PEACE Feels UNCOMFORTABLE When CHAOS Is All You Know

I’m learning that when your life is built on dysfunction, peace can feel suspicious, even when nothing is wrong. I share my story, the move to California, and the hard questions I’m using to stop self-sabotage and let peace lead. 
• growing up around chaos and carrying survival patterns into adulthood 
• how big transitions trigger the urge to run back to familiarity 
• why stability can feel boring and consistent love can feel unsafe 
• what self-sabotage looks like in real life, from overthinking to picking fights 
• the question that interrupts the spiral: danger or unfamiliar peace 
• redefining peace as staying grounded during problems 
• treating feelings as information, not instructions 
• outgrowing survival skills that once protected us 
Be sure to subscribe to the podcast so you never miss an episode. And for daily motivational and up-to-date content, follow us on Facebook and Instagram at Excellence Above Talent. 

Transcript

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Welcome And The Unfamiliar Peace

SPEAKER_00 0:00

You're listening to Excellence Above Talent, a podcast where we have the hard conversations about the lives of men and what leads us to achieve greatness and suffer defeat. Hear from other men's journeys as well, as we all learn and grow together to become inspirations to ourselves and those around us. And now your host, Aaron Thomas.

SPEAKER_01 0:34

What's up, my beautiful people? Aaron Thomas with excellence above talent. So we're off our series of the men behind the mission, and I want to start talking about things that are going on in my life that I feel would be beneficial to talk about because I know I'm not the only man in this entire world that's dealing with these feelings that I'm feeling right now. And it's something that I'm learning and growing into as I speak. It's not something that I've mastered, it's not something that I've completely figured out, but it's something that I'm still mentally and emotionally fighting through.

Growing Up Trained By Chaos

SPEAKER_01 1:20

And it is this peace feels uncomfortable when chaos is all you know. So my life has been chaotic from the junk. I was born blue. The umbilical cord was wrapped around my neck, and the enemy tried to take me out before I was born because I feel like he knew that God had something on my life that could potentially change the world, and he wanted me gone. Chaos. My dad left us at a very young age. I believe I was in the sixth grade, fifth grade, chaos. My mom and dad didn't have the best relationship growing up, so that's all I knew. Chaos. Being the firstborn son in a single parent household and thinking that I had to carry that load or that burden of my brothers and sisters, chaos. I went to a party at UTPB, my first year of college, and I partied my whole first year. And I went again to a party, and they were doing coke, and I did one line of coke. When that drip hit and my chest went numb, definitely thought I was gonna die. So I woke up the next morning and walked to the mall. That's where the recruiters were at, and I joined the army. It was supposed to be me and my cousin, but he bailed out on me at the very last minute, and I was like, Yeah, I'm just gonna do it. Chaos. Joining the army is chaos, it's chaotic. Basic training. Two people went to Iraq right after basic training, and I was one of the two. Chaos. War, chaotic, but yet peaceful at the same time. If you haven't been, I can't explain to you why it was peaceful, but it was coming back from Iraq without a plan or a counselor or a therapist, chaos. All of the women in my life that were a part of my life, I've cheated on chaos, except for my current marriage. And it's gonna stay that way, but that within itself also brings chaos because I don't know what that is. I don't know how to feel, and so I'm still processing through that. My first marriage, chaos, not from her, but my chaos, job after job, searching for something that is fulfilling chaos, sitting on a bed with a gun in my hand, attempting suicide, chaos. All I've ever known in my entire life is chaos, and I'm entering into a place where I'm healing, and that feels foreign because there is no chaos, right? So I'm I'm not talking just to talk, I'm talking from a place of understanding. Me

California Transition And Missing Familiarity

SPEAKER_01 4:31

and Yanni recently moved from Odessa, Texas, to California. Chaos. And I'm gonna be real with you. Uh the move has not been easy. There have been challenges. Yanni has a job. I am still looking. There have been adjustments. In Odessa, we lived in a four-bedroom, two-batroom house in California, not so much. And there have been moments where I've questioned, should we have left? Moments where I've felt frustrated, moments where I've I felt like I missed Odessa, not because of Odessa, but because of the the familiarity of Odessa. There have been moments in this move where I question, what the freak am I doing? But

