Find Inner Peace and Take Back Control

Have you ever had one of those days where your brain just won’t quit? You know the kind. You’re trying to read an email, but your mind is busy replaying that silly thing you said to a coworker earlier. You’re trying to fall asleep, but your head is filled with a loud to-do list for tomorrow, next week, even next year. It’s like a radio is stuck inside your skull, tuned to a station that only plays worries and old regrets.

I have definitely been there. I’ve lain in bed, tired but wide awake, my thoughts running in circles like a hamster on a wheel. It’s a downright exhausting feeling. It makes you feel like you’re not in the driver's seat of your own life. It feels like you’re just a passenger, while some frantic stranger is behind the wheel, taking you on a bumpy ride to nowhere good.

We all get stuck in this cycle. It’s part of the deal of being human. But what if you could learn to be the driver? What if you could find the dial to turn down the volume on that noisy radio?

I’m not talking about magically stopping your thoughts forever. That’s not possible, and honestly, it wouldn’t even be good for you. Your thoughts help you solve problems and remember your best friend's birthday. This is about something else entirely. This is about changing your relationship with the voice in your head.

It’s about learning to watch your thoughts come and go without getting tangled up in every single one. Imagine you are sitting on a riverbank, and each thought is just a leaf floating by on the water. You don’t have to jump in and chase every leaf. You can just sit there on the bank, and watch, and let them drift on past. You get to decide which thoughts are worth listening to and which ones are just background noise.

When you learn this, something inside you loosens its grip. You start to feel a bit more room to breathe. You react to problems without that initial panic. You make decisions from a calmer place. You begin to feel like you are finally steering your life, instead of just being taken for a ride. Your happiness, your peace, and your power all start right there, in the space between your thoughts.

1. Become the Watcher: The Power of Just Noticing

When an unhappy or scary thought comes into your head, what do you do? If you are like most people, you probably try to shove it away. You might argue with it. You tell yourself, "Don’t think that! Stop it!"

I have done this my whole life. I thought I was supposed to wrestle every bad feeling to the ground. But I stumbled on something important. Fighting a thought is like trying to push a beach ball underwater. You can hold it down for a little while, but the second you get tired, it explodes back up and smacks you in the face. It’s a fight you’re set up to lose.

So, what’s the alternative? The first step is to simply stop fighting. I know it sounds backwards, but give it a shot. You don't have to control the thought. You just have to acknowledge it's there.

This is what I call "becoming the watcher."

Here’s what I mean. Imagine you are sitting on a bench, watching cars drive down a road. The cars are your thoughts. Some are big, loud trucks (those are the worried thoughts). Some are little, happy-looking cars (those are the good ones). Your job, as the watcher on the bench, is not to stop the traffic. You can't. Your job is just to sit there and watch the cars go by. You don't need to run after them. You don't need to honk the horn. You just watch.

We aren’t trying to make the road empty. We are just learning to sit on the bench and watch the world go by.

This sounds simple, but how do you actually do it when your heart is pounding? Here are a few easy ways you can practice being the watcher right now.

First, just name the thought. When a thought pops up, don’t get sucked into its drama. Just give it a simple, boring label in your mind. You can say, "Oh, that’s a worry thought." Or, "There is a thought about my past." Or, "Hello, thought about feeling tired."

When you do this, a small but amazing thing happens. You create a little gap. You are no longer the thought; you are the person who noticed the thought. This tiny shift makes a world of difference. I use this all the time. It helps me remember that I am more than whatever is passing through my head.

Second, play the "I notice" game. This helps pull you out of your busy head and into the real, physical world around you. You can do it anywhere, anytime. Just look around and silently tell yourself what you see and feel.

You can say: "I notice my hands are cold." "I notice the sound of a bird outside." "I notice I am feeling a tightness in my stomach." "I notice the light coming through the window."

You are not trying to fix anything. You are just noticing. This helps you feel more grounded in your body. It reminds you that you are here, in this room, and not lost inside the movie screen in your mind.

