The secret to inner peace is hidden under your expectations.

I started my clinic practice the same year I had my first baby, and had big expectations for both.

If you asked me how I thought it was going to go, I would have smiled broadly and told you in full confidence that I was going to start working 2 half days a week for a few months and build up from there.

Surely, I would say, I’d be seeing at least 12 patients a week within the year, alongside my rapidly growing online business.

And of course, it was a given that I’d feel more inner peace than ever before.

The reality though?

Screech halt.

Yeah, it didn’t quite work out the way I planned.

First, there were the financial considerations.

If I wanted to rent space for my practice it meant spending money I might not make back if patients didn’t come, and I didn’t know how long it would take for my practice to fill up.

There was also the matter of insurance.

I once got paid $5.61 for a treatment that should have brought $127.

And if they wanted to test my bookkeeping skills, those insurance companies definitely did, because sometimes I didn’t even see a check until November for a treatment I gave in January.

Next up, childcare. There were 3 unexpected issues here.

1. I didn’t want to have strangers to watch my baby until he could talk.

2. I didn’t want to pay these strangers money that I might not earn back.

3. And there was a limit to how much I could ask family to help out.

Did any of this stop me from trying to do, be, and have it all?

Nope.

Not one bit.

But what I didn’t realize was that I was trading my inner peace for my ambition.

Clinging to the big expectations of how I thought it should all look kept me fighting against the way life was actually presenting itself to me.

I was exhausted.

I was frustrated.

And I felt stressed going to clinic, because patients would just want to passively lie there while I stuck a few needles in them.

What I really wanted to do was teach them how to do the deep inner work they needed in order to heal themselves, but meanwhile, I myself had some deep inner work left to do.

In one of my all-time favorite books, A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life’s Purpose, Eckhart Tolle famously states:

“Life will give you whatever experience is most helpful for the evolution of your consciousness. How do you know this is the experience you need? Because this is the experience you are having at the moment.”

But the Ego doesn’t like to hear this.

Because the Ego is made up of all the ideas you have about yourself.

All of your thoughts, all of your feelings, all of your memories are entirely constructed by the Ego, as are all of the words you might use following the words “I am…”

And yes, all of your expectations come from the Ego, too.

But life doesn’t behave a certain way just because your Ego thinks it should.

On the surface you might check all the boxes, but the reality usually doesn’t match your expectations perfectly.

Anytime you don’t feel inner peace it means that you’re believing your Ego’s stories more than what’s in front of you.

To find inner peace, one of the most powerful practices you can use is to radically accept life as it presents itself to you.

Observe and question any thought that tells you life “should” be a certain way.

Notice the moments when tension arises in your body.

And focus your attention, as much as you can, on the present moment.

Because inner peace is always with you, sometimes you just need to clear out the surface chatter to see it for what it is.

Want more?

Click here to download your copy of the (free) Bliss Kit.

This transformative PDF will show you how to rewire your neurology for less stress and anxiety so you can welcome in more ease, joy, and confidence.

I can’t wait to see where this takes you!