The Reset
A self-guided practice for getting calm,
clear & grounded
This is the exact process I walk private clients through in our very first session — to move from overwhelmed, overthinking, and anxious to steady and clear before a hard moment. Read it, follow along, and do the work. You can get a real shift on your own.
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Treat this like a session, not an article. Give it your real attention once, then come back to the exercise any time stress hits. Before you begin, set yourself up:
What this is, and why it works
Most people have no idea how to shift from anxious and reactive to calm and clear before a hard moment — a tough conversation, a wave of overwhelm, a big decision. So they white-knuckle through it, or they “go do the thing” and still feel the anxiety, the overthinking, the imposter voice underneath.
That's because doing the thing is only half the equation. The other half is internal — the wiring underneath your reactions. This practice works on the inside so you can show up differently on the outside. By the end you'll have a process you can run whenever a big emotion shows up: overwhelm, overthinking, anxiety, even the moments you turn on yourself.
We build the internal skill first — awareness, regulation, a steadier nervous system — and then take it into the real world. Skills you build for the outside without the inside don't hold. We start within.
Resilience and presence aren't something you either have or don't. It's how much you have — and that can always grow. Don't aim for perfect. Aim for a little more steady than last time.
The Order of Change
Real change happens in a particular order — from the easiest thing to shift to the deepest. People usually fixate on a goal (“I want to feel confident”) without becoming the kind of person for whom that's natural. We work from the bottom up, so the change actually lasts. Here's the whole ladder:
In this practice you start at the bottom. Environment: simply by doing this, you've stepped into a new space. Behaviors: today you'll learn tools that begin to touch the emotion. The deeper levels — beliefs, values, identity — are where the lasting transformation lives, and that's the work that follows. For now, we lay the foundation.
Three sciences you'll use today
This isn't guesswork. The exercise combines three well-studied tools, in a specific order. Here's each one in plain language.
Awareness and regulation of your own thinking — a core concept in cognitive psychology, used to improve learning and decision-making. In practice: your mind is racing… and then you notice it's racing. That noticing is metacognition. It's a form of self-awareness, and it's the doorway to everything else here.
The ability to manage your emotions and impulses in challenging situations — a foundation of clinical psychology and CBT, shown to help people feel clear and calm under stress. In practice: you notice the racing… then take a slow breath to settle it. That's regulation.
Understanding your current state, then mentally rehearsing a future scenario to improve performance. Used by elite athletes and performance psychologists — it activates similar neural pathways as actually doing the thing, and is shown to enhance confidence, focus, and execution under pressure. In practice: you breathe, then picture how you want to move through the moment.
“I was skeptical at first… but I was surprised at the awareness of the tightness in my chest and the increase in my heart rate. I was really surprised I could point that out.”
Choose your situation
Bring to mind a real, charged situation between you and another person — one that's coming up, or one that recently happened and still has heat in it. A tense conversation. A person you brace yourself around. A pattern that keeps stressing you out. It can even be a moment where you turn on yourself.
Pick one that feels at least a 7 out of 10 in intensity. We want enough charge to actually work with — and to feel the shift.
How emotionally activated are you about this situation right now? 1 = no activation · 10 = the most intense it gets.
Six tools — try each one
Before the main exercise, get acquainted with the ingredients. Don't just read these — actually do each one now. They take seconds, and they'll feel familiar in the exercise.
Hold up your right hand and look at it — you're aware of your hand. Now close your eyes and keep that awareness on the hand. Move it to your shoulders. Now to the top of your head. You've just gone from external to internal awareness. We'll use this to scan the body.
Take a slow breath and fill your stomach. Exhale. Now take one into your chest. Exhale. It all goes to the lungs — but you can direct your focus to different parts of the body. We'll use that.
Squeeze your hand into a tight fist. Hold it. Now slowly let it open and feel the tension drain out. That letting-go — that softening — is release. Do it once more.
Sit up straight. Shoulders back, chest open, chin level. Rather than sinking, you're purposely bringing structure into the body. That's the posture we'll return to.
