What If Peace Is The Most Powerful Choice

One unexpected phone call can hijack a perfect day, and that’s exactly why we wanted to talk about peace of mind while we’re sitting in a place that feels genuinely calm. We’re on vacation in Virgin Gorda, soaking up quiet mornings and slow rhythms, when a work situation tries to pull us right back into urgency, blame, and the need to be right. That contrast sets up the question we keep returning to: are we thinking about peace, or are we actually being peaceful?

We unpack a line we love from Krishna Das: “Thinking about peace of mind is not being peaceful.” It sounds obvious, but it lands differently when you notice how often we plan our way toward calm and accidentally turn rest, mindfulness, and even meditation into another project. We talk about nervous system activation, why some people escalate so fast, and how a simple pause can keep someone else’s chaos from becoming your day.

From there we get practical: boundaries that work in the moment, why not engaging can feel “wrong” but still be wise, and how “where there’s no wood, the fire goes out” applies to texts, arguments, and workplace drama. We also challenge the cultural idea that peace is softness. Peace can be power, presence, and steadiness, especially when everyone else is spiraling.

If you’ve been craving less anxiety, better emotional regulation, and more mindfulness in everyday life, listen along and try one breath before the next reaction. Subscribe, share this with a friend who needs a calmer nervous system, and leave us a review with what stood out most.

Please email us at Gettoknowthedevil@gmail.com

Transcript

Vacation Setting And Real Calm

SPEAKER_00 0:00

This is Cleveland.

SPEAKER_02 0:01

And this is Lindsay.

SPEAKER_00 0:02

And this is another episode of The Devil You Don't Know. Lindsay, what are we going to be talking about today? Peace of mind is powerful. But before we get started, uh, as always, let's do a little catch-up with the folks. Uh, if you hear a little bit of noise in the background, we are currently in Virgin Gorda and the beautiful always get where we stay wrong. Wava Berry, am I gonna get it right this time?

SPEAKER_02 0:24

Wava Berry Spring Bay Vacation Homes.

SPEAKER_00 0:27

Boom. Lovely, lovely time. We just came back from Leverick Bay, um, which was actually pretty decent dinner, good dinner. Um, but just had so many good much, so much good food and so much of a good time out here as we still have about what 11 days of this 21-day excursion left. Um as I digress, the only reason I just mentioned it is their fan 12 days, actually. Yeah, 12 days. The fan is blowing in the background because it's a little hot in the room right now.

SPEAKER_02 0:58

Yes, it's it's a nice, cute little villa and that's windows all around. It's kind of like, I guess, what shape is it? Like an octagon. And there's literal windows around the entire thing, and during the day the sun beats in and it is so hot in here. I mean, we're not really here during the day, so it's fine. Um, they have a lovely private beach, and they have these nice chairs, and I for the past four days have just sat in a chair, read book after book after book, and swam in the sea for hours, and it has been fabulous. And I think the most amount of people we've seen on the beach are maybe five or six, peace of mind.

SPEAKER_00 1:42

So we have the we have the the the the couple, the uh the two women uh that are from uh the U.S. that's Carolina, yeah. Yeah, that we do the uh changing of the guard with every day.

SPEAKER_02 1:52

We we set up the leaving the beach, they're coming for the day. I guess they sleep in and we're early risers.

SPEAKER_00 1:58

So we set up the the the beach chairs under the sh under the shade of the tree, and it's just a wonderful time, and then they come down and we exchange places. I feel like it's changing it away.

SPEAKER_02 2:06

It is, and you know, Virgin Gorda is such a sleepy place, and I find that the older I get, the more that I love places with private beach and housekeeping. Yeah, yeah, I think I and yeah, I mean, we've slept about 10 to 12 hours a night here. It's ridiculous.

SPEAKER_00 2:23

I I gotta stay up a little bit tonight um because I got some stuff I gotta do and take care of it. But you will be knocking.

SPEAKER_02 2:29

I will be reading my book. I cannot wait to get back to my book. I'm on my fourth book of this trip.

SPEAKER_00 2:34

Here's the crazy thing about life that I do like to stress myself out about uh many things. Um I was very stressed about coming on this vacation. So far it worked out because I just thought I wasn't gonna have time. But here it is there's been no power in New York all day. And I was very concerned about being able to keep up with some of my work and being away. Here's the ironic thing. Today, I would have been home in New York with no access to power, over hot, heated, and would have been pissed off the whole day because not only would I have been in a hot house with no power, I wouldn't have been able to work. But at least here, I'm I'm away. It's wonderful. Got some really good food, some good time, and hey.

