{"id":38878,"date":"2021-06-12T12:55:00","date_gmt":"2021-06-12T16:55:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/?p=38878"},"modified":"2021-06-16T18:59:36","modified_gmt":"2021-06-16T22:59:36","slug":"practice-calm","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/practice-calm\/","title":{"rendered":"Bren\u00e9 Brown’s Guidepost #8: Practice Calm & Stillness"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

How can practicing calm and stillness help you to fight anxiety? What are the major barriers to calm and stillness?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In her book The Gifts of Imperfection, <\/em>Bren\u00e9 Brown advises readers to practice calm and stillness in order to fight anxiety. Her goal isn’t to eliminate anxiety\u2014that’s nearly impossible\u2014but to help you recognize it and work on ways to reduce its impact.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Here is Bren\u00e9 Brown’s advice on how to practice<\/a> calm and stillness and what barriers you’ll need to overcome.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

Practice Calm and Stillness to Fight Anxiety<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Bren\u00e9 Brown’s eighth guidepost for Wholehearted living<\/a> is fighting anxiety by<\/strong> practicing calm and stillness<\/strong>. Anxiety is becoming increasingly common in the modern world. As well as being generally distressing, it can impact your ability to live Wholeheartedly<\/a> in several ways. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

First, anxiety can manifest as self-doubt<\/a>: for example, worrying about whether you\u2019re really \u201cgood enough.\u201d It\u2019s hard to maintain your worthiness and live Wholeheartedly if you\u2019re constantly panicking over the possibility that you\u2019re not worthy after all. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Second, anxiety can negatively impact your courage, compassion, and shame resilience<\/a>, among other factors necessary for Wholehearted living. When you\u2019re overwhelmed by anxiety, it\u2019s hard to focus<\/a> on practices that will increase your feelings of self-worth.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

According to Brown\u2019s research, people who live Wholeheartedly aren\u2019t necessarily free of anxiety. Instead, they maintain an awareness of their anxiety while simultaneously looking for ways to reduce its impact. A common method used to reduce the effects of anxiety<\/a> is practicing stillness and calm. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Practicing Stillness<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Practicing stillness means taking the time to be still and quiet. <\/strong>This might take the form of praying, meditating, or just having some reflective alone time. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

A common misconception around stillness is that it\u2019s about completely clearing your mind of all thoughts and emotions<\/a>. You might find this idea daunting. Your brain is constantly swimming with thoughts, ideas, and feelings. Getting rid of all of that noise might feel impossible. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, stillness isn\u2019t about ridding your mind of all noise. It\u2019s merely about quieting the noise a bit and clearing some space in your mind. You can use this \u201cspace\u201d to get in touch with your deepest thoughts, emotions, hopes, and dreams; to contemplate your problems, remind yourself of your strengths, and maybe even challenge the roots of your anxiety. Even if you don\u2019t feel capable of challenging your anxiety, you can use the \u201cspace\u201d as a brief reprieve from it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Practicing Calm<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

To practice calm you need to do two things. First, you need to put difficult situations into perspective. Second, you need to stop yourself from instantly reacting to your emotions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Putting Things in Perspective<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n

The first aspect of calmness is putting difficult situations into perspective<\/strong>. This means viewing the situation mindfully and rationally. When we get anxious, we tend to catastrophize. We tell ourselves that our current situation is a complete disaster and the worst thing to ever happen to us. Putting things in perspective involves challenging catastrophic thoughts by questioning their validity. Is the situation really <\/em>a disaster? Will you even remember it happened in a week, a month, or a year? What will the situation\u2019s actual <\/em>impact be?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For example, imagine you email a colleague and spell their name wrong. A catastrophizing reaction to this would be \u201cThis person will think that I\u2019m stupid for misspelling their name. If my boss finds out I did this, I\u2019m going to get fired.\u201d Meanwhile, a reaction that puts things into perspective would be \u201cYes, this wasn\u2019t great, people make small mistakes like this all the time. I can apologize to the person the next time I see them, and that\u2019ll be the end of it.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Gaining perspective and refusing to catastrophize will help you to view your anxiety and its triggers in a balanced way. You\u2019ll be more likely to remain calm.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Curbing Instant Emotional Reactions<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n

The second aspect of practicing calmness is stopping yourself from instantly reacting to your emotions<\/strong>, particularly strong negative emotions such as anger or fear. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

When you experience these strong feelings, you may rush to express them just to get them out of your head and stop them from affecting you as much. However, this desperation to express feelings may cause you to hastily react in a harmful way. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

For example, if you\u2019re in a situation that\u2019s made you anxious, your visceral reaction might be to criticize the person who\u2019s triggered the situation; to channel your anxiety in their direction. The results of this reaction will probably be overwhelmingly negative. For instance, you may damage your connection with the person you\u2019ve criticized.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To stop yourself from instantly reacting to your emotions, you could: <\/p>\n\n\n\n