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"Grace under pressure." — Hemingway's definition of heroism.

It's perfectly normal to feel inner pressure, anxiety, turmoil, and chaos. Incarnating in the Babylon Matrix can feel like being a submarine scuttling along the floor of silent seas. You need to maintain your structural integrity despite being under tremendous pressure. Often, we blame ourselves or something happening in the local timeframe or space for the inner pressure. But simply incarnating in a gravity-bound, mortal, corporeal body on a planet in a state of frenzied change is enough to cause us to feel intense inner pressure.

A close friend, during a difficult life phase, often said that he felt "insane." I pointed out to him that his reality testing was intact and he was functioning rationally in society. His inner turmoil felt catastrophic to him, but actually, it wasn't — he maintained his structural integrity throughout the difficult period.

My inner pressure ebbs and flows. There are phases where anxiety and inner turmoil intensify and others where they relax. When I was younger and less experienced, I took increases in inner pressure too seriously. The friend I mentioned above seemed to fall into this, and when his inner turmoil increased, he felt something was drastically wrong either with him or with his surroundings. When anxiety intensified, his mind tended to focus on relocating to another part of the country as the answer. As an outside observer, it was obvious that the inner pressure would be there wherever he went. As Emerson said, "The problem with traveling is that you take yourself with you."

One way to improve your structural integrity is to allow the inner pressure without thinking something is particularly wrong with you or your present circumstances. We can easily construct a story, he said/she said, a tale of money woes, etc., to explain the inner pressure. But people in all circumstances incarnating in this pressurized world feel inner pressure.

What strengthens structural integrity is recognizing that you can take impeccable actions despite inner pressure. I have a fairly intense fear of heights, which was part of my inspiration to pursue mountain climbing. I discovered that even though I was feeling intense fear, I could make it to the next handhold or foothold, as well as someone who wasn't afraid. If the inner pressure feels too great to focus on complex tasks, then use the pressurized zone to clean up your space, do dishes, laundry, etc. Exercise can be a very helpful practice while under inner pressure and has been proven to help moods and states of mind.