SPEAKER_02 3:18

It's really, really wonderful. And we have been just out and about exploring. It's it's such a beautiful place, and when you drive around here and when you talk to the local people, they're just happy. Do you ever notice that? Very they actually to tie in with this episode. It's a very peaceful place.

SPEAKER_00 3:37

Margaret, uh, where we went to today, what was the name? The MM bar?

SPEAKER_02 3:40

M M B J Restaurant and Bar. Yeah, great. Next to the parts and service car fix it that was in a dirt lot.

SPEAKER_00 3:50

And there's really good food. And one of the things that she says, she said, I don't want to go any place that I have to put my head on a swivel. Right. Right? And and and oftentimes we live like that. Interesting thing happened that I that I chose this episode because we had a couple episodes in the can that we could have done.

The Work Call That Spiked Stress

SPEAKER_00 4:04

But today on the beach, um I'm sitting here relaxed, minding my business, and I get a call. I see my phone blowing up. A work call. A work call. And it's one of the parents that I work with is blowing me up because someone told her that they someone gave her incorrect information. I won't even get into it. She was giving incorrect information. And then when I tried to call the person that was said, hey, you know, you gave this person incorrect information, Linz, tell them about the conversation.

SPEAKER_02 4:36

Well, it was just, you know what it was? It was to me, I don't even have to replay the whole thing. It was just how activated this person got so quickly about making an accusation that was actually completely off base. And she didn't know even know what she was talking about. And what happened as a result was that she got you activated and then she started texting me, and I just kept repeating, I'm on vacation. And she said, Oh, I know. And then she kept going. And then finally, I just actually hit the do not disturb on her name only. And I've not heard from her since because it just kept going on and on and on of trying to prove a point. And I had said to you, a person like me, I meditate a lot, and I meditate to keep my nervous system in a deactivated state. And so that when things happen, things are always going to happen that activate us, right? But when you have some kind of practice in your life of meditation or some spiritual practice, where for some people it's praying and it can be exercise, whatever that practice is, we have those practices to keep our nervous system act, like deactivated. And when people come at us, if we don't have those practices, we get activated really quickly too. So you and I both had this baseline today of activation from her. And then she kept going and going and going. And I finally I just said, I am not even checking my messages, I am on the beach. And then that was what I did not hear from her again after that.

SPEAKER_00 6:13

Was screaming, screaming, screaming, screaming, and it wasn't even a and here's the thing, and this is what I want to say. Even if she was a hundred percent absolutely right and had the reason and had the right to be indignant because of something inappropriate, there's also a way that we conduct ourselves, right?

SPEAKER_02 6:37

And there is a way to interact with people that is professional, that's kind, and that maybe just suggests, hey, I need to check on something before I circle back around with you. Yeah. But I think she said to me, I am livid, and then kept going on and on and on and on and on, and then said, Well, the boss told me that you said, and I said, Well, I haven't talked to anybody because I'm on vacation. Right. And then she said, Well, you know, you should, and I said, No. I said, I'm not going to go down this rabbit hole with you. I said, I'm on vacation and I'm not checking any of this. And I think that that bothered her more. And I said that to you earlier. I think sometimes when we don't engage people when they're activated, it sets them off even more.

SPEAKER_00 7:20

Right. So there's this moment, and you probably know this moment, when you're sitting in traffic or you're lying awake at two in the morning, you're standing in the busy uh uh in the middle of a busy work day, and you think to yourself, man, I just need some peace of mind. And for me, oh, for me, that's when the planning starts, right? It's maybe I'll do this tomorrow, maybe I'll finally unplug this weekend, maybe I'll read that book everybody's been recommending. And then we build this picture in our minds, and I'm pretty sure that's what that person had built in their mind. They had built a picture and they already knew what they thought, already thought they knew what they were talking about. And so we built this picture in our minds of a future version of ourselves who's calm, who's finally at peace and settled.

SPEAKER_02 8:07

Right. And what made me think about talking about this with you today was that I had been listening to a podcast, probably one of my usual podcasts, and I might have been Krishna Das, because you know I often listen to I I do things until I've done them all. So I'll listen until I've heard all the episodes, and then I will switch to something else. But I believe he said thinking about peace of mind is not the same as being peaceful. And that gave me a lot of food to reflect on. Right. And so I think that's what you're talking about here.

SPEAKER_00 8:45

So, so Lindsay, and and then the rest of the quote

Thinking About Peace Versus Being Peaceful

SPEAKER_00 8:48

is peace of mind is very, a very, very, very powerful quality.

SPEAKER_02 8:53

Yeah, because it means you don't get activated by other people's crap.

