Calm is a Power Move

Not everything deserves your nervous system

It was just a regular Friday at the office, until I saw it.
My email inbox showed one unread message.

I glanced at the name of the sender and took a sharp breath. I already knew what was coming.

It was from the rudest person I’ve ever dealt with in my career.

I should have been used to him by now, but I once again started feeling my blood boiling with rage.

I reread the email three times, getting more wound-up by the second.
This time, I had to respond. He went too far.

So, I clicked on “Reply” and started writing a satisfying, I’ll-put-you-back-in-your-place answer. I was typing so fast, smoke was almost coming out of my keyboard… and my ears.

I reread my draft feeling anticipatory satisfaction, the kind you get when you attack someone who’s truly had it coming.

This was a bully with a track record of making people cry at work.

Who does he think he is?
“I’ll show him,” I thought.

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When navigating difficult emotions, we’re largely untrained.

The education system doesn’t teach us much about a crucial skill: Self-soothing.

So when something difficult happens, we react the only way we know how:

• We defend.

• We attack.

• Or we shrink.

As Brené Brown famously said:

“We are emotional, feeling beings; who, on rare occasions, think.”

She explains:

“When something difficult happens, emotion is at the wheel. Cognition and behaviour are bound and gagged in the trunk and emotion is driving.”

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Calm is a Power Move

For a long time, I thought the goal was to “control” my emotions.
But I see it differently now.

My goal is always to remain calm.

Because calm changes everything:

• How clearly I think

• What I say

• What I don’t say

• How I feel about myself afterwards

Looking back, I can trace most of my worst decisions to moments where I lost my calm.

So over time, I started practicing something simple:

Interrupting myself before I react.

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3 Simple Steps That Actually Work

Here’s what actually made the difference for me.

First: I notice what’s going on in my body.
Tight jaw + Heated chest + Fast typing = That’s my cue.

Second: I press pause on the reaction
I finish the email, but I don’t send it yet.

Third: I create some space.
I take a few breaths and I do something else for a while.

Only then do I ask myself one powerful question:

What would the best version of me do here? The one aspire to be?

An alternative could be: What would <person I look up to> do here?

Then go I ahead and try to do just that.

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When the Best Reaction is No Reaction

After saving my furious email as a draft for later, I moved on to other tasks.

A couple of hours later, I reread the offending message.
I was still annoyed, but calmer.

I wondered what the best version of myself would do.

And from that place, the answer was obvious.

The best version of me would not engage.
She would simply rise above it.
She wouldn’t give this man a minute more of her attention.
“When they go low, we go high”, as the saying goes.

I could almost see her. Professional and unbothered

And for a brief moment, I was her.

So I deleted my draft and moved on. Just like that.
And you can too.

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This was one small example of choosing calm. I’m curious where this shows up for you.

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And if moments like this keep coming up and you want a space to unpack them, that’s something I can support you with. Fill out this short form and let’s have a chat about it.