. How can I remain grounded?
ANSWER
Inner peace is a quality we seek in faith, meditation, yoga, exercise, our any deep hobby where we can deeply focus. Challenge—whether we encounter it in others or situations—disrupts the kind of focus that grounds us, leaving us unsettled. The key is to be able to ground yourself wherever you are, in whatever circumstances you find yourself.
Inner peace begins the moment you choose not to allow another person or event to control your emotions. – Pema Chodron, American Tibetan Buddhist nun
It can be hard to be remain grounded when we’re confronted by challenge and change. For example, if we experience someone we are working with to be under-performing, it's hard to be curious and understand why that may be happening. It might be harder still to think we might play any part in their performance. But what if we do?
We're human, and we fall short. We get easily irritated. We can be quick to judge. We allow ourselves to get easily frustrated by others' shortcomings even though we show remarkable tolerance with our own. We are imperfect people in an imperfect world. We have imperfect parents, elect to be with imperfect partners, work for imperfect bosses, mix with imperfect colleagues, and have imperfect friends. Sometimes we inherit troubles from imperfect people. Sometimes we create imperfect situations all on our own. In either case, patience helps. We have to find patience for others' shortcomings as well as our own.
For most of us, when we find ourselves under pressure, patience is hard to summon. We'd rather give in to the release that irritation or frustration offer because it gives us a release. The chemical epinephrine is rapidly produced by the adrenal gland when a person experiences frustration, anger, or other forms of stress. When we are challenged or under pressure, we want a release from that feeling. We want action—fight or flight. Something. Anything.
Patience is a quality of emotional equilibrium—and to develop, it requires constant practice. Our aim is to find a neutral equilibrium. Neutrality is where we enjoy the highest creativity, where we see the most alternatives to instant reactivity. It is the state of mind where we have the emotional distance and perspective to think to ourselves, “I could have tried…” “Next time I might try….”
Sometimes frustration can help lead us to a helpful shift in strategy. When we find we are spending too long trying to crack a bad nut, our survival demands we move on to another one. Frustration can also lead us astray and destroy persistence. Patience helps determine the best decision.
MORE THOUGHTS…
You find peace not by rearranging the circumstances of your life, but by realizing who you are at the deepest level. – Eckhart Tolle, German author
If there is to be any peace it will come through being, not having. – Henry Miller, American author and playwright
Meditation is not a way of making your mind quiet. It is a way of entering into the quiet that is already there – buried under the 50,000 thoughts the average person thinks every day. – Deepak Chopra, American author
Peace is liberty in tranquility. – Marcus Tullius Cicero, Roman statesman and philosopher
The nearer a man comes to a calm mind, the closer he is to strength. — Marcus Aurelius, Roman emperor and Stoic philosopher
REMEMBER
Inner peace is a resource that is always available to us, even under the most intense life pressures. Patience is a quality of emotional equilibrium—and to develop, it requires constant practice. Our aim is to find a neutral equilibrium. Neutrality is where we enjoy the highest creativity, where we see the most alternatives to instant reactivity.
PRACTICE
When you're confronted by challenging people or situations, it is hard to remain grounded. Challenge yourself to think through the last hour. How many interactions did you enter with a mind for peace?
CONNECT
Talk to a friend or trusted colleague about how each interaction we have is about either perpetuating the idea of peace or disrupting it.
REFLECT
If you keep a journal for your own development, write down your thoughts about the ways you can find peace and keep it.
NEXT
To perform well while under pressure, we need to train our minds to work more effectively. Making the right decisions, whether that is hashing out how artificial intelligence will evolve or ensuring naval ships are ready on time takes practice.
Driving Results With Others: A pocket guide for learning on the job enables you with all the tools and tactics you need to make your interactions less stressful and more effective.