How to Calm Down When You're About to Lose Your $h!t
It happens to all of us. Even when you think you have it all together, even when you think you’re happy, even when you feel enlightened to light and beauty. Something or someone pushes your ego-button and you lose your shit. Your boss dumps a big pile of ‘more’ work on your desk, a customer yells at you, someone picks on your kid, a driver cuts you off, you spill coffee all over yourself. Shit is bound to happen, this is life, after all.
So how do we peace-loving-people cool it before we spread more bad vibes all over the place?
Throughout my investigations in metaphysics and discussions with friends, I’ve collected a few techniques. These exercises have certainly helped me through tough times, stressful times and times when I’m this close to ripping someone’s head off (or bawling my head off).
Here are 5 ways to calm down when you’re about to lose your shit.
1. Be a Player
As Shakespeare wrote: All the world’s a stage and all the men and women merely players. If there is drama going on in your life, picture it as a fictional production. Step outside of yourself and imagine you are watching a play where all the actors have forgotten that they are only acting. Because that’s really what we do everyday….we play parts (that aren’t our true selves) and get wrapped up in drama that’s not even real.
2. Clean your Balls
Your chakra balls, that is. Ancient religions say we have 7 energy (chakra) centers going down our body. When those chakras get drained, dingy and dirty (from the many things life throws at us) it disrupts the natural flow of energy within our body. But no worries, you can clean your little chakra balls of energy. Whether you believe it or not, it’s very soothing to do this visualization exercise. Start with your root chakra at the base of your spine. Picture your chakra as a red ball. Now picture loving energy pouring into that red ball. Imagine that energy cleaning and polishing the red chakra until it becomes a brilliant, shinning red ball. Now move your visualization up to the sacral chakra in your lower abdomen and do the same using an orange ball. Continue this exercise up your spinal column: solar plexus (yellow ball), heart (green ball), throat (sky blue ball), third eye (indigo ball), crown (violet ball). Use this when you have a little time on your hands – like late at night when you can’t turn your brain off.
3. Be a Screen Door
There are reasons for our emotions, they’re what make us human. We should take note of them and observe them, not shove them down or cover them up. Feeling horrid? Jealous? Angry? Embarrassed? Completely let the horrid feeling sink into you. Don’t deny it. Let it roll around on your tongue for a bit, observe how it physically makes you feel. Then… let it flow through you… like a screen door lets through the wind. It’s important to know that YOU are not that horrid feeling and the feeling won’t last for long. It’s just moving throughyou.
4. Make a Call
Sometimes all you have to do is ask for help and your worries will fade away….really. But don’t call your Auntie Jeannette, call on ‘otherwordly’ help. If you’re about ready to blow your lid, take a moment or two to sit quietly without distraction (lock yourself in the bathroom if you have to). Then call for assistance. Call on whatever or whoever you believe in. What works for me are angels and a golden light. I call for angels to surround me, to help me feel better and to help me see the situation from a different angle. I also visualize a golden light pouring down from the sky and surrounding my body in love and peace. It honestly works 100% of the time. Help is there 24 hours a day, we just have to ask for it.
5. Just Be
Go inside yourself and be in the moment. No thoughts. Just feel with your 5 physical senses. Be completely in the present moment. Feel your breath moving in and out. Sense your heart beating throughout your body – to your fingers, down to your legs and toes. Look around and notice every detail of your environment. Don’t think, just observe.
Try these out and let me know which technique works the best for you.