How to Pacify a Busy Mind

A meditation for clarity and connection.

Photo by noridah  yazid

If you’ve followed the last few blogs, you’ve seen how much of our emotional experience is influenced by perception: how we understand our own feelings, how we interpret our partner’s, and how those stories create cycles of connection or disconnect. Meta-emotion, emotional granularity, affective realism: all of it points back to the same core truth: what’s happening inside our mind is just as powerful as what’s happening outside.

But knowing this isn’t enough. Left to its own devices, our mind fills with old stories, imagined threats, unfinished conversations, flashes of memory, and vivid images. This isn’t just background noise; it’s interference, shaping how we perceive our partner and how we respond in moments of tension.

If we don’t clear that content, it can determine what we see and hear, turning our differences into conflict.

This is where meditation comes in: to clear the fog of reactivity and judgment from our mind and make space for real connection. And while most meditation practice can help build awareness, one ancient breathing and visualization practice goes straight to the heart of the matter: Smoke and Light.

How Meditation Fails

But first, let’s be honest: meditation has a bit of an image problem. For some, it’s been branded as a magic bullet for everything from stress to sleeplessness to being your best self. For others, it’s a wellness fad tried once and quietly gave up. And then there’s a third group (maybe you’re in it) who believe it has value but haven’t been able to make it work, maybe wondering if you’re doing it wrong.

“I tried meditating, but I couldn’t stop thinking.”
“I’m just not good at it.”
“My brain doesn’t work that way.”

I hear this from clients, and it makes sense. But here’s the thing: that same busy mind that makes meditation feel impossible is the very thing we’re using to train our mind.

Those swirling thoughts and relentless distractions? They’re not obstacles; they’re like weights for strength training. That same mental noise is what we’re using to build the muscle of our attention. So there’s no need for us to get discouraged by a busy mind any more than we would get discouraged by that full rack of weights at the gym.

Meditation usually isn’t about having no thoughts. It’s about learning what to do with the ones we have: which ones are worth keeping and which ones to let go?

That’s where Smoke and Light comes in.

Smoke and Light

This is a brief practice, based on a traditional Buddhist meditation, to pacify and purify a busy mind. With a little training it can be used anytime to clear the mind of unskillful, disturbing or distracting content

The idea is simple: visualization is combined with breathing meditation to inhale the  pure light of peace and calm and exhale the dark smoke of distraction and disturbance. It can also be used at the beginning of any regular meditation session when the mind is particularly busy.

At first, the success of this practice may depend on our existing powers of concentration, but over time the practice itself will improve those powers. As such, this is a useful exercise for those who are already working to improve their concentration, either through traditional meditation practices, secular mindfulness approaches, or other means.[JW1] 

1. Preparation

Begin with a few rounds of breathing meditation, inhaling and exhaling while focusing on the sensations of the breath. Don’t worry about any other mental activity just yet. Because the breath provides the foundation for the visualization, just focus on establishing a firm awareness of the breath before moving on to the next step.

Note that breath awareness itself may pacify distracting mental activity, so feel free to stay with the breathing meditation alone, or move on to the visualization.)

2. Visualization

Now imagine that all the distracting mental activity present in your mind assumes the form of black smoke. Then, with a strong wish to eliminate it, exhale gently through the nostrils, imagining that all this black smoke rises from the bottom of your lungs, leaves through the nostrils, and dissolves fully and completely into space.

Feel completely clean within. Now as you slowly breathe in, imagine that you are inhaling pure white light. This light fills your body and mind and you feel calm and pure.

3. Continue

Continue to mount this visualization of black smoke and white light upon the exhalation and inhalation of the breath, repeating the cycle as many times as you wish, or until the mind is completely pacified of all distraction and has become pure and single-pointed.

Clearing the Way for Real Connection

By engaging in Smoke and Light, we are building the muscle of our concentration so that all our efforts toward contemplative, meditative, or concentration techniques become more fruitful, leading to greater clarity and peace of mind.

Like any form of training, Smoke and Light takes practice. To use it when it matters most, such as in the middle of a conflict or during moments of emotional overwhelm, we first have to build the muscle.

Start with low-stakes moments: small annoyances, lingering thoughts, or minor frustrations. As meditators say, spend time with it “on the cushion” and then take it out into the wild.

The more we practice, the more natural it becomes to clear the mind of unwanted thoughts, feelings and the stories we tell about them. Then, when real conflicts arise, we’ll be ready.