A Practical Guide to Working With Inner Tension

Have you ever noticed how you can want to feel peaceful, yet still carry tension in your body? Maybe your shoulders feel tight, your jaw clenches, or your stomach churns with worry. This gap between what you want and what you feel can be frustrating. But what if this tension isn’t your enemy? What if it’s actually showing you the path to real calm?

In this guide, you’ll discover why simply trying to ‘think positive’ or ‘look calm’ doesn’t create lasting peace. More importantly, you’ll learn practical, step-by-step techniques to work with tension in a way that actually transforms it. These methods will help you reduce stress and anxiety, feel more stable and empowered, and discover the natural peace that already exists within you.

The Hidden Truth: Why Faking Calm Doesn’t Work

Can you fake your way to inner peace? If it were that simple, everyone who looks calm would actually be calm. But here’s what really happens: when you start paying attention to yourself—really paying attention—you become more aware. And awareness shows you everything: the peaceful moments and the tense ones, the confident thoughts and the worried ones.

Think of it like turning on lights in a dark house. At first, you might prefer the darkness because you can’t see the mess. But once the lights are on, you see everything—the beautiful furniture and the dust bunnies, the artwork on the walls and the cobwebs in the corners. Awareness is like that. It reveals the full picture of who you are.

PRACTICE 1: Notice Without Fixing

Let’s start with a simple awareness practice right now:

• Take a slow breath and bring your attention to your body
• Notice one place where you feel tension (your shoulders, jaw, belly, chest, or anywhere else)
• Don’t try to fix it or make it go away. Just notice it
• Ask yourself: ‘What does this tension feel like?’ Is it tight? Heavy? Hot or cold? Sharp or dull?
• Stay with this awareness for three breaths

What to Notice: Did the tension change at all, even slightly, when you simply paid attention to it? Did it feel different after three breaths? Many people notice a small shift—the tension might soften, move to a different spot, or feel less intense. This is your first glimpse of how awareness itself has power.

Your Full Spectrum Self: The Truth About Who You Are

Many people seeking peace make a common mistake: they think they need to be only the ‘good’ parts of themselves. They want to be the wise, calm person all the time. But here’s the truth: you are like a full rainbow, not just one color.

Your natural self includes everything: the wise part that sees clearly, the worried part that tries to protect you, the playful part that wants to have fun, and the critical part that notices problems. These aren’t separate people—they’re all you. Trying to be only one part is like trying to play music with only one note. Life needs the full range.

Imagine a river. Sometimes it flows gently. Sometimes it rushes over rocks. Sometimes it pools quietly. It’s all the same river, just expressing itself differently. You are like that river. All your different feelings and states are part of one flowing you.

PRACTICE 2: Meeting Your Inner Family

This practice helps you recognize different parts of yourself without judgment:

• Close your eyes and take three slow breaths
• Think about a situation that makes you feel tense or uncertain
• Notice what voices or feelings show up. Maybe you hear a worried voice, or feel a tight sensation, or think critical thoughts
• Instead of pushing these away, say silently: ‘I see you. You’re part of me too.’
• Take a breath and notice: can you sense a wiser, calmer part of you that can observe all of this?

What to Notice: You might feel a sense of spaciousness when you acknowledge different parts of yourself. Some people feel their chest open up or their breathing deepen. Others notice that the worried thoughts become less loud when they’re acknowledged rather than pushed away.

The Paradox: How Accepting Tension Creates Calm

Here’s something that might surprise you: the fastest way to change tension is to stop trying to make it go away. This sounds backward, doesn’t it? But it works because of a simple truth: tension gets worse when we resist it and softer when we make space for it.

Think about holding a beach ball underwater. The harder you push it down, the more force it pushes back with. The moment you stop forcing it down, it naturally rises to the surface and bobs gently on the water. Your tension works the same way. When you stop pushing it away, it naturally begins to release.

When you bring your attention to tension without judging it, something almost magical happens. The tight, contracted energy begins to soften and spread out. It’s not that the tension completely disappears—rather, it changes from being a hard knot into something more like a gentle current.

PRACTICE 3: The Space-Making Breath

This technique teaches your body to make space for tension instead of fighting it:

• Find a place where you feel tension in your body
• As you breathe in, imagine breathing into that tense area—picture your breath flowing right into the tight spot
• As you breathe out, imagine the tension softening, like ice beginning to melt
• Continue for five breaths, breathing into the tension rather than around it
• Notice any changes in the quality, size, or intensity of the tension

What to Notice: Pay attention to texture and temperature. Does the tight feeling become softer? Does it spread out and become less concentrated? Does it feel warmer or cooler? Some people describe it as feeling like a knot loosening, or ice melting, or a clenched fist slowly opening.

Why Your Awareness Has Power

Your awareness is not just a passive observer—it’s an active force. Think about it: when sunlight shines on ice, the ice doesn’t stay frozen. The light transforms it. Your awareness works the same way with your inner tensions.

