Find Grace Amid Chaos With the P.E.A.C.E. Practice

Are you dealing with the ordinary stresses of everyday life—work, parenting duties, bills, dishwasher repairs? Are you an exhausted frontline worker, an overwhelmed parent, an out-of-necessity home school teacher, a COVID researcher and translator for family members, or all of the above?

The P.E.A.C.E. practice can help you find grace amidst the chaos. P.E.A.C.E. is an acronym for a practice that adults and teens can use in any difficult situation. At the end of this post, I offer a simplified ABC practice that anyone 5 years old or older can use in the heat of the moment.

In times of difficulty, our choices can either increase peace or stress. We either add or remove straws from our own “camel’s back.” We’ve all had the experience of being triggered and reacting poorly, creating more difficulty and stress, and thus adding straws to our own and others’ backs.

There is another choice. Using the P.E.A.C.E. practice (detailed below) when you are feeling irritated, stressed, anxious, hopeless, or triggered can allow you to respond to your circumstances with wisdom, compassion, and grace (at least sometimes). Don’t underestimate the value of responding in the moment, and removing even one straw from your own or someone else’s back.

For example, if you don’t yell at your spouse, you will feel more peaceful, and go into your next interaction without the usual post-fight agitation. Your spouse may not yell at your teen, or at a co-worker. And this may allow your teen to turn in their history paper, and prevent a tense parent-teen-teacher conference. Or, it could allow your spouse to collaborate with the co-worker, and prevent a “chat” with the boss.

Each time you use this practice to respond, you increase peace, and decrease stress for yourself and those around you: Straws off backs.

As you do this practice for the first time, bring to mind a problem you’re currently experiencing. If possible, choose something small to begin with—a relatively minor difficulty, such as a friend running late, a client changing the parameters of a project, or the repair woman rescheduling at the last minute. If you are dealing with something more intense or prolonged (such as a divorce, an illness in your family, losing your job), take your time, go slow, be gentle, and seek support if you need it.

Let’s begin.

P is for pause. When you realize that things are difficult (externally, internally, or both), simply pause.

E is for exhale. As you exhale, you may want to let out a sigh or a groan. You may even want to cry. That’s OK. And after you exhale, you want to ...? Inhale. Just keep breathing.

A is for acknowledge, accept, and allow. As you continue to breathe, acknowledge the situation as it is. Maybe working from home, cold dark days, and COVID restrictions have you feeling depressed. Maybe your child is struggling with online school, and both you and your spouse working from home is getting on your nerves.

Acknowledging a situation doesn’t mean that you’re happy about it. It just means that you recognize the situation is what it is, whether you like it or not.

• A is also for accept. Acceptance creates more space for what is. Accept the situation and your reaction to it, whether you’re feeling hopeless, exhausted, irritated, all of the above, or something else entirely.
• And A is for allowing your experience. Do your best to rest and simply watch all of your thoughts, feelings, and body sensations. Notice if you’re tempted to suppress your experience by pretending that you’re fine. Notice if you want to create additional drama by rehashing things in your head or with friends. See if you can allow these tendencies too. Do your best to discover a middle way—a way of having your thoughts and feelings without your thoughts and feelings “having you” and making you act in ways you may regret.

C is for choose. When you’re ready—and, depending on the situation, this may take a few moments, hours, days, weeks, or even months—choose how you’ll respond. At its best, responding involves some additional C's:

• Clarity is being clear about what you want, what your limits are, and what you’re responsible for.
• Courage means bravely speaking your truth and hearing the truth of others.
• Compassion means being kind toward yourself and others and understanding how incredibly difficult it sometimes is to be a human being.
• As for comedy, having a sense of humor can be extremely helpful. Do your best not to take yourself or your situation too seriously.

E is for engage. After you’ve paused, exhaled, allowed your experience, and chosen your response, you’re ready to engage: with people, with the situation, and with life. You can have the difficult conversation, set a boundary, or choose to let something be.

Now that you’ve practiced P.E.A.C.E., you can use the practice in real-time. For extreme circumstances, you may need to repeat the practice several times a day. You may also want to seek support from a friend, a therapist, or a doctor.

Again, taking the time to practice will support you in facing life’s difficulties more calmly and skillfully, removing straws from your back and creating grace amidst the chaos (at least sometimes).

“In the heat of the moment,” even 5-year-olds can use a simplified “ABC” version of this practice.

• A = Aware. Be aware of the situation and how you are feeling.
• B = Breathe. Breathing gives you time to choose.
• C = Choose. Choose if, how, and when you want to respond.

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One last note: Please don’t expect that you will be able to respond to every difficulty with wisdom, compassion, and grace. Be kind to yourself when you react. And celebrate when you respond.

The more you practice P.E.A.C.E., the more peace you will have.

Adapted from A Still Quiet Place for Athletes: Mindfulness Skills for Achieving Peak Performance and Finding Flow in Sports and in Life.