Close your eyes and imagine your hand. Now picture a plate resting in it — feel its weight. Now see yourself holding that plate in your kitchen. Then step back and up, into a bird's-eye view, and watch yourself from head to toe. From this third-person view you can see the whole picture. Then, if you like — drop the plate and let it smash. When we visualize later, it's always from this bird's-eye view.
Later you'll recall a real memory of feeling confident, grounded, or joyful, and use it to summon that feeling on demand — bringing it into the scene. Mind and body, working together.
What we're looking for: physical sensations in the body — tension in the shoulders, tightness in the chest, pressure in the stomach or throat. We focus on your internal experience, not the story of the situation. And you can pause at any time.
The Reset, step by step
Read a step, then close your eyes and do it. Move slowly — there's no rush, and there's no doing it wrong. Have your notebook nearby for the writing steps. When you're ready, begin.
Settle in
Get comfortable in your chair, nothing in your hands or your lap. Close your eyes and take a few regular, normal breaths — nothing forced. Just arrive, and get connected to yourself.
See the scene from above
Picture your situation. Then step back and up into the bird's-eye view, so you can see yourself, the other person, and the space — all of it from the outside. Stay there.
Notice how you're showing up
Look at the you in the scene. What's your body language? Are you hunched, small, closed off? What's on your face — tense, sad, sneering? Just observe, without fixing anything. This is the move that quietly builds self-awareness.
Name the feeling
As you watch yourself there, what are you feeling? Overwhelm? Anxiety? Sadness? Frustration? You don't need the perfect word. Pick the one that's loudest and stay with it — that's the one we'll work on.
Find it in your body
Now bring that awareness back into your own body. Where do you feel the activation? A tightness in the chest? A soreness, a pressure, a racing heart, a buzzing in the stomach or throat? Find the spot that feels most alive and rest your attention right there.
Breathe into it & release
Keep your awareness on that spot. Breathe into it — a slow breath in for 4, then out for 8, twice as long on the exhale. On each out-breath, soften and release around the area. Stay here for about two minutes. Let the pacer guide you.
Bring in structure
Sit up tall — shoulders back, chest open, chin level — while you keep breathing into the activation and releasing on the exhale. Now, in the visualization, re-see yourself: no longer hunched, but upright, open, breathing slow and steady. You're rewiring how you show up in that moment.
Anchor the feeling you want
Ask yourself: how would I rather feel here? Confident? Secure? Calm? Recall a real moment when you felt that — a small win or a big one. Find where it lives in your body, breathe into it, and let it expand. Now carry that feeling into the scene: you see yourself confident, you feel the confidence, your body shows it. All at once. Own it — it's yours.
Come back gently
Don't just drop everything. Take one full-body breath, filling chest and stomach, and exhale long. Wiggle your toes, then your fingers. Stretch however you'd like. When you're ready, open your eyes and come on back — holding onto a little of that confidence.
Bring it into your system
An experience fades unless you root it. Writing and speaking it wires it in — moving the new pattern from something you just did toward something that becomes yours.
Then share it. Say it out loud — to a partner, a friend, or even just to yourself in the room. Speaking what shifted makes it more real than keeping it in your head.
See it new, then choose your move
“Leadership is about seeing things as they are, what they could be, and making that a reality.”
— Tony Robbins
Now that you've cleared some of the charge, revisit the situation from this steadier place. Work through the three lenses:
1 · See things as they are
What's changed in how you see it? Before it felt overwhelming — how does it feel now? More relaxed, simpler, clearer, more curious?
And the other person — how are they feeling? What do they want or need? Go a layer deeper if you can: anger is often a secondary emotion, with hurt underneath it.
2 · What it could be
Given what you now understand, what's actually needed here? What's the ideal outcome? Maybe: more structure, more direct communication, both of you feeling heard, you coming in grounded, being less reactive and more curious, leaving with an aligned next step.
