Do not negotiate your peace of mind with others

No matter who that someone is, if they steal your peace of mind, you need to set up boundaries. 

Do not allow other people's bad moods to steal your good mood. How they wish to brood or be moody should not determine how you want to experience yours. 

If you experience peace within your heart and someone tells you that you're not caring enough, because they are not experiencing peace and they want you to empathise by losing your peace, then you know that this is a toxic connection. 

Someone who really loves you, will not resent you for your happiness and peace. If they do, they are not for you. 

I've witnessed too many cases of couples through my work, where one party resents the other for their happiness. And sometimes they get blamed for being uncaring because they are not in the same space emotionally. Sometimes, no two people can be in the same emotional space at the same time no matter how close they are. It is unreasonable and in fact, if you're not in a good space, you shouldn't wish for your partner not to be in a good space too. You want a stronger partner for you to lean on, for moral support during trying times. At the same time, you must be open to wanting their support. 

This is another point of contention -- rejecting the support and not knowing why. Sometimes, we build a wall so thick around us that even when support is given, we unknowingly reject it, and then blame the other party for being uncaring. This can happen too. 

Why do we do this? 

When we lack self-awareness, we can unconsciously do so many things to ourselves - reject love when love is the very thing we want, reject support when it is what we need and want. Sometimes it is our behaviour that drives people away.

Self-awareness is truly the key to understanding. Self-awareness is not the same as self-centredness or self-focused. This is where many people get confused too.

Self-awareness is knowing how your outer actions, words and emotions don't align with your internal standards, and if you are highly self-aware, you will know how to objectively evaluate yourself, manage your emotions, properly align your behaviour with your values and understand accurately how others perceive you. 

Remember last week's article where I talked about uncouth mindset? Well, that is largely due to the lack of self-awareness. 

So how do you develop more self-awareness? Here are three important ways and all three to be practised to get to a higher level of self-awareness. 

1. Spending self-reflection time: This is not the same as daydreaming. Self-reflection is a conscious reflective time, let's say 30 mins of distraction-free time to evaluate your thoughts, behaviour and actions and how it impacted your day, your time with others and what have you learned about yourself
2. Be a better listener. Most people do not listen. They think they are. But what they are actually doing is thinking of how to respond back to the other when they are keeping quiet and looking like they are listening. When this happens, they stop listening because they want to be part of the conversation, and want to give their two cents worth. Active listeners take in what has been said, and then think, evaluate in order to respond back in a way that is beneficial. And sometimes, that may mean keeping quiet and holding space. 
3. Practice mindfulness. Being present and observing one's own thoughts in a non-judgmental way towards self, or others. This helps you to remain calm and not move into frustration, anger, irritation. 

Practise all these three methods consistently for at least 30 days, and see how you can turn your inner and outer state around. 

Remember, your inner peace is non-negotiable.