The Lazy Genius Podcast - #404 - 10 Ways to Find Calm in the Chaos

Episode Date: February 10, 2025

For whatever cocktail of reasons, life just feels like a lot right now. An extra amount of a lot. Constant chaos feels like the norm instead of the exception. Finding calm in the chaos is not just a cute alliterative podcast title. It’s required. It’s survival for me right now. It’s necessary spiritually and mentally healthy work for me to actively seek, create, and receive calm in the chaos of life right now, and I want to share ten ways you might try doing that, too. Helpful Companion Links Order my new book The PLAN or ask your library to consider carrying a copy. Rejoice by Andrew Peterson (YouTube) Episode #403: How I Get Stuff Done When I Don’t Feel Like It The Liturgy of the Ordinary by Tish Harrison Warren Get your Spring Playbook here or grab a “seconds” version at a discount here. Sign up for the Latest Lazy Listens email. Grab a copy of my book The Lazy Genius Kitchen or The Lazy Genius Way! (Affiliate links) Download a transcript of this episode. To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hey there, you're listening to the lazy genius podcast. I'm Kendra Adachi and I'm here to help you be a genius about the things that matter and lazy about the things that don't. Today is episode 404. 10 ways to find calm in the chaos. Y'all, I promise I do not start episode plans with a number 10. Like I put a hashtag placeholder in this title. I broke the episode and it was 10 things. I love it when that has to be a hashtag placeholder in this title. I broke the episode and it was 10 things. I love it when that happens, but also how does it always happen? Anyway, moving on. So is anyone else feeling a little chaotic right now? Good gracious. Now, I am not assuming that everyone's chaos looks or feels the same or comes from the same place. But anecdotally, based on my own life, the lives of my friends, the lives of many of you who are sending emails and DMs, we all feel underwater in a way that we have. We have, haven't felt in quite some time. For some folks, I know including myself, a portion of that chaos does come from the news from the political climate right now. I won't presume upon anyone's politics or beliefs here because I think we can all be kind to each other in disagreements. But knowing

this audience, many of you, no matter your historical political leanings, are scared, you're confused, maybe even heartbroken. No doubt you're in relationships with others who feel the same, even if it's for different reasons than you. So right now, being a person to me, it kind of feels like an American Ninja Warrior obstacle course. You know, it's like it's just all hard, but none of us can even make it past those angled steps at the beginning. They're supposed to be the easy part.

At least that's how I feel. Then you can add on to the constant news and the discord, just the chaos of regular life. There are still bills and laundry piles and children and jobs and yards to tend and papers to file and insurance to update and people to invest in. A lot of you all over the country have experienced various kinds of weather chaos. Some exceedingly devastating, like the fires in L.A. And others less so, but still unsettling, like all the snow and ice in Texas.

Folks have dealt with power outages and school closings and walking pneumonia because that seems to be making its way around everywhere. A friend of mine also told me that her. her boss was making the employees at her company do some kind of like goal setting exercise for 2025 where they would all help each other check in on their weekly habits and goals but with like big crossfit energy that right there is its own kind of chaos you guys no shade to crossfit those of you who do it i hope you are on my team when the apocalypse comes because i am i am as weak as a fallen leaf but there is an intensity to people who throw around tires for fun let's just say it but then again, I own over 200 physical books that I have yet to read. So we all have our own levels of

intensity. All of those words are meant to bring us together in chaotic solidarity for whatever cocktail of reasons life just feels like a lot right now, like an extra amount of a lot. Constant chaos feels like the norm instead of the exception. If you got my news, letter last week. You got a window into my personal chaos and how I'm processing some of it. One of the things that's happened to me in recent weeks is I've just kind of shut down. I'm a handful of days into a level of fragmentation in my body and spirit that feel harder than anything I've had, probably since the pandemic. It's not that I could come apart at any moment. I kind of feel like I already have.

And now I patiently wait for my rest and my hormones and my peace to reach a bit more equilibrium so that I might feel like myself again. In fact, it really does already feel like it's happening. I have been diligent and patient and just obeying and listening to what my body feels like she needs. And for the last week, it's been going to bed really early, at least early for me. Remember in season two, a flea bag, which is the only season. and to watch, in my opinion, where Hoppree says, recently I've really been enjoying going to bed at 9.30.