SPEAKER_00 8:58

Right, right. So you already answered my question. I was gonna ask you, is Lindsay, when you hear that quote, what does that immediately mean to you? But I actually love that, right? What struck me about that statement is how easy it is to spend our lives thinking about peace, or in the case of our our vigilant friend, thinking that they're making peace or solving an issue instead of actually experiencing it, right?

SPEAKER_02 9:22

Right. Absolutely. And I think I said to you as well, right? We can also deliver the message kindly to people, which keeps peace.

SPEAKER_00 9:31

Yeah. And I think what we have to do is when we catch ourselves in these moments when we think that we're making peace or or we think that we're being peaceful, ask yourself, like, am I really? Right? Um like, are you just making peace another goal to accomplish, or are you actually sliding into it naturally? What do you think about that?

SPEAKER_02 9:54

Well, I think that you have to make it a goal. Right. And that was what you and I were talking about earlier in the car is just to have this peace of mind and to have this deactivated nervous system, you have to have this practice. And the practice is not so much as sitting and meditating, but it's recognizing when we do get activated and then kind of reining it in. Right. That's the actual practice. And so that is how we remain at peace with ourselves and with other people because we don't allow other people's energy and other people's behavior, words, actions, you know, kind of um permeate through our boundaries.

SPEAKER_00 10:33

One of the things Mel Robin says in her book, The Five Second Rule, is Nike says just do it, and the five-second rule is how, right? And so for somebody like me, um, that is always planning and plotting and and and thinking, instead of being present, frequently we're planning how to become more present one day. Um which is actually keeping us out of that present moment. Right. Instead of resting, we're researching how to rest, right? Right. Instead of, as Mel Robbins or as Nike says, just just do it. Just do it. So so today, as we continue this discussion, and what uh we want to really unpack is the strong distinction between saying that we want peace, but actually being present to make peace. So the thinking versing versus being. Yeah. And let's so so let's start with that, right? So the thinking versus being. Uh, what's you you like to quote Krishna Das. So what's one of the things that he says? What's a quote that he has on on this?

SPEAKER_02 11:34

Well, he said, and we just said it a few minutes ago, thinking about peace of mind is not being peaceful. Right? Peace of mind is very, very, very powerful quality. And it seems obvious, right? When we think about something, it's not the same as doing it. Thinking about going to the gym, not the same as actually physically going there. Not at all. But I don't think that that's what he means. Right? He's pointing at something that's a bit more subtle. And it's actually a little bit unsettling, right? Because he's not saying stop thinking, start meditating. He's pointing out something about the nature of the thinking mind.

SPEAKER_00 12:08

So so what distinction do you think it is he's trying to make when he when he talks about that?

SPEAKER_02 12:15

You know, don't sit and think about these things. Just sit and be and allow things to be the way that they are, which we've talked about many, many times, right? It's that whole concept of just saying yes to what is. Don't judge things, don't look for a resolution, don't have a point to prove, don't try to say, you know, that you're right. Because that was another thing that we came up with today is that this person had such a desire to be right, which is why I said, you know, I'm just not gonna answer anymore.

SPEAKER_00 12:43

Well, one of one of uh somebody I work with actually pointed out to me that in this person works in government, that one of the biggest issues in in in government and politics today is that everybody would rather win than do what makes sense, right? Everybody would rather win than do what is actually the peaceful solution, right? What do you what do you think about that?

SPEAKER_02 13:04

Well, well, you know how I feel about that, and what I think about that. I think that it's more important to communicate kindly, even if you are right. Why does it matter? Right. That also keeps us out of being in the present moment when we have to sit and prove our side of something. And and that was something I'd read in, I think it was one of Jack Cornfield's books a long time ago. I remember telling you about this how there was a guru, and someone came up to the guru and said something that was completely off base. Do you remember that? Yes, yes, yes, I remember. And when the guru walked away, another one of his kind of disciples said to him, Oh, well, why didn't you tell him that that was wrong? And the guru just said, Oh, well, why should I tell him?

SPEAKER_00 13:53

Yeah, he was like, he was happy. He was happy.

SPEAKER_02 13:56

He was fine with that being, you know, with his thinking that that was correct.

SPEAKER_00 13:59

Right, right. And so it goes, it brings me back to um a quote that I saw Sammy Davis Jr. give in an interview uh a long time ago where he talked about this idea that everybody says they want peace and everybody says they want love, but he was like, they killed Jesus, they killed Malcolm, they killed Martin Luther King, they killed Gandhi, they killed Marcus Garvey, they killed Medgar Evers, and he goes through this whole list of people that were trying to bring peace and nobody wanted it. So, my question for you is do you think our minds actually know how to even make peace? Well, mine does. Does yours? I think I do, which is just like, ah, you know what? I I what what I like even today, when this person was going on and on and ranting and yelling and screaming at the top of their lungs, and I haven't to walk off the beach to have the conversation. I was like, listen, if you're convinced you're right, then just do what you gotta do.

