Protect Your Peace

I hate politics. I think that by the time people get to the level it takes to be eligible for public office, they have picked up narcissistic traits along the way. If millions of people are telling you how much they love you, it’s not hard to let that change who you are as a person.

This election season has been rough for a lot of people. I have watched as it has made friends enemies. Families divided. Everyone feels so passionately about who should be where that they forget who we all are at the core- humans, just trying to make it through life and enjoy it a little along the way.

One thing that my therapist has drilled into my head over the last year is that you have the power to protect the peace in your life. A year ago, I didn’t get that. I allowed trauma and drama into my life simply because I didn’t want to lose anyone else. I allowed mistreatment because it seemed like a better alternative than being alone.

Growth is an amazing thing. Now, I do anything possible to protect the peace I’ve built for myself. When you’re in a vulnerable place emotionally, it’s easy to not know how to do that. It’s a learned trait, for sure.

I’m much more in tune with what I will and won’t tolerate now. I say no much easier than I used to. I tell people how I feel without worrying about whether they will walk out of my life or not. Above all, I do everything with love. Compromising my beliefs and my core values isn’t something I’ll ever be comfortable doing again.

Along with this comes a tremendous amount of peace. As an empath, I tend to be a people pleaser. It’s very easy to be taken advantage of when you worry about someone’s reaction if you say no. I no longer worry about the reaction of others, I always think ahead to how my own actions may make me feel later. I own my mistakes, but I also own my peace. Nothing could possibly be more powerful than that right now.

And the end of the day, I’m the one who has to look myself in the mirror. I’m the one who has to look into the eyes of my child and say “I made the right choice for us”. I’ve made a boatload of bad decisions over the last year, setting myself on fire to keep others warm. Never again.

Peace in my life is the most valuable thing that I own, and it’s free for the taking. I’ve reached the point in where I almost immediately identify the bad from the good, the worthy of the not. If something makes me feel terrible, I’m completely comfortable walking away from it. If something makes me feel good and safe, I gravitate towards it. Rarely is intuition ever wrong, but while grieving it absolutely can be.

As you travel through the coming weeks, remember that. No matter who you voted for, no matter who your neighbor voted for, we’re all human. We all feel passionate about important issues. But if your choices and your reaction to things like an election make you feel anything other than peace, take a step away from it and let it go. Peace will wash over you like a hard rain, and I think we can all agree that we need that every once in a while. If you have peace in your life, your little ones will, too. And protecting the hearts and minds of the little people watching every move we make will always get my vote.