So now that you all have a little idea of the right horses, this exercise of taking a psychic pause may sound as though it would be easy, but it takes practice and persistent effort. You see, it’s very tempting to just let ourselves be earned away. In fact, there's nothing to it. Then the rest of our time is spent trying to straighten out the bad rides we have taken. All this not only steals our energy, but all keeps us from being someplace real. So now, we are only to take that pause before we believe that any automotive response is the right one. For instance, haven’t we all had bad spills born out of our own false sense of elation or over-confidence? And a feeling of triumph over the defeat of others can be just as punishing as a state of desolation or anger. When in doubt, try to recall this axiom: The proof of the horse is in the ride.  If the ride is punishing or meandering, we're in the wrong carriage.

Now, suppose we wake up and realize our position too late, after we have entered the wrong carriage and are already rolling along. Perhaps we see that we are being dragged along by a state of anxiety or anger. In the past we always accepted these negativities as being appropriate reactions, but now we recognize them as being wrong for us and unnecessary. So the question is what we do now as we no longer want their direction to be our own. First, we shouldn’t try to stop the horse. It’s a waste of energy. So is trying to convince ourselves that we are not in that state, or feeling guilty about it, or fighting it in any other way. These choices are just back-up dark horses. The only way out is for you to choose to just come wide awake. This conscious choice transforms us from a person who is completely identified with the runaway state into a person who is aware of it.

We know that there will be times when we tend to get on wrong carriages, and that it is not necessary to do so as those thoughts and feelings are not who we really are. Our aim is now to try to be aware and know what’s happening, so we don’t fall into the same mistake again and again. When we see ourselves looking for a reaction we know there’s a strong possibility that the wrong horse is likely to arrive. Therefore, we make an effort to determine the quality of the help that comes to get us by first choosing to help ourselves by stepping back from our own rush to be rescued. Standing apart in this way is the only way to see whether the arriving solution is, for us in that moment, true or false. Our growing awareness of this and the way it tricks us into a self-harming reaction brings us closer to victory.