Finally, just watch your breath for one minute. Your breath is always there with you. You don't need to breathe in a special way. Just pay attention to the feeling of the air going in and out of your nose or the rise and fall of your chest. Your mind will wander—that’s what minds do! When you notice your mind has wandered off, don't beat yourself up. Just gently guide your attention back to your breath. That simple act of gently returning—that is you being the watcher.

We are learning a new skill here. It might feel awkward at first. You’ll forget to do it. That’s okay. I still forget sometimes too. It’s a practice, like learning to play a chord on the guitar. The more you do it, the more natural it feels. You will start to feel that you are not your thoughts. You are the calm, steady person watching them. And that realization is where your true power begins.

2. Curate Your Mental Inputs: Your Brain is a Garden

Let me ask you a simple question. What happens to you when you watch a scary movie before bed? For me, I can’t sleep. My mind fills with shadows and every creak in the house becomes a threat. Now, think about what happens when you spend an hour scrolling through social media, looking at pictures of people’s perfect vacations and perfect lives. How do you feel afterwards? Do you feel good about your own life, or do you feel a little… less than?

I want you to think of your mind like a garden. It’s a plot of land that is entirely your own. Every single thing you watch, listen to, read, and every conversation you have is like a seed you are planting in that soil.

If you plant sunflower seeds, you will get bright, happy sunflowers. If you plant thorny weed seeds, you will get a patch of prickly weeds. It seems obvious, right? But we often forget this with our own brains. We let just anyone drop their seeds in our garden. The 24-hour news cycle drops anxiety seeds. A negative coworker drops doubt seeds. Social media drops comparison seeds. Without even realizing it, we end up with a garden overrun with weeds, and then we wonder why we don’t feel happy or peaceful.

But here’s the good news. You are the gardener. You get to decide what grows in your mental garden. You can start pulling out the weeds and planting flowers you actually like. This is what it means to “curate your mental inputs.” It’s just a fancy way of saying you’re finally taking charge of your own mental soil.

So, how do we start gardening? Here are a few simple ways you can begin today.

First, let’s look at your phone. Think about the apps you use the most. As you scroll through them, pay very close attention to how your body feels. Does seeing a certain person’s posts make your shoulders tense? Does a news channel make your stomach clench?

Your feelings are your guide. They are telling you, “This is a weed.” And you, as the gardener, have every right to pull it. You can quietly unfollow that account. You can mute that person. You can decide that your garden is a no-weed zone. I did this, and it was like a weight was lifted off my shoulders. My phone became a nicer place to be.

Next, let’s plant some good seeds. Once you pull the weeds, you need to put something good in that empty space. What genuinely makes you feel happy or curious? What makes you laugh out loud?

Maybe you can find a funny comic to follow online. Maybe you can listen to a podcast about woodworking or star-gazing. I started listening to a podcast about the history of everyday objects, and it makes me feel calm and interested. I also followed a baker who shows her kitchen disasters, and it reminds me that it’s okay to make a mess. We can choose to fill our gardens with things that help us grow in the directions we want.

Finally, let’s think about the words we use. The conversations we have with our friends and family are also seeds. If you spend a lot of time with someone and all you do is talk about everything that is wrong, how do you feel after? You probably feel drained and heavy.

I am not saying you should never talk about your problems. It’s important to share when you are struggling! But if complaining is the only thing on the menu, you are just planting more and more weed seeds in each other’s gardens.

See if you can change the conversation sometimes. You can say, “Tell me something silly that happened to you today.” You can talk about a problem, but then focus on one tiny step you can take to make it better. We can help each other grow better gardens just by shifting what we talk about.

Remember, this is not about being perfect. Some days, a weed will sneak in. That’s okay. I still find them in my garden all the time. The important thing is that you are now the gardener. You are in charge. You have the tools to make your mental garden a place you love to spend time. And you will love the peace that grows there.

3. Question Everything: Don't Believe Every Thought You Have

I want to let you in on a secret that changed my life. It’s this: You don’t have to believe every thought that pops into your head.

