A Passion for Peace of Mind: Fast Track for Moms of Challenged Young Adults
I have a passion for peace of mind.
I grew up in a chaotic household. There was a lot of verbal and emotional conflict. I did not learn a healthy way of managing my emotions, so I bottled up my feelings.
My neck was literally the bottleneck beyond which feelings could not emerge. I felt sad often, often expressing as a physical “choked up” feeling. Any cold or flu started for me as a sore throat.
My coping mechanisms were over-responsibility, worry, and control. I developed depression and anxiety as an adult.
Through it all, I wanted to feel better, I wanted peace from the chaos that started out as external circumstances but became internalized in my mind and body.
That determination to find a path to peace led me to try a variety of methodologies. I benefited from therapy for many years, but much as I gained insight to myself, it did not relieve my depression.
I decided I needed to address the emotions that were bottled up, so I found a therapist who could help me identify and release these old emotions. The growth was huge – I let go of a great deal of old pain during this work.
Meanwhile, life challenges kept showing up. A failed engagement. A relationship with a drug addict/alcoholic. A big move and job change. I hit bottom, the worst I’d ever felt.
But I was determined to get better, to feel better, to replace the terrible and constant worry in my mind with more calm, more peace. I wanted to be able to have inner peace no matter what was going on with my life circumstances.
So, I dug in. I did some really hard inner work. I would do whatever it took to get more peace of mind.
Basically, I excavated every negative feeling I’d ever had toward anyone and anything in my life, examined it in detail, extracted the thought and behavior patterns, and finally released them all.
It took a long time. It wasn’t easy. I lived in the heaviness of those old patterns while I processed them.
Luckily, I didn’t have to do it alone, I had help and support from others who had been through it, too.
Through this work, I came to understood my patterns of thought, feeling, and action. I could see how they served me in the past, but no longer provided benefit. I let them go.
Meanwhile, I developed new patterns, new options for responding to situations, and I practiced them. Because if you let go of your old coping mechanisms, what do you replace them with? I call it developing a new repertoire.
Eventually, I reduced my old negative reactions to things, and am now more able to respond consistently from a healthier set of attitudes and behaviors.
Instead of reacting with worry or anger, I could pause, think, and decide how to respond from a kinder, more peaceful place.
Over time, I developed an inner core of peace. I knew myself, accepted my best and worst attributes, and loved myself.
It became more natural for me to connect with my center, my source of peace, when stressful situations came up. I might react immediately with fear or anxiety, but I had the tools to calm down, think it through, and find my inner serenity much more quickly than in the past.
In the self-examination process, I purged very negative relationship patterns, and as soon as I realized I was happy being alone for the rest of my life, I found the perfect life partner for me. We were very compatible, but very different. So we challenged each other to grow!
He had 6 kids, most of them teens. We took custody of the 13-year-old who suffered from anxiety, depression, and as we found out years later, PTSD. We also hosted several other of his children over the years, each with their own challenges.
I had to learn how to be a stepmother. I had to bring all my tools to bear to maintain my peace of mind, my secure inner core.
I let it unfold – going with the flow of what each stepchild needed, and gently and respectfully offering help and support.
We had our share of conflicts, which challenged my serenity over and over again. I got to practice finding that inner core and my own center, looking at my part in the problems, doing my best to admit my mistakes and commit to doing better the next time.
Over the last decade, as my now 25-year-old stepchild (pronouns they/them) still struggles with mental health challenges and has not yet launched, I have learned a great deal more about how to maintain my peace of mind.
From dealing with their downward spirals into suicidal thinking to finding out that my way of “helping” them launch actually hurts them, I have had to learn new ways of supporting someone.
Ironically, I’ve learned that doing nothing but being there with love is actually better than pushing for them to do something I think is in their best interest.
Every time I get stressed about their progress, and want them to show more of it, it turns into a downward spiral. When I step back, allow them to make their choices, and come to me for help when needed, they make much more progress.
The best way for me to maintain peace of mind with all of my (now adult) stepchildren’s problems is to detach with love – know where my responsibility ends and theirs picks up. It’s not my job to save them or live their lives for them.
When I have good boundaries, don’t take on their feelings, and just let them know I love them and I’m here for them, I have less stress, and they have the freedom to make their own choices.
Every time something happens in life now, it’s a chance for me to practice peace of mind. I could choose to get stressed, and sometimes I do, or I can turn to my tools and come back to center.
Now that I have the hang of it, I share what I know with others, in the hope that I can help them get there faster.
If you want more peace of mind with your life circumstances and have a young adult at home that struggles to launch, I can help!
