This post is part of a series I’m writing from mid-June to mid-November 2024, on things that helped me rebuild my confidence, sense of self, and increased my delight in my life after massive difficulty in multiple areas. For full details and post links to all 110 things, go to this post here.
Tip #22 - Audit your peace
“Audit” was always such a grown up word to me. Really, it just means to look through and make meaning of, relative to the goal or the target. Technically, it means to give formal explanation to the data of an individual’s finances or accounts.
To perform an audit about/of/on your peace, you’re gonna need some of that honest self reflection we’ve been practicing and figuring out how to generate.
When I did this, or first figured out how to do this, it was the result of feeling that things were so out of balance that it was all becoming unsustainable, and fast.
On a walk, I thought about the patterns that were stressing me out. Just short of writing this stuff down, I ran through the big deal things in my head - considered the interactions I was having with people, where I was feeling pulled and the sources of need and give and take in my life, the relationships and what about each of them was positive work, what was joy, what was hard, and if it was a good hard or a bad hard, and especially how things made me feel in the afterwards space.
We can tell a lot about things by looking in the afterwards space.
It occurs to me that this is something I learned initially from church that I think should probably be credited to meditation practices.
We were taught to pray, as Mormons, quite a lot. A few times, we were told that to pray and then go about our business wasn’t enough - we were also supposed to sit in stillness for a while after the amen of it all, because otherwise how was god going to tell us what he thought?! It’s not like he was paying for stamps and he doesn’t leave voicemails, and how would we feel if someone we love just called to complain and then hung up right away?! And while the god part and guilt inducing part and the sense of Things To Do To Be A Good Mormon list making and to-do-ing were never quite done and quite overwhelming to me, I think this last part is onto something.
The learning to sit in stillness part.
Consider it - with paper and pen, fingers and digital whatever, with brainspace and air around you.
In sitting in that stillness, consider the after of going out with some friends, how do you feel? Are these friends who increase your desire to have a better life and who you feel comfortable talking about your dreams? Do they lift you up for pursuing these dreams or guilt you about missing events and doing things to take care of yourself or your family and make you feel bad or lame or like you’re the one missing something?
The friends we have aren’t always going to grow at the same rate as we want to, and we don’t always stay on pace with those around us all the time either.
Some friends will engage in conversation with you and listen well, they’ll understand when you have to cancel plans for a sick child or because you have a deadline or just because you need to or want to stay in instead, and they’ll ask how things are going instead of making you feel bad about it. They’ll call you out on nonsense behavior and push you to be your better self.
You’ll know what it feels like when people are investing in you and you’ll know who you might want to invest in also.
Stillness can help you hear that. It might be quiet, it is hard to trust yourself, but you can do it. Practice here.
Do you feel tired or energized after whatever you’re spending time doing? And with whom? How about inspired? Full of new ideas or frustrated by the perceived pointlessness of things?
Aside from friends, I do think family is important to consider here too.
As you may have guessed this is a relevant one for me, as I’ve struggled with family relationships and healthy boundaries and peace all together. When I was a kid my mom would always say “I wish I had some peace and quiet” or “all I need is some peace and quiet” or some variation of that.
It was said so often that when I was young, less then 6 I think, I made her a bubble letter written out note of some kind that said peace and quiet and wrapped it into a box and gave that to her for Christmas.
Not as snark, but as a genuine intention that I wanted her to have that, and I didn’t want to be a reason she didn’t have peace, or the reason hat her peace was disturbed, I didn’t want conflict to increase because of me.
Obvs though, I’m her kid… so I should probably talk to a therapist about that entire situation, but the point remains, when people give us boundaries they are giving instructions on how they can be best loved, and respecting those boundaries is loving behavior in a way that makes sense to them.
What’s that gotta do with peace? With auditing your peace?
That has everything to do with auditing your peace.
Because if you never audit your peace you can’t take stock of what’s working for you and what isn’t. You can’t look at the boundaries you have put up, if any, and assess if they’re reasonable, if they’re providing the needs you need, and if there’s adjusting to be done. And the opposite too.