SPEAKER_02 14:54

Well, and I said that to you at dinner when you brought it up again. I don't really want to talk about it. Right. Right? Because I don't have any point to prove here. Right. I don't need to tell her she's wrong, which she was wrong, right? We've we've have all the documentation saying so, but I don't need to tell her she's wrong.

SPEAKER_01 15:09

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 15:09

Because the other thing is that when people want to be right all the time and you go back at them, it just it's just going to be them trying to continue to prove their point. So why why not just stop it in its tracks and say, I'm on vacation and silence them?

SPEAKER_00 15:23

So, and and one of my favorite authors said, for this year, your new year's resolution should be when somebody comes to you with an argument that they're very passionate about, he's like, Yeah, this is how

Boundaries That Stop The Fire

SPEAKER_00 15:33

you shut it down. I don't have enough information to form an opinion on that topic, right? Which is exactly what I told this person. I was like, listen, if you are the expert in this and you know, then what are you talking to me for? Hey, what did you make my parent upset for? If you already know, then you know, then I'm just gonna tell you, I'm not even gonna argue back with you, just do what you need to do, and we'll go from there.

SPEAKER_02 16:03

Absolutely, and that's the other part of it, because at the end of the day, if you're gonna make a bigger deal out of it, something will end up coming of it. Right. And and but it doesn't have to involve me.

SPEAKER_00 16:13

And I think for the numerous people that we have in our lives, and we have numerous people in our lives who every day, and you know who they are, Lynn's, that they call you, and it's like, oh, this is my this is going on with my kid, or this is going on with my husband, or this is going on with my grandma, or we're preparing for the death of somebody. It's like our minds have this amazing ability to turn everything into another project. And even peace or being settled, or even being like, Yeah, I don't want to have any problems, becomes something that we optimize. And so we analyze it when we don't have to analyze it.

SPEAKER_02 16:48

Right. Well, and I want to make another point about what you're talking about because I think one of the really beautiful things about experiencing all of these emotions and situations as human beings is that they can coexist within us. We can have that grief or that sadness about the potential loss or the expected loss of somebody, but at the same time, we can still experience joy about something else, right? I could still love you and be so happy that I'm spending all this time with you on vacation, but then also have another thing happening simultaneously in my life that maybe is not joyful.

SPEAKER_00 17:22

And and and and one of the crazy things about being a psychotherapist is listen, uh, I can't fix you. And I'm gonna just tell you straight up, I can't fix you. A trainer can't fix you. If you go to a gym and you want to look like The Rock, we can give you the steps that you need, but you need to be the person that does the work yourself, right? So you can buy you can listen to podcasts, you can buy books, you can get apps, you can go to courses, you can get retreats, you can just create another checklist. But have you noticed what's going on in your own life? Are you being present?

SPEAKER_02 17:55

At some point, we have to stop all the reading and actually start practicing.

unknown 18:00

Right, right.

SPEAKER_00 18:01

Have you ever worked with somebody or even realized in your own life uh you were chasing peace instead of experiencing it?

SPEAKER_02 18:08

I always work with people who get sucked into this. There has to be something negative.

SPEAKER_01 18:13

Right.

SPEAKER_02 18:13

People who come to therapy and there has to be this big crisis all the time. They make problems for themselves because they're almost so comfortable in having problems and drama and not being at peace. And it's very hard for people to relinquish control.

SPEAKER_00 18:29

Right, right. Is there I can answer this question for myself, but I want to ask you first is there a moment that you've ever caught yourself overthinking something that really just required you to sit still instead?

SPEAKER_02 18:41

Of course. That's any situation that we can't control. I could think of one right now was when we were sitting in this very resort last year, and there was a house party going on at home, and you're watching it go down in real time on our cameras, and it got to the point where I had to say to you, just turn it off. Turn it off. There's absolutely nothing that we can do from here. I mean, we took a boat here from another place that we took a boat. Okay. So, like, we took a plane and then took two boats. It's not like we took a plane and got on a quick ferry, like when we go to Nevis. We took a plane and a boat and then another boat. It's night. We ain't going nowhere tonight, okay?

SPEAKER_00 19:24

But that's one of the things I like about uh about this place is even Margaret, when we were at her bar this afternoon, is like, why are we so wired to try to always figure out problems? You know, like I said, like I said, people make problems, right? It's crazy, but people make problems. Why do you think we're wired, even though everybody says they want peace, but then people, everybody makes problems?

