Stop Outsourcing Your Calm: Radical Responsibility as a Wellness Strategy
I used to wait for peace to find me—a good headline, a clean bill of health, a kinder email. Then Karen Lee Cohen’s Let’s Be Peace: 20 Unique Paths to Healing Yourself and Spreading Peace in the World held up a mirror. Calm isn’t just delivered. It’s chosen, practiced, and owned.
Karen doesn’t preach. She gathers voices. Her book is a warm circle of interviews with healers across many paths—breathwork, EFT/Tapping, Ayurveda, Feng Shui, energy work—so you can make your own way. As Karen puts it, “embrace what resonates with you and discard what does not.” That is the quiet power move of Let’s Be Peace: you are your best guide, with wise teammates by your side.
Why Owning Your Calm Changes Everything
When we outsource our calm, we hand our inner peace to the news, to a diagnosis, to other people’s moods. The book invites a different way: take responsibility for your inner state and watch your life align. One contributor says it straight: “Taking responsibility for you own peace is a powerful thing to do. We are all responsible for everything in our lives, including our level of health, our financial situation, our relationships…” Resisting that responsibility, they point out pulls us into dis‑ease. That landed in me not as blame, but as power.
Karen’s own path shows what this looks like. After a heart “episode,” she chose partnership with modalities and deep trust in herself. She still sees a holistic doctor yearly—one of her trusted teammates—but reminds us that “you can always be your own best doctor.” She calls intuition our inner GPS and urges us to use it when making health and life choices.
Build Your Calm Team—But Keep the Pen
Radical responsibility doesn’t mean going it alone. It means you choose your teammates and you make the final call.
- EFT/Tapping to release inner blocks. In her interview, Nancy Linnerooth notices that many of us are divided inside: “people are, in a way, fighting themselves”—our conscious goals clash with old subconscious rules. Tapping can help you release what keeps you stuck so your peace can stick, too.
- Feng Shui to shape spaces that soothe. Tricia Shea offers a simple, strong line: “Be what you want to have.” Want support? Design for it. Want ease? Arrange your room for ease. It’s not about decorating. It’s about creating a feeling that helps you live how you want to live.
- Authenticity and self-trust as daily medicine. Kellee Ratzlaff reframes the whole journey: “It is owning the responsibility for our own self-love and self-care.” If we keep waiting to be rescued, we never meet our power. Responsibility becomes an act of love, not a burden.
- Breathwork for instant reset. Karen gives us simple counts you can use anywhere: breathe 4‑4‑4‑4 (inhale 4, hold 4, exhale 4, hold 4) or 4‑7‑8 (inhale 4, hold 7, exhale 8). No gear. No app. Just breath and presence.
The Real Story Behind the Movement
Let’s Be Peace started as a hashtag Karen used for years. Then it became a book, a podcast, and a growing community. She interviewed contributors on Zoom, weaving tools and stories so you can try them right away. The point isn’t to follow a guru. It’s to listen for your way forward. Karen repeats the most important advice at the heart of all twenty paths: love and trust yourself.
Try This This Week
- Five‑breath reset. Before you hit send on a tough message, do three rounds of 4‑4‑4‑4 or 4‑7‑8 breathing. Notice your shoulders after.
- Gratitudes – Journal for five minutes, and include the things you are grateful for each day.
- One teammate, one step. Book a tapping session to loosen a stubborn belief. Or make one small Feng Shui shift—a clearer desk, a softer chair, a plant you love.
- Intuition appointment. Set a 15‑minute “Peace Check.” Hand on heart, ask: What do I need to feel steady today? Act on one nudge. Remember Karen’s trust in your inner GPS.
What Changes When You Own Your Calm
The world may not get easier. But you stop waiting. You become the person who breathes before reacting, who curates inputs, who asks for help without handing away your power. That is radical responsibility. It’s also deeply peaceful.
This is just the first step. In the spirit of Karen Lee Cohen’s Let’s Be Peace, we’ll continue exploring friendly EFT/Tapping basics, room‑by‑room Feng Shui for nervous‑system calm, pocket breath practices, and how to build your full “calm team” with confidence. The book’s promise is as clear as it is kind: when we cultivate peace inside, we help heal the world—one person at a time.
If you try one thing this week, let it be this: take your calm back. Love and Trust Yourself.