3 · Make it a reality
What's at least one specific action you'll take? Make it concrete and true to you. For example: “I'll pause and take three breaths before the conversation.” “I'll start by summarizing their point of view.” “I'll bring solutions, not just problems.” “I'll speak 15% slower to project calm.”
“It's my truth. Because it's more tailored to me, it's something I actually feel I can do — not just generic.”
Where are you now?
Same situation, same scale. How emotionally activated do you feel about it now?
It's one thing to feel the shift. Seeing the number move makes it undeniable.
Your week of practice
A note on expectations: it won't go perfectly, and that's fine. Simply having this awareness and a plan is already a huge gain. Don't beat yourself up, and don't over-celebrate — just ask, “okay, what's next?” The more you run this, the faster the little stuff stops clinging.
Everything you wrote is saved privately on your device. Download a copy to keep — or to bring to a discovery call with Michael.
A few things that make this land
These are the nuances I'd add if we were sitting together — the details that separate going through the motions from real change.
Summarize — don't parrot
When you reflect someone back, don't repeat their exact words (that's parroting). Say it in your own words — that shows you actually thought about it. Then ask: “How did that land? Did I miss anything?” You share what you understood, then open the door for them to correct it.
In a real moment, stay subtle
The full eyes-closed visualization is for private practice — not mid-conversation. But the breath and the release travel with you anywhere. As they're talking, you can quietly breathe into the tightness in your chest and soften it. No one needs to see you doing it. That's you taking care of yourself in real time.
Releasing isn't ignoring
We don't release to push the feeling away. We release after we've been with it and understood it. The body likes to hold on — it can get used to a feeling, almost addicted to it — so the work is to be with the sensation, the emotion, the thought… and then let it go. Some things release quickly; some take longer. As one teacher put it, “as long as a rope.” The more you practice, the faster it gets.
Clear the old, then plant the new
Most people only get rid of the bad feeling. But an empty space wants to be filled. That's why we don't stop at clearing the activation — we bring in a new input: the confidence, the steadiness you anchored. Make space, then plant something better in it.
This works when you work it
It was such a game-changing experience. I feel a heightened version of me in every aspect of my life. I had a fear of failure — and that fear turned into excitement for failure. I presented to the executive team and got feedback so positive my supervisor almost cried.
I know my worth again — I'd lost it for a while. I shifted a limiting belief that had been there for a really long time. Now, instead of reacting and shutting people down, I can pause, breathe, and ask more questions. I feel happier, lighter, and I'm showing up as a better version of myself. It goes so deep — and it works.
You calmed the wave. Now imagine it pulling at you far less often.
What you just practiced is real, and it works — you felt the activation drop. But notice what you did: you met a big emotion and brought yourself back to being steady. That's the skill of calming the wave when it comes.
Here's the deeper truth. That wave keeps coming for a reason. The overwhelm, the overthinking, the anxiety, the way you turn on yourself — those aren't random. They're being generated by something underneath: unconscious beliefs you picked up long ago about yourself, other people, and how the world works. You don't see them — you see through them. And they're quietly running the show.
Remember the Order of Change from earlier? Emotions sit near the surface. Beliefs are the level beneath them — the biggest lever of all. Today you worked at the level of emotion, and that gives you real relief. But when you go down a layer and uncover the belief that's creating the emotion — and actually shift it — the trigger doesn't just get quieter. It can stop firing almost entirely.
That's the difference between managing your emotions and being free of what was driving them. Between bracing for the next hard moment and walking in genuinely at peace. Less triggered. More steady. More connected to yourself — not just today, but for the long run.
That work is harder to do alone, because the unconscious belief is, by definition, the thing you can't see in yourself. It's exactly what I help people uncover — and it's where the lasting change lives.
Let's work on it together
If you're ready to go past managing the moment and start uncovering what's underneath it, that begins with a conversation. Book a free 45-minute discovery call — we'll get clear on the belief that's really driving things and map your first step toward lasting change. No pressure, just a real conversation. And if you worked through the exercise above, download your answers and bring them — we can talk through what came up, right on the call.
Book your free discovery call →