How to Stay Calm in Uncertain Times: Breathe and Bring in Peace
A contemplative reflection on how to stay calm in uncertain times through breath awareness, discernment, divine remembrance, and peace rooted in the unchanging Self.
How to stay calm in uncertain times begins with breath, discernment, and a return to the unchanging ground of peace within.
In times of uncertainty, the mind can rush toward fear, judgment, and the need to know what comes next. This reflection offers a different response: to return to the breath, to discern what is real, and to anchor awareness in the peace that does not change.
How to Stay Calm in Uncertain Times
The guidance for spiritual practice in challenging times can be expressed simply: Don’t fight sickness—bring in health. Don’t fight darkness—bring in light. Be the light. Don’t panic—bring in peace.
This raises the essential question: how do we do that? How do we bring in light? How do we bring in peace? How do we become peace?
A foundation for this way of living begins with discernment—the capacity to recognize life’s inherent inclination toward healing. Healing is always unfolding. Life is always moving toward wholeness. The work is to perceive that movement and learn how to cooperate with it. Prayer also opens us more fully to divine intelligence, grace, and healing power. Discernment and prayer are essential. And then there is another direct and ancient support: breath.
It is time to breathe—to practice that most accessible way of returning home to the Self, to soul awareness, and to let the mind sink into the heart of divine remembrance.
"The flow of the breath quiets the mind, opening awareness to that unending reservoir of divine peace that is always within us."
—Yogacharya Ellen Grace O'Brian
Returning to the Self Through the Breath
Breath is one of the most wonderful tools we have for that.
Lately, when people ask my husband how he is, he has developed a nuanced response. He says, “Well, I’m breathing.” Part of that refers to the experience of being in an aging body. As the body gets older, each day can feel like a small miracle. You wake up and realize: I’m still here. I’m breathing. Hooray.
But there is another meaning in that response. “I’m still breathing” also refers to conscious breathing as a necessary skill for navigating turbulent times.
A colleague once responded to that by saying, “Well, that’s a low bar.” Perhaps it is, but only if you are not a yogi. If you practice yoga, and especially Kriya Yoga, you know how important it is to be aware of the breath. You know what breath awareness can facilitate. And even if you did not know it before, you may already have discovered some of it in meditation: the flow of the breath quieting the mind, opening awareness to that unending reservoir of divine peace that is always within us.
Simply to be in that, to recognize it, and to be that—this is no small thing.
Bring the breath into balance. Quiet the waves of thought activity. Enter the stillness of the soul. When awareness is no longer pulled outward by the distractions of the mind, it rests by itself in the divine Self, in God. Then it is anchored in divine grace, divine peace, and the source of healing that is already within us.
So often, the mind is trying to find the answer: How can I heal this? How can I fix this? What should I do? But the primary practice is to calm the breath, calm the thoughts, and return to that inner well of healing power.
From the highest perspective, healing is always that. Healing is always a return to the soul, a return to the Self, a restoration to our innate wholeness. It is to be anchored again in the fullness and completeness of God, which is our life. In divine communion, nothing is missing. Nothing is needed. That itself is the remedy.
When the Mind Becomes Restless
And yet when the body aches, when the heart is troubled, when the mind is restless, awareness becomes fragmented and scattered. Thoughts and emotions run amok. We forget our innate wholeness. We forget our spiritual nature. We forget spiritual resources for healing. The mind goes running everywhere, trying to figure out what to do, and we lose touch with that level of soul awareness from which healing is known—and from which right action becomes clear.
So we forget our wholeness, our true nature, and our resources. We get absorbed in outer conditions. We give them all of our attention, and with that, all of our power. Then we lose our ground. We lose our balance.
When we are in pain, or caught in worry, fear, or disappointment, the mind naturally tries to solve the problem. That is not, in itself, wrong. There are choices to make. There are times when thought is needed. We do have to think things through when there is trouble or injury.
What becomes detrimental is when thought activity receives all of our attention, all of our energy, all of our awareness, while we forget the soul, forget our spiritual resources, and forget that conditions are always changing. That is their nature. Conditions always change.
Recently, while healing from surgery for a broken arm, I was given a poem inspired by Hafiz in a version by Daniel Ladinsky. The poem began with an introduction that described something very important: the mind often becomes plagued and can deny the all-pervading beauty of God when the great work of zikr—remembrance—is forgotten.
That is such a true description of what happens. If prayer and meditation are not practiced, the mind becomes plagued, and then we forget God. It is one of the most curious things about us.
Then the poem says:
Every ill will confess it was just a lie
when the golden efforts of your love
lift the precious wine to your mouth.
And later:
Remembrance of our dear Friend
lowers the soul’s chalice into God.
This is the precious wine of love and devotion that brings divine remembrance. Every ill will confess it was just a lie when the golden efforts of love lift that precious wine to the mouth. Remembrance lowers the soul’s chalice into God. We return to our innate wholeness.
My friend was not denying the pain of a broken arm. She was not suggesting that difficulty is unreal in the conventional sense. She was offering a raft of divine remembrance when the mind wants to spin.
Remembering What Is Real
For those established on the spiritual path, there is already some understanding that we are the soul, that the divine Self is eternal, while body and mind are temporary, subject to change, subject to birth and death. That teaching does not deny the reality of conditions. It does not say, “Nothing happened.” It says instead: look closely, look more deeply. What appears solid, lasting, and absolute is ephemeral. Conditions change because conditions always change.
