How do you calm a crowded mind?

I’ve been in and out of this space for a while now. I think I’m always living in my head, in a place that’s far too lonely and far too withdrawn from the real world. And then, when I do look outside, the world doesn’t feel like a particularly comforting place to be either.

It’s too much on the outside and too much on the inside. And there seems to be no respite from either.

In all of this, creating has felt incredibly hard. My mind is constantly racing, and I’ve tried to find ways to quieten it, to make sense of things, to feel a little more like myself. But sometimes, nothing seems to work.

A few days ago, I found myself at a point where I didn’t know what to do or where to go. So I decided to pray.

I took off my rudraksha mala, wore it after my jap, and sat in silence. And I cried. Not the kind of crying where you know exactly what’s hurting, but the kind where everything you’ve been holding inside just begins to pour out of you.

All I could ask for was guidance. Because I genuinely didn’t know what I was doing, where I was headed, or how to find my way through any of it. When there’s so much happening around you that you can’t do anything to change, and you can’t seem to help yourself either, what are you supposed to do? I was looking for an answer. I still don’t have one.

But somewhere in those few minutes, as everything seemed to flow out of me, something shifted. I felt calm. Lighter. Like something I’d been carrying on my shoulders, in my head, and around my heart had finally lifted. For a little while, I felt like I was floating.

It’s been a few days since, and I’m not going to pretend that everything is suddenly okay. I’m still stressed. The world is still the world, and my mind is still my mind. But I don’t feel like I’m losing control of myself anymore. And right now, that feels like enough.

It’s a lonely thing, being an artist. It’s a lonely thing, working by yourself, spending so much time with your own thoughts. As much as I love the solitude and the freedom that comes with this life, there are days when I hate it, too. Days when being alone with your thoughts is the last thing you want.

And yet, I don’t think I’d trade this life for anything else. I know this is something I’ll probably struggle with for a long time, because this is the life I’ve chosen for myself. I feel things deeply. Sometimes, far too deeply. And I don’t quite know how to make peace with that part of myself yet.

Maybe the answer isn’t always to find a way to quieten the mind or to make everything make sense. Maybe sometimes it’s just to sit with it all, to let it out, to ask for help when you don’t know what else to ask for, and to trust that you will find your way back to yourself.

I’m still figuring it out. Hopefully, I’ll learn to accept this part of me, too.