SPEAKER_02 19:52

I don't think people are comfortable with relinquishing and control and letting things be. Just letting things be.

SPEAKER_00 19:59

Somebody asked me, uh, uh a patient recently asked me, well, how is it that you don't argue with your wife, right?

SPEAKER_02 20:04

Well, we do argue.

SPEAKER_00 20:04

And I was like, Well, I do argue, but let me, I was like, let me give you a piece of information, right? No, I actually wasn't a patient, it was John, uh, your your uh you know, your your your cousin's husband. And I was like, he was like, uh he's like, how do you not get into it with her? And I was like, John, we get into it from time to time, but I tell you what, here's a here's something I learned. Where there's no wood, the fire goes out, right? And he laughed. And so, like, if you don't give anybody something back to respond to, that's it.

SPEAKER_02 20:31

I told you that today. Remember, I said to you, my, and that's exactly what I do with you, is what I did with this individual today, is I just don't respond. Because I can get sucked into it, which keeps me out of the present moment, or I could just sit with it, right? When yesterday you said to me, Oh, I think we're near something, and I said, I don't think so. But then I was like, But I don't know the island well enough, so I don't really know. And you might be right, and I might be right, and who knows? Not a lot of these things are not a big deal. We make them a bigger deal than they are, right?

SPEAKER_00 20:58

You know, in his book, um, Don't Believe Everything You Think, uh, don't believe everything you think. I think is uh the author's uh Joseph Gwynne talks about how the mind is a thought-generating machine and that's its job, and it creates because it keeps us right.

SPEAKER_02 21:12

What if you think about the mind in like the yogic sense, we call it the ego, and it's that it's its function is to keep us safe. So we we are constantly trying to talk ourselves into or out of things to make us feel better, and then that's what keeps us safe, but it's such a fucking waste of time, excuse my language, yeah, yeah, but it's such a waste of time. We spend so much time rehashing and rehearsing and rehashing and we rehearsing that we're not actually in this moment that's happening right now.

SPEAKER_00 21:44

Yeah, and then when you come at it with the level of aggression that uh most people approach things, and I can tell you, most people approach things too hard. Even uh the college dropping this afternoon, this evening, when he was talking about the power outage, was dude, like what are you what are you spassing out? For it's nothing there's no power, there's no power there's nothing you can do.

SPEAKER_02 22:02

There's nothing you can do. There's no power. So you could either sit here and you can kvech about it and you could call me a hundred times while I'm in Virgin Gorda, or you could just say, Well, I guess I just gotta wait till Con Ed puts the power back on.

SPEAKER_00 22:13

Yeah, and there's a Zen saying that I actually need to listen to, right? That you cannot grasp water with a fist, right? What the tighter you hold on to it, the less you actually have. Because it all runs out. Because it all runs out, right? And so even me, when I was reluctant to come on, and I still wouldn't don't know if I would do 21 days again. Maybe I would, because the gentleman at the at that we met at the uh down at the beach today was like, man, I do six weeks every year. And he was like, and I work for myself. And I've just he was like, that's what she was like, brother. You just need to set yourself up better that you don't worry about about being gone from from your job for so long. But the more you try to hold on to something, the less you actually have that thing. And Linz, can you explain that? You know, what does that mean to you?

SPEAKER_02 23:01

Well, because you're not being present, is exactly what it is. You're trying to make something out of something, and that's when we lose being in that moment.

SPEAKER_00 23:11

Can you think of times in in a person's life or even in your life where letting go of a thing was actually more peaceful than trying harder?

SPEAKER_02 23:21

I'm sure I could. That's a good question. You should have asked me that before we started, so I could have thought about it a little bit.

SPEAKER_00 23:26

Well, why you think I could think of for a couple of things. My first marriage.

SPEAKER_02 23:29

Yeah, I mean, of course.

SPEAKER_00 23:31

My last job. The the the the the place I was working at before uh before um uh last summer, like for a year, and I was really trying to hold on. Um, and then none of it was bringing none of it was bringing me peace.

SPEAKER_02 23:45

It was bringing you a lot of agita and anxiety, right? I mean, that's what happens often when we try to make something out of something that's there, right? Right? We try to make something and and create it in a way that works for us, but that's never, you know, when we fabricate things like that, they're never true.

unknown 24:02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 24:03

And peace is not just important, it is a very, very powerful quality.

SPEAKER_02 24:11

Mm-hmm.

