I write this on a whim of inspiration, after a weekend that was rough for reasons I won’t go into. I woke up this morning before 5am, totally depressed. I fumbled around on Facebook for a while and then YouTube. I was looking for anything that could distract me from the way I felt; anything that could direct my monkey mind away from thinking about the stuff that upset me.

I wanted to go back to sleep but wasn’t really tired. I knew that if I ate an unhealthy breakfast that surge of calories would probably make me feel sleepy enough to knock myself out. From there, I would stay in bed for as long as possible. I realised that I could go and spend the entire day in bed, but then, what would I be hiding from? Reality. Hiding from Reality, or being in denial, is what the Quran calls ‘kufr’.

But, then I remembered something that gave me a little jolt. I remembered that all of these distractions are just there to take me away from the way I’m feeling right now, in this moment. Then I embraced the present moment and felt everything that was going in inside me – the tiredness, the aches, the fear surging through my body. Upon doing this, I had a glimpse of clarity and realised something very scary: I have complete and total freedom in my life.

This sounds like a good thing, but it’s scary as Hell.

Imagine having complete freedom. You can do literally anything you want. What do you do with that gift? Go and study the Quran? Learn a martial art? Go out and socialise? You need unwrap layers upon layers of social conditioning to even get close to experiencing true freedom, from the inside out. And when you get here, it is frightening. It’s frightening because you realise something you’ve known all along: you, and no-one else will be responsible for every decision you make and every action you take. You can no longer blame your family, community, school or friends for the way your life will turn out. It’s all down to you.

Still experiencing the present moment, and still feeling awful, I decided to face myself. I knew that if I could face this very moment with all my presence, all of the negativity would disintegrate.

“Evil cannot look upon itself and survive.”

This is a spiritual principle that can you can use to pull yourself out of a negative spin. Trying to think positively when you’re going through a rough spot is like trying to drive a car without a steering wheel. Instead, do this:

1. Go to a mirror, and look at yourself directly in the eyes.

2. Keep looking directly into your own eyes for about 15 minutes.

At first, you’ll immediately try to look away, or find small things to distract your vision. Next, you might think ‘this is stupid’, and quite soon a barrage of negative thoughts will stream through: “you’re so ugly”; “who the hell do you think you are?”; “you’ve got a big nose”; “no-one likes you, and why would they?”

But pretty soon, these thoughts pass and they almost seem silly. Evil cannot look upon itself and survive.

Next up, you’ll be more present and start to notice negative feelings inside your body. These are the feelings you’ve been avoiding; the feelings that make you want to go straight back into bed; the feelings that you’ll surf the web or watch TV to avoid. The key here is to keep your eyes fixated and allow the feelings to come up, be felt, and let them pass in their own sweet time. They will leave as easily as they came up.

Next, you will feel a lot lighter and, keeping your eyes fixed on yourself you may have a few positive thoughts, or just see things much more clearly. At this point I saw new solutions to the problems that made me feel bad in the first place, and my perspective on the entire thing changed. What’s interesting is that no amount of rationalising or thinking about the situation would ever have had this effect of clarity, as my ego and negative emotions were still caught up in it.

Finally, you feel much, much better. Like a heavy insurmountable weight was just lifted. Now go and pray and you’ll notice the difference. Now go and get to work on the solutions or next step, and the quality of that work will increase beyond measure, because you’re doing it from a space self-love, not inner fear.

Next time you’re in a tail-spin of negativity, do this exercise, or come back and read this article if it helps you. You need to face your deepest fears before you can become the best possible version of yourself. Often this fear is hiding under layers of other emotions. The only way to release them is to face them.