To protect your peace means to look after your physical, emotional, and mental health. It is safeguarding your well-being and creating an environment where you can grow, heal, be your authentic self, and live a more fulfilled and meaningful life.
I didn’t really realize the full extent of how important it is to protect one’s peace until I reached the lowest point of my life.
I have always been guilty of overextending myself to other people just to gain their validation and approval and just so I could feel that I was worthy.
For years, I was stuck in this toxic cycle of constantly pushing myself to the extent of emotional burnout so I could please other people. I kept saying yes to their needs without any regard for how and what I’m feeling.
It was exhausting and mentally draining. After hitting rock bottom, I’ve realized that life is by far too fleeting and precious to just spend it unhappy and stuck in the constant noise of people pleasing and chasing validation.
This sudden but long overdue realization lead me to finally learn how crucial it is to protect your peace, especially in today’s world where it is so easy to be trapped in the noise of other people’s opinions of you and the chaos of life.
Protecting your peace not only allows you to spend your days more meaningfully but also helps you live a much happier life.
In this post, I will be sharing with you the things and steps I’ve taken that have immensely helped in my journey toward finding peace and protecting it. I hope that this will help you on your journey too!
15 Things To Do To Protect Your Peace
1. It’s Okay To Say No
Part of learning how to protect your peace is learning how to say no. Please allow me to ask you this, how many times have you said yes to things that you didn’t want to do in the first place just because you’re afraid of disappointing other people?
How many times have you said yes even though you’re extremely exhausted just to please other people?
Truth be told, I wouldn’t be able to count the number of times I did this on one hand(or even both hands).
One thing I’ve learned from being guilty of doing this is, the more that you say yes to things that you didn’t even want to do, the more you’re saying no to yourself, to your needs, and to your mental health.
Remind yourself that it’s okay to say no. People who truly love and care for you will understand. They will care more about your needs and well-being.
2. Stop Comparing
If you want to find and protect your peace, constantly comparing yourself and your journey to other people is not going to help.
Most of us are guilty of falling into the comparison trap. Especially in today’s day and age where it’s easy to look at other people’s lives on social media and compare them with our own.
I’m no stranger to this feeling. When I hit rock bottom, I learned that the more I compare myself with other people and how “perfect” their lives seem to be, the more I was actually distracting myself from focusing on my journey and the actions that I needed to take to better my life.
Constantly comparing yourself with other people is exhausting. It does not only rob your inner peace but it also prevents you from enjoying every moment of your life.
It prevents you from focusing on your own healing, and growth and from improving yourself.
It’s important to remember that we all have different paths to take and if you want to live your life away from the chaos and noise, you must learn to embrace your journey.
Focus on your own growth. The only person you should ever compare yourself with is who you were yesterday.
3. Set Healthy Boundaries
Setting healthy boundaries is a crucial part of protecting your peace.
If you’re guilty of constantly overextending yourself to other people, always agreeing to things even if you didn’t want to, please know that you are not alone.
I have been guilty of this for the longest time.
And if I’m being honest, sometimes I still find myself falling into this pattern but the good thing is now, I recognize my behavior, and the sooner that I do, I immediately pull myself out of it.
Setting healthy boundaries is vital to your mental health. This will allow you to finally make yourself a priority and take care of your needs first.
It allows you to communicate to other people what your limitations are and that they must respect that. If they don’t, then maybe it’s time to rethink if you really need them in your life.
Here’s a great post from Real Simple that’ll help you learn how to set boundaries the right way.
4. Be Kinder To Yourself
Are you also guilty of constantly beating yourself up? In the first part of this post, I shared that protecting your peace is all about creating a safe environment where you are allowed to grow and heal.
Well constantly beating yourself up and criticizing every little aspect of your life is certainly not a safe environment. I know how easy it is to talk down to yourself.
It’s easy to constantly criticize our every little flaw without realizing that by doing this we are actually negatively affecting our self-esteem and self-worth.
By doing this, we are letting ourselves believe that we are not good enough. We are letting ourselves believe that we are not worthy.
Doing this not only affects our emotional health but also prevents us from growing, improving ourselves, and finding peace and genuine happiness.
So, instead of talking down on ourselves, let’s try something new. Let’s try to recognize and celebrate all our wins, big and small.
Let’s get rid of the negative self-talk and start being our very own cheerleaders.
Here are be kind to yourself quotes that you can read every time you feel like criticizing yourself.
Write them down in your journal or you can print them and hang them beside your mirror. Use them as your own affirmation and repeat them every day.
