Peace Face: Five steps you can take to optimize your holidays.
Trying to make it through the holiday season without losing your shit? Time to put on your peace face.
“If you think you’re enlightened go spend a week with your family.” ~Ram Das
Like most people, you probably have mixed feeling about the holidays.
Perhaps you are a naysayer. Have you had it up to here with the ghastly inflated plastic Santas, the cringe-worthy songs of joy and peace, the black friday-cyber monday-giving tuesday-broke ass wednesday charade? Maybe you dread hearing Uncle Bob gleefully gloating about Trump winning the election, and you aren’t sure you can keep calm and carry on?
Or, perhaps, you are a Christmas fanatic. You revel in being surrounded by loved ones while laughing, reminiscing, and eating delicious food. You delight in the perfect gift given or received. You are intoxicated by the smell of pine trees, the fresh blanket of snow covering the landscape, and the happy faces of children playing with their new toys.
For most of us, we will weave between the two paths. Our minds will veer drunkenly from one to the other, with our wounded and wound-up inner child at the wheel.
Do you have a strategy for getting through the short days and long nights with your soul intact?
“Pashupa has the most peaceful face I have ever seen!”
For me, the holidays begin the last week of November. I celebrated an intimate vegan Thanksgiving at the home of one of my yoga students. She invited my partner Lisa and I, along with a married couple we were meeting for the first time. Everyone except me had a little wine, and after the meal we were chatting it up. At one point the wife looked at me and said, “Pashupa has the most peaceful face I have ever seen!”
That statement caught me off guard, but my ego enjoyed it and we all started laughing. Peace face. I carried those words home with me with the leftovers. Ego said to me, “she can tell how enlightened you are, wise yogi!”
“Shut up, ego,” said the wise yogi part of my brain.
When we got home and talked about it, Lisa agreed I had a peace face, but then reminded me of the other aspects of my personality. Those mischievous and feral parts of me. The part of me that yells a prolonged “fuck!” at the top of my lungs, audible to our whole neighborhood, when I ordered a door with the wrong inswing twice in a row. The part that puts a glob of peanut butter on our puppy Bodhi’s nose to amuse myself watching her lick it off. The part of me that somehow upsets Lisa once every day or two.
I have named these parts of myself. Peaceful Pashupa, and Derek the Destroyer. We all have various aspects of personality, and knowing who we are in any given moment can help us determine our best course of action when problems arise.
Yoga for our inner puppy
In the Yoga Sutras, yoga is defined as the “quieting of the whirlings of the mind.” It is not the only definition of yoga, but it’s the one you will hear most quoted in the west.
Our internal and external worlds mirror one another. When our mind becomes agitated, the world around us seems more chaotic. A chaotic world puts our thoughts in a mixing bowl and whisks them into pancake batter. Once we smell our brain burning on the cosmic griddle, we know we are cooked.
Fortunately, the opposite is also true. A calm lake reflecting a shimmering sunrise slows us down to appreciate the beauty of the world. Manifesting a meditative mind truly calms the world around us.
With the physical practices of yoga, we are using our bodies to bring awareness to our mental states. Get into an uncomfortable position, stay there, breathe, notice what the mind is doing, stay present, breathe, stay calm. Change position, start again.
Seated meditation is similar. The body starts out comfortable, just sitting. We watch our breath, or chant a mantra, or focus awareness on an object. Soon the body is uncomfortable, the mind is wandering, we want to squirm or itch, change our leg position, give up until tomorrow. But if we can stay there and endure, we get to know ourselves a little better.
It’s the awareness that makes the difference. The simple path is to let the mind whirl. Ride it back and forth from past to future, with brief stops in the present to make-believe you are paying attention. “Yes, honey, I am listening deeply to everything you said. Could you repeat that last thing?”
The simple path is not the easy path. Simple simply means there are less steps. Complexity is the process of combining several simple steps to achieve something more profound. Complex paths take longer, but bring more ease. Simple, but not easy.
Watching the mind is like raising a puppy. You can put some peanut butter on her nose to keep her busy, but soon enough she licks it all off and starts chewing up the furniture. You really need to create some rituals of attentiveness to get her under control. “Mind, sit!” Mind, stay!” “That’s a good girl!”
And then she runs away and pees on the couch.
Over time, with enough treats, we can train the puppy mind to sit and stay. It is a complex process. In the end, it brings us more joy and peace.
Five ways to not lose your shit this year
I have been thinking about my peace face. Is it a mask to hide the undertow of my chaotic soul? Not exactly. I have been vegan for almost thirty years, and practicing yoga for over half that time. I know some things about peace. I’m also a hot mess at times. I have a spastic face, too. Turns out I’m still human after all these years.
Here are my tips for you to make it to 2025 without losing your shit.
Don’t Forget to Breathe. When someone says something fucked-up, or when something fucked-up happens, and you feel the emotions flooding your system, you have a couple of seconds before you lose your shit. Take a deep breath and fill your lungs, then release it while slightly constricting the throat. Repeat until you feel your face becoming peaceful. Then respond thoughtfully.
Redirect the Energy. Social media bubbles have increased tribalism and put us all on edge. We have forgotten how to get along. The simple response to subtle (and not-so-subtle) insults and politically-charged statements is to dig in and defend our positions. Uncle Bob’s gonna see that reaction and start throwing tear gas. Don’t dig in! Ask Bob how he came to his beliefs, be genuinely curious about his life. Keep him talking about himself. Maybe you will learn something.
Create Boundaries. Sometimes you will have enough. Enough food, enough conversation, enough criticism, whatever it is. Speak up for yourself. In the Yoga Sutras, non-harming (Ahimsa) is the first step on the path to yoga. Truthfulness (Satya) is the second. The wise person will tell always tell the truth unless it causes harm. If you can say, “I have had enough,” without hurting someone else, that is the best path. But sometimes you will have to bend the truth to not hurt someone’s feelings. Remember, lies often come back to bite us. Be as honest as you can, but let people know you have boundaries they can’t cross. Create a safe space around yourself.
Be Love. Most of us want the best for others. Most of us have kindness in our hearts. If you resonate with that, how can you manifest it? Do you have a peace face? Try to find a kind thing to say to each person you encounter. Especially the people who trigger you. If you have followed the second item in this list, perhaps you have learned something about Uncle Bob that you respect, or identify with. Tell him. Our ego’s all want to be seen and complimented.
Use the Peace Face Emoji 😌. OK, this is the most esoteric on my list. Only for advanced yogis. In researching peace face, I learned that there is a relieved face emoji. As 2024 draws to a close, we can all feel relief. What could go wrong in 2025? When your partner sends you that anxious text message, or you get spam from an unknown source, respond with the peace face emoji (formerly known as the relief face emoji). Teach gramma how to use it. It is the gif that keeps on giving.
Resting Peace Face
One question I am often asked, “Is there a resting peace face?”
The laws of physics say that a face in rest tends to stay in rest. Whatever face you display the most will become your resting face.
The laws of psychics say that behind every face is someone who will pay to know what the future holds, and therein lies the anxious face.
If we look far enough into the future, we will understand that nothing we do will be remembered for long. Don’t sweat the temporary stuff.
In the short-term, it’s not what you say that people will remember, but how you make them feel.
Your peace face is contagious. The woman who told me I have the most peaceful face surely now has one of her own. I have been spreading my peace face around. Although no one knows what is behind my beard. That’s where my turbulent chin and undulating neck rolls dwell.
Wishing you peace on Earth, and goodwill to all the genders.