Inner Peace, How You Get?!

[Kalstolyn]

Singing in a choir does that for me. It's one of the few times when I can focus on what I'm doing and everything else just goes away for a while. I come out of rehearsals feeling energized (although sometimes exhausted at the same time), relaxed, and ready to face the world again.  

[God-Raped-Me]

Figure skating! Skating is as natural as walking is to me, and I get lost in the moment when I'm in mid air, or spinning for what seems like an eternity. God I need to get back on the ice! Drawing usually relaxes me too. Looking at the sunset, rainbows, fire, or listening to water works too.

I should probably try all these!  

[invisible-weirdo]

My mind apparently doesn't have an off switch (it's always flitting around from one subject to another), but I guess the closest to an 'inner calm' I've gotten is from blowing bubbles, as weird as that sounds. A couple weeks ago at my little cousin's birthday I probably spent like 2 hours blowing bubbles sweatdrop But I realized just how good it is. There's no way bubbles can make you stressed (video games have the capacity to make me stressed (or at least annoyed), whether I'm trying and failing to do a level/learn a combo or whatever or a certain character is annoying the s**t out of me (*coughFailkaricough*)).

And bubbles make me happy 3nodding

[/babble]  

[124-C]

Any simple, repetitive task is generally pretty calming to me. A while back my parents had a banker's box full of sensitive information (bank statements, invoices, cancelled checks, and the like) that they were going to bring someplace to have shredded. I took over from there and spent about six hours in total putting it through a shredder.

Very relaxing...  

[Thaliat Everwood]

C-a-l-m? I'm not familiar with this "calm" of which you speak. I am too active and caffeinated to achieve "calm" unless I am asleep...and you've never been inside my dreams!

As for "inner peace", I can achieve that by escaping into my imagination. I do that a lot now that I am working on my novel. I just like the world I created, it's a lot more interesting than this one, and I can play with a sword! wink  

[infinite_personalities101]

Mine's kinda of weird but oh well.

I like to build wooden models. They're cheap and I feel relaxed when I'm doing it. And when I finish a model, I work on my doll house that I've been putting together for such a long time. So far I've built a sail boat, a swan, a butterfly, and then a tiger. I might be doing a dragon too XD  

[Sentama Lin]

Calm... I like to think I practise being calm every day, even if I'm not always calm.

What helps me be calm is to simply be aware. It started out with just being aware of my breathing, then being aware of my blood flow, then being aware of the feelings of each of my steps. It was a voluntary awareness to the physical stimuli your body receives constantly, which I learned to get by specifically identifying certain physical feelings and then leaving it as that. Then, I began to be aware of certain mental things and started labeling those too: I feel sad right now, I feel angry right now, I feel confused right now.

It's just easier to be in a state where you always feel outside of yourself, you know, uninfluenced by your emotions (though you still have them). It's easier for me to remember that I can act in anger, but realise that nothing good will happen if I do. Or, I can wallow in my sadness, but realise that merely being pouty won't change a situation. Also, it feels enjoyable to recognise when one steps into something new (concrete, grass, or other things).

*shrugs*  

[aretoo]

Oddly enough... Splitting firewood. It's very therapeutic whacking away at giant rounds of seasoned fir... and it probably saved me strangling my brother a time or two while growing up. ^_^  

[Taeryyn]

"Inner peace" is not something I'm terribly familiar with. It's not like I'm keyed up or hyper all the time; I just wouldn't say I'm particularly peaceful, even in my downtime. :s

Pretty much everything Linny described, that's not something I can do to calm down. Like thinking about my breathing and blood flow and all that? That's a perfect way for me to feel extremely uncomfortable in my own skin, or even start off an anxiety attack. gonk Just tried that for a few minute tonight and I'm still kind of hyperventilating. Using deep breathing, yeah, that's fine, as long as I'm not thinking about the mechanism involved.

I don't like feeling "outside of myself". I hate it. That kind of detachment is too similar to some negative experiences I've had with anti-depressants. As frustrating as it can be, having my brain whirring constantly and not being able to just...zen out, I've found it's much, much worse to be detached.

I'm sorry to sort of single you out, Lin. >.< Your example just gave me something to compare myself to.

I suppose I'm most relaxed when I'm underwater. Either floating with my eyes closed and my ears submerged, or looking up at the sky from under a couple of feet of water. I wish I could breathe underwater, so I could stay under longer. It's like as soon as I'm submerged, I can finally just...relax.  

[Jafthasleftthebuilding]

Whenever I crawl into bed with my thoughts and cry myself to sleep.

emo  

[Yvaine]

I do Qi Gong. Dreadfully traditional, I know. But I got certified as a teacher for a reason, and it wasn't to make the big bucks, I assure you.  

[Bassios]

Building model kits calms me down, weather it's Warhammer, Airfix or Gundam, if I can do something with my hands like that, it'll calm me down and help me chill.


Which is why I've got one on order at the moment, and have just built one today. I built G-Fighter today and I've got RX-75 Guntank on order.

 

[Chexley]

I'll paint you mornings of gold,
I'll spin you Valentine evenings...

Hm. I've never really thought about how I relax. *Thinks.*

Maybe filling the tub with warm water and grabbing a book to read while I soak. I might take my DS in there with me (yes, I'm careful with my stuff near the water) to play.

Watching TV every now and again helps take my mind off of things: sitting on the couch with a pillow or blanket and watching a movie on HBO for an hour or two is pretty nice. :3

Though we're strangers till now,
We're choosing a path between the stars.