Why Peace Gets Mistaken For Weakness

SPEAKER_02 24:12

Right. So you notice what Krishna Das doesn't say. He doesn't say, like, when he says peace of mind is a very, very powerful quality, he doesn't say peaceful, he says powerful. And I think that our culture has a complicated relationship with peace because it's associated with softness or disengagement or withdrawal. Maybe the person has checked out because they don't respond, or it's people maybe like me who people would call oblivious because I don't watch the news. And it's almost like a person who just kind of floats through life, right? Unbothered by things. And it seems to come across sometimes as not caring. What do you think about that?

SPEAKER_00 24:54

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. I I think for a a lot of folks, and you are actually um making me think uh about um about some folks I used to work with. There's one person in in particular when I was always talking about hey, can we talk about this? Can we can we work this out, or you know, can we have a conversation? Or maybe we need you soft. Like you soft. It's like, you know, it's like I I guess as Americans, there's this weird thing that we have that we that the way that I need to do something or the way that I see something is is is better than anybody else's way. And that's not how community works, right? Cancer is literally like cells of your body that say that they are more important than the other cells, right? So like when you die of skin cancer, it's from like an overproduction of skin cells, or when you die of like, you know, uh, you know, like uh sickle, you know, like not sickle cell, sickle cell is the wrong shape, but like when you die of leukemia, it's overproduction of white blood cells. It's when it's when the individual pieces think that they are more important than the whole.

SPEAKER_02 26:02

Interesting. Which was what happened with us today.

SPEAKER_01 26:07

Right.

SPEAKER_02 26:07

Right. Is that and I think people don't often don't stop and look at the whole. Right. Because they're so wrapped up in what's going on inside of their head in that moment.

SPEAKER_00 26:18

And and as you were saying, like our culture, kind of like, you know, when you present like a peaceful person, it's always like, well, you know, somebody who's withdrawn, somebody who's quiet, somebody who's not active. And that's not what peace is about, right? Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Malcolm X, especially if you read the autobiography of Malcolm X, once he learned, once he went to Mecca and he realized that the things that he had, or everything that he had learned in his life was a lie, and he learned about what real peace was and what real brotherhood was, he was active, right? And that's kind of what got and that's not not kind of what got him killed, that's what got him killed, is that he actively wanted to come back and he wanted to pursue peace actively, right? And so peace is an action. Yeah, it is.

SPEAKER_02 27:07

I never thought of it like that.

SPEAKER_00 27:09

It's a it's it's like you have to make peace. It is a choice to be to make peace, right? Nobody says, you know, like, well, you know, like you make war and you make peace, but you have to make peace. And so when you think of the words peace and power in the same sentence, Lindsay, for you, what comes to mind? Peace and power.

SPEAKER_02 27:32

Well, I mean, I think I don't, you know, I don't I never thought of it like that. I think it's that, you know, I think when you're at peace, you're not at the, you know, you're not a person who's like at the mercy of waves of circumstance, right? And power to me is just wanting to control a situation, you know, and I I don't know how they can coexist. Right.

SPEAKER_00 27:55

But I think you can be a powerful, when you look at f people who brought who tried very hard to bring peace, like a Jesus Christ or a Gandhi or um even somebody like a Confucius or or Buddha, they were powerful in their presence. When KD talks about uh these things, he talks about how these people are these beings are entities, right?

SPEAKER_02 28:16

Right, and people look up to them. Yes, they come to them because they're searching for something. Right.

SPEAKER_00 28:22

And so I think there's a reason why people confuse peace for passivity, is because our idea of in this warlike culture, in this culture where, you know, where if somebody cuts you off, you have to flip them off and curse them out, that they don't understand that peace is that is is an active thing that you yet you try for, right? Like when you're hot and livid, like the person that called me today, you actively need to calm down before you start yelling at people. Do you think where we are right now, people are much more peaceful? Oh, people are way more peaceful here because it's easy.

SPEAKER_02 28:56

There's no T where do you go? There's no TVs. Well, I was thinking about that today because we are staying in a place that has an honor market. You literally go to the store and you buy whatever you want and you write it down on a pad, and then you pay when you check out. So you could be here for two, three weeks and accrue a humongous bill, and they're not looking for you. The door is open to their little mini mart. Right. Right. And they've got better products than the grocery store in there, let me tell you. I was in there today poking around. But, you know, I think when you are in a place like this where there's no crime and you don't have to look over your shoulder and people help each other out. People a hitchhike here. They walk, they wave, they say hello. Everybody is friendly. It's so much easier to be at peace here. Even the people who don't look happy always wave and say hello.

SPEAKER_00 29:47

So why do you even why do you think the people in our culture associate peace with being soft?

