Ever feel like you’re about to implode, like there’s a horrible little green gremlin about to explode from your head?

Here are 11 easy ways to head off an imminent explosion and quickly achieve a zen-like state.

(Bonus: Splatter-free walls.)

Not long after my husband and I moved to the San Diego area, I felt myself start to explode. We had just moved into our new place, our first non-airbnb/temporary home in San Diego, and the move exhausted me physically and emotionally. After two days of rest amid unpacking, yoga, and juicing, I needed something more.

I don’t know if my need was triggered by the exhaustion and recovery or by the upheaval and life disruption that a move of houses creates. Didn’t matter. All I knew was that a deeper part of me called for my attention.

In years past, I would’ve pushed this part of me away. No time for shenanigans. No space to acknowledge my desires — there were things to do! people to take care of! And then I would’ve sunk into a depression lasting days or weeks.

Now I do things differently.

We feel pain when we resist our truth. So simple, yet not easy, to stop resisting. We are conditioned to resist, we are rewarded for resisting. Our inner truths often seem horrible at first, while we still resist them. Only when accepted do they become beautiful.

Here’s what I did that moved me through my pain, and the same things can help you, too:

1. Recognize that everything changes.

We never stay in one state long. Joy is fleeting, as is sadness. The world turns, the tides go in and out, we breathe, our hearts beat. Nothing stays motionless. Same thing with life conditions — they always change. The trick is to influence the change when it comes.

2. Remember you have the power to create change in your life.

I used to feel like a victim, powerless to change my situation. I let other people and things dictate my circumstances. I was just a player, a pawn, while life moved around me. How easy! How convenient! That way I got to resent the hell out of other people — especially people who claimed their power — and never take responsibility for my life.

Cancer changed that. Face death and you decide you’re going to live the hell out of life.

3. Give yourself space and time.

No rush to change. Sure, you are in emotional pain and pain feels uncomfortable. But resisting it won’t make it go away. Why not get curious, sit with it, make friends with it, and see what it has to say?

4. Write that sh*t down.

The last thing I want to do when I’m in a state of imminent implosion is journal, so that’s exactly what I made myself do. And I found out some interesting stuff. You will, too, when you try writing out your feelings when you feel like you’re about to implode.

We never stay in one state long. Joy is fleeting, as is sadness. The world turns, the tides go in and out, we breathe, our hearts beat. Nothing stays motionless.

5. List what you want.

Turns out I felt a deep missing in my life. Why’d it show up now? I still don’t know. But I made my list. I want my life to feel a certain way so I made a list of everything I knew would give me the feeling I seek:

• music
• dancing
• intimate sacred connection
• beauty
• saying what I want
• beach
• art

Your list can have anything on it. What do you want to feel (besides “not this”)? Figure out what you want to feel. Then make a list of things you can do that make you feel that way.

6. Honor your emotions with music.

One thing I’d been missing was music. My beloved and I share so much in common but we don’t share the same taste in music. Sure, we overlap but there’s a huge space in my side of our Venn diagram of music that’s been unlistened to in years. Years! Time to change that.

So I made some playlists for different emotional occasions: Crying My Eyes Out, Reminiscing My Angsty Teen Years, Pretending I’m In A Rock Band, Blissing Out.

What music honors your emotions? Load it onto your phone, plug some headphones into your ears, and let the music fill you.

7. Move the bod.

Emotions get stuck in our bodies. Moving energy makes a huge difference, so I went to my hot power yoga classes and sweated a little closer to bliss. And then I danced in my bedroom to Airborne Toxic Event and Gnarls Barkley.

Crank up some tunes and get moving!

8. Honor the wants.

“Little Talyaa” (my inner child) wanted a gluten free chocolate cupcake. I knew it was emotional eating but I didn’t judge myself for wanting a damn cupcake. I just ate it and its twin brother and felt damn good about it.

Give yourself something you want. Extra points if it’s something that Little You wants.

9. Say what you want.

I let my beloved see my anger. I told him the things I wanted. And it felt good to stamp my foot as Little Talyaa and just acknowledge her, and love her for her courage in showing up.

What do you want? Don’t hold back! Muster the courage and tell someone what it is. You are more brave than you realize.

Tell that little gremlin in your head it is NOT welcome in there!

10. Make beauty happen.

We humans respond viscerally to beauty. To me, beauty feels soothing and healing. I feel so much better in beautiful surroundings and I bet you do, too.

My paintings now hang in our living room, our personal gallery. How wondrous to sip tea surrounded by your own art. They’re now my Guardians, goddesses who protect and inspire with their strength and beauty.

What is beautiful in your life? Focus on what lights you up and fills you with a sense of awe at its beauty, and then surround yourself with it: flowers, art, your back yard, clean minimal lines, your loved ones’ faces.

11. Honor your divine self.

Oneness. I hunger for oneness. My need is great. My hunger is deep.

Everything is Waiting for You

Your great mistake is to act the drama 
as if you were alone. As if life
were a progressive and cunning crime
with no witness to the tiny hidden
transgressions. To feel abandoned is to deny
the intimacy of your surroundings. Surely,
even you, at times, have felt the grand array;
the swelling presence, and the chorus, crowding
out your solo voice You must note
the way the soap dish enables you,
or the window latch grants you freedom.
Alertness is the hidden discipline of familiarity.
The stairs are your mentor of things
to come, the doors have always been there
to frighten you and invite you,
and the tiny speaker in the phone
is your dream-ladder to divinity.

Put down the weight of your aloneness and ease into
the conversation. The kettle is singing
even as it pours you a drink, the cooking pots
have left their arrogant aloofness and
seen the good in you at last. All the birds
and creatures of the world are unutterably
themselves. Everything is waiting for you.

— David Whyte, from Everything is Waiting for You ©2003 Many Rivers Press

How I found Oneness and inter-connection

Connection, especially that deep intimate sacred place where I am god and you are god and I see feel hear taste you for the truth of who you are and what WE are, together, is my “religion”. It’s my primary desire. It’s the biggest thing I can do in this body on this planet, to recognize the divinity in you and to feel how you and I are one, one body one mind one heart.

So I sat in a soft round black chair and felt its kinship to me, our sameness. And I held my tea mug and let its electrons be mine. I felt the mug spring apart in every direction, a spray of tiny atoms colliding with the atoms spraying outward in every direction from my body, two rainbows of pulsing electrons, now recombining into a mug shape and a Talyaa shape, now distinct but still One.

And I remembered who I am and why I’m here. When I remember my divinity, everything feels possible and I feel my power to create the life I desire. My implosion melts away. From this place, everything feels possible and I see the light ahead. All I have to do is keep walking, keep breathing, keep feeling and I’ll get there. 

Love and blessings of zen-like peace,

Talyaa