Feeling Peaceful: A Guide to Your Emotions

PUBLISHED Dec 23rd, 2020 & UPDATED ON Jan 26th, 2023

If you’re anything like us, you probably have some sort of mental health struggle. Anxiety, depression, OCD, ADHD, PTSD, or anything and everything else under the sun! These likely have caused you some kind of emotional turmoil and seriously impacted how you live your life and view yourself. Ya, us too! But in this moment, you feel none of that. You’re feeling peaceful.

You accept every part of your mental and physical self, and your life. There is no struggle inside of you. No war. Nothing! Just calm, love, and acceptance.

That’s the kind of state that feels like pure contentment and bliss. Nothing can get to you. Why? Because right now, you feel peaceful.

A Deeper Look at Feeling Peaceful

Peacefulness is something that a lot of us probably strive towards achieving. Who wouldn’t want to feel at peace? It’s calming, welcoming, loving… all the good vibes happen when you feel at peace. It sounds a bit cliché and overdone as a topic, but it’s actually a very important and lovely emotion. Some might scoff at the idea of finding peace, but let’s get real, we all really want to feel that way within ourselves and our lives.

This feeling can look different for everyone. It could come after meditating, listening to chill music, or spending an evening cuddling with your partner or pet. Some people find peace in the woods while hiking, some find it in their homes, or some find it in places of gathering.

Some might think that feeling peaceful means that there is nothing wrong in your life. There are no problems, there are no struggles to face. But that’s almost impossible! Everyone has some kind of challenge they have to face. When you feel peaceful, you accept the challenges and face them with a newfound resilience.

Generally, people think that peacefulness comes from a lack of conflict – this is just how peace shows up in society. Feeling peace within yourself is totally different! There can still be conflict outside of us or unrest in our lives, but there is still an opportunity for us to feel peaceful.

When you’re at peace, you feel calm, safe, and relaxed. Even if there is stress, you are protected from it by this sense of security and safety that brings about stillness. Regardless of the challenges you’re facing, you still have an outlook on life that allows you to see opportunity and abundance around you.

Feeling at peace creates stability within your life in areas like relationships, work, family, and friendships. It adds a level of stability to our lives that soooo many of us need.

How Feeling Peaceful Shows Up Mentally

Our minds are full of stuff! Stuff that causes us happiness, stuff that causes us turmoil, stuff that causes us anxiety, stuff that brings us joy, anger, every emotion! Peace can accompany allll of that shit when you accept it. When we feel at peace within ourselves, we are then able to experience so many more positive emotions!

This is because peace impacts other aspects of our lives, which then allows us to experience a wide range of positivity and loveliness. This might not be true for everyone, but when a person is at peace, they feel like they’re moving through life more mindfully and with more intent than before. Each action is felt, each emotion is felt, and gratitude naturally starts to slip in. Feeling peaceful can show up as acceptance, happiness, and mindfulness.

How Peacefulness Shows Up Physically

When we are at peace, we aren’t clenching our jaws, our shoulders are down and away from our ears, and we are relaxed. There is no pressure for us to look or be one way because we are truly relaxeddddd. We don’t have to look like a pile of jelly, but we can be relaxed enough where holding ourselves doesn’t hurt or strain.

When we are at peace, there is no rush to go anywhere. We revel in the small moments like driving our cars, eating really yummy ice cream, or the beautiful moment of cuddling with our animals. To quote the wise Ferris Bueller, “Life moves pretty fast. If you don’t stop and look around once in a while you could miss it.”

5 Ways to Find Peacefulness

If you’re having a hard time finding peacefulness in your life, try these tips to bring a little pocket of serenity into your life:

1. Journaling

If you’re having a lot of negative thoughts running through your head, try and journal what you’re feeling and thinking at that moment. Then try to reframe and counter the negative thoughts that you have written down.

2. Practice deep breathing

Deep breathing is a great way to calm the nervous system! It brings people such a lovely sense of calmness and tranquillity because of its relaxing effect on the body. Deep breathing is actually a fantastic thing to pair with meditation too if you want to go the extra peaceful mile!

3. Engage in something creative

This can be anything that you enjoy! Art, calligraphy, photography, painting, drawing, sketching, writing, scrapbooking, poetry, blog writing, singing, playing an instrument, crocheting, knitting, ANYTHING! They help relax your mind and bring you joy in ways that you normally don’t experience in your every day.

4. Practice meditation

Meditation can be a fantastic way to create peace and tranquillity in your life. It helps create mindfulness and forces you to sloooowww dowwwn for just a few minutes. If you are new to meditating, don’t dive head first into an hour-long meditation. Try 5 or 10 minutes at first and work your way up!

5. Practice gratitude

You can try gratitude journaling to get you started on this path. Being grateful for what you have can bring about so much happiness! You’ll start to love and appreciate everything around you–every small moment, and every tiny detail of your life.

We are so glad that you are feeling peaceful right now, in this moment! We certainly are after writing this! It’s a lovely and warm space to sit in. Now, we’re going to go and ride this vibe and meditate. Byyyyeee!