SPEAKER_02 29:53

I think that's a learned behavior in our culture. And I think that I think that we have like deeply unhappy people, and I think people are constantly trying to kind of be tough and to win, and that we live in a very competitive culture. Right.

SPEAKER_00 30:09

You know, I'm I'm gonna name him because he's a great guy, and if I can if this helps him get some business, um I hope so. But I had this great uh uh attorney, his name was David Wims, he's an employment attorney, and if I ever met someone that was peaceful and powerful, it was him, right? Because he had this way about him when you would ask him a question instead of like, even if it was like the worst thing in the world, like instead of like immediately reacting to it, David always was like, Let me stop, let me think about it, and I'll get back to you. Never was fired off the cuff, never was rude, never was nasty, but was always very deliberate in his answers. So very mindful, very mindful fellow, very much in a way calculated, but in a good way. Right, but very mindful fellow. And that's when I think of a powerful person that was that's peaceful, that is exactly what I think of.

SPEAKER_02 31:06

Yeah, yeah, that's a good point.

SPEAKER_00 31:12

You know, one of the things that always stands out about me when you listen to KD is is when he talks about his teacher, Maharaji, um, and how everyone who ever met Maharaj described him as an incredible presence. And that's what I think about when you say somebody's peaceful but powerful. Uh, people came to him confused and grieving and angry and even hostile. And hey, you know, Maharaji didn't react, right? When KD talked about he was gonna kill himself, Maharaji was like, Go ahead, go ahead. That's that's a dumb place to kill. I could tell you a better place to kill yourself. That's kind of a dumb place if that's actually what you're thinking about. And Maharaji didn't react, right? Right, he responded, right? He was like the guru, like like KD says, the guru, you know, when the student is ready, the teacher appears. And he wasn't trying to solve problems. There was something that was about that was rooted about him that people felt completely seen. And that's a very difficult conversation. Well, it's a lack of judgment, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 32:12

Right? It's a lack of judgment when you when when you can be who you are and people are kind around you and they don't judge, and we all have opinions, so I'm not gonna say people don't, you know, there's no one on the earth that never judges, but when you're around that and people are accepting, you do feel much more at peace, right? Regardless of what's going on in your life. And I think that's that sense of community that we're lacking as a culture, right?

SPEAKER_00 32:39

And in here's and I'm gonna uh toot my own horn for a second, because I'll give you an example of uh of a powerful presence uh that's peaceful, is is somebody once told me at work, whenever whenever they saw me, they were like, Wow, I whenever I see you, I just know things are gonna be all right because you're always so calm and you're always just so easygoing, and and I think that's how it's supposed to be. And you're the problem solver, yeah. Yeah, but I always but I never tried to bring problems. As we start to wrap this up, there is a a concept that I I I wanted to ask you

Steady Wisdom And Avoiding Bypass

SPEAKER_00 33:11

about. It's called steady wisdom in yoga. What what what is that? Steady wisdom. I think I can't even pronounce it. It's shrith.

SPEAKER_02 33:24

Oh, yes. It's like a it's a um of Sanskrit word. I think it's like that. So explain that. Explain that. Well, it's it's it's a person that remains steady in the mind and doesn't allow things. I think I said it earlier as like waves of circumstance to, you know, or when I said it doesn't allow things to permeate their barrier, right? So they don't shrink when there's sorrow or sadness, they don't get inflated when there's joy, they just remain rooted and in this place of stability all the time.

SPEAKER_00 34:03

Yeah. When I think about the strongest people that I've known in my life, they weren't the loudest, they weren't the funniest, they were the people who stayed present when everyone else panicked, and they were the people who could sit with someone's elf grief without trying to fix it, and they were the people that didn't add fear to more fear.

SPEAKER_02 34:25

And I it's people who allow others to just experience their emotions as well, which I think is really important. And I said it earlier as well, as in a way which I talked about in my own meditation a couple weeks ago, was allowing all of these things to coexist is really beautiful, right? Because this person's feeling this way, I don't have to talk them out of it or try to cheer them up. I can allow them to have that. It doesn't mean that I need to feel that same way with them.

SPEAKER_00 34:50

So let's let's jump all the way as we wrap up, as we start to wrap up. What is it that gets in the way? What are your thoughts uh of it that gets in the way? I I think because I think it's important to talk about the ways we can accidentally turn this teaching into another obstacle, right? Um, and it's this idea like spiritual bypassing, which is when we use spiritual ideas to avoid dealing with real life, or some people call it toxic positivity.

SPEAKER_02 35:14

So you know, you you you you you you you were listening to a guy it's the over-reading and the over practicing and not being present, yeah, which we talked about as well. Yeah, you it's not like it's it's just like allowing things to be as they are.

