You've probably heard that meditation is a great technique for achieving inner peace, but it can be hard to sit still, quiet your mind, and 'notice thoughts that arise, but just let them gently float away.' As a busy bride, you might find that impossible! I'm 5 months away from my own wedding, and there's no way that I'm going to be able to 'notice thoughts and let them gently float away.' Not with this To-Do list! If you've tried meditation in the past and found it to be more frustrating than freeing, it's time for you to try again! You just have to find the right method that works for you.

Sitting on a cushion for 20 minutes and trying to clear your mind might not be your style. You might prefer walking meditation, in which you go for a walk and just notice all the nature details around you, listen to the birds singing, hear children playing, even listen to the snow falling during a late-night walk when all is quiet. That might be your answer.

I call it meditation when my fiance and I are snuggled on the couch watching television. Our breathing gets in synch, and I can feel the tension 'gently floating away.' It works every time and is way more likely to become part of my evening ritual than sitting quietly on a pillow and counting each breath.

Explore the many options for meditation, including visiting this article for a great foundation in understanding what you can accomplish, the best timing for your meditation practice, how much time each session should last, and more.

It can be really difficult to start a meditation practice when you're hectic and frazzled, but give yourself a few tries. It's so worth it, and can make you a happier, more peaceful bride.

It's so frustrating when someone criticizes you or argues with you, and you're taken by surprise, you respond as best as possible, and then you spend hours after the discussion stewing over what you *should* have said. You're stuck replaying the conversation, imagining yourself being more assertive, wishing you really put her in her place...and she's off at Bloomingdales trying on new cashmere sweaters with not a care in the world.

Here's your key to solving this Peace-Stealer: Stop the swirl of thoughts with, "I did the best I could. I said what came to mind." The blind-side critique is meant to render you speechless. You're not in a self-defense mindframe, so of course you're not going to have great comebacks. And the fact that you don't have an arsenal of vicious insults means you're a good person. So let go of re-living the altercation...even if you said the world's most ideal comeback, it still wouldn't change the outcome. That critical person is always going to be critical and mean. And you're always going to be the person who doesn't bark out insulting counter-attacks. You're just too kind-hearted for that...and that's just wonderful.

It's a mistake that we all make at some point during the wedding planning phase...maybe at a lot of points. You've just finished picking out the music for your ceremony, and before you're done writing down 'Pachelbel's Canon in D,' you're already clicking on sample wedding vows. You've hardly completed one task and your mindset is WHAT'S NEXT?

You didn't even take a moment to sit back and breathe in the immense pleasure of finalizing the decisions you just made together.

Brides tell me, "But I had my groom's attention! He was sitting right there, all focused and enthusiastic about the ceremony music, so I figured we'd just move right into the vows!" What happened there is that you rushed right into What's Next. And that probably caused your groom to sigh, get edgy, and maybe even say something about your never being satisfied. Ouch! The worst thing is, rushing into What's Next *is* a sign that you weren't satisfied with getting the music selected. You didn't mean to blow through it. But your excitement got the best of you, and the dreamy moment of music selection led to tension.

That's what's alway going to happen when your mindset is 'What's Next?'

So let's establish a new practice for peaceful planning: when you complete a wedding task, take 24 hours to soak it in. Forget about What's Next and focus on What Is. You just completed the soundtrack for your ceremony -- that's something to absorb, to imagine, to enjoy, to celebrate over a great dinner. Soak in the satisfaction of a team effort, or else *you* become the dreaded Unpleasable person I wrote about in a previous blog (and we know you don't want to be THAT bride!)

Think about how annoying it is when your family isn't even done with Thanksgiving dinner, and someone's already claiming Christmas or Hannukah at their house. They've rushed ahead, and they filled everyone in the room with tension...and dread. And resentment. Geez, can't you just enjoy today? THAT's what we're going to prevent with your wedding plans when you establish the 24-hour satisfaction period for each task you complete.

