Three Shortcuts to Inner Peace

Freeze Frame

TRIGGER: For all beverage breaks.

TOOL: As you take your first sip of a morning beverage, stop for a moment, take a deep breath, freeze the frame (make a mental or audible camera click sound), and think, Life is good. As you take your fi rst sip of your lunch drink, your afternoon coffee, your evening drink, create the habit of stopping to take a mental snapshot. Feel the liquid go down your throat. Notice, breathe, absorb, and savor the tastes as well as the moment. Imprint on your mind the happiness habit of noting to yourself, Ah, this is a good moment.

When I was in college, I had the great fortune to spend my junior year in London, England. It was a fascinating year in most regards, full of adventures that felt fresh in ways that only twenty-year-olds can experience. Walking down a crowded street and riding the underground subway (affectionately called the Tube) were thrilling adventures for me.

Having never lived in an urban environment before, I was fascinated by the many sights and sounds of big- city living. But one curious association that I have with England is the complete enthusiasm — nay, near worship — that the English have for their beverages.

The Brits are, of course, known for their abiding affection for tea of all varieties, but they have equal enthusiasm for their blackberry juice, cold colas, and pints at the pub. Yet it wasn’t just the mere consumption of liquids that struck me. It was the ritual, the courtship, the rapture. Whether it was the “ah” reaction to that first sip of tea perfectly mixed with sugar and cream or the reverent first encounter with the foam on the top of a pint of ale, I thought to myself again and again, These people know how to appreciate their beverages.

If you’re old enough to remember the Lipton “plunge” advertisements from the 1970s, you’ll remember that sense of “ahhhhhhhhhhh” as the happy tea drinker fell backward in a pool of cool water, refreshed and satisfi ed with a glass of iced tea.

Multiple times a day we have just such an opportunity for complete satisfaction... if we remember to stop, notice, and savor. Every fi rst sip can be a moment of inner refreshment, of utter delight. So swirl your beverage as a fi ne-wine connoisseur would do in a tasting, open your senses to the experience, take your mental click, and give thanks for the nectar. “Ah, this is living.”

PURPOSE: This tool helps train our minds to focus on a moment of simple pleasure. It identifi es a happy moment and holds it in our consciousness, creating an imprint of positive experience. It cultivates gratitude, a quality highly correlated with peacefulness. Finally, it creates a “pause” which momentarily stops the physical and emotional spiral of the day.

Stop, Drop, and Roll

TRIGGER: When stopped at a red light.

TOOL : “Stop,” “drop” down into your heart, and “roll” out a little goodwill to your fellow travelers. Look at the people in other cars in front of you, behind you, passing around you, and recognize that each one of them is just like you: They want happiness and they want to be free from suffering. To each person you focus on say or think something like:

May you know happiness.

May you be free from suffering.

Peace be with you.

I hope you have a nice day.

When I was a kid, we had a station wagon with a backseat that faced the back window of the car. So, if you happened to be sitting in the backseat, you actually looked directly at the cars behind you. Back in the day, most station wagons had this design feature.

Recently, I was having a stressful day, preoccupied with my thoughts and worries. As I was driving, I came to a stoplight behind an old- fashioned station wagon, and lo and behold, there were two small children in the backseat facing me. I must admit that it’s a bit unnerving at first to be face-to-face with someone at a stoplight when you are not accustomed to making eye contact.

I smiled at the children and the next thing I knew they were waving at me. Then I held up the peace sign, which they mimicked. The three of us laughed, and then the little girl blew me a kiss, which I returned. We were having such a love - fest that I actually felt a little sad when the light turned green. Those few moments of goodwill had changed my day — my heart felt lifted.

What a nice way to spend a pause at a red light, I thought. Most of us spend red lights either in unconsciousness, fretting about the future or the past, or grumbling at the driver who wasn’t going fast enough. Why not use red lights to wish a little goodwill to others? I mused.

Imagine if at every stoplight every person in every car was having thoughts of goodwill and kindness. Imagine if at every stoplight every person was aware, even for a moment, of their compassion for others. My prediction: Road rage would cease! We would have a very different world indeed.

Use this Shortcut to actually look at the people in the cars around you and remember for a moment that they have loved ones, jobs, worries, delights, fears, joys, and entire lives, just like you do. Connect for a brief moment and wish them well.

PURPOSE: This tool “quenches the fi re” of road rage by getting us out of our own little worlds. Commuting for many people can be the most stressful time in their workdays. Actively using this Shortcut gives us another way to be in the car. It opens us to our surroundings, expanding our sense of self by connecting with others who also wish for happiness and wish to be free from suffering. Warm feelings toward others activate the calming aspects of our own nervous systems. Opening our hearts with compassion, we experience a deeper sense of inner peace.

Go with the Flow

TRIGGER: When washing your hands.

TOOL : Whenever you’re at a sink and touch water, let the stream of warm liquid cue you to say, “Go with the flow” or “I trust the universe” or “Everything is as it should be.” This reminds you to let go and flow with the current of life.

Most of us like to believe that we’re in control, master of our fates. The cold hard truth, however, is that we actually control very little in our lives. We can’t control other people, the weather, death, sickness, delays, traffi c, long lines in stores, and on and on. We do most everything we can to keep up the pretense of our in-charge personas, but somewhere deep inside we suspect it’s all an illusion. Nowhere is this more evident than during air travel.

Now I don’t spend a lot of time in airplanes, but I have flown enough through the years to experience nine hour delays, canceled flights, closed airports, equipment malfunctions, de-icing, screaming infants (once it was my own), kicking children (directly behind me), cramped middle seats, turbulence, and vomiting neighbors. I’ve been on short fl ights, long fl ights, small planes, and jumbo jets. All I can say is that it’s a humbling experience because you can control absolutely nothing except your personal state of mind (and usually that feels beyond your control as well).

One summer afternoon, I was in an airport and an airline employee came over the public address system to announce that our fl ight was delayed indefi nitely until a thunderstorm system moved through Denver. Much to my surprise, a teenage boy sitting next to his mother across from me got up in a rage, yelled at the top of his lungs “DAMN!” and began kicking a nearby wheelchair (which, fortunately, was empty). The mother of the irate teen looked mortifi ed but didn’t say a single word to her son. People all around me began huffi ng, whipping out their cell phones, and muttering similar obscenities under their collective breaths.

I too was starting to feel my blood pressure rise, but then I had a strange sort of out-of-body experience. I “clicked” and suddenly became a detached observer, like I was watching an airport-delay scene in a movie theater. I watched the would-be passengers responding with frustration, some yelling at the airline employees (as if that would cause the storm system to move faster). I realized how laughably absurd the situation appeared. They were like a bunch of toddlers throwing tantrums because their recess was rained out.

Within seconds, I clicked back into my body. With my eyes closed, I envisioned the rains that were responsible for our delays, and I just “let go.” I imagined the waters drenching me and in my head began to chant, Go with the flow. With that, I calmly opened my book and proceeded to have a great read for the next couple of hours while I waited for all the storms to pass. It has been said that whenever we fi ght with reality, we lose. Learning to accept what’s already happening, rolling with theproverbial punches, and fl owing with the current of life is truly one of the biggest secrets to inner peace.

PURPOSE: Swimming upstream is not only exhausting but usually futile as well. There is a wonderful feeling of alignment when we give up resistance and let the current carry us. When we focus for a moment on water and our hands, we create a space within which resistance can dissipate. And warm water actually calms our bodies. This tool reminds us of the peaceful power of acceptance.