He's on to something. 930 has been like, it's been a healing bedtime for me, okay? All that to say, I'm neck deep in this personally right now. Finding calm in the chaos is not just a cute, like a literative podcast title, even though it is that. It's required. It's like survival for me right now. The chaos feels so loud and so constant that if I do, you know, don't counteract it with some peace. Even in the tiniest ways, I'll break. It's necessary, spiritually and mentally. It's healthy work for me to actively seek, create, and receive calm in the chaos of life right now. And I want to share 10 ways that you might try doing that too. Now, before I jump into those ways, I want to talk about chaos first. One of the things I think I'm good at is making something big,

feel smaller, a little easier, maybe something that's complicated, making it feel a little simpler. And I'd like to try to do that with chaos. Now, am I an expert? 0%. Is this complete 0%. But this simplification, it makes sense to me and it's given me some legs to stand on, even when my legs are like made of jelly. So I think that chaos can be characterized with three pairs of counterparty.

inner chaos and outer chaos, regular chaos and irregular chaos, and controlled chaos or out of control chaos. So to me, I can better understand the chaos that I am feeling and experiencing if I can name that it's inner or outer, regular or irregular, and controlled or out of control. The fire hose that is the news is outer, irregular, out of my control chaos. And over time, that outer, irregular out of my control chaos, it can become inner, regular, controlled chaos. If I perseverate on something difficult for a really long time without looking for the good or doing something that is within my control to do, to support what matters to me in regards to that news. If I just stay in that chaotic place of hopelessness within myself, that's another level of chaos that piles onto the chaos of the news itself.

The same goes with parenting. Most of parenting is outer, regular, controlled chaos. maybe life in general is that way, whether kids are in it or not. But stuff happens circumstantially on a fairly regular basis, right? And while it's not smooth sailing all the time because nothing is, it's like it's relatively under control. Controlled chaos is something most of you listening are quite good at. But when you have a hard time finding calm and peace in that, that outer regular controlled chaos, it can turn inward.

it can become inner chaos that happens also on a regular basis and feels like it's out of your control, right? It's just always there. So those three counterparts, I love them, inner and outer, regular and irregular and controlled and out of control. They might be helpful devices for you to name what you're actually experiencing, right? Because how we approach inner chaos and outer chaos are different. How we view regular chaos versus irregular chaos is different. How we respond to controlled chaos versus out of control is different. So maybe tuck those three little pairs of counterparts into your thinking or even just one pair that resonates with you and see if that might help you name what's going on in your life personally or even just in that moment. Okay, so now that we have laid the chaotic groundwork, I'm going to share 10 ways.

to find calm in that chaos. Welcome aboard via rail. Please sit and enjoy. Please sit and sip. Play. Post. Taste. View and enjoy.

Via rail. Love the way. Aw, isn't something we need to travel for. It's something waiting for us in everyday life, whether in a city street or a moment with a work of art. I'm Dr. Keltner, host of the Science of Happiness podcast. Join me for Cities of Aw, a special series on how our public spaces can spark awe, wonder, and enhance the quality of public life. You can find us wherever you listen to your podcasts.

Without even meaning to, five of the ten are focused on inner chaos and five are focused on our. That's so funny. Again, I didn't plan it. But let's not fight symmetry when we get it, right? Okay. So let's start with five ways to find calm and inner chaos. The first one is obvious, arguably overused, but still essential, and that is breathing. Breathe.

Deep, slow breaths are maybe one of the most calming tools in my whole repertoire. I don't know that we recognize how shallow and fast our breathing often is. And it gets worse when we're overstimulated by chaos. So actively, intentionally, taking a deep, slow breath, maybe even a few. When you feel like chaos is filling your body, it will always help. No, it doesn't eliminate chaos. In fact, none of these things do. We're just finding calm, right?

We're just balancing out the chaos in whatever way we can. And breathing has to be part of that. It has to. Deep, slow breathing when you feel like you're about to bust. Let out the pressure with a good deep breath. Number two, have a go-to peacemaker. Most likely you have moments where your inner chaos feels insurmountable. Sometimes that even leads to things like panic attacks. It's a real challenge for many people. And it's always helped me to have almost like a rip cord on a parachute.

Like what's the thing? What's the singular thing that you can immediately do that brings you some level of inner peace that helps you take one step. or one crawl in that direction. It might be calling a friend or a sister. It might mean going outside and putting your face in the sun. For me, it's a song. I listened to it in the car just the other day. I couldn't stop crying after I got all the kids home. And I just stayed in my car and I breathed.