Your awareness is made of the same ‘stuff’ as the universe itself—pure, open, conscious presence. When you bring this quality of attention to your tension, it’s like bringing vast open sky to a small, confined room. The room doesn’t disappear, but it’s no longer so cramped and limited.

This is why simply thinking positive thoughts doesn’t work in the long run. Positive thinking tries to cover up tension with nice-sounding words. But awareness actually touches the tension directly and lets it transform from within. It’s the difference between putting air freshener in a room with garbage versus actually taking the garbage out.

PRACTICE 4: The Light of Awareness

This practice helps you experience how your attention itself has transforming power:

• Find a tension, worry, or uncomfortable feeling in your body or mind
• Imagine your awareness as warm, golden light (like gentle sunlight)
• Picture this light shining on your tension—not trying to destroy it, just illuminating it with warm presence
• Stay present with this image for one minute, letting the light of your awareness simply rest on the tension
• Notice if the edges of the tension soften, if it becomes more transparent, or if it shifts in any way

What to Notice: Many people feel warmth spreading through the tense area. Others notice the tension becoming less solid, more like a cloud than a rock. Some feel their heart opening or their breathing becoming easier. These are signs that your awareness is doing its natural work.

The Inner Theater: Taking Your Seat as Director

Your tensions are like actors on a small stage inside you. They’ve been performing the same drama over and over. The worried voice says its lines. The critical voice responds. The scared feeling reacts. It’s the same show, night after night.

Until now, you might have thought you were just an audience member, forced to watch this uncomfortable play. But here’s the secret: you’re actually the director. You can change the lighting, expand the stage, and even bring in new influences.

When you ignore the tensions, they perform louder, trying to get your attention. When you just watch them as an audience member, you feel powerless. But when you step into your role as director—using your awareness to set the scene—everything changes.

PRACTICE 5: Expanding the Inner Stage

This practice helps you shift from feeling trapped by your tensions to having creative influence over them:

• Notice a repetitive worry or tension in your mind
• Imagine it as actors on a small, dark stage—see them playing out their usual script
• Now, picture yourself as the director. Slowly turn up the stage lights
• Begin to expand the stage—make it bigger and bigger, until it’s as large as a meadow under an open sky
• Let gentle breezes move across this expanded space. Maybe bring in soft light from stars above
• Watch what happens to the tense actors when they’re in this vast, peaceful space instead of a cramped, dark room

What to Notice: As the imagined space expands, you might feel your chest opening, your breathing deepening, or a sense of relief spreading through your body. The worries often seem smaller, less urgent, less ‘solid.’ This is your awareness creating a new context for your tensions.

Your Tensions Aren’t Against You

Here’s a compassionate truth: your tensions are not trying to hurt you. They’re not enemies attacking you. They’re more like lost children who forgot their way home. They started out as pure energy, but they got stuck in tight patterns and forgot how to flow freely.

Think of a river that encounters rocks and forms whirlpools. The whirlpool isn’t separate from the river—it’s still water, just moving in a tight circle. Given space and time, the water remembers how to flow naturally again. Your tensions work the same way.

When you create an expansive, accepting environment for your tensions, they gradually remember their original nature. They weren’t born as ‘tension’—they were born as life energy. And life energy naturally wants to flow, expand, and connect with the greater whole.

PRACTICE 6: Befriending Your Tension

This practice helps you shift from seeing tension as an enemy to recognizing it as stuck energy that wants to flow:

• Find a tension in your body and give it a gentle, kind attention
• Imagine this tension as a small child who is scared or lost
• Say silently to this tension: ‘I see you’re here. You’re not bad. You just forgot how to flow.’
• Place your hand over the tense area if you can, as if offering comfort to that lost child
• Breathe warmth and kindness into this area for five breaths

What to Notice: Notice any softening, any sense of the tension ‘relaxing’ as if it’s been seen and acknowledged. Many people feel tenderness or compassion arise. Some feel the tension ‘melt’ slightly. These shifts show that kindness is as powerful as awareness.

Why Comparing Yourself to Others Doesn’t Help

Your mind might tell you: ‘That person looks so peaceful. Why can’t I be like them?’ But here’s the truth: you have no idea what’s actually happening inside another person. Maybe they’re good at looking calm. Maybe they’ve practiced for many years. Maybe they’re struggling just like you, but hiding it well.

Comparing yourself to others is like comparing a seed to a full-grown tree. The tree isn’t ‘better’ than the seed—they’re just at different stages. And every tree grows at its own pace, shaped by its own soil, rain, and sunlight.

You are completely unique. Your path is your own. Your inner experience is as valid as anyone else’s. When you stop comparing and start accepting where you are right now, something wonderful happens: you begin to grow from exactly where you are.