Peace Feels Suspicious Then Self-Sabotage

SPEAKER_01 5:17

underneath all of that, there has been this peace. And peace exposes something in me that I did not expect. In the beginning of this podcast, I talked about how my life has been built on dysfunction. And not just experiencing dysfunction, but operating inside of dysfunction. I know chaos. I understand it. I know how to survive when everything feels like it's falling apart. I know how to fight, to push, to grind, to make decisions under pressure. I know how to function when everything around me is loud. But what I'm realizing now in this space that I'm in, I do not always know how to live when things are quiet. And that's where the uncomfortability has come from. Because when you spend enough of your life in dysfunction, peace can start feeling suspicious. You start asking what is wrong? What am I missing? When is the other shoe going to drop? Why does this feel too easy? Why isn't something happening? And if you don't check those feelings at the door of your mind, you will begin to create problems just so your life feels familiar again. And that's the part I want to talk about. Because I know I cannot be the only man who does this. Sometimes we say we want peace, but what we really want is chaos that we know how to control. We say we want a healthy relationship, but when someone loves us consistently, we start questioning their motives. As men we say we want stability, but when life becomes too stable, we get bored. We say we want financial peace, but when we finally get breathing room, we create unnecessary problems or we spend like we're never gonna get that money back again. We say we want a healthy marriage or a relationship, but when the relationship feels calm, we start picking fights. We say we want to heal, but when healing starts happening, we go look for the old version of ourselves because at least that version is familiar. That, my friend, is self-sabotage. And sometimes self-sabotage doesn't look dynamic. It looks like overthinking. Sometimes self-sabotage looks like finding wrong with a perfectly good situation. It looks like starting an argument because quiet feels uncomfortable. Sometimes it looks like reaching back toward an old habit simply because peace does not give you the same adrenaline chaos does. And I've had to ask myself a very hard question. Aaron, are you actually in danger? Or are you just unfamiliar with peace? Those are not the same thing. And that question has challenged me because there are times when nothing is wrong, but my mind is looking for something to be wrong. There are times when life is okay, but something inside of me says, this cannot be real. Something has to be coming. Something is about to go bad. And if I think long enough, eventually I'll start believing like something is wrong. And then I I'll create the exact chaos I was afraid of. And that's the crazy part. You fear losing peace so much that you destroy the peace inside yourself. And then you say, see, I knew something bad was going to happen. But sometimes nothing bad happens. Sometimes you happened. And I say this with accountability because I have had to say it to myself. Sometimes I was the disruption of my peace. I was the one bringing negativity into the room. I was the one searching for rejection that wasn't there. I was interpreting silence as disrespect. I was interpreting peace as disinterested. Sometimes I created problems because dysfunction was the environment I knew how to survive in. And that's hard to say out loud right now, but awareness gives you a choice. And then I'm trying to make a different choice. I'm learning to let peace lead my life instead of chaos. That sounds simple, it is not. Because when chaos has been your normal, peace requires trust. You have to trust that everything does not have to be falling apart for you to be growing. You have to trust that you can have a good day without waiting for punishment. You have to trust that someone can love you without having any angles. You have to trust that your marriage can have peace without something secretly being wrong. You have to trust that your life can actually be good. It sounds crazy to say, but some men do not know how to let life be good. Some men know how to survive, but we don't know how to receive. We know how to fight, we don't know how to rest. We know how to work, we don't know how to enjoy. We know how to protect ourselves, but we don't know how to lower our guard. And there's a difference between being prepared and constantly expecting disaster. One is wisdom, the other is fear, and I'm learning that.

Real Peace Is Staying Grounded

SPEAKER_01 9:58

But I'm also learning something else in this journey that I'm on right now. Peace does not mean everything is perfect, because my move to California has not been perfect. There are still things I'm trying to figure out. There are still things I miss. There are still frustrations. There are still unanswered questions. There are still moments where I feel uncomfortable. But peace is not the absence of problems. Peace is the ability to stay grounded while problems are happening, and that's a big difference. I used to think peace would come when everything finally worked out, when I got the job, or enough money, or when everyone understood me, or when no one was upset, or when the plan was exactly right. But if your peace depends on everything going right, you'll never have peace. Because life simply does not work that way. Peace has to become something internal. Something that says, I can handle uncertainty without creating destruction. I can experience discomfort without running back to dysfunction. I can have a hard day without convincing myself I have a hard life. I can be frustrated without becoming disruptive. I can be disappointed without sabotaging everything around me. And that's the level of maturity that I'm striving for. Because I'm still learning. I'm learning that I do not have to turn every uncomfortable situation into an emergency. That is a struggle for me. I'm learning that just because I'm irritated doesn't mean something's wrong with my marriage. I'm learning that sometimes I'm anxious does not mean that I made the wrong decision. Do I miss Texas? Specifically Odessa, Texas? Yes. But that does not mean California wasn't a mistake. Sometimes I do feel lonely, but that doesn't mean no one cares about me. I feel uncertain. That doesn't mean God is absent. Feelings give us the information. They're not always the instructions. That's something men, including myself, need to understand. You can feel something without immediately reacting to it. You can sit with those feelings. You can name them, process them, pray through them, talk with someone about your feelings. You can ask, where is this coming from? So instead of immediately creating a situation that matches the emotions, you start to deconstruct why you're feeling the way you're feeling. And that's something that I'm practicing now. And with practice, it's a daily thing. Some days are better than others, but you can't stop practicing, deconstructing your feelings, and trying to understand why you feel the way you feel.

