Sam's Blog: Let Go of Your Addiction to Agitation: How to Be Calm

Let Go of Your Addiction to Agitation: How to Be Calm:

Most of us could find more space for calm in our lives, for those moments of being able to stand back and assess what is happening around us with a mind that is settled, patient, graceful and wise. Calm people affect other people in a positive and reassuring way; their ability to remain unfazed and focused during life's petty ordeals through to outright crises is a source of amazement to the majority of us and often we're grateful for being at the receiving end of such calmness. And yet, it isn't something that only the few have access to – anyone can choose to be calm and to foster it as an approach toward life.

Calmness can be reached through various routes, each of which may be out of balance in your life at present. For example, your diet may not be adequate in terms of good nutrition or you may be avoiding exercise in favor of slipping in a few more hours of intense work or study. Or, you may not have discovered the values of implementing activities that are aimed at bringing calm into your life directly, such as meditation, enjoying solitude or using aromatherapy. All of these sources of balance are explored in this article as a way of finding calm.

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Reflect upon your sense of calm right now.
Reflect upon your sense of calm right now. Do you consider yourself to be a calm person or someone who is always caught up with a sense of urgency, a need to be busy all the time and a desire to be at the heart of all things loud and dramatic? What does being calm mean to you? It's probably a good idea to write out your ideas about what being a calm person means to you, as this is something you can continue to reflect upon and work toward over time.
- As part of your reflection, consider the psychological issues that you might confront regularly, such as panic attacks or phobias. These can prevent you from reaching a state of calm and yet they're treatable aspects of your emotional makeup provided you're willing to deal with them. Talk over the possibilities with a trusted therapist or your doctor.
Realize that being calm is an internal issue, not an external factor.
Realize that being calm is an internal issue, not an external factor. It can be tempting to blame your external life for your lack of inner calm. After all, traffic jams, deadlines, missing socks, demanding bosses, pushy clients, queues, keeping up with the Joneses and many other facets of modern life can lead you to feel that the pressures create the lack of calm. Yet ironically, the pressures are not the source; it is a crisis driven mindset that causes the lack of calm. By being internally calm, the pressures are alleviated; they don't go away but they are all manageable and far less disturbing when you approach life with an inner calm. Feeling calm and competent leads to fulfillment and happiness. Inside, each of us has a nature that is deep, silent and stable – indeed, our natural state is to be calm. However, we make choices about how to react very early on in life and sometimes those choices usurp our inner calm, whether it's because we choose to be drama prone or the center of attention, or to express the "always busy" self to others. Recognizing that these are choices is an important step in regaining your calm.
Be kind to yourself.
Be kind to yourself. Being calm begins with being self-loving (which does not mean being self-absorbed). It's all too commonplace for us to take a negative tone with ourselves and to be our own unkindest critic. Calm cannot settle when you feel nothing but self-criticism, self-loathing and a lack of self-trust; if these are your main inner feelings, then you're too busy running internal self-deprecating chatter for calm to descend! Remind yourself frequently that it is okay to love and trust yourself.
- Talk gently to yourself. When the self-deprecating, negative talk wells up, remind yourself that you matter and that you deserve respect and that such negative talk hasn't got a place in your life.
- Reassure yourself with such phrases as "I can deal with this."
- Know how valuable you are. Remind yourself daily of the virtues, strengths and beauty that you bring into the world.
- Be kind to yourself, just as you are kind to others.
- Remind yourself that it is human to err. It happens daily all around the world. Simply remind yourself when something goes wrong: "I am so human!"
- Love the image staring back at you in the mirror. That's you and you matter.
Practice forgiveness with yourself and with others.
Practice forgiveness with yourself and with others. Being unable to forgive compels you to discontent and internal war. Holding old grudges, being bitter and fueling constant anger create an inner turmoil that chains you to reliving past hurts. Do you really enjoy lugging that ball and chain around? Worst still, your health is impacted by long-lived grievances and your blood pressure, heart rate, physical and spiritual health will be suffering. It is hard to live a calm life when you constantly hate, feel a need to avenge and see ghosts in every shadow. Forgiveness allows room for kindness and self liberation. Forgiveness nurtures a sense of calm because you longer spend a big part of your life resenting other people. Remind yourself that when you forgive, you remove the toxic feelings from your life; it is not about condoning what another person did but it is about no longer letting that person's actions to run your outlook on life.
- Read How to forgive for more ideas of ways to forgive and move on. Allow the calm to descend!
Be patient.
Be patient. Patience is the begetter of calm. Impatience is the source of agitation and turbulence. Impatience says "I want it NOW" and when "it" doesn't appear now, you're liable to lose your temper and let the blood pressure rise. Impatience is often linked to unreasonable expectations about the world and other people (you expect too much of both yourself and of other people) and is often linked to perfectionism, which allows of no space to make errors or slow down. A calm person, on the other hand, is fully aware that errors occur sometimes and that speeding things up is liable to bring on errors, not alleviate them.
- Read How to be patient for more ideas on bringing more patience into your life.
Seek to be wise.
Seek to be wise. Wisdom enables you to know when it really is okay to worry. Most of the time, it is not okay to worry. Most of the time the news, the rumors, the negativity, the volatility, the insane highs and lows of human systems are but noise. Listen to too much of it and you sink into the mire of the rat race, ever running somewhere without a clear map forward. That will create intense disquiet and unease in your life. The wise person knows what to read, who to listen to and when to ignore the rumors (most of the time). The wise person looks into the future and plans for it while remaining anchored in the present but drawing on the strengths from the past. The wise person is calm because the wise person accesses knowledge and knows how to use it for betterment of life. Responding to sensationalism and fear is "so yesterday" for the wise person.
