When I was probably four years old, my best friend was Michael who lived next door. Our favorite game was to stand a few feet apart and spin and spin like tops, our arms flung outward, until we lost our balance and then, dizzy and stumbling, landed with a hard flop in the thick St. Augustine grass. 

For a few moments, I couldn’t get up again. All the world was open sky and drifting clouds. I could only surrender to the weight of my body on the ground, gaze into the high blue expanse, and wait for a sense of balance to return. 

Then we’d hop right up and start the game all over again! 

It strikes me now that my mind works very much like this when it’s in the grip of stress and anxiety. My thoughts spin and spin, gaining momentum and speed with each new interpretation, each storyline, until finally I just can’t think anymore. My mind, confounded, lands in a heap, so to speak, and I surrender to staring out the window without a clue. Just looking and feeling. And then after a moment not even looking, really. Just being, and breathing.

I learned this method, called Mindful Gap, from my teacher, Dzogchen Ponlop Rinpoche. Once, Rinpoche was explaining how to apply this first step of the Emotional Rescue Method to working with anxiety or any other strong emotion. He said, “The first thing you do is stop. Stop spinning, interpreting, or commenting and just feel it. Just observe it directly and then stop. Let it happen.”

In Mindful Gap, I relax just a little bit and stop my thoughts from spinning. I go back to the ground or home base –– back to my body, my heart strongly beating. I let myself feel the ragged breathing pattern, the heat in my face, the fluttery energy of agitation.

When I remember to do this, I land in an open space where I can see, really see, what’s both inside and right in front of me. My mind pans out to the sky above my head or the stillness of the quiet kitchen. Someone may even be speaking to me, and yet somehow there’s more space. I surrender to the moment and watch, accepting whatever is floating there. Once I stop my thoughts spinning and just feel, the busy energy in my body gradually settles down.

If you find yourself caught up in a whirl of thoughts, judgments, or arguments (while watching the news, for instance) try this for a moment and see what happens. Stop spinning and look inside. Just feel and let it happen. When I do this, it’s not long before a sense of balance returns. And then, with luck, I don’t start spinning all over again!