“How we perceive a situation and how we react to it is the basis of our stress. If you focus on the negative in any situation, you can expect high-stress levels. However, if you try and see the good in the situation, your stress levels will greatly diminish.” — Catherine Pulsifer
That is the line that opens “21 Soothing Practices For Deep Relaxation-Part 2,” an essay I published on this site in 2016 — the second half of a two-part series that began with deep breathing, meditation, walking in nature, laughter, and sleep.
Part 2 is the quieter half. It is not about escaping your life. It is about changing how you meet it, one practice at a time — and it starts with perception.
Perception First, Then Practice
Notice what Pulsifer does not say. She does not say the situation is imaginary, or that the difficulty is not real.
She says our focus inside the situation matters. Focus on the negative, and high stress follows. Try to see the good in the same situation, and stress greatly diminishes. The situation may not move an inch. The stress does.
The essay pairs that idea with an older warning, quoted in its own pages:
“Do not anticipate trouble or worry about what may never happen. Keep in the sunlight.” — Benjamin Franklin
So much of our stress is anticipation — trouble rehearsed before it arrives. Keeping in the sunlight is not denial. It is a discipline of attention: stay with what is actually here, and look first for what in it is still good. That is why the practices that follow are so ordinary — water, breaks, music, slowing down. None requires a retreat or a calmer calendar first.
The Practices, in the Essay’s Own Order
Part 2 carries Practices 12 to 21, plus two bonus practices. Here are the ones I return to most.
The healing power of water (12). There is something healing and soothing about water, the essay says — a bath, a shower, rain on the terrace, the sound of the ocean. Next time you take a shower, do not hurry through it. Feel the water across your face. The essay opens this practice with Margaret Atwood’s reminder: “Water does not resist. Water flows.”
Taking breaks (13). Break a work day into 40 to 50-minute chunks, with a few minutes between them. Research noted in the essay shows that attention deteriorates after longer stretches, and that even stretching for a few moments can relax us. “There is virtue in work and there is virtue in rest. Use both and overlook neither.” — Alan Cohen
Becoming aware of mental self-chatter (15). Become aware of your thought patterns as you move through the day. Notice the ANTs — automatic negative thoughts — and choose to replace them with favourable ones. You may not be able to choose which thoughts come to you, the essay says, but you have the choice to release them or cling to them.
Visualising peaceful outcomes (20). A lot of stress, the essay says, is related to visualising outcomes that seem dreadful. Use all your senses to stop that process and refocus on a better outcome — imagine the presentation going well, or sit in your favourite spot and imagine you are at the beach, feeling the surf.
Slowing down (21). Slow down and smell the coffee. Slow down and watch the rain do its cosmic dance. When you slow down, you automatically drop the stress of trying to get too much done in very little time.
In Real Life: Peace in the Middle of Chaos
Practice 20’s second quote comes from a woman who learned about peace in the hardest laboratory imaginable — her own injured brain.
Jill Bolte Taylor was a Harvard-trained neuroanatomist. On 10 December 1996, at the age of thirty-seven, she suffered a massive stroke when a blood vessel exploded in the left side of her brain. Within four hours, she could not walk, talk, read, write, or recall any of her life.
Her recovery took eight years. She told the story in My Stroke of Insight: A Brain Scientist’s Personal Journey (2008) — the book the source essay quotes when it gives her definition of peace:
“To experience peace does not mean that your life is always blissful. It means that you are capable of tapping into a blissful state of mind amidst the normal chaos of a hectic life.” — Jill Bolte Taylor
Read that carefully. Taylor defines peace not as a blissful life, but as a capacity — the ability to tap into a calmer state of mind amidst the normal chaos, not after it ends. That is Pulsifer’s opening line, lived at full scale: the chaos stayed real, and her perception inside it changed what it could do to her.
If stress and self-doubt are travelling together for you right now — they often do — the book this essay points to works on the self-esteem side of that knot: Unshakable Self-Esteem.
Going Deeper: Release, Do Not Cling
The essay’s Action Tips for Practice 15 deserve a slow reading, because they turn perception from an idea into a habit.
First, become aware of your thought patterns as you move through the day. Stress rarely announces itself; it accumulates in small, unnoticed reactions.
Second, become aware of the ANTs and choose to replace them. This is the same automatic-negative-thought work that opens Unshakable Self-Esteem — the essay and the book meet here, which is why this archive piece points to Book 1.
Third, consciously tip the balance towards positive thoughts and release negative ones. The essay does not promise a mind with no negative thoughts. It promises a ratio you can influence, one released thought at a time.
The bonus practices close the series the same way: write a journal, and keep a gratitude log — gratitude takes you, in the essay’s words, away from hedonic stress and consumption, and into contentment with what you already have.
From the archive: this post develops “21 Soothing Practices For Deep Relaxation-Part 2” (2016) — read the original essay here.
A Small Addition: The Two-Minute Perception Reset
Here is a short practice I would add alongside the essay — a way to use Pulsifer’s line in the moment, before you choose any other practice.
Name the situation in one plain sentence — not the story about it. “The meeting moved.” Plain language lowers the temperature by itself.
Name the negative focus: “I am focusing on being behind.” Naming it moves it from the lens you look through to an object you can look at.
Name one good or true thing in the same situation — not a forced silver lining, one true thing. Time gained. Information learned. A person who stayed kind.
Then pick one practice from the essay and do only that one. Feel water on your face. Take the break. Visualise the peaceful outcome for sixty seconds. Two minutes — one situation, seen more completely.
Try This Today
Choose one practice from Part 2 — only one — and do it today, deliberately, not when you happen to remember it.
Take the shower slowly. Break the work into chunks and rest between them. Catch one ANT and release it instead of clinging to it. Visualise one outcome going peacefully well. Slow down and watch the rain, or smell the coffee, as if that were the task.
Then notice which changed first: the situation, or your stress inside it. Pulsifer told you at the start which one she expects. Keep in the sunlight, and test her line for yourself today.
Get the Book
Unshakable Self-Esteem gathers the 29 pitfalls that quietly undermine confidence — starting with the ANTs — each with a reflection and a “Try this today” exercise. It is available as an instant-download ebook at its launch price of $5.99 (reg. $11.98):
👉 Get Unshakable Self-Esteem on Etsy
New to Launch Your Genius? Start with my free book, 12 Amazing Life Lessons From Rumi — twelve timeless quotes and the lessons I found inside them, free to download at launchyourgenius.com. 🌿
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