043: How to Make Inner Peace Your Normal State of Being

The podcast discusses the possibility of experiencing inner peace amidst the challenges of everyday life. The hosts explore what it means to be at peace and how it's not about escaping life's demands but rather about not resisting what is happening. They delve into the concept of peace as a state of centeredness and acceptance, emphasizing that it can be achieved even amid physical discomfort or stress.

Connect with Mike Chang:
- Instagram: @mikechangofficial
-Youtube: Mike Chang
- Website: www.flow60.com

Connect with Stephen Yeh:
-Instagram: @iamstephenyeh
-Twitter: @iamstephenyeh

Transcript

When we think of inner peace, we think we're sitting there being really relaxed in a very serene place, doing nothing and just enjoying the present moment.

But can it be possible where we can be at peace while we are living everyday life, getting the things that we need to do done, working, taking care of our responsibilities, engaging with others? Could it be possible? So today I want to talk about that because I think somewhere inside all of us really long to be at this place of peace. But...

We can never walk away from our life for that lawn to experience this serene state. So therefore we have to learn on how to become peaceful in everyday life. So my first question I want to open this up to is, could it be possible? Is it possible to actually be at peace while we are dealing with everyday life challenges and unexpected situations?

So, so Steven, I know, um, uh, previously before you were, you mentioned, uh, on, you know, uh, an event at the market with your family and, uh, you got a little upset, right, because of, you know, live kids, you know, just one of those days. And, you know, and I talk about, um, facing challenges all the time with business, with, uh, with.

so many responsibilities and just sometimes, um, feeling completely tired and exhausted working 14 hour, uh, 16 hour days sometimes, you know.

So coming back to this question, is it possible to do it? I think when we look at the idea of is it possible, I think it's important to know that everything is possible. And whenever we think something is not possible, that idea gets challenged and sometime in the future.

We find somebody out there have done it. And some of the people believe that it is possible.

But I want to take a look at the second question here is, let's say if it is possible, what do we need to do to create this inner piece?

In order to understand this, we have to see what causes a person to be in a state of peace. What does it really mean? Because peace is not sitting around just doing nothing, right? When we are experiencing a state of peace, what we can say, another way of framing this, is that we are not fighting what is happening.

We're not fighting what's happening in this moment right now. We're not fighting what has happened in the past. We're not fighting the possibilities of what could happen in the future.

Fighting is physical fighting. Fighting is having a conflict of some sort or to not accept what is happening, either now, past or future. Not accepting it in our mind. That's also what we call fighting. Or another commonly used word is resistance. Not having resistance with life.

If we can not resist what is happening in life, then we are not fighting life. And when we aren't fighting, we are at peace.

And peace can be experienced as a sense of centeredness on the inside. Peace can also be experienced as feeling physical agitation, physical pain, physical stress, but still centered calm on the inside. All of this is peace. Peace is not just, you know, experiencing, um,

a really soothing physical sensation. A person can also be at peace and still feel physical discomfort.

I think this is important to, to know. So we can start to really understand what does it really mean to be peaceful. And then we can move away from this facade image of, you know, a person sitting on a mountain somewhere meditating or like a monk doing nothing and they're, they're peaceful and us in our everyday life can never obtain that.

What are your thoughts on that, Stephen?

Stephen (06:23)
Oh, it's funny because as you mentioned this, it reminds me of when I was living in the temples and just meditating and, you know, I felt like there was different stages to it, right? Because essentially you're imagining right now, if you can just imagine living on the mountain or just this beautiful temple area, and there's nature all around you, you would imagine you're at peace. But I remember when I first arrived and I carried all the

tension that was inside of me. It made it even more agitating inside because then everything around me was at peace or it's very serene, but inside I could feel all this tension and stress and this uncomfortableness inside and there's nothing really to run to. Right? I can, you know, and yeah. And it's still there and that's, yeah, where do you go from there?

mike (07:14)
You've already got there. You've already ran to the mountains and it's still there. You think I'm going to run to the next mountain?

Stephen (07:23)
So that's when you realize, oh man, it's actually not really outside of there, it's inside, it's within. And it's gathered over time. And so what I found was that as I started to learn the techniques and the skills and taking the time to start to release all of that inside that wasn't serving me, okay, now I can start to get into that state of peace.

But then the next level after that, which you're talking about, is being in that state where you're just okay. You're not fighting what's happening. And you can be in the world, in the modern world, doing things, but you're still in that peaceful state. And essentially, nowadays, you know, if you really take a look at, especially like Tibetan Buddhism and some of these,

other sex, what they're talking about nowadays is this is really where it's going. Like the Dalai Lama and some of the other people are saying, hey, it's not about being in the mountains and doing these things anymore. We need to be out there to contribute and to show people how to really be like this because it's time now in today's era to be more like that. And I would say it's a lot more challenging.

