Often we lose control of our thoughts like a runaway train. We simply notice something, a feeling, a thought, and within a blink of an eye that thought has built up to some moment of impending doom. The momentum is so powerful that you are left feeling so overwhelmed by the power of this thought, that all you can do is take it as truth. But something deep inside you knows that this thought isn’t real – that this thought is one of a trillion possibilities. So why do you want to give this thought any more power than it already has?

It’s time to bring this illusion of the overwhelming thought to a stop. It may not necessarily happen as a grinding halt but there are ways that you can help yourself relax into a place where you can get a handle on your thinking and ultimately your reality. First and foremost, you can relax by bringing your mind back to the present. The present is a present to you. Take a deep breath and focus on that breath. Feel the air rush in and out over your lips. Feel your belly flow with the to and fro of the moving tides of your breath. With each breath cycle in and out, count that as 1, and then do it again for a second time all the way to 10. Then repeat this cycle of 10 breaths ten times for a total of 100 breaths. We take around 30,000 breaths a day, so you don’t have to feel overwhelmed by this, but just do as many as you can.

It is with presence that you find your power. When you allow your mind to move out to all the infinite possibilities of things that may or may not happen, your evolutionary nature will typically focus on the negative in order to help you be able to pre-empt future threats. The problem with this is that our mind often believes that our thoughts are real. This unintentionally leaves you stressed about things that don’t actually exist like when you were a child and believed there were monsters in your cupboard. Breath is the most powerful way to create space for you to blow away the conjured illusions about the fog of the futures impending doom.

Science has begun to provide clarity to this process of thinking by exposing what are called mirror neurons. These neurons help to create the same physiological experience you may have by thinking about something as you may have if you were actually experiencing the event in real life. For example we wince when we see someone get hit in a boxing match because our mirror neurons have us partially experience what we are observing. This is what also helps us build relationships and be the social animals that we know ourselves to be.

So it is important to remember that these thoughts are not real and that you will be more powerful in your creating if you bring your mind into the present. Emotional stress often causes the creative centers, which are also known as the executive functions, of our brain to shut down. Cognitive inhibition happens so that we can allocate the most amount of mental resources to protect ourselves, which involves either fighting with, or taking flight from the danger. Neither of these reactions typically help us deal with a problem in the most desired manner when we consider our current lifestyle and stressors. Therefore we often result in less than desired creations and outcomes when dealing with stressful situations.

SO again I ask you to bring your mind to the present. Focus on your breath or the things around you that you are grateful for and this will help change the perspective of that which stresses you to that which simply is. By looking around and noticing all the great things that surround you it helps you change your focus to that which you have control over and that which you love.