“Embracing your chaos might be the path to finding peace.” Rachel Hollis
I recently read the #1 New York Times best-selling book, “Girl, Wash Your Face,” written by Rachel Hollis who was named by Inc. Magazine as one of the “Top 30 Entrepreneurs under 30.”
Her book is a self-help book focusing on how women, especially moms, can effect change in their own lives. People either love or hate her book. She has almost 10,000 reviews on Amazon and 82% gave her 5 stars out of 5; but 9% gave her only one star. In my opinion, the one-star reviews say more about the reviewers than the book. Even though I am not the target audience (no one has called me girl recently); I found a lot to ponder.
My favorite quote of the book, “I’m not going to talk about finding your peace; I’m going to talk about embracing your chaos…Ironically, I think embracing your chaos might be the path to finding peace.” We all have chaos in our lives, when a child spills milk or a bird poops on us, when we get a flat tire or other unplanned incidents. Chaotic incidents are part of life. Rachel explained we deal with chaos and the resulting stress in three ways: we ignore it, battle it, or drown in it.
We ignore the chaos by pretending it is not there. We work harder and harder. We push through it, telling ourselves we can muddle through it. In the short term this can work. The problem is the effect the stress has on your body in the long term. It can show up as hives, insomnia, in a myriad of other ways, or in Rachel’s case as Bell’s palsy.
The second way we deal with chaos is by battling it. We sometimes battle it on a different field from where it originated. We clean everything in sight. We do everything to look picture perfect, hoping we can get our inside to match our perfect outside. The trouble with the battle is we will eventually lose. We believe we can do enough or organize enough or plan enough to make sure nothing is difficult. However, we will only make ourselves feel like a failure when life is too challenging, and chaos happens. In the end, it makes us angry; we feel out of control and disappointed.
The third way we deal with the stress of chaos is to drown in it. We get overwhelmed, we see stress everywhere, it feels insurmountable. It never gets better, so we wallow, we complain, we crawl under the covers and let chaos win. In the short term, a long nap may energize us. In the long term, if we don’t get up and swim, we drown.
Rachel states the problem with all these things is that it implies you are the one in control. To some extent that is true and is the main theme of her book. You are in control of yourself. The problem is you cannot control the actions of others: the dog throwing-up, the serviceman showing up late, the storm blowing of your roof shingles, your friend not using the right emoji in a text message, or a thousand of other unplanned acts. When you think you can control others, you’ll find yourself angry, frustrated, disrespected and stressed. When you can’t control others, anger and hate replace empathy and hope.
Another of Rachel’s wise quotes, “When you assume you’re in total control, you don’t take time to seek out a relationship with God, you use alternate means to try and manufacturer some peace.” I believe peace, joy and contentment come from God’s love that resides in your soul. When you live with God’s love in your heart, you can embrace the chaos and choose peace.
Rachel advises, “Remember that someone else is praying to have the kind of chaos you’re crying about. What I mean is, the things you think are so difficult could be someone else’s dream come true. I don’t say that to make you feel bad, or to negate your difficult experience; but perspective may help you see your chaos is a gigantic blessing. Adjusting your view can work wonders.” This advice has helped me.
So, when things don’t go as planned, how do you deal with chaos? Rachel’s advice, “Start by giving yourself some grace.” Start by being kind to yourself. Find your peace in God’s love.
Staying in Touch: Barbara Hirsh can be reached at info@LiveKinder.com I love hearing your kindness stories. Please sign-up for almost weekly kindness message at www.LiveKinder.com or follow LiveKinder on Facebook!