- Read How to be wise to find out how to bring more wisdom into your life.
Refuse to be hurried.
Refuse to be hurried. Many people try to push, push, push and make for the exit even before the door is open. Consider all the times when a plane lands and everyone rushes to get off but all they do is end up standing in a queue. Where is the fire they're attending that it's so urgent to be the first out the door? Become assertive about your wish to not be hurried unless it's a life and death situation, in which case your common sense will inform you that it's really time to move!
- Recognize that a lot of staying calm returns to being assertive. It takes courage to stand up and assert your need to take things more slowly and to deflect the hurry and bustle of others. Read How to be assertive and reassure yourself that you can assert yourself when it's needed.
Find pathways to calm.
Find pathways to calm. Besides looking within and discovering how better to nurture yourself through kinder self-talk and practicing forgiveness and patience, there are some very real activities you can put into place that will induce a sense of calm into your life. And the more regularly you bring these activities into your life, the more that your feelings of calm will become ingrained and expected. While the following pathways are simply guidance, unless you try some of them, you won't know whether or not they'll benefit a calmer you:
- Breathing: Pay attention to your breathing. Train yourself to slow it down when the pressures increase.
- Meditation: This is number one on the list. Meditation is a powerful means for exploring your inner self and shutting out the noise. Meditation induces stillness and allows you to explore yourself and brings you to a state of peace and calm. And meditation is best summed up as being about "being" – being rather than doing. Meditation can work for anyone as it's about learning to live in the moment, undistracted, not tied to the past or the future, your mind and emotions are under your mastery and you are truly aware. There are many forms of meditation and this isn't the place to explore them and some are likely to be more inviting to you than others, so that's an exploration you'll need to undertake. In short though, meditation is likely to be the greatest tool for bringing calm into your life. See the meditation category for more articles on ways to meditating.
- Prayer, chanting, singing and inspirational reading: Each of these can instill calm in its own way.
- Mindfulness: Closely related to meditation, mindfulness is about being consciously aware of what is around you as you're moving through your daily life. It's about drawing yourself back into the moment.
- Gratitude: It is impossible to be both angry and appreciative. Once you appreciate something, gratitude takes the place of unquiet and unhappiness. The negative chatter dies down because you're grateful for things around you.
- Nature: Spending time in nature simply observing and allowing yourself to be enfolded in its presence will bring calm upon you. Notice the comings and goings of the creatures around you and listen to the trees and plants around you. Simply sink into it...
- Self soothing: Spend more time soothing yourself to reduce the panic and fears than to the problem. The problem will usually be manageable but only when you've calmed down.
1,000 milligrams of C before giving a speech ensures lower levels of cortisol and lower blood pressure.^[1]
Try improving your diet and exercise regime. Diet and exercise are basically about taking good care of yourself; neither are about forcing you to follow a regimen that imposes unhappiness upon you, as some approaches to these activities appear to suggest. Diet is about healthful eating as a lifestyle choice while exercise is about getting out and about so that your body moves and isn't subjected to sitting positions all of the time. And both have the ability to bring calm into your life. Within your diet, it is possible to improve your mood through the types of food you choose, including foods that contain mood boosting effects – read up on the science behind foods and mood. And exercise will increase your feel-good chemicals, which bring a sense of greater calm. Not only that but the self-discipline and endurance stamina required by exercise will help to create calm because you recognize that you are physically strong and capable, able to find the energy and strength to work through anything in life.
- Read How to stretch, How to release endorphins and How to overcome anxiety naturally with foods for more details.
Try aromatherapy solutions.
Try aromatherapy solutions. Aromatherapy has proven benefits in the realm of calming and the use of particular essential oils can help to bring about a state of calmness after a period of stress and agitation. This field is quite complex and it's a good idea to read through a good aromatherapy reference if you're keen to find ways to induce calmness through aromatherapy but most people can recognize the instantaneous benefits from scented interactions such as having a massage, a foot rub, a dabbing on a perfume or a spraying a lovely room scent. A good place to get started is to try aromatherapy baths – see How to take an aromatherapy bath for more options.
Think calm. Help your mind remain calm through keeping your thoughts calm and through keeping your mind decluttered. When you feel frustrated, smile about it and think about the sensible and calm ways you can approach the matter before you.
- Keep to-do lists and to-get lists on paper, in a notebook or in an electronic form, freeing up your mind for more important and creative thoughts than the lists of things to do and buy!
- Count your blessings. When the chips are down, look for the things you can express gratitude for. There is always at least one thing you can find and while you can choose to see only the negatives, ask yourself why you want to only see those.
When criticism, outrage, self-righteousness and obligations fly about, practice equanimity.
Practice equanimity. Life will continue to throw stressors and curveballs in your direction, whatever you state of mind you're in. Recognize that life is strewn with critics and naysayers and they're often people who could do it better... but don't. Are you going to let such people cause you unease and discomfort? Or are you ready to practice equanimity? Equanimity is a state of being that Leo Babauta promises gets easier the more you practice it.^[2] Equanimity is about maintaining evenness of mind under the presence of pressure and stress. It requires that you maintain a positive mindset, even when under attack. This is really hard to maintain if your mindset is negative and fearful. And yet, it is liberating once you begin implementing it regularly and you will even discover that people respect you a lot more for being able to maintain an even keel and remain objectively detached from what is happening. As Leo Babauta suggests, learn to let things roll off you, don't take things personally and realize that we're not the center of anybody else's world and that there are always many other reasons for why someone attacks us in a mean way.^[3]
- Read How to practice equanimity meditation for more details.