5. Take Care Of Your Needs
When we have so much going on around us, taking care of our needs may be the last thing on our plates.
Well, sometimes, it’s not even on our to-do list. Especially when you are constantly living your life on fast forward.
Always rushing from one task to another, refusing to slow down enough to actually listen to what your body is telling you.
Most of us are guilty of pushing ourselves toward exhaustion and burnout.
Always taking our needs for granted without realizing how greatly they affect our productivity, mental health, and happiness.
We can’t continue to function every day if we refuse to put our needs first. I truly believe that taking care of our needs is survival.
We must continue to take care of ourselves and listen to what our body is telling us for us to continue taking care of other people.
We must not keep putting our needs on the back burner. We have to make it a priority.
Doing this does not only help you breathe, and recharge but it will also do wonders for your mental health.
6. Don’t Be Afraid To Take A Break
This goes hand in hand with what I mentioned above. If you want to protect your peace you have to look after your mental health, I’ve learned this the hard way.
I used to be guilty of pushing myself toward exhaustion. I didn’t want to take a break thinking that doing it will sabotage my plan of living a comfortable and happy life.
The irony in that is, I could have chosen to be happy during that time instead I continued to chase it by pushing myself to work every day until my mental health could no longer take it.
I broke down and I hit the lowest point of my life. Now I’m learning that slowing down, allowing yourself a chance to breathe, and taking a break is not a bad thing.
Yes, working hard towards your goal is important but so is taking a break.
Taking a break can even be a good thing for your productivity and motivation.
7. Let Go Of Control
This is definitely something that I still struggle with. You see, I have always been guilty of trying to control every little aspect of my life.
I always have a plan A, plan B, and even a plan C, thinking that as long as I’m doing this, I will be able to prevent things from falling apart. I can prevent things from going wrong.
But the reality is, regardless of how hard we try, we could never be able to control everything. It’s just not possible.
Even if we spend all our time trying to control even the smallest detail of our life, we still can’t guarantee that things will always work out the way we planned.
We are only wasting our time and we are only leading ourselves to so much frustration and heartache if things fall apart.
It only causes us so much stress and anxiety and at the end of the day, it’s just not worth it.
We have to learn to let go of control. We have to accept that life will always be uncertain and things and circumstances can easily change in a second.
Instead of focusing all our energy on trying to control everything, let’s focus our attention on the things that we can control and change instead. Doing this will be much more rewarding.
Related Posts:
- How to be Happy – 30 Day Happiness Challenge
- How To Live A Simple Life And Be Happy: 12 Powerful Tips
- 12 Ways To Begin Nurturing Yourself And Be Happier
8. Don’t Be Afraid To Feel
The thing that I learned when I first started this journey of finding inner peace and safeguarding it is, it can be messy. It’s not about keeping your emotions at bay, hiding what you truly feel, and just putting on this calm and peaceful facade.
I’ve learned that for you to be able to protect your peace, you must first allow yourself to face the feelings and emotions that you have been running away from.
Part of protecting your peace is allowing yourself to heal and move forward and we will not be able to achieve that if we continue to bottle up our emotions and keep running away from them.
There’s no shame in being vulnerable. Vulnerability for me takes a whole lot of courage and strength.
Feeling your emotions does not make you weak, it makes you even stronger.
Don’t be afraid to let yourself feel. Cry, reach out to someone that you trust and talk it over with them, vent out and scream if you must.
Doing this will not only help alleviate that burden that you have been carrying for so long, but this will also open you up for healing, growing, and moving forward.
9. Be Grateful
You will not be able to protect your peace if you only allow yourself to focus on the bad and the negative.
You have to learn to be grateful. Even for the small and little good things that are happening to you.
It doesn’t have to be something grand. It could be as simple as having the chance to wake up in the morning or seeing the people that we love smile or spending time with our precious pets.
I know that sometimes being grateful can be difficult, especially when everything around you is just falling apart.
I’ve witnessed this firsthand and I allowed myself to be bitter about all the things that are going wrong in my life.
I only focused on the bad and let me tell you, doing this did not make me feel better nor did it change and improve my life.
It only made me feel worse. It made me feel more hopeless and the problems more overwhelming.
By learning to practice daily gratitude, you are also protecting your peace. Start by saying at least three things that you are grateful for, the minute you wake up and before you go to bed.
Do this every day for at least 30 days and you will see the difference that it makes!
