Whether you are aware of it or not, the extent and mass of your radical thoughts determines the amount of potential energy stored up to swing your life in the opposite direction.

And there is a single force working to bring us back to neutrality – spiritual (not religious) gravity. The stronger this force, the quicker to neutrality you will arrive.

But how do you make the spiritual force inside you stronger, so that the chaos of your thoughts does not keep you swinging back and forth?

Through discomfort. Through suffering, even anxiety. Allow the nervous energy to be there, but don’t DO anything. Don’t say anything. Simply focus on two things:

1. remaining still
2. breathing

You will feel a spike of anxiety, the urge to run, to escape, to numb with food, alcohol, even sex.

Don’t.

Simply remain still. And if you have to, and if it is all you can do, chant the following out loud or in your head: “I am inhaling. I am exhaling.” again and again. That’s it. Until it subsides. Until you do not want to be anywhere else other than where you are.

It will subside.

The feeling will leave.

Everything is temporary. You only make feelings “seemingly” permanent when you cling to the thought(s) that make them seem a reality.

Many things, situations, people will continue to swing in and out of your life. And sometimes all at once. You can either let those things use you and, in turn, make more chaos; or you can use the chaos to travel deeper into your center, to make your spiritual gravity stronger.

Without the chaos, the panic, the fight or flight, the deepening of calm and grace would be non-existent.

And that’s good news.

It means that we need the things we wish to escape from to be better human beings – that even uncomfortable things can serve a purpose for our personal evolution.

And I don’t care what that pesky little fear-bot chants in your head, I promise, you have the courage to remain still.