Right? Because you're not in an environment where you can just dive inside and really make those shifts. Now the game has has, you know, the game has evolved.

mike (09:03)
So let's talk about the specifics of what does a person now need to do to...

to have this piece. And I think I was just mentioning about.

having acceptance, right? Accepting the moment right now, accepting the past and accepting the possible future. And the definition of acceptance is to not fight something or to not have resistance with something. And resistance is like saying, I'm not okay with what's happening right now. I'm not okay. Or I'm not okay with something that happened in the past. Or.

Stephen (09:27)
Hmm.

Mm.

mike (09:48)
I'm not okay with something that could possibly happen in the future. I'm not okay with it. I don't like it. I don't prefer it. Um, I think it's bad. All of this is resistance. And if we have resistance, we will not be peaceful. If we let go of the resistance, then we're able to obtain peace because we can accept.

what's, uh, what has happened, what is happening and what could potentially happen in the future.

Stephen (10:28)
I remember hearing another guy who has evolved quite a bit. His name is slipping my mind, but he had this great exercise that he did, which helped him release so much of the tension because when he was growing up, it seems like maybe he was the type of person that did wrong to a lot of people. And he made a lot of chaos. So what he ended up doing was,

He took the time and he wrote down all the names of the people that he did not so good things to. And as he started to write that list down, he started to reflect on those situations. And what he did even further was call that person, every single person down that list saying, I'm sorry that I did this. I'm sorry that I did that. Because what was going on was

mike (11:05)
Hmm.

Stephen (11:25)
Even though maybe in the normal day state, you may not be feeling all of that, especially at let's say 100 plus people and the effects of that. But when you really take the time to go deep into the subconscious and really start to remember the situations that happened before, you can really tell that it can still affect your present day situation, your present day experience.

And as he started to call those people and say sorry, and to really connect with them once again, all of that tension, all of that mugging that he used to have started to dissolve and his face started to light up. His body started to release the tension by itself. And then he essentially changed his whole state so that he was able to feel

lighter and lighter as he did it.

mike (12:28)
That's a good, that's a really good practice.

by being able to let go of something that happened in the past. And when we talk about letting it go, if we were just to say, I forgive this person or I forgive myself for what I did, we really don't know whether or not we're really telling the truth. Like how does a person even know if they truly forgive themselves?

or if they truly was to let go of the past of what happened. Because anybody can say that, but how do we know for sure? And I think what this guy did, writing it out, first writing it out and becoming aware of it, and then calling and actually apologizing and confronting these people, that really helps him.

realized whether or not he really did forgive and either way, that process was the letting go part. And the way that a person knows whether they actually let go of something, whether they really moved on, is by the emotional charge that is behind the event, that is connected with the person. If I'm going to make up a person, let's say his name is John.

Let's say if I had an event with John many years ago and it finished badly. And now every time I think about John, I feel upset. I feel frustrated. And if I was to talk to John, I would feel upset and frustrated. When I think about the event, I feel the same. Then that means that the emotion is still connected to John connected to that event. So if I was to do like what this person did and confronted.

I'm sure the emotion will come up. And then from there, I would fully release this emotion by fully feeling it and letting that emotion pass. And by doing so, now I have an opportunity to let go of the emotion between me and John, or between me and that, and that event. Now I say opportunity because it doesn't mean that if we did it one time that we are cleared, sometimes a person needs to do it two, three, four, five.

Sometimes a person needs to actually see the other person in real life or, you know, go above and beyond to fully clear it because some emotions are so deep. They're so impactful that, um, we'd have to really engage and immerse fully within the scenario to, to release it. But I think like what you mentioned, when we do the, the changes are completely 100% worth the effort.

the lightness that we feel, the change in somebody's face. I think you mentioned that, right? Somebody's face will literally change. People are doing all these things to try to make themselves look different. When they forgot the fundamentals, our body is energy. There is no difference between energy and our body. And when we change the energy inside, we change the physical body. And that's the best beauty tip that anybody can do.

Stephen (15:34)
Mm-hmm.

Mm.

mike (15:53)
increase your energy vibration and you're going to look better. You know, so.

Stephen (15:54)
Hehehehe

So going back to the original question of how to make inner peace your normal state.