And when that didn't calm me fast enough, because I had to go in and make dinner, I played my go-to peacemaker, my parachute rip-cord song, that I always play. It's called Rejoice by Andrew Peterson. It's definitely a Jesus song. But it's my go-to because it speaks to both sides of what it means to live in hard times and still have hope, whether hard times that are inner or outer.

I can't read any of the lyrics on mic because I will immediately start crying. But that's because it hits me so deep, so fast. It's like a shot of epinephrine in the thigh. It immediately starts working. it takes away the immediate danger and helps me get myself like a little bit more right side up again. So find that thing for yourself or just be willing to receive it when it comes. Number three, I love using Bray Brown's line. What story am I telling myself?

She talks about this in the context of relationships usually. But I find this question to be immensely helpful when I'm feeling inner chaos. What story am I telling myself? What am I believing to be true right now? What narrative have I made in my head that's actually not 100% true or even complete? And yet I'm living like it is. That's a hugely helpful way to find calm in the chaos. Ask yourself, what story am I telling myself? And be honest about it. Number four is a line from another wise woman. Suzanne Stabille, who is an author and Enneagram expert, often asks herself, what is mine to do? When we feel chaotic inside ourselves, it's easy to either ping from one corner of our souls to another super fast in search of a list of things to do as a response

to the chaos, or we go the opposite direction and we kind of absolve ourselves from any ownership or agency in the chaos at all. So that question, what is mine to do is helpful in both cases. when you want to do everything and when you don't want to do anything. What is mine to do? And if you don't know the answer, just wait. You don't have to fill the space immediately. Or just start small with one thing. And number five, I find tremendous comforting calm in my inner chaos.

When I remember that good is here right now. That's become such a mantra for me personally. and I know for a lot of you as well, I wrote about it in the plan. I've mentioned it many times over many episodes. It's now like a major part of talks that I give when I'm hired to speak places. Good is here right now. Even if you can't see it, it's there. The reason we need that reminder, the reason we need eyes that see the good that is here, even in all of it, is to provide balance. Shannon Martin, a friend and a remarkable writer and author and soul, calls these counterweights. When we are in a season of difficulty or chaos, no matter its intensity or what's causing it,

look for counterweights. Look for things that bring harmony and balance and peace and calm to a place that desperately needs it. Counterweights are the good that is here right now. So those are the five ways that I personally find calm in the inner chaos of life. I breathe, have a go-to peacemaker. Ask yourself that Renee Brown line. What story am I telling myself? Ask yourself the Suzanne's Debele line. What is mine to do? And remember that good is here right now. Look for it. Find those counterweights like Shannon says. Now let's look at five ways to find calm and outer chaos. Whatever the chaos looks like, whether it's just ordinary life with a toddler or being a person with a job and responsibilities or being in a specific season that feels overwhelming,

considering one of these five things might help you find a little calm somewhere in there. So number one, simple pleasures. This is obvious, but the obvious things often get forgotten or ignored or dismissed as less important. The simple pleasures in life can offer such calm in chaos. My list, you won't be surprised by any of these things. birds, books, wind, puzzles, comfort shows. Like I'm rewatching Sherlock right now and I'm loving every single second. Cookies. Enjoy simple pleasures. Engage in them like their lifelines.

Remember in last week's episode about how I get stuff done when I don't feel like it, I talked about engaging in something rather than being distracted by something. So often when we have to to do something we don't want to do, we distract ourselves from that thing with something else that's not actually that much better. So instead, I engage in something I really do want to do. I don't avoid what I don't want to do on Instagram. Like, I pause what I don't want to do. And then I fill up by doing something I love, like reading a book. Then I actually have energy to do the thing I didn't want to do in the first place. The same is true. of simple pleasures. Don't dismiss them as unimportant or so normalized that they lose their power.

Enjoy the things you love. Enjoy the cozy blanket and the mug of tea. Enjoy walking through the park by your house. Enjoy it when the sunlight finally goes through the light catcher on your window and you get a rainbow cast across your living room. Those are the counterweights Shannon talks about. The delicious soup, the bread with butter, the song you haven't heard in so long that makes you smile and dance. Just this morning, I remembered these songs that me and the kids used to listen to when they were tiny, tiny kids. It was called Big Block Sing Song.

