Years ago (like maybe around 2010), I wrote some wise advice to myself on an orange Post-It note and stuck it on my dresser mirror. A few months ago, I found the Post-It, surprised it survived more than a decade and two moves, in pristine condition, and still sticky!

Again, I stuck it to my bedroom mirror as a reminder.

The other day, steeped in my usual morning ruminations–worrying about my place and purpose in the world, lamenting the things I haven’t done or become and all I’m missing from the life I imagined I’d live, assessing myself and my conditions from the most critical perspective imaginable–the Post-It suddenly came into view, and I immediately felt my mind and system calm. I read the words I wrote all those years ago, and they were the exactly right and right on time.

Be still. And trust the Universe.

Over the years, I’ve used a number of practices (some healthier than others), phrases, and visualizations to calm my racing mind and silence the ever-judgemental voice in my head. The first positive practice I recall implementing was this–I’d close my eyes, take a deep breath, and say to myself Breathe in trust, then exhale deeply to the words Breathe out fear. Through this intentional deep breathing, I literally regulated my nervous system.

Later I would visualize pulling a white shade down over my mind’s eye to “shut out” the racing and worried thoughts. In time, the shade gave way to a snow plow pushing my ruminations like drifts across my mind’s eye and out of view.

There was a time in my early 20s when I couldn’t fall asleep at night without the music of the Indigo Girls. Their storytelling through song was so deeply resonant that just having their voices in the room with me comforted and lulled me into an otherwise elusive rest. Music still has the ability to transport me out of my anxiety into a more peaceful state.

I often close my eyes and, behind my eyelids, focus them at the center of my forehead, on the area of my sixth chakra or third eye. In Eastern spirituality, the third eye is the body’s center of wisdom, intuition, and enlightenment. Focusing energy and attention in this area helps lift me out of my “earth plane brain” and into greater alignment with spirituality and cosmic wisdom. It literally helps me to be still–and trust the Universe.

As a religious kid, I used to wish for Jesus to write me Post-It notes. The Bible was big, and I didn’t always know where to go to find the answers I was seeking. I thought it would be so much easier for him to send me the right words at the right time directly. Years later, I started waking up from sleep with single, profoundly insightful sentences in my mind, and I have always believed they were placed there overnight by a higher power. Or maybe the messages come from deep within my wisest self. Every single time I’ve woken up to one of them, it’s been relevant to my current worldly struggles. Or insightful in a way I couldn’t have have known to ask for.

I don’t remember why I wrote those particular words on that Post-It note years ago. Perhaps they came from Spirit. Or welled up within me and had to be expressed.

At any rate, they resonate deeply and help to soothe my mind when it’s anxious. The words ground me in the belief that I am part of a bigger plan–and that, in the words of Gabby Bernstein, the Universe has my back. Believe you me, that’s hard for me to hold onto…but I will continue trying. And I’m grateful for the daily reminder.

Let me hold tightly to those words of wisdom–Be still. And trust the Universe. Everyday. And all the time.