For the longest time, I didn’t know this. If a thought arrived, I treated it like a royal decree. If I thought, "I’m bad at this," I believed it and felt defeated. If I thought, "That person is angry with me," I believed it and felt a knot of anxiety. I never stopped to ask if these thoughts were actually true. I just accepted them, and they often made me feel miserable.

Can you relate to this? I think we all can. We let these thoughts boss us around, telling us how to feel and what to do. But our minds are like factories that produce thoughts all day long. Some of those thoughts are helpful. Some are nonsense. And some are just plain lies. Why should we trust every single one that rolls off the assembly line?

The problem is that scary or sad thoughts come with a powerful emotional charge. The feeling makes the thought seem undeniably real. But just because a thought feels true, doesn’t mean it is a fact.

So, what can we do? We can learn to be detectives of our own minds. We can learn to question our thoughts before we let them ruin our afternoon.

Let me give you a simple way to do this. Let’s use a common thought as an example: "I’m going to fail this test."

Step 1: Catch the thought.
First, just notice the thought. Say to yourself, "Ah, there it is. I’m having the thought that I’m going to fail." This is the first step. You are not the thought; you are the person who heard the thought. This already gives you a little breathing room.

Step 2: Look for the real proof.
Now, put on your detective hat and ask: "What is the actual, concrete evidence that this is true?"
Be brutally honest. Have you studied even a little bit? Have you passed tests before? Is there any real, solid reason to believe you will completely fail, or are you just feeling nervous? Most of the time, you’ll find the evidence is pretty flimsy. The thought is mostly just a fear, not a fact.

Step 3: Find a kinder, truer story.
Now, ask yourself: "Is there another, more balanced way to see this?"
See if you can find a more reasonable thought. For example: "I feel nervous about this test, and that's okay. But I have been studying. I will do my best. I might not get a perfect score, but failing completely is actually pretty unlikely." Do you see how this new thought feels different? It’s more honest and much less terrifying.

Step 4: Ask if the thought is helpful.
This is the clincher. Ask yourself: "Is believing this thought helping me get where I want to go?"
Even if there is a small chance the thought is true, is it useful? Is thinking "I’m going to fail" helping you study better? Is it making you feel calm and focused? Or is it just making you anxious and distracting you? If the thought is not helping you, you can make a conscious decision to let it go. You can say, "This thought isn't useful right now. I'm going to focus on what I can actually control."

We are not trying to lie to ourselves. We are not trying to replace a bad thought with a fake, happy one. We are just trying to find a thought that is more accurate and more helpful for living our lives.

When I started doing this, it was like I had been given a key to a locked door. I realized that my thoughts were not my boss. I could question them. I could talk back to them. You can do this too.

It takes practice, and I still have to do it most days. But now, when a worried thought comes, I don't just automatically panic. I get curious. I ask my questions. And almost always, I find a better, calmer way to look at the situation.

You have the power to do this. You can be the detective of your own mind. You can question everything. And when you do, you will find that your thoughts lose their power to scare you.

4. Anchor Yourself in the Now: The Magic of the Present Moment

Let me ask you a simple question. Where are you right now? I mean, really? Your body is in a chair, maybe, or on a couch. But where is your mind? Is it here with you, reading these words? Or is it somewhere else entirely?

Is it worrying about a problem you have to solve later? Is it thinking about a conversation you had yesterday? I used to live this way. My body would be in one place, but my mind was always time-traveling. I would be eating dinner, but I wouldn't taste the food because I was too busy mentally rehearsing my to-do list for tomorrow. I was missing my own life because I was never truly there to live it.

Does that feel familiar? That feeling of being stretched thin, of your brain being pulled in a hundred different directions? It’s an exhausting and lonely feeling. But I learned there is a way to find solid ground. There is a quiet, safe place you can go to anytime you want. And the best part? You are already there. It’s called the present moment. It’s this moment, right now.