Give it a try and see the difference. An added benefit: Your groom will be far more willing to join you on wedding tasks when he isn't feeling dragged into the next four things on your list.

While trying to be the world's most easy-going bride, you told your bridesmaids to choose any style of dress in their choice of a blue color, wear their hair however they'd like, that you have no preference on open-toed shoes vs. closed-toe shoes, and so on. You want to be the Dream Bride, the opposite of a control freak micro-manager, and your bridesmaids will LOVE you, right? Not always.

Bridesmaids say they want at least a little bit of guidance from you, since they don't want the pressure of choosing the gown and shoes, and they don't want to take a fun task away from you! "We want to make our own choices, but we want to make them from a list of three options the bride loves," say several bridesmaids and maids of honor who don't want all the freedom they've been given.

"It's not my wedding. I shouldn't be making these choices for everyone!"

"What if we choose the pink dress and the bride changes her mind later when things get more stressful? She's all calm and happy now, but what happens if she gets bossed around too much and then gives *me* a hard time about making this decision?"

"The bridesmaids are calling ME a control freak, when the bride told me to make the decision for the group. I don't like this at all!"

As the bride, you're in charge. So change your well-meaning plans a little bit. Invite everyone to make their own choices in as many categories as you'd like, but tell them first what your top 3 preferences are. THEN you'll be the Dream Bride, and they'll thank you for taking the pressure off of them.

Don't knock yourself out trying to make everything perfect, hoping that this will be the one time that your critical mother or sister or in-law will have nothing negative to say. It's not going to happen. If someone in your circle is an Unpleasable, they're going to have a biting comment about something so out of left field, it can astound you. They can be pretty creative, too. If you clean your house to a shine for the rehearsal dinner, exhausting yourself, there she'll be running her finger over the top of a picture frame just looking for dust. If your award-winning chocolate cake is on the table, there's your sister with a comment that the frosting is a little thin on that side.

I just read in a terrific magazine article that 'complaining is a way of bragging,' and that really made an impact on me. Someone who complains about your cooking or your wedding choices is really saying, "I could do this better." But you know what? They can't, and that's why they feel compelled to point out what your flaws are.

Once you realize that the Unpleasables are really just insecure, you can let go of the maddening tap dance to make them happy, drop the wish that this time they'll have nothing bad to say and that maybe they'll have (gasp!) a compliment for you, you'll be so much happier because you won't feel the need to try so hard. You can lose the pressure and tension, and just go about setting up your wedding plans or cooking your marble pound cake, enjoying it more because you have no fear of insults.

It's a tough habit to break, wanting to please people. But once you get a little bit of practice, you'll get to the point where that zinger, that out of left field insult or critique, will make you smile. It is, after all, a compliment. You're doing everything wonderfully.

We've gotten so used to texting and e-mailing our friends that we can go for months without hearing their voices! Instead of sending an electronic message, pick up the phone and 'share voices' as you discuss the wedding plans...and catch up on what's going on in each other's lives. The benefit to your peace and harmony? A discussion is probably going to lead to laughter, which produces positive hormones and makes you feel great. Talking keeps you close with your friends, which is also another health benefit -- a positive 'community' is good for your heart health and wards off depression. So put that gizmo down and call for a chat, or -- better yet -- make plans to go for a walk or bike ride with nearby friends...adding exercise to the mix is another health and balance benefit!

Learn how to create a peaceful co-planning team with your future mother-in-law by listening to the stories of a real bride-mom team on my podcast "Here Come the Moms" at Wedding Podcast Network. These women talk about the essential friendship needed to work together in harmony, and create a future of respect and pleasant dealings. There's no better way to prepare for a great marriage than to make sure you're being gracious with his family, welcoming his mom into the plans, and working together as peaceful partners.

