Why “Calm Down” Doesn’t Help

The email is short. Just three sentences. Your coworker says your part of the work isn't ready again, and now the whole team is waiting.

You read the word “again.” That's the part that stings. Last time, the delay wasn't your fault at all. You already want to point out who failed to send the necessary information. Your fingers hover over the keyboard. And then you tell yourself, “Okay, calm down. You can't react like this.”

But you don't feel calmer. Now you're irritated by your own irritation. You're an adult. You've known for years how you ought to respond. Yet one word is enough to start an argument inside your head.

Let's stop the story right there. You haven't replied yet. There's the email, there's your reaction, and there's an added demand to become a different person immediately. Those are three separate things, even though they feel like one big knot.

Larson begins his discussion of mental states with peace. And right away, he makes an important distinction. A strained effort to achieve peace can get in the way of peace itself. You can't simply order yourself to stop worrying and assume the job is done.

In his book, he describes a still center from which action begins. He gives that image a spiritual meaning. For our everyday situation, we can ask a simpler question. Can I stop adding pressure long enough to understand what's already happened?

Notice the difference between two inner voices. The first says, “I have to calm down. Why am I still angry?” The second says, “That word got to me. I don't have to answer this very second.”

The second voice isn't saying your coworker is right. It isn't even promising that the anger will go away now. It creates a little space between the feeling and the reply. In that space, you can see more than one hurtful word.

You read the email again. What's actually needed? The spreadsheet has to be finished today. Can you finish it? Yes, but you're missing two numbers. Who has them? The very coworker who sent the email.

Now a different reply is possible. “I can finish the spreadsheet by four. To do that, I need two figures from your report. Please send them by two.”

That reply is less dramatic than a detailed list of everyone else's mistakes. But it shows what the work needs. And if the accusation in “again” is unfair, you can address it separately. “I'd also like to clarify what caused the previous delay, so we can plan the next round of work accurately.”

You haven't simply accepted the unfairness. You've separated two tasks: finishing the work and clearing up an unfair comment. When they were tangled together, it seemed as though proving you were right had to come before everything else. Once you separated them, you could choose the order.

That's why inner calm matters to thinking. It's useful for more than feeling better. In our example, it lets you distinguish between what hurts and what you can clarify right now. That changes the quality of the thought.

But what if you still aren't calm? What if you read the email again and feel another wave of anger?

You don't have to call the attempt a failure. A different response doesn't always require a complete absence of emotion. You can be angry and still leave the first draft unsent. You can postpone the conversation if you can't stay with the issue right now. Here, calm is a direction to move toward, not a test you have to pass in ten seconds.

Consider a simpler situation. You're standing in line and realize you're going to be late. You check the clock for the third time. The line doesn't move any faster. Then another thought joins the worry. “I promised myself I wouldn't get worked up over little things.”

But calling your situation a little thing isn't the point. Being late may have real consequences. You can ask roughly how long the wait will be, let the person who's expecting you know, or see whether there's another option. Those actions won't remove the inconvenience. They'll bring your attention back to something you can still influence.

Both stories contain the same unnecessary demand. First I have to feel perfectly fine, and only then can I act sensibly. We can soften that demand. To begin, it may be enough to stop increasing the pressure and see one available choice.

This lesson is about a particular moment. Is the conversation inside my head helping me understand, or is it adding another argument to the one already there? If you can tell those two things apart, you already have more room to respond, even while the feelings are strong.

You don't have to remember every part of this explanation. It may be enough to recognize the familiar pattern. I'm already having a hard time, and now I'm demanding that I immediately stop feeling it. In that moment, it helps to allow yourself a reaction and a little time before replying.

Don't add pressure to something that's already hard. That's the beginning of our first foundation.

Now suppose the tension really has eased. You no longer want to reread the email in outrage. Why is it sometimes just as difficult to start working? In the next lesson, we'll explore the difference between rest and the calm readiness that helps you begin.