Returning to peace: The comeback rate.
When I started pursuing life coaching, part of me started to think that meant that I had to “have it all together” before I could take on clients. For seven years I have been studying wellness and living the work that I want to share with others. But often I would find that the more work I did on myself / the more I dove into my spiritual practices / the more I studied / the more I pursued coaching, the more I would ask myself who am I to give people advice?! There was still so much I could work on that was coming up for me, how could I guide people and help them when I am still working on this myself?
This brought me back to one of my favorite mantras. “You are at peace and you bring peace with you wherever you are.”
Every stage of our life offers new challenging information, experiences and relationships. When it comes to overall wellness and feeling better, people often think that it means that we have to feel good all of the time. That we have to be able to perfectly handle every situation, obstacle or feeling. That we have to let things slide right off our back without a care or negative feeling about them whatsoever. That if we slip back into old belief patterns it means that all of the work we did had no impact.
The truth is, healing and being the best version of yourself actually means that you can embrace your imperfections / negative emotions / your setbacks / your mistakes. It means that you move through them & develop a comeback rate that is quicker with each slip.
In my journey through anxiety, I would have days where I felt great. I would think okay, this is finally working! Then one day I would fall back into my anxious thought processes and tell myself “here we go again”. I would start to doubt myself and my progress. What I eventually began to notice was that the more I committed to doing the work, the more I applied myself and the more I believed that I was capable, the quicker I was able to return to peace. Eventually my anxiety was no longer anxiety. It was just another feeling I could recognize and move through confidently.
You do not need to be perfect to feel good. What matters is how quickly you can re-align yourself. Eventually your ability to move past your obstacles becomes much more efficient & instead of going into the “here we go again mentality” or reacting blindly, you can quickly choose a better feeling thought or action within seconds.
Perfection is not the goal. It is not to be at peace all of the time. The goal is to be your imperfect self and to carry peace with you wherever you go. To be able to return to it, fast. To know that whatever comes up is going to be okay because you have the tools and practices to navigate them mindfully.