Something just moved through you. Your chest tightened, your heart sped up, and for a moment the ground under you seemed to slip away. I'm glad you came here.

There is nothing for you to fix, explain, or stop right now. Just stay with me. This feeling is a wave, and waves rise, crest, and then withdraw on their own.

You don't have to hold it back, you only have to stand here while it passes. I'm with you, and this will pass.

Now let's do something very small with your breath. Take one short sip of air inward, and then right after it, one more short sip inward. Then let it go long, slow, with no hurry at all, out into the room.

That long exhale carries a message to your body in the oldest language there is, that there is no danger here. Once more. Two small sips inward, then one long, soft release outward.

Let the out-breath be a little longer than the in, and let your body handle the rest.

Now bring your attention lower. Drop down into your feet. Feel the surface beneath them, your heels, your toes, the solid ground holding you.

That ground is real. It did not slip away a moment ago. It never went anywhere.

It was always there. You might also rest your hands on your chest or your belly, and feel your own warmth in your own skin. You are not being swept off anywhere.

This body, this floor, this breath, all of them are holding you.

The wave moving through you may still be here, it may last a little longer, and that's all right. You can say these words to it, quietly, inside yourself, the way you'd speak to someone you love. This will pass.

I am here. This will pass, I am here. These two sentences are the place where you drop anchor.

Whenever the wave rises, you can return to them, because both are true, and both will stay true.

Now slowly, with no hurry at all, let the water draw back a little more. Let your breath find its own calm rhythm without your interference. Let your heartbeat ease, when it is ready, into its own slowing.

Let your shoulders settle a little lower, your jaw soften, your forehead open. There is one more reason to stay here, and that reason is you. You don't have to go anywhere.

You can simply rest a little longer on this ground, in this breath. If your eyes are closed, let them open in their own time, and let them grow used to the light. And could you leave here today knowing, wherever the next wave finds you, exactly where inside yourself you can drop anchor?