Being calm and unbothered
In 2018 I was on a scuba diving trip with 70 other people and our boat sank. We had to jump off the sinking boat and swim to the nearest shore where we waited for hours to be rescued. And during all that I was super chill. I was just hanging. Because I have this agreement with myself that I don’t lose my shit before something bad actually happens.
So the first life hack to being chill is to bring yourself to the moment and assess what’s currently happening, not what may happen. I learned this from Eckart Toll; he says: “You’re are in the here and now, while your mind is in the future. This creates an anxiety gap.” If you manage to stay in the moment, you’re dealing with what’s actually happening instead of paranoid scenarios in your head.
I’m not like him, I’m not chill 24/7, but I learned how to bring myself back into the moment to release anxiety and worry, and learn from my triggers when I get angry. This makes me somewhat in control over my chillness (if that’s a word).
Yes the boat sinking was not cool, or losing all my stuff or waiting to be rescued in bikinis, or dealing with the officials for five hours, still in bikinis, and filing reports. Our fun trip ended the first day and it was a bummer. But nothing too terrible happened. Nobody died, nobody got lost or seriously injured. A lot could’ve gone wrong, but it didn’t. So I saved myself from a lot of “what if” anxiety and scare, cuz I’m chill.
Staying chill under thunderstorm
We recently had one day of weather above 16C/ 60F in months and it wasn’t even a nice day but for New Yorkers it for sure was a park day. Things aren’t going to be always perfect but to me being chill is seeing everything from the better angle.
We are going to talk about how to stay chill in chaotic times but my biggest secret for being chill in my daily life is to make sure I have few of those chaotic moments. I just avoid conflict whenever I can. Even if we do everything perfectly there are systems beyond our control. Anytime something that we can’t even see can change our lives completely.
So there will be a lot of conflicts beyond our control because this is life. But in case of the conflicts that we can actually avoid, let’s avoid them. This means cutting toxic people off your life because they keep bringing nonsense. Or figuring out another way if you hate your job because you can’t be chill under constant stress. Big conflicts require larger decisions for sure.
But even with the small stuff, in my daily life, I rarely argue. I don’t like arguing over stuff if it doesn’t change any important outcome. I often agree to disagree, which is uncomfortable for some people, because they like winning over an argument so they will create them just to win. And I seriously don’t care much if that’s how they feel about things, it’s good to know, but I’m probably not going to change my mind even if we argue or yell for an hour about it. Especially if I don’t know this person. So I just choose to be chill even when I have the perfect environment to go batshit.
Even here on this channel, I take these heartbreaks and low points in my life and make videos that I have so much fun making, I’m somewhat making lemonade. What I’m trying to say is that you can choose to see awful things from a good perspective, that you can endure anything, and you don’t have to spend your life miserable. I’m not saying that you’re not gonna feel sad or cry, I cry all the time, but at the end of the day you can just chill if you feel like you’re on the right path. It’s something you feel not in the head, not in the heart, right at your core.
And because of this being chill has a lot to do with discerning what you can and cannot control and acting upon what disrupts your calm but accepting the situation if there is nothing you can do about it. Because shit happens, it’s life, it’s not always smooth sailing (pun intended) and it would be boring if it was.
The key is to stop worrying about the things you don’t have control over. Don’t worry about the things you can’t change. You only have control over how you react to these things. So let go of the constructions in your head, what should happen, or what can happen, most of them won’t happen. Just be in the moment, accept what’s coming your way, and just be chill about it.
How to go with the flow
I have this quote by my desk: “I give the best, I get the best.” That’s the vibe of being chill. If you come to anything with best intentions, trust that you’ll get the best you can out of it.
If you give your best to being good at your job, you’ll be awesome at it and if you’re not awesome at it that means that it’s not your path so you should look elsewhere. I’m reading this book by Disney’s old CEO and he tells about how he thinks this awful thing happened in his carrier but it turns out to be a blessing in disguise and it opens up another opportunity which turns out to be incredible and all that jazz. This is how life works. Things seem bad before they open up a whole new world for you. So just be chill about it.
When it comes to relationships, if you believe you did everything you can to have a strong connection with this person and still the outcome isn’t what you hoped for, then it means there is nothing more you can get out of it. If something doesn’t work out the way you were hoping it would be, it means that it wasn’t meant to be.
I am a bit spiritual in that sense, okay not a bit, I’m pretty spiritual. I believe in energies and if two people have more to teach each other then I believe that their paths will cross once more at one point. If it doesn’t, it means that this was it, this was their whole story. Then it’s again about what’s in my control and what’s not. I’ll just be chill and go with the flow unless I need to take action on something.
Because I’m not telling you to be chill during a crisis moment. I was at my lowest last year and I was not chill about it at all, because it meant that there was something that needed to change. That I needed to take action on something. This wasn’t the flow, this wasn’t going anywhere, anywhere desirable at least. So when there is a situation where you can just not be chill about, listen to your intuition. Is it something you have control over? You’re gonna feel it right at your core.
