Peace of Mind
A warm welcome to a fresh season.
A Warm Welcome to Peace of Mind
I’m arriving today with an exciting update… my monthly newsletter is going weekly! I welcome you to Peace of Mind - a newsletter on healing, growing, accepting and being. My greatest hope is that this corner of the internet can be an intentional space for you to reflect, slow down and tune in. If my Instagram posts resonate with you, this newsletter is a space to dig deeper and with more intention. My greatest hope is to support you on your path of cultivating inner peace and presence, and to provide tangible guidance along the way.
I approach therapy through a compassion-focused, trauma-informed, mindfulness-based lens. Peace of Mind has the same feel. This newsletter infuses psychotherapy and spirituality, and breaks down these teachings in a digestible, concise way so that you can easily integrate them into your daily life.
My letters consist of tangible therapeutic tools, gentle reminders, recent learnings, meditative musings and reflections ripped from my journal. Each letter contains journal prompts/reflection questions to guide you for the week ahead. Paid subscribers also receive a guided meditation every month.
If you’re a free subscriber ($0/mo), you’ll receive a monthly letter on the first Thursday of each month, similar to what my newsletter been like so far.
If you’re a paid subscriber ($5/mo or $55/yr): you’ll receive a weekly letter in your email inbox every Thursday with journaling prompts/reflection questions. You’ll also receive a monthly guided meditation.
What a relief
I think of peace of mind as a daily, wavering practice - not a state of mind to achieve or perfect. Life is messy, unpredictable and so much is out of our control. The goal of this inner work is not to get rid of the challenging emotions and the stressful parts of life - the ‘goal’ is to cultivate an inner steadiness so that we can handle and tolerate these stressful parts with more ease and awareness.
What a relief that we don’t need to be perfect.
What a relief that we don’t need to have it all figured out. We can just start.
What a relief that we can accept ourselves at any moment, especially the messier ones.
Peace of mind is not a state to constantly maintain, but a state to forget, remember, and then forget again. There are seasons for healing, growing and evolving, and there are also seasons for just being and integrating the insights that we’ve gained.
Okay also, peace of body and soul
The body is always in the present moment. The mind is constantly time-traveling to the past and to the future, often with fear-driven narratives traveling alongside it. But the body is always here.
When we remember that we’re breathing, or we shift our focus to a sensation within the body, or we notice a sound in our environment, like the rustling of the trees - our mind and body meet together in the now, even just for a split second.
In Buddhism, there’s the idea of the ‘fourth’ moment. The past is the first moment, the present is the second moment, and the future is the third moment. So what is the fourth moment? It’s a kinda timeless time, where we can exist fully in the now without clinging or resisting. It’s when we’re so present that time doesn’t exist. Maybe you’ve dipped your toes into this feeling before, like when you’re immersed in an art project, deep in meditation or awestruck by nature.
The body is the bridge to accessing this fourth moment. For folks who have a deep history of trauma, the body may not feel like a safe place to reside in. That’s okay. We can access the present moment via our body in other ways with our senses, like doing an art project or listening to the birds chirping.
The comforting truth is that we don’t even need to try. The now is always happening, unfolding, and existing. When we surrender the urge to “try” to be present, that’s when we really meet ourselves in the moment.
May we tap into the safety and stillness of our current experience so that we may access the fullness of this moment.
Reflection questions for the week ahead
Get comfy in a quiet and safe place, pour yourself a warm drink, and grab a journal and a pen. Or you may choose to simply sit with these questions and notice what arises.
Let’s start by arriving into the now. If the five senses are accessible to you, write or acknowledge one thing that you can see, then hear, then smell, then taste, then feel/touch.
What feels uncomfortable in life right now? (i.e. a recent change, transition, strong feeling)
What fears are attached to that thing? (What if ______ happens?!) If it feels safe for you, notice what physical sensations arise when reflecting on this question. Nothing to do, just something to notice.
What is in your control in this situation? What is out of your control?
In what ways can life feel a bit softer right now? Where can tension, expectations and pressure be released?
A sneak peek into next week’s post for paid subscribers: we’re diving into the fear of being seen as ‘bad.’ We’ll talk about where this belief can stem from, and how we can begin to understand and heal it.
Thank you for being here, exactly as you are.
With warmth,
Meg