The minute something happens, there is a reaction that takes place to the event which leads us to want to figure out how to resolve this pain we’re in: fix the person or change the condition so the disturbance we’re feeling will go away.

Basically, we meet the disturbance with further disturbance that is an effect of the original disturbance. Can an effect change anything? No. The nature that produces a problem can’t fix it. I may believe I’m different from the reaction I had, but the self that is identified with the reaction is an effect of the event, and it cannot change anything. It can only perpetuate it.

Here is what has to happen: When the disturbance comes, rather than going into that state of agitated thought, of resisting the moment — trying to resolve the thought that is troubling me with more rationalization, more justification — I enter a certain order of passivity. Instead of becoming caught up in the disturbance and meeting the turbulence through this disturbed self that wants to resolve it, I go inwardly still. I become aware of my own disturbed waters. I become still and enter a pool of wisdom.

To become still means seeing the waters that are disturbed. Stillness doesn’t mean to steel oneself up and say, “I’m still. I’m flat. There’s no disturbance.” It means that we bring our attention to our awareness of the disturbance. The awareness of a disturbance is the wisdom pool having become still because we are surrendering disorder to a greater order. This allows us to shift our sense of self and its relationships from a lower world of thought into a higher world of wisdom that already exists within us.

To enter into that field of awareness, to come awake, is to no longer meet the disturbance with the false solutions of that self that has been disturbed. Instead we meet the moment with a higher order of the self.

Enter the wisdom pool. Find out what happens. Experiment. Oh, what a beautiful word that is: experiment. You will find yourself unquestionably disturbed in the next ten seconds… if you’re not already now. Bring the disturbance into the field of your awareness. Enter into it. Stay there until the waters get still in the wisdom pool. I promise you, once the waters get still, the problem you thought you had will be seen as the promise of a new order of yourself instead of something that continues to cause you pain. Do the work and you’ll find this out for yourself.

OneJourney Project founder Guy Finley is the bestselling author of more than 45 books and audio albums on self-realization, including The Secret of Letting Go, The Essential Laws of Fearless Living, and his latest book Relationship Magic: Waking Up Together. He is the director of Life of Learning Foundation, a nonprofit Center for Spiritual Discovery located in southern Oregon where he gives talks three times each week. Click here to register for Guy’s ongoing series of talks, 100% free and live-streamed online every Wednesday night and Sunday morning: www.guyfinley.org/freeclass