Anybody else listen to those? They are all less than two minutes. They are hilarious and absurd and catchy. And they're made for both kids and their grownups. Well, I remembered that they existed just randomly. I started playing them while Annie was eating breakfast. And while she did roll her eyes a little, we definitely laughed about them. Well, then a couple of hours later, when I was a couple of hours later,

I was driving Sam to school because remember three kids and three schools, three different start times. I, we got in the car and I was like, hey dude, listen to what I remembered this morning. And I started playing Big Block songs in the car. They were still playing when we picked up his friend Darby to take her to school too. And we all just laughed at Big Block songs the entire drive. I still remembered so many words when the song Moose came on, which is the one that goes in the park in the park in the park in the park in the park in the park in the park in the park in the park in the park in the park in the park in the park in the park in the park in the park in the park in the park in the park in the park in the park in the park in the park in the park in the car and got out of the car and got his stuff i said you know that might be the greatest thing that happens to me today and he laughed and he said i think for me too it was the simplest pleasure of all the pleasures listening to old kids songs that were the soundtrack of those early parenting years and just laughing about them. And I still feel sustained from that.

I still feel calm and peace, even as chaos keeps swirling around me. Simple pleasures. Number two or number seven, depending on how you're counting, slowness. One of the best ways to find calm in the chaos of the world is to move slower. walk slower, drive slower, think slower, expect slower, respond slower. We're such fast-paced people. And slowness is too much of an exception. Sometimes it's seen as a disadvantage when it really needs to be seen as an advantage. This is very true for me because I move fast, I talk fast, I think fast, I respond fast.

That speed exacerbates the chaos around me because I just become part. part of it. I just become part of the chaos. Slowness helps me stay grounded within it. Okay, number three slash eight, daily bread. This one is definitely more rooted in my own faith, which is often called Christianity. So thank you for being patient with it if your beliefs are different from mine. And also feel free to just skip ahead a minute. That said, I think the foundational idea here is attractive to anyone who likes the idea of being a lazy genius, whether you would call yourself a Christian or not. So it's times like these, these terribly chaotic times, that I am so grateful that God loves small things and uses them often in scripture, wildflowers, a mustard

seed, a sparrow, a whisper, daily bread. In his time on earth, Jesus used so many small things and his teachings and parables, like a single sheep, a lost coin. If we have the faith of a mustard seed, which is disturbingly small, we can move mountains. God is not in the fire or the great wind, but in the whisper. We are given daily bread, not forever bread, just sustenance for today. Chaos makes us feel like we have to fix everything at once or that we have to fix everything at all. chaos makes smallness feel completely irrelevant. But I am ravenous for daily bread. I think that the deepest peace lies in just being here right now today

and not requiring it to be anything more than it is. Being here now and doing what you can with what you have today without feeling obligated to do it forever or make it all count for one giant fix is deeply sustaining for me. And it's a great comfort. me that the God I choose to love and follow also values small things. So number three slash eight is daily bread. Number four slash nine. Should I number all things this way now? So Tish Harrison Warren has a book called The Liturgy of the Ordinary. And that phrase is such a peacemaker when outer chaos

reigns. When we look at the ordinary things, the cooking and cleaning and being and talking and listening and walking to school and making our coffee at work and riding the train home and going to the grocery store. When we look at those things as a liturgy, as a sacred sort of tending to our lives, those acts that feel annoying and even in the way amidst the chaos around us, they become vital structural components to our peace. When we can value the ordinary as something sacred and important and human and connective, even things like laundry might give us a little bit of calm in the chaos. And then finally, the fifth thing that might bring calm in outer chaos and our 10th overall is people. It's like Belinda and Fleabag says, wait, that's two Fleabag references

in one episode. I love it. So after Fleabag, like the main character, because she doesn't have a name, after Fleaback says that people are essentially the worst, and she uses a different word for worst, Belinda responds to her with, people are all we've got. And while I don't believe that 100%, it's a solid 98. People are so much of what we've got. People are their own source of chaos, and sometimes they create a lot of it for us. But people are also the calm and the storm, friendships, solidarity. kindness to a stranger.

We are a social people made to connect with each other. That's why this time likely feels extra chaotic for so many of us. Divisions are everywhere. Enemies are everywhere. A line from that song that I mentioned, Rejoice, says every friend has a stranger's face. Sometimes it feels like that. People we know and love surprise us in ways that are sometimes really difficult. and they might say the same about you.

