How To Finally Find Peace Every Day.

One of the greatest skills that you can develop in your lifetime is the ability to protect your inner peace. Because life is never going to stop being unpredictable. There will always be stress. There will always be uncertainty. There will always be bad news. There will always be difficult people. And there will be moments that test your nervous system. And if your inner peace depends on everything outside of you going perfectly, then you will spend your entire life emotionally unstable. And so today I want to teach you how to build peace no matter what the circumstances in your life are. And the reason why I wanted to do this episode is because of something that happened to me this past Saturday. And so I'm going to tell you this story, and then I want to teach you what I learned from this story, okay? It was this past Saturday morning. I'm sitting outside on my back porch. I had my coffee in my hand. The sun was out. My son was sitting on my lap. It was calm and peaceful and beautiful. And we're just looking out of my back porch. My house backs up to 2,000 acres of protected land. And so I'm just looking at this beautiful moment, this beautiful view sitting in my son on my lap, right? I'm enjoying the moment. And then my phone buzzes, and I get a text message from someone on my team. And the text said, hey, I think your Instagram account just disappeared. And I'm immediately like, the hell do you mean my Instagram account disappeared? So I open up my phone. I go to Instagram, and it says, your account has been disabled. Boom, just like that. Overnight, it was just gone. No warning. 1.7 million followers, 11 years of growing it, over 11,000 posts, and millions of dollars in revenue in my business each year are connected to my social media. All of that was gone. And instantly, I could feel it happen inside of my body, right? Fear, anxiety, stress. I could literally feel those emotions rising up inside of me that I felt so many times. And then my brain started doing what brains do. It immediately started projecting itself into the future and asking myself terrible questions like, what if I don't get it back? What if this messes up the business? What if we lose all of our revenue? What if this screws everything up? What am I going to do? I've put so much work in this, I can't believe that it's gone. And then I started getting pissed off about how much work I put into it, and it's just gone, and I can't even control it. And my body started becoming dysregulated. My chest got tighter. My nervous system started activating. My mind was racing all over the place. You ever felt this way? Does it sound familiar? Have you done this before? The crazy part about all of this is that none of the things that my mind was projecting into the future and thinking were possibly going to happen, none of them were actually happening in that moment. My mind was creating a false future, and my body was taking what my mind was coming up with and imagining the fake scenarios that didn't exist, and feeling those feelings. Like my body was reacting to those imaginary futures in real time. My body was suffering over things that weren't actually truly happening. I was still sitting outside in the sun with my coffee in a beautiful day, just looking the view, my son and I just hanging out. But because I've been doing this work now for 20 years, I noticed my body was shifting. I noticed my mind was doing something, and I noticed my brain leaving the present moment. And so I noticed it starting to drag me into fear, into uncertainty, into catastrophic thinking. And I had this moment where I said, okay, hold on, and we will be right back. Hey, real quick, let me interrupt this episode. I have a huge announcement. I have an in-person event, three days, this year in Austin, Texas, happening. If you want to learn more about it, you can join the waitlist right now. And the people who join the waitlist will get the biggest discounts and the cheapest prices for this three-day event. You can go to freedomwaitlist.com or you can scan that QR code that's right there. And now back to the show. So I did what I typically do whenever I notice myself getting dysregulated or leaving the present moment. I breathe in, and then I hummed out. And I did it for a few minutes, and I closed my eyes, and I tried to pull myself out of my head and bring myself back into my body, back into the present moment. I can feel the sun on my skin. I could smell the coffee. I could taste the coffee. I could hear the birds chirping outside. I could hear my son making his little noises. I could feel him sitting on my lap. And I asked myself a question that's changed my life over the years. And the question is this, what's actually true right now? What's actually true? Not what I fear, not what could happen, not the stories, not the projections that my mind is doing into the future. What is objectively true in this exact moment? And the only thing that was true in that moment was my Instagram had currently been disabled. That's it. Nothing else was true. Not my business is ruined. Everything is falling apart. I'm screwed. This is the end. None of those things were true. But the only thing that was true was my Instagram account was disabled. And we do this all of the time, where we have one thing happen, and we project into these catastrophic futures and ruin a beautiful moment. And at that moment, I realized I had a choice. I could let this ruin my day. I could spiral. I could disconnect from this beautiful present moment. I could poison this beautiful Saturday morning with fear. Or I could bring myself back to the present moment. I could regulate myself. I could trust that whatever happens is going to happen. I could trust that it's going to happen the way it's supposed to. Because no matter what happens, I know I'll figure it out. And to be honest with you, I probably will not remember this moment when I'm 90 years old. So why am I going to let it ruin my day? And I had this