The importance of feeling calm
How much better would your life be like if you could feel calm most of the time? A client’s recent struggle to feel calm made me realise that calmness is the state I’d like to be in all the time – and if I’m not, I should see that as a warning…
An Executive Coaching client recently turned up at their regular session wanting to explore why they were stressed again. I reminded them that this was a moment in their week where they could pause and relax, so I invited them to take a few seconds to take a few breaths, slow down and be silent.
Within just a few seconds of this invitation however, the client had gone straight back into talking in a very animated way, with the same frantic energy they came in with. I made this observation to them, and they paused for a moment and had a big realisation – they hardly ever felt in a state of calm , and they had forgotten they possessed the ability to calm themselves.
I asked them to do 3 things:
- Take the time to really notice what it feels like – both physically and mentally – to be calm.
- Give themselves permission to make calm their default state.
- Use the feeling of calmness as a barometer of how they are experiencing life, and notice when they deviate from a feeling of calm, and use this an ‘early warning sign’ that something has stimulated them physically or mentally, and to investigate what this thing is, ignore it or deal with it, and try to move back to a calm state.
For example, the client was feeling calm until they thought of the work they had to do in the day ahead. This made their heart beat faster, and feel a sense of anxiety in their head. The client could then briefly consider what it is about the work ahead that made them anxious – in this case there was too much of it. So, the client dropped some of their to do list for the day and made it achievable, and they could approach it calmly and then enjoy the experience of their day.
The idea of feeling calm most of the time probably sounds great, but many people will think it also sounds impossible and somewhat self-indulgent. But why?
The breakthrough insight for my client was when he realised we are actually allowed to feel calm as our ongoing experience in life – and to question or remove things that move us away from this feeling of calm. The problem is, we have grown up with cultural and moral ideas that make us feel bad about feeling calm. We live in a world where feeling enervated and over-stimulated feels like the way we ‘should’ be – perhaps we mistakenly believe it makes us primed for productivity and action, even though in reality it often leads to stress and burnout.
But what if you set the goal for your life as simply enjoying the experience of living – and one thing you can control as part of this is the experience of feeling calm most of the time?
It could be a bit of a life-changer, couldn’t it?
