The urge can't find you down here

An urge loves a body that's braced. Weight forward. Hands ready. Leaning toward the next move before you've decided anything. Take that body away and the urge has nowhere to stand. Put this down, find a clear patch of floor, and lie flat on your back. Two minutes. The floor's about to do the heavy lifting.

Feet apart. Arms loose at your sides, palms up, which lets your shoulders drop on their own. Let the floor take all of your weight. It's like setting down grocery bags you forgot you were carrying. The cigarette taught you calm had to be fetched. It lied. Calm was right here, flat on the floor, the whole time.

Now let your ribs rise and fall without steering them. Look at the ceiling. A craving rides on tension, and down here tension has nothing to hang on to. The urge won't vanish on command. It shrinks from an order into a feeling drifting past. A feeling drifting past is something you can lie there and watch. You don't have to do a thing about it.

Give it the full two minutes. Count them, or talk to God from down there. Here I am, Lord. Hold the weight. People have prayed flat on the ground for thousands of years. Then get up slowly and go do the next ordinary thing. You didn't beat the urge on your feet. You outlasted it lying down.