Think of your mind like a boat on a rough ocean. The waves are your worried thoughts about the future. The wind is your regrets about the past. The boat gets tossed all over the place. It’s a nauseating ride. An anchor is a heavy weight that you drop into the water to hold the boat steady. It stops the boat from being thrown around by the weather.

You need an anchor for your mind. You need a way to hold yourself steady when your thoughts get too wild. The present moment is your anchor. Right now, in this exact second, are you okay? Are you safe? Is anything bad actually happening to you? For most of us, the answer is no. The bad feelings are almost always about something that already happened or something that might happen. Right now is usually perfectly fine.

So, how do you drop your anchor? How do you pull your mind back to right now? Here are a few very easy ways. You can do them anytime, anywhere.

First, use your eyes and ears and hands. Your body can only be in the present moment. So, when your thoughts are going a mile a minute, bring your attention to your physical senses. Try this simple game.

Look around and find:

• Five things you can see. (A lamp, a crack in the wall, a pen, your own hand, a dust particle in the sunlight.)

• Four things you can feel. (The chair under you, your socks on your feet, the air on your skin, the texture of your phone.)

• Three things you can hear. (The clock ticking, a bird outside, the hum of a computer.)

• Two things you can smell. (Your coffee, the soap on your hands.)

• One thing you can taste. (The last sip of water, the taste in your mouth.)

Doing this for just one minute forces your brain to stop telling stories and to start noticing what is physically real. It brings you home to your body. We are reminding ourselves that we are here, in a body, in a room, and not lost inside the storm in our heads.

Second, just feel your breath. Your breath is the easiest anchor you have. It’s always with you. You don't need to breathe in a special way. Just notice the air moving in and out of your body. Feel your chest go up and down.

Try it now. Just feel one breath come in and go out.

Did your mind wander? It probably did! That is completely normal and okay. The whole point is not to stop your thoughts. The point is to practice gently bringing your attention back. Every time you notice your mind has wandered and you bring it back to your breath, you are being your own anchor. You are saying, "It's okay, come back to now." You are training your brain to be right here, with you.

Finally, try doing just one thing. We think doing many things at once is efficient, but it just makes our minds cluttered and anxious. Try picking one thing to do with your full attention.

When you drink your tea, just drink your tea. Feel the warmth of the cup. Smell the tea. Taste it. Don’t look at your phone. Just drink the tea.

When you walk to your car, just walk. Feel your feet hitting the ground. Look at the sky. Leave your phone in your pocket.

I started by just washing one dish mindfully. I felt the warm water and the bubbles. It felt silly at first, but then it started to feel strangely peaceful. We can find pockets of calm by doing our ordinary things in an extra-ordinary way—by being fully there for them.

This is not another chore for you to do. This is a gift you can give yourself. The present moment is your true home. It’s the only place where you are not worried or sad. It’s the only place where life is actually happening. The past is a memory. The future is a guess. But right now? Right now is real. And it’s where you belong.

5. Choose Your Focus, Create Your Reality

I want to share a simple but powerful idea with you. It is this: What you pay attention to, expands.

Think about it like this. If you buy a blue car, you suddenly start to see blue cars everywhere. Were they always there? Yes. But you didn’t notice them before. Now that you are focused on blue cars, you see them all the time. Your mind works the same way. If you spend your time focused on your problems, you will see more problems. Your world feels heavy and hard. But if you choose to focus on the good things, even the tiny ones, you will start to notice more good things. Your world feels lighter and brighter.

I am not saying you should stick your head in the sand and ignore real problems. That would be irresponsible. I am saying that you have a choice. You get to choose what you spend your time and mental energy on. You are in charge of your focus.

And your focus is so powerful because it literally creates your world. Two people can have the exact same day. One person focuses on the one bad thing that happened. They talk about it and think about it. For them, the day was terrible. The other person had the same bad thing happen, but they choose to focus on a nice conversation they had or a task they finished. For them, the day was okay. The day was the same. The focus was different.