Over on the Ask the Wedding Etiquette Expert message board, we've discussed some pretty heinous bridesmaid behavior, along with heinous friend behavior and rude relatives. Sometimes, the infraction is so severe -- like a bridesmaid confessing love for the groom! -- that you won't want her in your life anymore...let alone the bridal party.

Firing her is easy. You just say, "After that outburst, I realize that you just don't have my happiness in mind, so I'm going to have to remove you from the bridal party." You could be all class and offer to pay for her bridesmaid dress and other expenses [it's good karma], or you could just cut ties with one well-written e-mail. She'll cause a big drama and lots of gossip, but it's far more dangerous to your peace to keep this toxic friend in your life.

Sometimes, an added gift of your wedding is removing the people who show more obviously than ever that they don't care about you or anyone else.

But it still hurts...

You have a history with this person, and in the past, it might have been a great history. This is a friend that you loved for many years, who may have been super-supportive of you during tough times...but she's changed. And you're going to grieve the loss of the friend you used to know. When your anger subsides, you're going to be quite sad about the fact that you lost that person a while ago. The person you knew and loved couldn't possibly do such hurtful things to you now. People change and move in different directions, and the glue of a past friendship can wear away. And of course you'll be sad about losing your old friend. What falls away is the value you held of that relationship the way you remember it.

So allow yourself to grieve. Write it out in a journal and give yourself time. Don't stay mad forever...the stages of grief will move you through anger and sadness and denial and back to sadness. It's a long road that *many* brides and grooms experience during their wedding planning time. In any time of great change, some things are lost. That's the nature of change. So this lost friendship is an essential fall-away, and you'll soon find that your feelings of sadness are replaced by a deep sense of being proud of yourself for not accepting the heinous treatment of anyone, that you love yourself enough to cut loose the damaging friendship and only welcome good people in your life.

You deserve better than what that person has chosen to become...

Thanksgiving is a little more than a week away...and if you're like me, you're thinking about what you have to make for the family dinner, trips to visit relatives, a big shopping list for holiday gifts, shipping those holiday gifts in time, office holiday parties, trying *really* hard to stick to the pre-wedding diet with all that great food (and cookies!) around. Holiday stress on top of wedding stress? That's a recipe for disaster!

So here's my best advice for keeping your peace through the 'most wonderful time of the year': honor your family traditions, but ask for a 'pass' on some things. If it's your turn to host Thanksgiving at your place, can a sibling swap years with you since you have so much going on this year? Can you buy those side dishes ready-made instead of slaving over the stove for a day?

I'm taking a few shortcuts this year, to save my sanity. We're not hosting the family dinner at our place, as originally planned. I'm doing my holiday shopping now, so that I'm not stuck in stores with crazy shoppers and no parking a week before Christmas. I'm starting to write out my holiday cards now. Since the holiday rush hasn't yet started, it's actually fun to write out a half dozen cards every night, and you couldn't pay me to bake cookies this year.

I'm not being a Grinch...I'm just realistic. I only have so much energy to use, and the wedding takes up a % of it. So I've asked my family for a 'pass,' and everyone's fine with it. No guilt trips. 'Sharon has a wedding to plan' gives me some free space. So cash in on the pass for the extra-time-consuming tasks on your holiday schedule, but don't eliminate all the festivities! No sitting home from all the holiday parties. No passing up all the cookies. One or two can't hurt. ;)

Normally, it's a great thing when a bride has a lot of engaged friends...everyone can share their research, recommend vendors, suggest ideas, vent to each other. But when you become the only one who's giving, with a friend always asking for help or stealing your ideas for her own wedding, that's an imbalance than can really upset you. Give-and-take isn't there...it's just become Take and Take on her end.