thought while my son was still sitting on my lap. And I realized, oh my gosh, not only am I trying to fix this for myself, I'm actually trying to fix this for him too. Because his nervous system is feeling mine right now. There's so many studies around how children's nervous system is borrowed and learned and built through our own nervous system as adults and as parents. So he's downloading information from me right now as all this is going on. Oh ----, I better fix it, right? So it made it even more important. Because children don't just listen to what you say, they absorb what they see and they absorb what you are. And I thought to myself, do I want my son to absorb panic? Or do I want him to absorb peace? Do I want him to learn fear? Or do I want him to learn regulation? And so I decided, you know what? Damn it. No matter what happens, I won't even know until next week because I'm sure all of meta is off of Instagram for the next couple days. So I won't even have any answers until the week starts. And so I texted my team. I was like, I'm going to have a great day anyways. I text my team and I said, you know, handle whatever you guys need to handle. We'll figure it out on Monday. Enjoy the weekend. And I put my phone down and I consciously made the decision I'm going to enjoy my morning. I'm going to enjoy my coffee. I'm going to enjoy this moment with my son. I'm going to enjoy the sunshine. I'm going to enjoy my Saturday. And I did enjoy my Saturday. And I kind of just forgot about it for a while because I didn't let it ruin my day. And the crazy thing about it, here's the crazy part about everybody. I ended up getting my Instagram back six days later. Everything was fine. So I could have ruined all of those six days with all of my catastrophizing, which believe me, I've done that many times before. The most important part of this story is I never lost my peace. And I, you know, years ago, this would have ruined me. This would have ruined my day. Hell, it probably would have ruined my entire week. I would have obsessed over it. I wouldn't have slept. I would have spiraled. I would have emotionally suffered for hours and hours and hours and hours and hours. But as I've gotten older, I've realized something. Peace is a choice. Peace is a practice. It's not a constant state. It is a decision that we make in each moment. And inner peace cannot be dependent on outward circumstances. Think about that because your inner peace, if it depends on your circumstances, you'll never be peaceful very long because the world can be crazy. So let's pull out some lessons from this story and what I want to teach. And mind you, I'm not perfect. I'm not a guru. I am just another flawed human as we all are trying my best. And I've learned over the past 20 plus years of working on myself, some tools that have helped me get out of suffering. And so I want to give you six lessons that I think that you can pull from this, okay? Lesson number one, which is very important for today, is your mind will create false futures. Most suffering does not come from reality. It comes from imagined realities. Your brain is constantly trying to predict danger. That's what it has evolved to do. And if you don't become aware of it, your mind will drag you into projected futures that don't exist. And that's where most of our anxiety comes from all of the time almost. It's not reality. It's projections. And so your nervous system will start reacting to your mind, to your stories, to your assumptions, to your fears, to your worries, instead of what's actually happening in this moment. And your body will pay the price for thoughts that aren't even real. So you have to be aware of when your mind is causing your body suffering, when it is bringing up, when you feel anxiety, it's 99.9% of the time, your mind imagining a fearful future that's not happening in this moment. And so that's the first thing. You have to understand that about your mind. The second thing, I really want you to ask yourself this question, jot it down, put it in your phone, whatever you have to do. Ask yourself this question, what is actually true? This question can change your life. I don't say that as like, just like a little thing, like it really can. Because when emotions rise, your brain starts stacking stories, right? One thing happens, and then your mind suddenly creates 17 different catastrophic scenarios. That's exactly what my mind was doing Saturday morning in the beginning. So you've got to slow yourself down. You've got to breathe. You've got to get yourself back to this present moment. You've got to ask yourself, what is objectively true right now? Objectively true. Not what am I afraid of? Or what story am I telling? Or what could happen? Or don't fall into a case of the what ifs. What if this happens? What if that happens? What if this happens? What is true in this moment? Truth regulates the nervous system. Because most of the time, we're in this moment, and we're just living in pretty decent, perfectly fine present moments. And we are creating so much suffering in perfectly fine present moments by letting our brain create fake futures and catastrophizing. So we've got to bring ourselves back to this moment. What is actually true? Lesson number three. Your nervous system teaches your children how to live. Everybody is picking up on everybody else's nervous system, whether you realize it or not. This one hit me hard in that moment because my son was sitting on my lap, right? His back was against my chest. He was leaning on me. Children are constantly downloading your nervous system. They are constantly learning how to react to the world, how to react to stress, how to handle uncertainty, how to regulate their own emotions. By observing you, not by listening to your advice and by you telling them what to do, but by seeing who you are and by feeling your energy. Seeing you and feeling you. Then I had this realization like, do I want my son to learn panic right now? Or do I want him to learn what peace looks