Like you said, especially nowadays, life is getting busy, things are speeding up. So, it's one of those things where if you're listening to this, obviously, something about it attracts you, something you're inspired by in some way. And if you can really start to integrate a practice, some type of just,

going within and just noticing what's happening inside, starting to release, and having it become just a normal way of being, just like how, okay, I wanna get from here to the other room. What does that mean? I need to walk. So I need to shift from this kind of stagnation state into a more light state. Okay, I need to take just a bit of...

focus attention, go inside, ah, that's where the lock is. Let's release, release. And it's a skill that is developed over time because what I've also found is, especially if you've held on to tension for a long, long time, sometimes it takes a little while for it to really release. Right?

And then once you really get really good at it, it can, it can start to shed just as, as you wish.

mike (17:41)
There are two things.

Well, I think there's two things to focus on. I want to make sure that you guys that are listening have some very specific action steps that you can take and being very practical. This subject a lot of times is so, um, ethereal that it's really hard to, to make it into what do I do, right? Knowing what to do. So here is a very, here's two very specific things that you can do. Number one, this is what you can do for your mind.

when we talk about accepting.

Realize that if it's something in the past, you can't change it. It's already happened. So therefore you have to accept it. If you don't accept it, then all you're doing is fighting something that is never going to change because it's already happened.

Okay, now something that's happening right now at this moment, why accept it? Because if you don't accept it, then you're not able to make a change if you need to take action. So you have to accept it so this way your attention can be here in the present moment to focus on making a change. If I don't like what's happening right now at this moment, what am I going to do? Complain or make a change? Right? Of course, make a change. Well, in order to make a change, I got to be able to take action.

I got to focus on what's happening right now. How can I fully do that if I'm in my mind complaining? Right. So therefore, if we want to make, if we want to accept the present moment, we need to be able to be okay with what's happening. And that allows us to then make a change if we want, if we need. Now something that happens in the future. How do we create the future? By

deciding right now what it is that we want and taking action now, then we create our future, which means going back into the second, being present right now and taking action right now. If we complain, have resistance in our mind, we cannot take action fully. If we can't take action fully right now, we can not take, we cannot create the future that we want.

Okay. So that's number one. That's all about accepting the past, the present, the future. Number two is body. The first one was mind. Second one is body. All right. I think Steven, you've been talking about like the tension. Here's what a person needs to do. You need to do practice every day. Your practice should involve massaging the body to help it relax. Your practice needs to evolve making your body stronger.

Stephen (20:21)
Hmm.

mike (20:33)
So this way you're able to have strength to take action. Your body, your practice should involve stretching the muscles. So this way you can help relax the tension and your practice needs to involve fully breathing to expand the energy inside and meditating to silence your mind. There are many practices that have one thing or another thing, but no matter what you need to be able to have a practice that can...

take care of these elements. By doing so, the result is your body becomes more calm, your body becomes more relaxed. When you do, the emotions of fear, of worry, of anxiety, of stress can leave your body. When they leave your body, the result that will happen is we're able to connect...

deeper into our body. When we connect deeper into our body, we're able to be centered. This level of centeredness is the physical representation of inner peace. The mental representation of inner peace is acceptance. The physical representation of inner peace is centeredness. In other words,

Stephen (21:35)
Hmm.

Hmm.

mike (22:02)
connecting to the physical body. If a person, if you can accomplish these two things, you will be able to live in peace, no matter where you're at and no matter what is happening, remember that peace in the physical body does not mean you are feeling great all the time. You can be feeling some pressure, feeling some pain, but you are connected.

to your body, which means your attention, your awareness is connected within you. There's that connectiveness or what we call centered. In that centered, that is the representation of inner peace physically. Acceptance is the representation of inner peace mentally.

These are the two things. Okay. Practice these two things and you'll be able to be at peace in all of life. They are a challenge to practice on because there's a lot of challenges in life. But this at least, at least gives you a direction to point to. And then from there, there unfolds other details like what specific practices when we talk about things of the physical.

Right? What, how to be able to accept when we start to elaborate into the past, the present, the future, and all the infinite scenarios, and that is another conversation. But at least we now have defined it into what it really takes to be at peace and to live everyday life.

Stephen (24:02)
All right, there you go. That, my friend, is how you really bring inner peace into your everyday reality. If you guys wanna dive in more, Mike, Mike is truly a teacher, and he's looking to share this with everybody who is open and willing to learn and to start to incorporate into your life.

So he does have a program that you guys can take a look at. It's at flow60.com. It's a full body mind transformation. And if you guys definitely wanna dive in deeper and really start to embody what we've been talking about, that is the place to go. So thank you guys once again for listening to another episode and we will see you on the next one.