PRACTICE 7: Coming Home to Yourself

This practice helps you release comparisons and connect with your own authentic experience:

• Notice if you’re comparing yourself to someone else or an ideal version of yourself
• Take a breath and bring your attention back to your own body, your own heart
• Say to yourself: ‘This is where I am right now, and that’s okay’
• Feel your feet on the ground. Notice your breath moving in and out
• Place both hands on your heart and take three slow breaths, feeling yourself come back to your own experience

What to Notice: Many people feel a sense of relief, of ‘coming home’ when they stop comparing and return to their own experience. Notice any softening in your belly, any release in your shoulders, any deepening of your breath. These are signs you’re reconnecting with your authentic self.

Working Creatively With Tension

There’s no single ‘right’ way to work with tension. You can be creative in how you approach it. That’s because you’re working with energy, and energy is flexible and responds to imagination and intention.

Here are some creative approaches you can experiment with:

• Expand it: Imagine the tension spreading out like mist until it becomes so thin and light it’s barely noticeable
• Lighten it: Picture the tension as a dark cloud, then imagine sunlight gradually making it brighter and lighter
• Float it: Imagine the heavy tension becoming as light as a bubble, gently floating up and away
• Love it: Send the tension warm feelings of acceptance and kindness, as if you’re holding something precious
• Bathe it: Imagine placing the tension in healing light, or under a gentle waterfall that washes it clean

PRACTICE 8: Creative Transformation

Choose one of the creative approaches above and try it now:

• Find a tension in your body or mind
• Pick one creative approach that appeals to you
• Close your eyes and vividly imagine this transformation happening
• Take your time—spend at least one minute with the image
• Notice what happens in your body as you imagine this transformation

What to Notice: Your body responds to imagination as if it’s real. Notice any changes in pressure, temperature, texture, or intensity of the tension. Does it feel lighter? Softer? More spacious? More at ease?

The Beautiful Truth: You Have Everything You Need

When you stop fighting your tension and start working with it through awareness, something surprising happens. The very things you thought were problems become the rich soil where wisdom grows.

Think of a garden. Compost—old, decayed plant matter—doesn’t look beautiful. But it’s what makes the soil rich and helps new flowers bloom. Your tensions are like that. When you bring the light of awareness to them, they transform into the nutrients that feed your growth.

You don’t need to be someone else. You don’t need to achieve some perfect state. You already have everything you need: your awareness, your kindness, your willingness to be present with yourself. These are the tools of transformation, and they were within you all along.

PRACTICE 9: Recognizing Your Inner Resources

This final practice helps you recognize the resources you already possess:

• Sit comfortably and take three deep breaths
• Notice that you can be aware. Right now, you are aware of reading these words, aware of your body, aware of your breath. This awareness is always with you
• Notice that you can be kind. You have the capacity to treat yourself with gentleness and compassion
• Notice that you can be present. Even if only for one breath, you can be here, now, with yourself
• Place your hand on your heart and say: ‘I have everything I need to work with my inner experience’

What to Notice: There might be a feeling of quiet confidence, of something solid and true within you. Many people feel warmth in their chest, or a sense of inner strength. This is you recognizing your own inner resources—the foundation you can always return to.

Moving Forward: Your Journey With Tension

You now understand that tension isn’t your enemy—it’s energy that forgot how to flow. You’ve learned that your awareness itself has power to transform tension, not by fighting it, but by including it in a larger space of acceptance and kindness.

Remember: this is a practice, not a destination. Some days will feel easier than others. That’s perfectly normal. The key is to keep bringing kind, aware attention to whatever you’re experiencing.

As you work with these practices, you’ll likely notice changes in your daily life. You might feel less reactive to stress. You might find it easier to stay calm in difficult situations. You might discover a deeper sense of peace and stability within yourself. Most importantly, you’ll realize that you have the power to work skillfully with whatever arises in your inner experience.

Your awareness is like a vast sky, and your tensions are like clouds passing through. The clouds don’t diminish the sky—they simply move through it. When you know yourself as the sky rather than the clouds, you find a peace that doesn’t depend on having no tension. You find a peace that can hold everything.

This is the journey: not to become someone who never feels tension, but to become someone who knows how to dance with it, transform it, and let it teach you. In this way, even your challenges become your teachers, and everything—absolutely everything—becomes part of your path to deeper wisdom and peace.

Quick Reference: Daily Awareness Checklist

Use this checklist to quickly assess and work with tension throughout your day:

When you notice tension:

1. Pause and take three slow breaths
2. Notice where you feel it in your body
3. Describe the sensation: tight, heavy, hot, cold, sharp, dull, etc.
4. Say to yourself: ‘I see you, and that’s okay’
5. Choose one practice from this guide to work with it
6. Notice any shifts: softening, spreading, lightening, moving, changing temperature

Signs of progress:

• Tension shifts more quickly when you notice it
• You catch yourself getting tense earlier
• You feel less afraid of uncomfortable feelings
• You notice moments of natural ease and peace
• You feel more stable and grounded overall
• You’re kinder to yourself and others
• You feel more connected to something larger than your daily worries

Trust the process. Your awareness knows what to do.

Joel Bruce Wallach