like? I'm always thinking about my son who's a little tiny guy, just a little version of me. And I'm always thinking about him and really what type of man I want to teach him to be. So as I'm going through this, I'm going, what type of man do I want to teach him to be? Do I want to teach him to be one that panics? Or do I want to teach one who learns how to regulate in the moment? Because your children don't just inherit your eye color. They inherit your emotional patterns that if you don't heal them within yourself, they're going to get them as well. Lesson number four. When we look at peace, peace is not a destination that we get to. It's not something we finally arrive at. Once we get there, we feel it forever. It is a practice. You have to understand, it is a practice. Peace is basically emotional mastery. Peace is, I refuse to let circumstances outside of me control my inner world. That's power. Anybody can panic. Anybody can spiral. Anybody can catastrophize. We're all professionals at that. But to consciously regulate yourself in the middle of uncertainty, that takes practice. That takes work. That takes real awareness. That takes nervous system training. So peace is not this destination that we arrive at someday. And then we just, hey, now that I've gotten here, I'm here forever. I think that's what people think it is. Like, oh, I just need to become more peaceful. No, it is a practice. It's a daily practice. It is a decision of each moment of your life to choose peace over fear, or over worry, or over doubt, or over insecurities, or over all of this catastrophizing. It is a choice of what you're going to choose in that moment. And you might have to do it 40, 50, 60, 100 times a day to choose peace. Okay? So that's lesson number four. Lesson number five. Honestly, most things that we freak out over are not worth losing your life over. Most things are not worth losing your life over. That's lesson number five. Because when I say your life, I mean moments. Because your life is made of moments. And so many people, I've done this for so long in my life, they sacrifice a beautiful morning, or time with their children, or vacations, or a nice dinner, or relationships, or just their peace, because something outside of them did not go the way that they want to. That's it. Something outside of you did not go the way that you wanted to. And now, you're kind of, as an adult, throwing an adult temper tantrum. Oh no, it didn't go the way that I wanted it to. Now I'm mad. Now I'm pissed. Oh, **** off, everybody. Right? Life is always going to go wrong in some sort of way. There's always going to be stress, and uncertainty, and problems, and chaos. The question is, will you abandon yourself every single time it gets uncomfortable, or can you stay rooted in peace even when things are uncertain? The way I like to think of it is like the big, giant oak tree. It's like, you know, you'll see a hurricane come through, or you'll see a tornado come through, and it will just wreck everything. But there's always like one big oak tree, where it's like, no matter how crazy the winds get, that oak tree is so deeply rooted into the ground, nothing is going to sway it. Can you have that oak tree energy? Right? Our lives are not just big moments. Our lives are a culmination of millions of tiny moments throughout our, hopefully, 90 to 100 years while we're here. The best way I've ever heard it described is this. You're born, you have a set of circumstances, and then you die. That's it. That's the simplest way of life. You're born, you have a set of circumstances, and you die. The meaning that you give those experiences of your life creates the quality of your life. So what meaning are you giving every single moment? And then number six is your inner peace is more valuable than anything else that you can lose. It's more valuable than followers. It's more valuable than money. It's more valuable than status. Because if you lose your inner peace every time that circumstances shift, your circumstances own you. And I think one of the greatest forms of maturity is finally realizing, hey, I can survive discomfort without emotionally collapsing. That is growth. That's healing. That is self-leadership. Think of all of the crazy ---- that you've been through in your life. You're still here. You survived all of it. I promise you the next crazy thing that comes up today or next week or next year, the next crazy thing that happens, you will survive over and over and over again. And so I want you to remember this. Your peace is not found in perfect finances or perfect relationships or perfect certainty or perfect outcomes. Because life will never be perfect. It'll never stay perfect long enough for you to stay peaceful if that's the case. Real peace is built internally regardless of the circumstances, through your awareness, through your breath, through your presence, through your nervous system regulation, through your perspective. And the truth is, one of my favorite quotes is your mind can make hell out of heaven or heaven out of hell. Your mind can make hell out of heaven or heaven out of hell. That Saturday morning last week could have been hell for me. But instead, I decided I'm going to drink my coffee. I'm going to hold my son. I'm going to feel the sun on my skin. And I'm going to trust that everything is unfolding exactly as it's supposed to. And I had a beautiful day regardless of getting my Instagram deleted. That's the goal. I'm not perfect, once again. But the goal is not to try to control life. It's learning how to protect your inner peace regardless of what unfolds outside of you. Hey, thanks so much for watching this video. Based off of what you have been watching recently on YouTube, YouTube has searched the algorithm and searched all of my videos and said, this is the one that you're going to like the most. So click that one and watch it. If you want to make sure to never miss another episode, hit that subscribe button right there, and I'll see you on the next video.