Peace Is NOT a Performance

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Where am I, baby? Before we begin, I want you to settle into wherever you are. If you are lying down, allow your body to rest fully against the surface beneath you. If you are sitting loosening your shoulders and then your hands rest wherever they feel most comfortable. You do not have to force yourself to relax. I just want you to notice where you are holding tension and give your body a moment to understand that it does not have to prepare for anything right now. Now I want you to take a slow breath. And through your nose. Hold it gently. And release it through your mouth. Again, breathe in slowly. Allowing your stomach to rise as you take in the air. Hold it for a second. And breathe out, letting your shoulders drop as you release. Now we're gonna do this one more time. Breathe in as deeply as your body will comfortably allow. Hold it. And when you let go, imagine that you are releasing the need to have everything figured out before you can rest. Now, I want you to continue breathing at a pace that feels natural to you. And there is no need to count every breath or worry about whether you are doing this correctly. I just want you to breathe, my baby. Let your body find its own rhythm while we spend these next few moments together. You know, this week I have been thinking about peace and how easy it is to look very peaceful while everything inside of you is being unsettled. You can speak calmly, you can smile when people ask, How are you doing? You can post something very encouraging for everybody else to read and still go home with thoughts that would not let you rest. You can tell people that you are protecting your peace while privately going back and forth with the very things that keep disturbing you. And so for today, I just want to remind you that peace is not a performance, peace is a lifestyle and it's also a way of living. You know, we can become so concerned about appearing healed that we do not give ourselves enough room to actually heal. You know, we know how peace is supposed to look, so you know, we seem to learn how to imitate it. And then we become careful with what we say. We stop letting people see us cry, convince ourselves that staying composed means, you know, we are doing better. Meanwhile, our minds are tired, our bodies are very tense, and we are still having the same kind of conversations in our heads with people who are nowhere near us. I do not want you to perform peace anymore. I want you to embody and experience it because it is a freedom. I want peace that does not disappear when somebody misunderstands me. You know, peace is something that you settle in. It's not going to allow someone to move you one place or another. And I also want to say if you get emotional in a state of embodying your peace, that's okay too. But peace holds you, it doesn't ravage you. I want you to be able to leave a conversation without spending the rest of the day, you know, rethinking what you said or wondering whether you should have explained yourself differently. Listen, peace allows you to say what you need to say and rest in it, knowing that what you said had a period and not necessarily a comma. And because you are working towards that peace, you also have to understand that there are days when you will not feel peaceful at all. There will be moments when something, you know, will catch you off guard, when an old hurt will reach you into a new day, or when you realize it's something that you thought you had moved beyond, still, you know, has a little more healing attached to it. I don't want you to be ashamed of those moments. That does not mean that you have lost your progress. That just means, my baby, you are human. You are still learning, you are still evolving. You know, we don't stop just because the more days that is added on, is the more opportunities that we learn ourselves and we get to experience new things. So, peace also is a progression. And I want you to be open enough to admit when you are overwhelmed by something instead of trying to convince everybody around you that you can handle everything. You have to be aware of what you can hold. You have to know your capacity. You have to know when you can handle something and when you cannot. You have to pay attention on how your body responds when you enter certain rooms, or when you are not wanting to answer certain calls, or when a certain name appears on your phone and you don't want to answer it. It requires you to stop talking yourself out of what you simply feel because you cannot explain it in a way that everybody will understand. You know, there are times when your body recognizes something is troubling you before your mouth can admit it. Your chest may tighten, your stomach may hurt, or you may feel exhausted after spending time with someone. I want you to acknowledge that. You know, we are quick to dismiss those responses because we know we don't want to seem difficult or sensitive or unforgiving, but working towards peace means listening closely enough to ourselves to notice that what continues to trouble us, even when it feels harmful, will continue to flow if we don't recognize it and understand it for what it really is. You don't have to announce every adjustment that you make, you do not have to explain every time you choose to step back. Some things can be handled between you and God in your sacred space. And the wisdom that you have gained from everything that you have survived, you know, there's a difference between you being peaceful and avoiding everything that makes you uncomfortable. You know, peace does not always ask you to walk away without saying anything sometimes. Sometimes. Peace requires you to sit in the conversation. Sometimes it requires the truth to finally leave your mouth after you have swallowed it for years. Sometimes it means telling someone that they did hurt you and to have the discourse with them about what it feels like. And knowing that you have said what you needed to say and ended the situation