3 Steps to Calm and How Mindfulness Works Alongside the Racing Mind
Ingrid is a certified Mindfulness Instructor, MSc, certified Yoga Instructor & Sound Healing Practitioner. She is the Founder of The Mindful Way, where she offers online, evidence-based mindfulness courses, guided meditation sessions, and 1:1 women's coaching. Ingrid also holds yoga classes and sound healing journeys locally in Stockholm, Sweden.
The greatest barrier to practicing mindfulness isn’t lack of time, motivation, or discipline. It is the mind itself. Many of my students find that the moment they attempt to be still, thoughts appear. The mind grows louder with planning, worrying, judging, and analysing, so it’s easy for them to assume they’re not cut out for something like mindfulness.
But the good news is that a busy mind is not a sign of failure. It’s a sign of being human. Our brains are wired for distraction, after all, not presence. This is why mindfulness was never designed for silent minds. It was designed for real ones, minds that think, wander, and resist stillness. When we understand this, mindfulness becomes accessible, compassionate, and deeply calming, even on the noisiest of days.
Below are three simple yet powerful steps to help you work with a racing mind, return to your body, and cultivate a steadier sense of calm.
1. First, anchor the body to calm a racing mind
Many of my beginner students sign up for my eight-week evidence-based course, the Mindfulness-Based Living Course, with the expectation that I am going to teach them how to calm their busy minds by stopping their minds from racing. It is a common misconception that this is what mindfulness teaches us to do.
This is understandable. When the mind is racing, the instinct is to try to calm it. However, this only produces more thoughts:
I need to relax.
I should stop worrying.
Why can’t I focus?
The busy mind cannot calm the busy mind. The body, however, is a very useful resource we can use to regulate the mind. It is always here, available to us. While the mind is a time traveller, ruminating about the past or worrying about the future, the body is always present, anchored in its existing environment.
Therefore, to enter that sweet spot we call present-moment awareness, we must first begin with physiological grounding, or practices that signal safety to the nervous system and create the conditions for calm.
Rather than focusing on trying to quiet the mind, try instead to turn your attention to one of these anchors:
Feel your feet on the ground. Notice the weight, the pressure, and the contact between your feet and the floor that holds you up.
Place a hand on your chest or stomach. Let your inhale deepen, feeling the breath as it gives life to the body.
Lengthen the exhale. A slow, steady out-breath activates the parasympathetic nervous system, switching you out of fight-or-flight mode.
Widen your attention to your soundscape. Tuning into the noises around you widens your sensory field, and this quiets mental noise.
Notice and relax any areas of tension in the body. Softening tense areas reduces cognitive tension. Anchoring the body doesn’t silence our thoughts. It simply turns our attention away from them so that they can loosen their grip on us. From there, we are able to wake up to the present moment, simply as it is, outside of our thoughts. This is where the heart of mindfulness can begin.
2. Allow the thoughts instead of stopping them
Again, one of the biggest myths about mindfulness is the idea that you must “clear your mind” to come to a place of inner peace and calm.
This belief often creates frustration, shame, and even a sense of failure in many people who try to do it. Mindfulness is therefore seen as something that is only for people with naturally quiet minds.
This cannot be reiterated enough. Mindfulness is not about eliminating your thoughts. It’s about changing your relationship with them so that they don’t rule your reality, especially when they are filled with fear, stress, and anxiety.
When your mind is busy, try this:
Notice the thought. “There’s worry.” “There’s planning.” “There’s judgment.”
Categorize the thought without self-judgment. Remembering. Imagining. Assuming
Allow the thought. Let it be there without trying to push it away. Acknowledge its presence with an attitude of warmth, acceptance, and curiosity.
Gently release the thought. You don’t need to solve it, fix it, or finish it.
Guide your attention to your breathing and to any physical sensations in the body. Follow the path of the breath into the body, relaxing any tension that might be there.
Widen your awareness back out to the environment around you before re-entering your day. This is the heart of mindfulness. Negative thoughts are allowed to exist, but they are not allowed to lead.
We often say, “What you resist, persists.” When you stop fighting your thoughts, they lose their power. When you stop engaging with them, they lose their momentum. When you stop believing every thought that enters your mind, they lose their authority.
Your thoughts don’t need to be silenced. They simply want to be witnessed. Once you acknowledge and accept them as they are, notice how they then dissipate like clouds, one drifting into another.
3. Redirect your attention gently, again and again
This is what makes mindfulness a practice, the part that builds and strengthens it over time. Mindfulness is not a single moment of focus. It is a skill and an attitude that we are cultivating over time so that it becomes our natural approach to life.
This practice is a cycle:
Your attention wanders from this present moment.
You notice the thoughts that are pulling you away from the present moment.
You return your attention to this present moment.
You repeat.
Every time your mind wanders, and you gently guide it back to presence, you strengthen the neural pathways of stress-free presence.
Choose a simple anchor for your attention:
The breath
The feeling of sitting or standing
The soundscape around you
The rise and fall of your chest or stomach
When your mind wanders (because it will, as the mind is wired to scan for threat), return softly to presence. Not with frustration, self-doubt, or force, but with gentleness, patience, and perseverance. This is how calm emerges, through consistent, compassionate redirection of attention.
Finally, try this reframe. A busy mind is not a problem. It’s the practice. Perfectly still minds do not exist, so if your mind won’t stop thinking, do not see it as failing. See it as a perfect opportunity for practice. Mindfulness was created for us to see and think clearly in the midst of the noise.
When you follow the three steps, anchor your body, allow your thoughts, and redirect your attention with kindness, you gradually begin to see what is true.
Your mind is the weather, ever-changing, unpredictable, and fickle, while you are the sky, the ever-present witness to what is taking place below. This is the doorway to the inner calm you seek. This is the heart of mindfulness.
Read more from Ingrid Montague
Ingrid Montague, Mindfulness Instructor & Somatic Wellness, MSc
Ingrid is a Mindfulness Instructor & Somatic Wellness Practitioner, MSc, specializing in teaching evidence‑based practices for nervous‑system regulation, emotional resilience, and embodied well‑being. After contracting a severe illness in 2020 that landed her in the hospital, Ingrid learned firsthand how practicing meditation calmed her stress and strengthened her immune system, inspiring her to make mindful and somatic practices the focus of her professional work. Ingrid currently guides and teaches mindfulness classes, yoga, and sound healing journeys online and locally in Stockholm, Sweden.
