Recently I’ve learnt a new technique that I’m wholeheartedly applying to my life. I feel so happy and grateful for this and welcome it with open arms! Thanks to this discovery, I am currently processing great change in myself and my surroundings. I feel a positive shift within me, a sense of spaciousness forming, new energy being released and peacefulness arising. This is definitely a direction I want to go in!
My new and embraced technique I call ‘the Calmest Possible Option’. Simply because that is what it is. No matter what the situation is, how I am feeling, my environment or any of its involvement, I choose the Calmest Possible Option available to me. In exploring this technique I am already noticing that there is an abundance of options available to me and my once closed vision is widening.
In using an example of anger, if I feel angry in the presence of someone, perhaps it is something they say, instead of reacting immediately, impulsively, which was my default response and often led me somewhere lacking resolution or joy and to a great deal of counterbalancing actions, I now have a handy tool up my sleeve. This tool being a conscious and active choice of calmness. I choose peace. I throw in the towel of emotional bursts, flashes of rage, vicious words and backlash and I choose peace.
So there I am feeling angry, my body trembling, a rush of fury inside my belly and I take time to still myself. I detach myself, remove myself away from what is happening and I come to my breath. This may involve me physically taking myself out of the room or place that I am in, or by staying put but altering my focus, either way drawing in on my breath, a powerful force. I count around five deep breaths consciously slowing it down to a steady pace. This process allows me to immediately feel more calm and steady. It also gives me time and space to feel a gentle change taking place within me. I then in that moment recognise that I am in control of my actions, my choices, my words and I am able to choose my next step. A step that will soon become my past.
I can’t fully comprehend where this new awakening came from, but I can say that the timing is perfect. I had been feeling somewhat out of balance, uncertain and fearful of things around me, as though I had no say in the unfolding of my life. Such feelings are now being pushed out of me, as calmness sets in. I am experiencing feelings of freedom and strength as I choose how my behaviour and actions progress.
It is not an easy method to set in motion. Although it involves peace, quietness and time for reflection, it can be very difficult to detach yourself from a situation, a scene in the making and choose differently. It can be difficult to alter your reactions, your responses, the default mode you have set it place. And it can be difficult to let go of justification for emotional outbursts and cries of pain. But it is without a doubt an incredible tool to uncover, to recognise and to embrace.
I have been enjoying the recent process of putting the Calmest Possible Option into play. Just today I actually noted the exact moment I caught myself in an oncoming angry bolt. I felt my fierce emotions, the fire within my belly and something told me to step away, and so I did. In that moment where in the past I would feel uncontrollable, throwing judgments and losing my energy to a point of exhaustion, I chose otherwise, I told a different story. I choose peace. I thereby kept my energy reserves, put a new story into action and did something I didn’t previously know I had control of.
The Calmest Possible Option is not only something that you can apply in angry situations. You can choose to step away from moments of any kinds, such as sadness, over excitement, fear, worry, greed or even happiness. And you can decide to take a different step on your journey and create new behaviour patterns.
Sometimes we think that we just have to act in certain ways, that there is a justification for all that we do, and we’ll go on justifying this until we’re sick and tired of it. But this is not the case! We do not have to act in any such ways, we can choose what we do next.
It is an incredible vision if we think about what we would be saving in our lives if we just took time to think in the present moments we are in. We can save energy and time and friendship if we notice our current stories that we are playing in our lives. We often become so absorbed in what we are doing that we forget that we have choice, that we are choosing every way in which we move. We get ourselves in such states when we could in fact avoid them and have more peaceful times. We can change the dynamic of our relationships, our thoughts and create such healthy minds.
Are you choosing the Calmest Possible Option in the things that you do or say? Or are you setting things is motion for a Storm?
Choose peace. Choose calm without a storm.