SPEAKER_00 35:29

Yeah, you were listening to a guy today that was laughing about the couple that climbed the Empire State Building that was talking about the banner that they unfurled that was like this power and peace and this peace and power, and he was like, Oh my god, he's like I had to like decode that. And he was like, he was like, You didn't give me peace of mind when you were climbing up there and I thought you were gonna fall down. So what what what it's like, what what are we really looking at here?

SPEAKER_02 35:53

Like, you know, like well, you know, don't make don't make peace into a performance. Right? It's not a spiritual image that you have to maintain, it's an internal experience for yourself.

SPEAKER_00 36:07

Does trying to be peaceful mean that we're gonna avoid suffering?

SPEAKER_02 36:10

No, absolutely not. But we're going to be able to deal with the unpleasantness of it in a better way. We're gonna allow it to be there and we're going to experience it in the present moment, right? The sadness, the grief, whatever is coming up for people.

SPEAKER_00 36:22

Right. And and I think when we to look at Maharaj's example, he met people where they were. He fed them. Absolutely. He comforted them, he cried with them. And real peace doesn't make you less available, it makes you more available.

SPEAKER_02 36:37

Absolutely. You know, I've been practicing for many, many years, and I, you know, ex I will describe myself as having a you know a developing peace of mind. It's not always there, and I do get activated and I do get frustrated, and you and I argue, but I would say more often than not, I'm in a pretty peaceful place.

SPEAKER_00 36:59

Right, right. So we're not gonna end this episode with with with five steps to peace. What we're gonna talk about is the is is uh is being honest, right? And I don't think anybody who talks about peace would say that they have all the answers uh at once. I think it's just I think it's just important to do what the Bible says, which is just be present, right? Don't worry about tomorrow because tomorrow's gonna bring its own own anxiety. Just for today, notice the difference between thinking about peace and actually becoming still even with one breath before you react to everything. What do you think about this?

SPEAKER_02 37:34

I agree. Stop trying to plan and just be there. Yeah, you don't you can't one breath at a time.

SPEAKER_00 37:41

I I I think one of the biggest problems with a lot of people in the world is they mean well when they want to go out and in in and and be active and and change things, but you can't, and you don't have to change anything.

SPEAKER_02 37:53

Right. Nope, you sure don't. You can allow things to just be and and right, there's also that concept of karma, which we could talk about another time, but karma is just the stuff that happens to you in this life.

SPEAKER_00 38:06

I think one of the things you said in the car uh as we're wrapping it up is just notice, all right? Just simply be present. What does that mean?

SPEAKER_02 38:14

And I'll give you the last couple of-just recognize when things come up for you. That's the actual practice, is saying I'm getting agitated by this, or oh, my mind is wandering. I notice I'm doing that thing again, right? For me, it's working, working, working, working until I'm totally stressed out. And I'm like, oh crap, there I go again. Oh, all right. That's the practice, that's the awareness. It's it's recognizing these things in yourself. Yeah. And also just being okay with them.

SPEAKER_00 38:39

And and and and for me, it's the same, right? Um, I often work myself up into a frenzy on a lot of things, and sometimes it's worthwhile, but 90% of the time it's not. Um, and I just have to remember, like you said, I I just gotta stop, right? I just gotta stop. You know? I always say to you, I can't imagine what it's like to live inside my head. And and I could have gone back and forth with that person today, and I chose, I was like, listen, and I actually I don't have enough information to form an opinion on that subject. And if this is what you feel like you need to do, and you gotta go, you know, oh d call whoever you gotta call, do whatever you need to do if that makes you feel better. I I I don't have no.

SPEAKER_02 39:19

But I also would say, don't call people and don't, you know, do all the things you have to do because that takes you out of that moment. So I would actually disagree with that. Just be there, sit and feel. Don't try to change it. We try to change things all the time, and I think that's what gets us into the mess that we're in as a culture and as a society, and especially in New York City. We always want to train change the outcome or change the circumstances instead of just accepting them the way that they are.

SPEAKER_00 39:44

Right. Um, that's really all I have to say on the topic. How about you, Linz?

SPEAKER_02 39:48

That's it for me.

SPEAKER_00 39:48

Uh, getting ready to go read my book, The Calamity

One Breath Practice And Goodbye

SPEAKER_00 39:51

Club. Yeah, and and if the last thing I want to say is if this conversation resonated with you, we'd love to hear what stood out. Uh, share it with someone who might need it, and join us next time as we continue exploring these beautiful teachings together. And this has been Cleveland and Lindsay, and this has been another episode of The Devil You Don't Know.