The ultimate Reality, however, is that which does not change. It is eternal—without beginning, without end. It is whole, complete, unmoving, and unchanging. That ultimate Reality is our essential nature.
We know this. But we also know how easily it is forgotten.
Even when spiritual truth has been heard, studied, or glimpsed, it may not yet be stable realization. In difficult times, what seems immediate and pressing takes hold of attention. No matter how many reminders are placed around us, we may still forget until realization becomes steady and we are established in it.
In the meantime, whatever we think is most real tends to grip us. It receives our full attention. And when that happens, we lose our footing. We lose our grounding in the strength of Spirit, which is the source of healing, and we are tossed about by the waves of circumstance.
Anchoring in What Does Not Change
This is why daily practice matters so much. Prayer, meditation, and contemplation help us remember the Truth. They help us stay steady in turbulent times, put priorities in the right order, and strengthen our capacity to respond skillfully to challenge.
Without the perspective that soul awareness offers, we can be continually uprooted by circumstances.
A writer I enjoy, Oliver Burkeman, wrote recently about “returning your center of gravity to your immediate world.” He said that means doing the things you already know you ought to be doing, but it also means remembering that the way you want the world to be is something you can live here and now, not just something you advocate for or argue for. He wrote that your immediate world is not only somewhere you come to recharge before heading back to the arena. It is the arena.
That is a beautiful insight. Sometimes we think of spiritual life only as a way to recharge ourselves and then go back into the struggle. But the life immediately before us is the field of practice. It is the arena in which peace is lived, breath by breath, thought by thought, response by response.
Returning to Center
This brought to mind a familiar teaching story, one many have heard before, but one worth returning to in times of uncertainty. It is the story often called “Too Soon to Tell.”
A poor farmer and his son have only a wooden plow, which they must pull themselves to till their field. The neighbors, who function almost like a Greek chorus, look on and say, “What misfortune. This is terrible. You have to work so hard.” The farmer replies, “Too soon to tell.”
Then a wild horse appears at the farm. The neighbors rush in and say, “How fortunate! Now you have a horse.” The farmer says, “Too soon to tell.”
Later, the son is thrown while training the horse and breaks his leg. Again, the neighbors say, “What a disaster.” The farmer says, “Too soon to tell.”
Then war breaks out, and all the young men are conscripted—except the farmer’s son, who cannot go because of his broken leg. The neighbors return once more: “How wonderful! How fortunate that he was spared.” And again the farmer says, “Too soon to tell.”
The Wisdom of “Too Soon to Tell”
The point is not merely that circumstances may improve. It is deeper than that. The point is that everything changes. Everything in nature changes. Everything in the material world changes. Those who are spiritually wise remember this in the midst of the ups and the downs.
When that is remembered, happiness is drawn from a different source. The yogis call it bliss—not happiness dependent on circumstance, but the perfect joy of Self-knowing. This happiness derives from the soul’s inherent wholeness. From that comes true security—not security based on outcomes, but the security of divine remembrance, the support of that which does not change.
Only then is it possible to know peace that is unshakable and happiness that is unconditional.
Peace That Is Unshakable
Scripture points to this again and again.
Jesus said, “In the world you will have tribulation.” Trouble exists in the world. Yet he also said, “Take heart.” There is a way to live in this world without being consumed by tribulation and trouble.
Lord Krishna says in the Bhagavad Gita that one should neither rejoice excessively on obtaining what is pleasant nor sorrow excessively on obtaining what is unpleasant. One who is firm in understanding and unbewildered is established in God. When the soul is no longer attached to external objects and changing conditions, one finds the happiness that is in the Self. Such a one, self-controlled in yoga, enjoys undying bliss.
Swami Satchidananda said, “You can’t stop the waves, but you can learn to surf.”
Breath as the Gateway to Peace
And this is where the breath comes in again so directly.
The Bhagavad Gita offers the instruction: disregard externals, fix the gaze inward between the eyebrows, and harmonize the breath within the nostrils. Let the breath become even.
What happens when the breath becomes even? The flows of prana become harmonized. Thought activity subsides. And when thought activity subsides, the veil that covers the peace of the soul begins to drop. Then peace is felt.
Paramahansa Yogananda said that peace is the doorway to God. It can also be thought of as God’s calling card—that peace which is experienced when thought activity subsides.
For a new meditator, that peace may appear only for a moment, perhaps even for a nanosecond. But even that brief glimpse matters. Peace is not bound by time. Eternal peace is present even in the smallest moment of real stillness. And that peace is transformative.
Again, the Gita teaches: disregarding externals, fixing the gaze inward, harmonizing the breath, the devotee established in soul knowledge—whose aspiration is liberation of consciousness, whose senses, mind, and intellect are controlled, and from whom desire, fear, and anger have departed—is forever free.
Here is the invitation:
Stay calm.
It’s too soon to tell.
Do not panic. Bring in peace.
Breathe.
Listen to a recording of Yogacharya's message below.
How to Stay Calm in Uncertain Times Through Breath and Peace
How do we stay calm when life feels uncertain? This teaching offers a spiritual response through breath awareness, discernment, and divine remembrance. With insights from Kriya Yoga, the Bhagavad Gita, and contemplative wisdom, this episode explores how to bring in peace, return to the Self, and remain steady in changing times.
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