So, how can you choose your focus? How can you point your attention at the things that make you feel more alive? Here are three easy ways to start.

First, practice gratitude every day. I know this advice is everywhere. But it works because it’s like weight-training for your brain’s "good stuff" muscle.

Before you go to sleep, think of three things that didn't suck today. They can be incredibly small. You can be grateful for your warm bed. You can be grateful for the way the sun came through the window. You can be grateful that your favorite song came on the radio.

When you do this, you are teaching your brain a new habit. You are telling it: "Go and find the decent stuff for me." I started doing this by just thinking of one thing while I brushed my teeth. Now, it is easier for me to spot the good parts of my life, even on a rotten day. You can train your brain to do this too.

Second, ask yourself better questions. The questions you ask in your mind are like a search engine. What you search for is what you will find.

If you ask, "Why does everything go wrong for me?" your brain will obediently find all the things that went wrong.

But if you ask a better question, you will get a better answer. Try asking things like:

• "What is one thing that went okay today?"

• "What am I looking forward to this week?"

• "What is one small step I can take to make this better?"

Your brain will go to work finding answers to these more hopeful, more helpful questions. We can choose to ask questions that help us feel more capable.

Finally, picture the steps, not just the goal. It is easy to get fixated on the big, scary finish line, like "I have to give a perfect speech." This makes us freeze.

Instead, focus on the individual steps. Close your eyes and make a little movie in your mind. See yourself practicing your speech in the mirror. See yourself walking calmly to the front of the room. See yourself taking a deep breath and getting the first sentence out of your mouth.

This helps your brain practice success. It makes the task feel more familiar and less monstrous. I do this before I have to do something hard, and it always makes me feel more prepared and less panicky. You are focusing on what you can control—your actions—instead of on what you can't control, like how people will react.

You are the one who decides what is important in your life. You hold the remote control for your attention. You can change the channel from a horror show to a documentary about something fascinating.

We have talked about watching our thoughts, cleaning up our mental garden, questioning our worries, and living in the now. This last step is about putting it all together. It is about actively choosing to build a life you can enjoy, by choosing to focus on what is good, what is strong, and what is possible.

You are building your life with your attention. And you have the power to build a beautiful one.

Your Journey Starts Now

You have reached the end of this article. But really, you are at a beginning. This is the start of your new journey.

Think about where we started. We talked about your busy mind, the one that feels like a messy, noisy room. It was a place where you felt stuck. I hope you now see that you have the keys to tidy that room. You have the power to find the quiet inside yourself.

I have given you some tools to use. But you are the one who will pick them up. You are the one who will use them in your daily life. This is your adventure.

I want you to remember one thing: this is not about being perfect. You will not get it right every time. I still have days where I forget all of this. I still get lost in my thoughts sometimes. And that is okay. That is normal. We are all learning.

This is a practice, like learning to walk. You fall down, and you get back up. Every time you try, you get a little stronger.

Look at what you know now. You have a whole set of tools to help you.

You know how to watch your thoughts like clouds in the sky.

You know how to plant good seeds in your mind-garden.

You know how to question your worries like a detective.

You know how to come back to now by using your senses.

You know how to choose your focus on good things.

You do not need to use all these tools today. Just pick one. Start with something small.

Tomorrow, maybe you will just notice your thoughts for a minute. Maybe you will name one thing you are grateful for before you sleep. Maybe you will take one deep breath when you feel stressed.

Small steps are powerful. They add up to big changes. I have seen this happen in my life, and I know it can happen in yours.

You do not have to live in a noisy mind. The peace you want is closer than you think. It is in the next breath you take. It is in the next kind thought you have about yourself.

This is your path. You are the one walking it. But remember, you are not alone. We are all on this path together, learning as we go.

So what do you say? Are you ready to begin?

You do not have to do anything big. Just take a small step. Be kind to yourself. Believe that you can do this.

I believe in you. It is time for you to believe in you, too.

Your journey toward a peaceful mind starts right here, right now.