But people are all we've got. People are amazing. People are gross and weird and so stupid. And they mess up and they're greedy and selfish. And those words can be used for all of us. They are true of me too. We all have the capacity to be terrible people. And yet we keep getting up every day.

We keep trying to be kind and do good work and take care of our families and ourselves. We read and we run and we bake and we go out. out dancing, we buy more bird feeders. We text and then we forget to text back and we go out for drinks or we go out for cake. We have people over to do a puzzle and eat cheese. We catch each other's words and we listen without judgment and we hope that others will do the same for us. We rub up against each other physically and emotionally and that friction makes us better, more connected people. People are all we've got and people are what we need. Chaos makes us retreat from people. It makes us create enemies of people. How many times have you been in a situation where your kid did something boneheaded once again

and you could drop kick that kid out the window? Chaos makes us create strangers from friends and enemies from family. Chaos divides us. And I'm not just talking about political chaos. I literally mean just like ordinary, your husband didn't put away the laundry chaos and you have dagger eyes toward him now. Chaos divides us, which is why a way to find calm in that chaos is to value each other. People are all we've got. I don't think I intended for this episode to be as like philosophical as it became, but oh well, episodes are what they're supposed to be and here's this one. So to recap, don't forget those three pairs of counterpoints. to help you name and navigate your chaos, inner or outer, regular or irregular, and controlled

or out of control. That might help you. Then the 10 ways to find calm in the chaos. Breathe, have a go-to peacemaker. Ask yourself what story you're telling yourself. Ask yourself what is yours to do. Remember that good is here right now. Take delight and simple pleasures. Go slower. crave daily bread, embrace, as Tish Harrison Warren calls it, the liturgy of the ordinary, and people, because people are all we've got. And those are 10 ways to find calm in the chaos. Now, a lot of our chaos is intangible, but some of it is very concrete. If one of the chaotic things in your life is your schedule, your stuff, how you interact with your schedule and your stuff, maybe now is a great time to pick up my book, The Plan. Maybe you,

bought it when it released, but you just haven't started reading it yet. I've done that so many times again. I have 200 books unread on my shelf. Maybe you've even been on the fence about how much it will help you and you haven't yet taken the plunge to get it. I believe that a time management approach centered around contentment and just wholeness as a person is deeply needed right now. So if you're like, I need tools for my chaos, the plan could be a tool to try. It is available where books are sold or you can get it from your local library. And we also have just, just a handful of spring playbooks left before our next big shipment of playbook bundles arrive in April or May. So if you missed out on getting the playbooks when we announced them in November,

you can check the link in the show notes to see if there are any single versions of spring left. At last check, there were less than 200. And we'd love to get those into your hands during the March through May season of the spring playbook. So you can use it and let it help you think through your season. So you can go to the lazy genius collective.com slash playbooks or click the link in the show notes. All right, before we go, let's celebrate the lazy genius of the week. This week, it's Sarah Montgomery. Sarah writes, I loved episode 379, how to help kids clean their rim. My wife was recently diagnosed with ADHD, and when you said that brains with ADHD don't form new habits, I had to pause and let that sink in for a while. That's why all the timers and reminders

are so important. So next time I ask her to do something, it'll be, can you set a reminder to do this thing instead of can you do this thing. Thank you for making our marriage 0.5% better. I love that percentage. This is such a fantastic distinction, Sarah. It's such a kindness to know that asking your wife to do a thing and then expecting her to do it without any kind of reminder is actually a pretty challenging expectation. So this tiny adjustment is so compassionate and also hopeful. I love it. So thank you for sharing Sarah. And congratulations by being the lazy genius of the week. This episode is hosted by me, Kendra Adachi, an executive produced by Kendra Adachi, Jenna Fisher, and Angela Kinsey. The Lazy Genius podcast is enthusiastically part of the Office

Ladies Network. Special thanks to Leah Jarvis for weekly production. Thanks y'all for listening. And until next time, be a genius about the things that matter and lazy about the things that don't. I'm Kendra. I'll see you next week. If you ever felt like you were living just a B or B plus life, It's so dangerous to live that more dangerous than a B minus or a C plus life because when you're living a B or B plus life, you don't change it. You think it's good enough. Is it? I'm Susie Welch. I host a podcast called Becoming You. People think, okay, an A plus life is not available to me, but there is a way. We are all in the process of becoming ourselves. Listen to Becoming You wherever you get your podcasts.