A calming meditation

Peaceful Place
Find a peaceful zone. To gain calmness and serenity, be free of any distraction. This moment in time is set aside for deep inner reflection. Find somewhere quiet, preferably somewhere natural – for example, sit on the grass in a park on a pleasant day, take a slow walk in the forest in late fall, sit on the edge of a mountain after a hike and gaze over the scenery. If you have no time to travel, simply sit on a couch or on your bed – anywhere comfortable and quiet will do.
Reflect. As a human being, you are immersed in billions upon billions of chemical reactions at every second of your life, such as the exchange of carbon and oxygen in your breathing, the unfelt rotation/revolution of the earth, the dying and renewing of cells in your skin, and so on. Reflect on the unfathomable scale of the universe, and your size within it - while you're a towering monster to an ant, and a universe to a cell, you're but a speck to the earth, and the earth is but one millionth of our sun, which is but a cell to the galaxy which is but a stain in the universe...
Take time to respect and appreciate the mystery of living and all that comes with it. Why is it that you are here now in this moment in time? Why are you human and not a rock or a bird or a waterfall? Could you have even been anything else? Do things happen for a reason? What is time? Does it exist? Do mathematical equations build the universe? What is thought? Why are humans the only creatures with such advanced civilization? Will the universe ever end? Is infinity real? Is anything I believe real? What is reality?... Ask yourself all the questions you have ever wondered but have never asked. Consider answers and debate yourself, chances are you will come up with theories no one has ever conceived before. Even if they are ludicrous, you have expanded your mind to possibility. Remember that other people in the world might feel just like you do now!
Just be. After such explosion of thought, your mind will be restless but somewhat tired. Take a moment just to breathe and exist, feel yourself taking up space in the enormousness of the universe and consider the importance you have as a being. You are here, a human, a mind, with all the possibility in the world. Feel the amazing power of opportunity fill you. You can do anything. You can change the world. You can help those in need.
Seize the moment. If you have felt this sensation captivate you, indeed you have achieved a revelation, for this moment in time you have been enlightened. Whenever petty problems seem to storm you, recall these amazing feelings and ideas and all insignificant ordeals will melt in such obscurity you may laugh at them with a sincere humor that others puzzle over and long to obtain. Most will change forever, always in state of wonder and respect for life and the world. This is the state of mind of the calm, the caring, the wise, and the respected.

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Keep an open mind. Closed, calculating minds are the root of ignorance. Nothing changes if all minds are certain – remember that people once believed the world to be flat.
Pertaining to religion: Do not dismiss your beliefs, but always consider you are not correct. With thousands of religions in the world, at least a few are guaranteed to be untrue. Sometimes letting go of dogma welcomes a spectrum of new and exciting ideas and brings more calm into your life when you don't feel compelled to react defensively all the time.
Never impose on other people. Though you may feel uplifted and enlightened by your new realizations, most people remain stuck in the cycle of the mainstream working/family/business life. They have not yet or will never have the chance to see above it and many will work actively to convince themselves that being calm is not for them.
Leaving the mind to settle on its own is the best way – effortless effort.
If you're feeling angry or upset, just count to ten and take deep breaths. Then make yourself some cooling herbal tea or chilled water and take yourself to another place to sit still and allow your imagination take over.
If you feel yourself on the brink of crying with anger or slapping someone, imagine yourself on a beach in the sun or swimming in a calm lake on a warm sunny day, or some other favorite thought. The gentle thoughts should bring back dignity.

Edit Warnings

As ignorance is bliss, enlightenment is sometimes a burden.
Remember to keep a balance. Just as it is poisonous to become a slave to material life you can lose grounding in the realities of survival in modern times. Rent isn't the philosophy of sages but it does provide your shelter. Don't become so lost in fantasy that you cease to engage with the real world.