Find the Calm within the Storm

Yesterday I woke up to some bad news. One of my friends had fallen asleep while driving home last night and gotten into an accident. Thankfully he was ok, but there was some other bad news: he was over the legal limit for alcohol consumption. He received a DUI charge. He’s been battling alcohol problems for a while.

“I’m going to go to an AA meeting today at 5:30,” he says to me on the phone.

Going to an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting is never an easy thing. It’s an uncomfortable situation, and you don’t know what to expect. It definitely doesn’t help that by going you are making a statement to yourself that you ARE in need of help, and can’t fix it yourself. It can be a tough pill to swallow.

A few years back I went to an AA meeting in support of another friend of mine. I wasn’t even going to the meeting for myself, yet I still felt uncomfortable. Thinking about this, I knew the best move for me to make was to go support my friend at his first AA meeting, instead of having him go alone. Plus that way I can assure he gets there and doesn’t miss it.

“Do you want me to come with you?”

He goes on to say I don’t have to but if I were willing he would appreciate it. So that’s what I did.

During the meeting there is a discussion period, where most of the people there will get a chance to talk about whatever they want to. You’ve seen it in the movies: “Hi I’m X and I’m an alcoholic…” One of the guys, I can’t remember his name, older fellow, started talking about how he’s tried to get better multiple times, used treatment centers, used AA, and every time he ends up falling back. His voice was irritated. You could hear the sense of frustration with each word he said. The frustration wasn’t to imply he was giving up though. No not at all. He still had that fierce determination, that “swag” that he was going to win this battle.

He said the key to him succeeding was to find calmness when things got out of wack – even if just a little bit. “Just take 5 minutes,” he constantly reminded himself. This applied no matter where he was; whenever he began to feel stressed out, he would just take 5 minutes to himself to meditate and calm his mind down. “When you do this, you are able to make the decision you actually want to make, instead of one based on emotions or fear.”

This resonated with me a lot. Lately I’ve been stressed out to say the least. It’s honestly the most stressed out I’ve been in over 3 years. No joke. And to be honest, I’m not even “that” stressed out; and it could be worse, but I believe you should be optimizing at all times, so no amount of stress to me is “ok”. I prefer to live my life 100% drama-free.

In my opinion, all the stress I’ve had recently could be avoided if I dealt with things better. I need to be that much more organized and that much better at “finding the calm within the storm.” I can be better at taking 5 minutes to control my emotions before making any decisions. I can take full responsibility.

One of the coolest side effects of studying Social Dynamics is that you become emotionally stable. This allows you to make decisions properly, of which make your life that much better.

I know it’s something we have all heard a million times, and a million more times on top of that, but regardless, being reminded of the basics never hurts; and to be honest, since attending that AA meeting I have made a much more conscious decision to take 5 minutes to re-center, and this has impacted my life in very positive ways lately.

So next time you are feeling a bit overwhelmed, stressed out, angry, or jealous, take 5 minutes wherever you are, head into a bathroom stall, pull over on the side of the road – whatever you have to do – and find the calm within the storm. Or as my Mother would say: “Take a breath and count to ten.”

Big things will be happening with the newsletter soon, including the release of the new ebook (over 100 pages!!) so make sure you sign-up below. No spam ever. Also help spread the word and share the site with your friends: girls, guys, whoever. Let them know!

Last thing before I go: Brian and I recently put together a few resource pages, so make sure you check them out:

• Social Dynamics in a Nutshell…
• Phone and Text Conversations 101: Cause Meeting Them? That’s the Easy Part.
• Meeting New People Made Easy: Why Meeting People is Important… and How To Understand the Step by Step Process of Doing So.
• Developing Your Mindsets: Remove All Mental Limitations and Anything Becomes Possible.