Outgrowing Survival Skills That Once Helped

SPEAKER_01 12:28

Because I'm committed to becoming a man I've never seen before. And I think that scares me. I know what I can be. I've never seen what God wants me to be. I know the man I've been, his addictions, his habits, his defenses, his mistakes, how he reacts, how he handles pain, how he sabotages, how he seeks validation, how he creates chaos. That man is familiar. But the man I'm trying to become, I do not completely know him yet. I do not know what his ceiling is. I don't know what he can accomplish, what kind of husband he will become, what kind of leader he will become, what kind of peace he will carry. I don't know what God can do through him. And that is both exciting and terrifying. Because becoming someone new means grieving parts of yourself that helped you survive. And that's another battle no one wants to talk about. Some of the behaviors that are hurting you today protected you at some point in your life. Being hyper-aware may have helped you survive unstable environments. Being emotionally guarded may have protected you from getting hurt. Always expecting the worst may have stopped you from being blindsided. Being aggressive may have kept people from taking advantage of you. But what protects you in one season can imprison you in another. You have to know when survival skills have expired. And I think that's where I'm at right now. Some of the things that have helped me survive the old version of my life cannot come with me into this next version. I cannot build peace while constantly feeding chaos. I cannot build trust while constantly searching for betrayal. I cannot build a healthy marriage while constantly operating from old wounds. I cannot become a healthier man while defending every unhealthy habit because that's just how I am. At some point as a man you have to make a decision. Do I want familiarity or do I want freedom? Because they are not always the same. Freedom sometimes is unfamiliar. Healing sometimes feels boring. Peace sometimes feels strange. Sometimes a healthy relationship feels less exciting because you're not constantly trying to survive it. And maybe that's okay. Maybe life does not need to be dramatic all the time. Maybe you don't need another crisis, another fight, another reason to prove how strong you are. Maybe the next level of strength is learning how to sit in peace without destroying it. And that is a challenge I'm giving myself. And maybe it can be a challenge for you too.

Stop Creating Fires And Pause

SPEAKER_01 14:59

Stop creating fires just because you've learned how to survive them. I'm gonna say it again. Stop creating fires just because you have learned how to survive them. You don't need another fire to prove you are strong. You've already survived enough. If you look back over your life and you have seen all the things that you have accomplished and you have done, you survived enough. Now it's time to learn how to build. Learn how to love, to rest, to receive, to trust. Learn how to experience joy without looking over your shoulder. Learn how to have peace without asking what is wrong. And when your mind starts looking for the chaos, because it will, pause. Ask yourself, is something actually wrong? Or does peace just feel unfamiliar? Am I responding to what is happening today? Am I responding to something that happened years ago? Am I protecting myself? Am I sabotaging myself? Those questions can change your life because awareness creates space. And in that space, you get to choose something different. I'm in a point in my life where I'm trying to choose something different every day. And I don't get it right all the time. I still overthink, get irritated, have moments where my mind is searching for problems, have moments where I want to go back to the familiar. But in this process of learning and growing and being aware and healing, I want to see what I feel. I want to challenge it. I choose not to feed it, and that's growth. Because growth isn't being perfect. It's catching yourself faster, apologizing quicker, recognizing the pattern sooner, choosing a healthy response more consistently, and giving yourself enough grace to keep learning. I'm on a mission to find a man I have never seen before. Not a perfect man, but a healthier man, a peaceful man, a disciplined man. A man who can experience joy without sabotaging it. A man who can sit in silence without needing chaos. A man who does not have to destroy something good because something good feels unfamiliar. And maybe you're looking for that man too. Maybe your entire life has taught you how to survive dysfunction. But now God is teaching you how to live in peace. Do not run from that lesson. Do not create another crisis because peace feels strange. Stay in peace and let yourself heal. Let yourself grow. Let yourself feel something different. You've already survived chaos. Now give yourself permission to learn peace.

Final Encouragement And How To Connect

SPEAKER_01 17:32

If anyone hasn't told you today that they love you, let me be the first to say I love you. You're awesome. You're amazing. You deserve the best that this world has to offer. Do not quit, do not give up. The world does not get easier, but y'all will get stronger. Have a blessed week. Bye bye.

SPEAKER_00 17:53

Thank you for listening. Be sure to subscribe to the podcast so you never miss an episode. And for daily motivational and up-to-date content, follow us on Facebook and Instagram at Excellence Above Talent. And remember, keep moving forward, never give up, and you are never alone in this battle. We'll see you next time.