My best advice for returning to peace is to make your change in silence. Don't announce, "I'm not sharing ideas with you anymore!" since she'll turn the issue around on you and hold up her two suggestions as evidence that that's not entirely true. It can be maddening when a debate breaks out and the real issue is clouded. Instead, just stop offering ideas. Don't put yourself out there to be used as a source. These are all grown women who can navigate the wedding industry without your help, so take off the People Pleaser hat! And don't feel guilty about not helping a needy friend -- most of the time, that neediness is just well-crafted manipulation. You'll enjoy your own planning process so much more when you're not being used as a free wedding coordinator!

It doesn't make you a bad friend. It makes you a wiser, more peaceful bride...one who can enjoy the excitement of sharing ideas with friends who DO give back.

Sleep is essential to feeling at peace. And it's one of the best things you can do for yourself.

You might think that getting 5 or 6 hours a night allows you more time to do, be and achieve, but you're running on fumes and caffeine...and pretty soon it's going to catch up with you. You might be able to handle all of your jobs (the wedding being one of them) well for a while, but when the first person says 'You look tired' or the boss doesn't give you a big assignment because the bags under your eyes and your incessant coffee drinking is *showing* the entire office that you're not on your game these days...it'll be apparent that you have to change your ways. And getting solid sleep is one of the best and easiest ways to regain your peace.

You can always record those late-night TV shows. You and your sweetie can take a nap on Sunday. You can avoid late-night snacking by being fast asleep. I'm not giving out health advice here....we've all read the studies that say how great sleep is for your body and mind. I'm just reminding you to get your Z's.

Those 8 hours are a time of recharging, and you'll be happier and more productive once you add sleep to your daily Must list. Pleasant dreams!

This can be a tough question to ask yourself, but are you? Few people can really assess themselves in this, so ask a few ultra-trusted friends if they think that you take offense too easily at things people say, what others do and don't do. These have to be very trusted friends who you know would be honest with you, and who would keep this question private. (You know who you can trust!).

These wonderful friends may shoot you back an e-mail saying, "Yeah, sometimes it seems like you take what (friend) says too seriously" or "In the past few months, your e-mails have had a lot of complaints about your sister, and it *does* seem like your fuse is a little short." It's important that you don't get offended by *these* honest reports, because YOU asked for a course correction. And it is a course correction that's going to return you to greater peace!

When your friends agree that you have been a little oversensitive, here's where you take over in your own interest. Write down the things that have offended you in the past few weeks, and then think about the energy you wasted being upset over them. Did you lose half a day's work because you couldn't stop stewing over that nasty comment a friend made? Did you lose sleep over a jealous cousin's no-show at your bridal shower?

The truth is that you can choose not to be offended at anything. If someone is being insensitive or unkind, you can chalk it up to their not having anything better to do. Or that they didn't express themselves well in that e-mail. Or that they're extremely busy, so they weren't really thinking when you called to ask a question, and they just said 'Whatever.' You can attach an innocent explanation to anything, which removes the offense.

And without explaining what you're doing to others [habits can be hard to break], just try not to get offended at The Usual Stuff from the cousin, or that offhand remark from your future in-law. After a few victories, your groom will see that you're a much happier person, that comments aren't getting to you like they had been, and you'll be a happier, more balanced person when you're not getting deflated by every little remark. Again, this is going to take some practice, because you might be used to yourself in offended mode. Just give it your best efforts and you'll see the difference very soon...

You're going to drive yourself insane if you make every decision to please others. Of course, you want your parents to be happy with the wedding details if they've paid a lot of money, and of course you want to establish a great relationship with your future in-laws...but who's really going to respect you if you're tap-dancing for everyone's approval? Instead of being terrified that someone will disapprove of the plans YOU want to set in motion for your wedding, just believe that *everyone* is going to love what you have in mind. Don't even give it a second thought, and don't make the huge mistake of asking for everyone's opinion before you book a pro or order an item. Trust yourself to make the decisions you need to make, stick to the wedding vision that you and your groom discussed at the start of the process, practice good etiquette as your guiding principle, and free yourself from the need to get everyone's approval. You'll love having so much less to worry about!