or the conversation in peace. Perhaps they didn't understand you all the way completely, but you got out what you needed to get out. And the more that you embody peace, the more that you understand also that peace is not found in avoiding conflict. There are moments when peace is waiting for you on the other side of saying what needs to be said and making decisions you have delayed or closing the door that you keep remaining open because you are afraid on how it may feel for someone else. You know, I'm learning that I cannot keep choosing what is familiar and then become frustrated when it produces the same familiar kind of pain. If I truly want peace, I have to make choices that agree with it. I can't ask God to calm my spirit while I continue entertaining what keeps me emotionally confused. And I cannot pray for clarity and keep making excuses for what has already been shown to me. And I can give access to people who only know how to enter my life and leave everything in me unsettled. You know, working towards peace means I am paying attention to what I participate in. I'm also considering the cost before I say yes. I'm asking myself whether I truly have the capacity instead of agreeing out of guilt and becoming resentful later. I'm learning that every invitation does not deserve my attendance, every disagreement does not require my response, and every person who wants access to me does not automatically deserve it. And being unbothered should not be your goal. Because some things will bother you. Being mistreated should bother you. Constantly abandoning yourself to keep other people comfortable should bother you. Repeating the same unhealthy pattern should bother you. Peace does not mean that you have become numb to the things that hurt. It means that you no longer are willing to let that hurt decide what every day of your life will look like. There will be times when protecting your peace feels lonely, especially when you are accustomed to being available to everybody. Some people will notice the difference when you stop answering immediately or stop trying to fix everything or stop accepting apologies that never come with changed behavior. They may call your growth distance because they were more comfortable when you did not have any limits. I want you to listen to something again. Peace is not a performance. The moment that you perform something, it is a temporary, it's putting a mask on. And as soon as you leave the performance, the true you comes out. Peace is an embodiment, it is a lifestyle, it is something that you will continuously work through in your life because life doesn't stop and it doesn't stop evolving because you want it to. Circumstances will come just because you have, you know, entered into one venture to come out of it doesn't mean that next week something new won't come. How will you handle that? How will you embody your peace? Now, as you breathe, I want you to ask yourself where you may have been performing peace. Think about the places where you have been saying that you are fine because you know, telling the truth will require a change. You do not feel ready for yet. Think about the relationships where you have chosen to look calm while privately carrying frustration, disappointment, and hurt. You do not have to solve everything today. You do not have to make every decision before this gentle hour ends. For now, I just want you to tell yourself the truth. You can admit that something is not working, you can acknowledge that that friendship is over, that that relationship is dead, that you are tired, that you are expanded beyond your capacity, and you can recognize that you deserve peace in all of it. I want you to be able to work towards peace that allows you to rest without replaying it throughout the day. I want you to be able to work towards the peace that's not require you to betray yourself so someone else can continue misunderstanding you comfortably. You are working towards a peace that helps you accept when a relationship has ended and what it is meant to give you. And while working towards all of this peace, I want you to be gentle with yourself. I want you to have moments where you take time to respond. You know, see, peace allows you to calm yourself and then respond in grace. Peace is also found in the small moments, you know, when you are feeling overwhelmed. It's the decision to put your phone down. It is the decision to go to bed without forcing yourself to try to finish everything by night. It's telling yourself, you know, I cannot do all of this right now, and it's okay. And you don't have to write a text or paragraph to someone for them to completely understand why you cannot. One word is sufficient. I'll repeat again that peace is not a performance, it's an embodiment, it's a lifestyle. Let it come slowly if it needs to, let it require different choices, unfamiliar boundaries, and a deeper relationship with yourself. Let it change your mind about who you allow near you. Let it teach you when to speak and when there is nothing left to explain. Alright? Listen. Peace is yours. And once you have it, no one can take it away from you unless you give them permission and the space to. But what peace will teach you is that you'll never allow anyone to snatch what you've been earning for a very long time. I want us to take one final breath. Hold it, and then release. As you move into this week, remember that peace does not have to look impressive to be real. It may just look like resting. It may look like declining the invitation, it may look like changing your mind and asking for help or finally admitting that you cannot continue living the way that you have been living. You are not to perform wellness for the comfort of people who will never ask what it costs to maintain you being who you are. You are working towards something real and peace that reaches your mind, it settles into your body and follows you home when no one else is watching. And my baby, you are allowed to take your time getting to the place where peace feels constant. See you next week.