I met up with a former student last week and it was a delightful, gratifying, and energising experience. It is a real pleasure to see how much a young person has grown in a very short amount of time and to have conversation about, as a friend would say, life and the universe.

I’ll paraphrase and modify here, but we talked about what it means to be grounded and about believing in something to get through a difficult time. Some people rely on faith in a religion or religious figure and for the rest of us, well, there must be something, right?

I know what has carried me through times of difficulty in the past and I know there will be more of those times. After all, that’s living. In many ways, overcoming a difficult time has come down to perspective. Where am I really in the grand scheme of things? What can I cling to that will remain constant no matter what else is happening? What images need to be in my head while I concentrate on my breathing until my heart rate slows and my mind ceases racing?

There are several things that I find helpful and this post will share these. Perhaps you will find them helpful, too.

One thing that I know is that the sun will set tonight and rise tomorrow. It might be cloudy and I might not be able to watch the sun disappear and reappear along the horizon but I know it’s happening. I know that today will end and tomorrow will come. Even if I’m dreading tomorrow, I know that, like today, it will begin and then it will end and I will walk tomorrow like I walked today.

Deliberately cultivating a certain attitude matters a lot here, too. I have spent the last seven or eight years writing down three things I’m grateful for every single day. There have been extended periods when this lists consists of a roof over my head, a hot shower, and a full stomach, but it helps to remind myself that I do have these things. I have something rather than nothing. And I have been lucky enough that those things are also constants for tomorrow. Regardless of what it is, the perspective of having something to be grateful for has calmed my mind.

Another image that helps me find my footing when the world is spinning more quickly than I can grasp it is to look at the trees. Really look, look carefully and silently and deliberately. Mentally trace the patterns on the bark, the shapes of the branches, the growth of leaves and flowers. Trees are strong and tall and solid and they withstand all sorts of weather conditions and human activity. The trees, too, will be here tomorrow and through the next storm and the next one. Touch the trees if you can. They hold a special sort of warmth.

I’m not a religious person but I think there’s an element of spirituality here, an understanding that I am part of a wider universe that spins and moves. The best I can do is spin and move with it rather than remaining rigid and uncompromising. Complaining and waiting have a time and a place but they don’t always get us very far. As my pen holder mug proclaims:

Peace. It does not mean to be in a place where there is no noise, trouble or hard work. It means to be in the midst of those things and still be calm in your heart. – Unknown

Peace can be hard to find, there’s no doubt about that. Peace can also be fleeting. It can engulf in one moment and then completely desert in the next. But the important thing is being able to find it again, to develop those moments when peace is easy and fluid. This also means you need to look for it, actively seek it out, especially when everything is all right. Watch the sun. Write down a few things. Look at the trees. When all is well, the world has given you time to find who you are and ground yourself in the present. Doing so eases the transition to whatever world we awake in tomorrow.