Riding the wave

Inside the ten minutes, there's a way of being with the feeling that makes it easier, and it's worth describing, because the alternative is to spend the ten minutes fighting, and fighting feeds it.

Find where it is. A feeling has a location. Chest, throat, stomach, hands, behind the eyes. Find it. This isn't mystical. It's the difference between "I feel bad" and "there's a tightness under my ribs", and the second is a smaller thing to be with.

Watch it rise. It will, a little, for the first minute or two. This is the part where the hand usually moves. Let it rise. It's a wave and waves go up before they go down, and you've never seen the down because you always left at the up.

Breathe out slowly. Not as a technique, just because a slow breath out is the opposite of bracing, and bracing is what makes the rise feel like a climb. In through the nose, out slowly through the mouth, twice. Then back to what you were doing.

Don't fight, don't feed. Fighting is telling yourself it shouldn't be there, or trying to think it away. Feeding is the remedy. Both keep it going. The third option is to let it be there, the way you'd let a bit of weather be there while you get on. It's allowed to be there. It's a two.

Note the peak. Somewhere in the ten minutes there'll be a moment where it's as bad as it gets. Notice it, and notice that it's not very bad. A three, at worst. That's the top of the wave, and everything after it is down.

Keep the hands busy. The hands want something, and you can give them something that isn't a remedy. A pen. A cup of water. The next line of the job. A walk to the window. The hands don't care what they have as long as they have something, and the something needn't come from a drawer.

Notice the after. When the score has fallen and the ten minutes are up, stop for a second and notice how you are. The feeling has gone, or mostly. Nothing was used. There's no second feeling. This is the quiet I described in chapter 15, and it's the reward for riding, and I'd like you to feel it consciously the first few times so that you know it's there.