Hi, I'm Diane Groussell, and I'm also known as Silver Disobedience. I'm a perception analyst and a hypnotherapist, and I'm the president of my company, DGI, and I share all kinds of ideas on how you can also live a better life. Today I want to talk about how to become a calm presence and a conscious participant in life and whatever else you're doing in life. A good goal is to become a calm presence and a conscious participant in all interactions and situations.
Now, I'm not going to tell you it's easy, but it is doable. So to become a calm presence means that we have to possess a state of inner tranquility. We have to hold our composure, keep it together, especially in challenging or stressful
situations. So this involves maintaining our emotional stability and our serenity no matter what's happening, and choosing to not react while interacting with others or navigating through any of life's challenges and circumstances that come at us at all times from all directions.
So being a calm presence is a really worthy goal because it can positively influence not just yourself but all those around you, as it creates an atmosphere of reassurance and stability, and that makes you a better leader, communicator and groovier person to hang with. Being a conscious participant, that requires that you're going to have to be actively engaging in situations, conversations or activities. But we have to do this with awareness and intention.
Intentionality always a word. I have a struggle with intentionality. This means we have to be fully present, present in the moment. We're paying attention to details. We're demonstrating our active involvement rather than merely going through the motions. Sorry to tell you. It probably means putting your cell phone down in your purse, in your briefcase, in another room so you're not distracted. Because distracted people are
not conscious participants. Conscious participants are mindful of their actions, their choices, and they recognize the impact that they can have on themselves and others. And it's a wonderful impact you can have when you are a conscious participant. Combining these two qualities, being a calm presence, the voice of reason, and a conscious participant who's fully in the moment, well, that means you're being both emotionally composed and actively engaged.
So this involves approaching life with a sense of mindfulness, awareness, and thoughtful responsiveness. By embodying these qualities personally and professionally at home, with friends, family, or at work, we build healthier relationships in all aspects of our lives, making more informed decisions along the way and contributing to a more positive and harmonious environment whichever environment we're in. So next, I'd like to share 7 easy tips.
And again, I'm Diane Grisel. I'm also known as Silver Dispedience. I'm a perception analyst. I'm a hypnotherapist. And I've been a I am Aceo of president of a communications company. I help people understand the gaps in their perceptions. So next what I want to talk about is how can you do it yourself? OK, how can you develop a calm presence in challenging situations? This can be cultivated. It's done through practice and the adoption of certain strategies.
And once you know those strategies, you can start to use those techniques to develop your own calm presence. Here's the first one. When you're facing a challenging situation, you got to start by taking slow, deep breaths.
I say this all the time, but we all walk around as shallow breathers and there's not a single person, if you just say stop and take a deep breath, that a zillion things going on in the body and there are a zillion things going on in your body at all times that either make you feel stressed or relaxed. Your that deep breath activates your relaxation response and this instantly helps you regulate emotions and reduce stress.
So the minute you're confronted with a stressful situation and you think you're going to lose, lose it or you've got to just stop and breathe consciously. Say I'm just. I just got to take a breathing break a minute and even 3 breaths will change you if you can get to a minute. You're talking about sometimes and a complete attitude shift #2. You've got to learn and practice mindfulness techniques to train your mind to stay present and focused. I'm a big believer in breathing.
If you go onto my website, dianegrissel.com in the Silver Dispedience column, you will see plenty of ideas. In my blogs, I'm always offering suggestions. Just search mindfulness and you'll find all kinds of ways that you can be strengthening your approach to life. See now. Right now I hear that phone ringing, but I am ignoring it. And I hope you can too, because the goal here is to strengthen your presence.
Remain calm and centered in the face of challenges, distractions, disruptions that are going to constantly happen throughout our lives at all times #3 develop self-awareness. You do this by paying attention to your thoughts, emotions, physical sensations that all come up in challenging
situations. The more we can recognize patterns of of, let's say, the patterns of our reactions or the triggers that lead to our sense of heightened stress or anxiety, the better we become with getting closer to our inner calm. Because you can become aware and with awareness, you can consciously choose more calm, positive responses. And let me tell you, your response, whether you want to own it or not, is a choice.
OK, It is a choice because you are in charge of what's going on in this space above your shoulders. OK, This is your space to control and you can with practice. I'm not telling and I never use the word easy because these things aren't easy. They take practice, and sometimes it's two steps forward and one step back. But you can train your brain to reframe, and that's going to bring us to #4, which is training yourself to reframe challenging situations in a more
positive or balanced light. The tendency is to catastrophize. I love that word catastrophize, so I'm saying it twice, catastrophize or dwelling in the negatives. Instead of catastrophizing, try to find potential opportunities, lessons, alternative viewpoints that can bring a sense of calm and clarity to you and ultimately, possibly those around you. #5 Prepare for challenging situations. You might have to gather information, develop necessary skills, and rehearse beforehand.
The more prepared you feel, the more confident and calm you will be. When facing challenges, which are inevitable because life is a perseverance and challenge test number six, Prioritize self-care activities. There are things you can do that will help you recharge. Taking care of your physical and emotional well-being contributes to an overall sense of calm and resilience.
This could be how you eat, whether you go to the gym, whether you take time to take a walk, whether you spend some time in nature, whether you get together with friends and instead of you know, going straight down to bang down the cocktails you need for tea. It could be anything where you are doing things that take care of your physical and emotional well-being. Always when you do this, it will contribute to your overall sense of calm and more importantly
your resilience. That says I can handle this and I can do it again and again, #7 would be cultivate empathy and compassion. This is really important. Empathy and compassion for yourself and others. This means acknowledging pain and that we might not get it all right the first time, but if you approach challenging situations with understanding and kindness, it really helps diffuse tension and creates a more harmonious environment.
Now this is not saying with empathy that you can't be empathetic and still say this situation's not for me. There are situations that you should remove yourself from where you can be empathetic, but you don't have to stand there and be the whipping post. So you have to determine these things, but you can still be empathetic. You can listen, You can give an ear and have your own boundaries that protect your own mental health as well.
Developing a calm presence, well, it takes some time and practice, so we all have to be patient with ourselves. We have to celebrate the small victories that we'll have along the way because we will have them. Like I said, sometimes it's one step, 2 steps forward, one step back, sometimes it's two steps back and we feel like we're right where we started. But we can keep moving forward with practice and a commitment to be better people.
Over time, these strategies can become more natural. They will become more natural. They'll kind of become second nature. And people will say, wow, you just seem so much cooler these days. They'll be like, yeah, seems that way. How cool is that? You can cultivate a greater sense of calm in challenging situations. My bet's on you. I'm Diane Groussell. I'm also known as Silver Disobedience. I am a perception analyst. I'm a hypnotherapist.
I work with companies and individuals to help them better understand where there are disconnects and what they believe and what others might believe and those disconnects and how they impact our personal and professional lives. I want to really thank you for tuning in and I hope you subscribe and you can always find more information on my blog. I post every day, I'm on social media and I try to add these posts at least two or three times a week. Thanks again for joining me.
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