It’s a deeply honest emotional math making.
Auditing your peace is - look at the peace results of the systems I have put in place, how well are they working?
What is weak, what is too much, where needs support, is this even working or do I need to make something new?
Audit your activities, your dead time, your stressor points, your feelings after you do necessary and voluntary activities and see how your systems, the math of your behaviors, the input from your relationships, the transfers of energies you make throughout your days, see how it adds up.
How much peace are you trading? Is is a worthy price?
This can be hard to do, because I think it’s actually quite easy.
The toughest part is to call ourselves out on our bullshit and then follow through with the adjustments we already know need to be made.
You probably know who stresses you out but you allow it because you don’t know how to have that difficult conversation with them about it.
You probably know what behaviors might feel good or relieve stress for a moment or even several, but you can see in the long run they’re not actually helping advance your life in the ways that you really want to move on.
You probably already know, you just need to look at it, see it, honestly see it, and then decide which things, if any, you’re going to get sorted.
For me this meant reassessing my relationship with my immediate family, and going almost 10 months without talking to or seeing my mom. We both needed some peace. The quiet to look at things.
It also has meant bringing all the data and receipts I have to the court office for trials, and then leaving the rest to the job of the state to make decisions about. Which meant I don’t have to lose sleep over trying to have to convince anyone of anything. I have enough data to speak on my behalf, and whats fair and true is fair and true and that’s that.
It means taking time to prepare in the morning for the day, and to make sure I go for my walks every night because then I can sleep, then the mornings with the kids and the school routine is smoother because I have my systems in place that generate and protect my peace.
The trick too, is in releasing the judgment that can get stuck to a close looking.
I invite you to release any notion of good or bad attachments to the things we’re looking at, they’re just things, these are just feelings, it is just the math of the life and the data of what we’re doing with our choices.
Being good at keeping the kitchen clean at night is not morally aligned with anything - if you do it great if you don’t who cares. Is it something you want to be doing and you’re not? Also not a moral statement just a thing to adjust if it’s something you wanna do, not to get down on yourself if it’s not happening. You’re ok.
Looking at it like math, consider does this “insert person/place/thing/activity” bring me more peace or less peace - followed by - do I have control about this in my life right now? Sometimes we are in circumstances that mean the only thing within our control of something might be ourselves, but that’s nearly everything so we can work with that.
We can work with that.
It’s ok if things feel like a mess. A mess is a pile of materials. With materials we can make change, we can improve, we can sort through it and find what’s meaningful and helping and take the rest to the trash. With a pile of materials we can recognize what other materials we might need, we can find better things, and better ways of using them.
Peace is the goal because peace provides that steady soul foundation that this entire project is after. Little bit by little bit. Just means looking at all the bits so we can do the thing.
I recommend laying on the floor, focusing on your breathing, walking with the moon and no headphones, feeling the goosebumps in your skin, observing the quiet in morning, feeling air on your neck and going from there.
Ideally, this audit will provide information for ways you can improve your life and your solidity as a being.
Telling my mom I needed a break and didn’t want any contact for a while was incredibly difficult. But I knew I needed it so it was also easy because it was the next step that would get me the farthest in growth and healing and in the forwards progress I’m after.
If you’re a frequent reader here you know we’ve started to see how to navigate that relationship again and it’s not fixed but I feel steady now in a way I didn’t at all before.
I know how to protect my peace better now.
I’ve practiced boundary setting, I feel like I can see clearer and that I am less easily mushed - if it aligns it aligns I’m able to keep going, I’m able to listen better, accept things better, and am able to maintain my self better because of that choice.
We’ll see what happens, but I feel like because I’m better able to see now, that whatever happens and however it goes, I know I’ll be fine.
You don’t have to fix all the things or make all the edits at once or right away or even at all if you don’t want to, but the honest look at it is absolutely essential in order to take next steps in any way that will be useful, efficient.
Super difficult but of incredible value.
You’re of incredible value.
Your peace is of incredible value.
ilysm - Marian