Episode 68. Be Their Calm

What in life deserves our time and attention and what things don't. I hope that as we consider that question along with other topics on this show, that we can all learn to live our lives just a little more intentionally. This is Seth Roberts. Thanks for joining me on Skipping Stones - “Be Their Calm.”

I had a friend. Literally have his world come crashing down on him this morning when a water pipe burst in his apartment building and started leaking from the ceiling. Understandably, his girlfriend was in a panic and to some degree, so was he. They had just gotten settled into this place with jobs and responsibilities weighing on them.

They just didn't have the energy or the time to deal with this on top of everything else they already had going on. I read something in a book a while ago that I told them about. When a person is emotionally aroused in some way, the fastest way to help them relax is to actively listen to what they say.

But in practice, what that really means is you need to paraphrase what they just told you and repeat it back to them. It acts almost like a pressure release for them, and it's honestly the only way anyone is going to fully believe that you understand what they say. There's simply no better way for someone to know that they are being understood. 

Don't be surprised if it takes a few tries before you get it right though. Possibly the greatest gift we can give is to be someone's calm in a time of crisis. Surprisingly, it's also the most rewarding. If you have ever had the opportunity to soothe a crying child, you know how precious those moments can be.

There's literally no stronger way to bond with another person than to have the opportunity to be their calm. It's hard to find someone that knows how to do it though, because when you're no longer a child, the things that tend to cause people to panic are often the same things that cause you to panic.

Sometimes when people get anxious, angry, or panicked, they'll drag you into it along with everyone else around them. So, if you can manage to be the one that can keep things together, you gain the capacity to offer the most precious gift anyone could ever  offer. It's in our nature to mirror the energy of the people around us.

It keeps us safe, but sometimes that's just not what we need. Sometimes it takes a special kind of hero that's able to find that place of calm during a crisis to then give it to others. If someone runs up to you in a panic and tells you that the sky's falling, you might be tempted to scoff a little and you may point your finger at the sky to show them that it's not actually falling.

But you might be surprised to find out that approaching it that way almost never, ever makes the other person calm down. On the other hand, if you just rephrase what they just said in a question, they can confirm whether or not they feel like you understood. You might say, really, you think this guy's falling?

Which will invite them to say more, which will allow you to ask more sympathetic questions that get to  the bottom of why they're convinced that that's the case. All the while though, they will be feeling a sense of progress and understanding coming from you. They'll be able to calm down as you help guide them through their emotions, and they'll be able to find their way back to reality.

Nobody likes to outsource their thinking to someone else. But most of us are desperately looking for someone to help guide us through the mire of our own  emotions. People need to find their own way through their problems because without the resolution they get from figuring things out, they will not have a good roadmap for the next time something happens like this.

So often this is as simple as asking those clarifying questions to help them start heading in the right direction. However the conversation goes, you need to help them guide you to the source of their most painful emotion and ask them if that is the deepest source of their pain. You do not actually need to say anything after this when they tell you that.

You finally got it right and usually all you need to do is to give 'em a hug. It's probably your highest potential to be someone's calm. But what can you do when you need someone else to be your calm? Honestly, you be theirs. It will give you purpose, it will give you strength. It will draw you closer together.

And when you gift someone with calm. They will pay you back in gratitude and affection, and you may just have the opportunity of finding, not despair, but actual joy in your struggle. Anytime you have two or more people together in a group, one of those people will be the giver of energy. While everyone else will be mirroring that same energy.

When the world is crashing,  the energy that's going to be given out in most cases will be chaotic and scary. But all it takes is one person to choose to stop mirroring and to start giving calm for the rest of the group to emulate it. Nothing has taught me what it means to be someone's calm more than being a father.

Children's emotions are loud and strong. When they're feeling something, they really feel it. It's beautiful actually. When they're happy, they are so happy and when they're sad, they are in the depths of despair. The thing about children is that they will feed off of the energy you provide more visibly than any other group.

One of the worst things you can possibly do to a child is to panic when they get a boo boo because they will learn that it's something that they need to be terrified of. When a baby is sad, it will cleave to their mother, not just for safety, but to absorb her calm and loving energy. If the child's parent is something other than calm and loving, they will feel it.

They'll return in kind energy between people. Seems like a tricky thing to manage, and it is, but it's also very possible. It requires something many people often don't have, which is perspective and in the moment of a crisis who can really blame them. But for those who can manage to keep that perspective, they become some of humanity's greatest heroes.

And you can be that person. Even just the other day, my son was struggling with something that I couldn't fix, but what I could do was to be his calm. We need to recognize that living life is kind of similar to playing a game like chess. Life makes a move, then you make a move in response, and unless you've died, you're still playing this game.

Maybe life dealt you a serious blow, but. You're not done making moves. It's easy to observe our lives in a way that isn't too different than viewing something through a microscope. We see what's happening right now, and we have a pretty good idea of what's happening next week, but all these hardships are things we adapt to, or we overcome. 

We will find our way to normal again, whether we win or lose. When you're trying to be someone's calm, you listen to them first. Don't try to understand their logic. Don't try to make rational sense of what they're saying. Listen with the intent of understanding what emotion that they're feeling and what thing it is that's making them feel that emotion.

Tell them what you understand so far. What calms people, oddly enough, is not solving their problem, but rather the knowledge that someone thoroughly understands their pain and the source of it. It allows them to address their own problems without such a thick shroud of fear, sadness, or anger. When my children come to me crying from a cut, I try to show sympathy on my face and I say, you look like you are really hurting from that.

Cut. And they say yes, and then I say, Aw. And I hold them  sometimes for only a second, sometimes for a while longer, but every time I do this, they walk away feeling content again. There is no greater superpower than to be able to chart a course through Stormy waters and to keep those you love around you.

Calm and focused on the next step. Be a gift to the people around you and to the world by being that person that is the giver of calm In any room, do not let another person's energy dominate the room unless it's an energy of peace, calm, or contentment. Do this because being someone's calm. It is the best way to love another person.

This is Skipping Stones - “Be Their Calm.” You can find this podcast anywhere you choose to listen to podcasts. For more information about me, feel free to visit skippingstonessr.com. And if you enjoyed the show, please like or subscribe. If there is a topic you would like me to speak on, please feel free to email me at info@skippingstonessr.com, new episodes will be released weekly every Monday.