Being in the flow isn’t the same as letting life happen to you, it’s not being passive at all. The flow brings you all these opportunities but you decide whether you should take action on them or not. You will have to be persistent with the stuff you wanna have in your life but still, you can be chill about it.
I feel like I battled with life long enough that I’m super tired and it comes easy to me to just let go and go with the flow. What that means to me is like, if someone invites you somewhere, just say yes. If you keep bumping into the same person, just talk to them. I think universe is sending us each other as angels. We teach each other a lot, we teach each other everything we know. And aside from your family you choose everyone who you are going to learn from. So when you are surrounded by people who you respect and love, you can be chill. Because then you trust the process, because you trust that everything in your life is worth your time and energy, and that you’ll like where this flow takes you.
And when I am in the flow I swear whenever I’m walking somewhere the light always turns green for me, I always run into the sweetest people at the bodega, someone compliments my outfit. When you are going with the flow, delightful things happen and then there is no way you can’t love life and just be chill. It creates its own cycle.
What’s messing up your chill?
Also, I’m not chill 24/7, sometimes someone says something and I get super mad. But I don’t get into an argument with that person, first I take 3 deep breaths. And ask myself: Why am I so angry about this? Because probably somewhere deep down I agree with them, I know they are right, and that’s why it triggers me.
We get super mad when deep down we know that they have a point, but we don’t want to confront it or at least hear it from them. We even get angry at their audacity, like how dare you say this to me? But I believe the universe is communicating with us through the people in our lives. So in that sense, it’s just someone saying something that you need to hear. It’s not about them. Everything is about you. So whatever you’re not chill about, probably needs attention and there is probably an opportunity for growth right there for you.
Carl Jung says something along these lines: “Everything that irritates us about others can lead us to an understanding of ourselves.” I think it’s the same idea, whatever makes you not chill, is telling you something about yourself.
When someone gets on your nerves, it’s easy to say they have no idea what they’re talking about and they couldn’t be more wrong, but you wouldn’t be in rage if someone was mad at you for having six arms. Then you’d be like, no I don’t, and get on with your day.
But sometimes you just know that you are right and their point is completely ridiculous, yet you still get mad. In that case you either care a lot about what they think of you, or you really want to be on the same page about this with this person, and that’s why this drives you crazy. Even in that case, an argument won’t take you any further. If you can just be chill about it and say that this conflict upsets you for bigger picture reasons, then you may have a productive conversation instead of a never-ending discussion where nobody is willing to change their minds.
Create chill environments and habits
When you master being chill, you probably can chill anywhere anytime. The rest of us should make sure to have environments and habits that help us be chill.
I think it’s not easy to stay chill in New York because of all the hustle and hectic energies and the brutal never-ending winter. Being closer to nature would be lovely, but what I do instead is to fill my living space with plants. Seeing life sprouting around you is a beautiful feeling, because these plants have no idea what’s going on in the world, they just live and waking up to a baby leaf makes me chill.
And I’m sorry if you have allergies but if you have a pet then you know what being effortlessly chill is like. They just chill, they have food, they have love, they have the best life. We should all practice living more like our pets. They find the most comfortable corner in the room and just don’t worry about anything. You know how they’re just happy because they’re chilling on the couch with you. They don’t complicate things. Let’s not overcomplicate things.
Isn’t that what our ancestors used to do? Doing their daily workout by hunting some animals, collecting greens, and chill the rest of the time and invent the wheel or paint on the walls or something. Just chill. We need this. This is who we are, this is the animal in us without the cultures and the systems of this world we live in. I’m not saying that we can’t deal with it we can and we can have fun doing it as well. It’s just that it’s important to take a break of everything time to time and live like cavepeople.
Also, if we really are what we eat, processed and unhealthy food will surely turn into a more chaotic energy and will prevent us from being chill. Because of that I almost always cook my own meals and I drink a lot of tea which is told to have calming effects.
And I gotta tell you I used to be a more angry person when I was eating animal products, I don’t know if this has a scientific correlation but I became a lot more chill as a person when I stopped eating meat. It makes sense to me that the animal gets nervous, irritated, and scared when being sacrificed, and we take in all those emotions when we consume it, but it’s just my opinion. So, I don’t know, think about it.
The chill is in you baby
When you are younger everything feels permanent but when you see that nothing is, love isn’t, friendship isn’t, pain isn’t. Some last a long time but nothing is permanent. So you see that everything comes and goes and you can let go of the negative emotions and join the flow. If you choose to stay miserable in a situation because you are terrified of change or you don’t wanna leave your comfort zone or whatever reason, you can never be chill. But if you follow your intuition and trust that you’re on the right path, being chill is inevitable.