061: Control or Peace: It's Your Choice as You Age
Are you at peace because you feel in control or are you at peace when you give up control?
Wrestle with that question for a moment.
I don't need to remind you that life isn't always "peace on earth and goodwill toward humanity..."
A candle of peace is lit during Advent season but how quickly is it blown out by seasonal anxiety and especially those people or circumstances we can't control?
Peace in your life is directly connected to your willingness and ability to give up control
Your peace diminishes with every attempt you make to control those things over which you ultimately have no control or should surrender control.
With that in mind it makes sense to enlarge your peace and give up control.
- Limiting what steals your peace
- Leveraging what enhances your peace
- Leaning into what provides you peace
Limit the peace-stealers in your life
In general, life tends to hijack the peace in your life.
But on the other hand, your peace is vulnerable to what you allow into your physical, emotional, and spiritual space.
Keep an eye on these peace-stealers:
- Social media comparisons: remember that on average what you see (and unfortunately compare yourself to) are people's "highlight reels." Protect your peace from comparisons.
- Drama: If-you-know-you-know (IYKYK). Protect your peace with clear boundaries.
- Media: the news cycle rotates around fear, panic, and scarcity. Protect your peace by changing the channel and turning down the volume.
And here's a major peace-stealer in our context here:
- Ageism: your age is a milestone not a millstone that weighs you down. Protect your peace by giving yourself permission to embrace your age (not culture's opinion) without judgement.
Leverage the peace-enhancers in your life
Peace is personal.
I make no apologies for the fact that my personal peace is the result of my faith.
I simply believe and build my life on "...God's peace, which exceeds anything we can understand."1
Life can be occasionally stormy on the surface of things.
But beneath the waves at a certain depth there's a calm...a peace...that nothing external can ultimately threaten.
- Trust in what's lasting and eternal rather that what's here today-gone tomorrow.
- Train your mind instead of allowing your thoughts to control you.
- Turn your moments of discontent into moments of gratitude.
Lean into the peace-provisions in your life
There's a quiet, calm, and peaceful moment that I absolutely love everyday.
It's that moment after I awaken (typically very early, during my workweek) that I pray, mediate, do some yoga, drink my first cup of coffee outside walking in the grass and breathing in the fresh air before the sun rises.
See what I did there?
I've described a daily routine.
If you want more peace in your life you must intentionally create and magnify the moments that produce it.
Find what works for you and rinse-and-repeat daily.
What I've discovered is that such a mindful daily moment enlarges the peace provisions that I can access throughout my day.
If you begin your day in chaos - checking email, responding to other people's drama, scrolling social media, fretting over the relentless news cycle - guess what?
Do I even need to answer that question?
I think you get it.
My pastor recently shared this in an advent themed message on peace:
"We fall in the direction that we are leaning." - Craig Groeschel
You can fall (and you will) as result of your relentless desire to control things or you can fall into peace.
- Limit the peace-stealers
- Leverage the peace-enhancers
- Lean into the peace-provisions
And speaking of the season of peace and joy...Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!
This will be our final issue of 2024.
I'll see you first Friday in January.
Until then...
Press on!
Eddie
Sources:
1 - The Bible, Phillippians 4:7, NLT