10. Have The Courage To Walk Away
Removing yourself from toxic situations can be scary and intimidating. I know sometimes it can feel that it’s better to just stay in the situation than to leave because change can be scary and we are afraid that things may not work out for us.
I know how that feels. Five years ago, I was stuck in this toxic situation that left me feeling exhausted, drained and so unhappy every single day.
I wanted to make a change and leave but I was scared. I thought that it was so much easier to stay and just be unhappy than to start over and make such a drastic change.
But one day, I didn’t know what took over me, I just left. I’m not going to lie the first months were hard, there were days when I started to question my decision.
There were days when I cried so much and started regretting it. There were days when I was so overwhelmed and felt like I couldn’t breathe.
But now I’m beyond grateful for what my past me has done because if she didn’t dare to make that change. I wouldn’t be here now, happier and more at peace with myself.
The thing is, life is just too short and far too precious to spend it unhappy.
11. Start Loving Yourself More
Accepting and loving yourself is an important step in learning how to protect your peace. If you hate yourself, you will never be able to be at peace with yourself.
I know that we have all heard or read the term love yourself more, but still, it is so much easier said than done.
I grew up being constantly compared to other people. I felt like regardless of what I do, I will never be good enough or worthy or deserving and I took that feeling with me for so long.
I kept trying to be somebody else, thinking that this is the only way for me to feel accepted and validated because I believed that I was not worthy.
Doing this did not only rob me of living a more meaningful life but it also kept me so unhappy. Please know that you don’t have to pretend to be somebody that you are not.
You are enough and worthy just as you are now.
Make the first step towards self-love by taking this 30 Day Self Love Challenge to help you start loving yourself more.
12. Make More Time For The People And The Things That Give You So Much Joy
By spending more time with the people that you love and doing more of the things that fill your heart with so much joy, you are not only making every day count but you are also protecting your peace.
It’s easy to take the people that we love and the things that we love to do for granted. It’s time to stop putting them on the back burner and start making them our priority.
Always make more time for the people that fill your life with so much joy and happiness, people who instantly lift your spirits.
It’s time to do more of what makes you happy and excited to wake up to in the morning.
Plan a weekend getaway or spend some mindful time with them. Rekindle your love for an old hobby. Doing this will not only make every day more meaningful but is also so beneficial for your overall well-being.
13. Learn To Put Your Phone Down From Time To Time
Regardless of how much we deny it, often there is just too much negativity and toxicity found on Social Media that is not only bad for our mental health but also robs us of the opportunity to spend our time more meaningfully.
It’s important to put your phone down from time to time and spend that time doing something that you love. Go for a walk outside.
Spend mindful time with the people that love you by actually listening to what they are telling you instead of just scrolling on your phone.
Protect your peace and start doing a digital detox every once in a while. Have at least one mindful meal every day.
14. Learn To Let Go Of Negative Thoughts
Are you also guilty of letting negative thought patterns rule your life?
How many times have you said no to an opportunity that you really liked because you were already telling yourself that you would fail?
It’s so easy to trap ourselves in all these negative thoughts and let them dictate all the decisions that we make in our lives.
We have to learn to let these negative thoughts go and replace them with positive ones to be able to find peace and protect it.
Here’s a great post from Psych Central that will help you learn how to let go of negative thoughts.
15. Do Things That’ll Calm Your Mind
This goes hand in hand with what I’ve mentioned above. It’s easy to let anxious thoughts, worries, and negative thinking rule our life.
Sometimes it even keeps us up at night and makes our days even so much more stressful.
The thing that really helped me fight these thoughts is by doing something that grounds me and that is meditation.
I was never a believer in meditation. I thought the key to meditating is emptying your mind and I thought to myself, how can I even empty my mind when I feel like my mind is just running on anxious thoughts 24 hours a day?
But I’ve learned that it wasn’t really about emptying your mind. It was about acknowledging your thoughts, letting them come but not letting your thoughts sweep you away.
Doing this every day has helped calm my mind and made my days less stressful. It doesn’t have to be just meditation. It can be yoga. Anything that’ll help center you and calm your mind.
Final Thoughts
If you want to protect your peace it’s important to remember that this is not something that you can just do today and forget about it the next day.
It is something that you have to choose every single day.
The world will always be full of noise from other people and sometimes it’s easy to let yourself be swept away by negative people and situations.
When this happens, remember that you have the power and the strength within you to stop it and prevent it from happening again.
Life is too precious to spend it living in other people’s negativity. Protect your peace and live the life that you deserve!
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