KEEPING CALM
Seven Key Skills to Being Calm in the Midst of Troubling Times

-Faith Winters

Available in Hardback, Paperback, eBook and Audio Book

What does it mean to be calm?

A calm person is not taken over by worry, anger, or excitement. A calm person is more powerfully in control of themself and more able to face life’s troubles. Calm people are not under the control of strong emotions even when there is cause for it. Stress, anxiety, fear, and worry are neither good nor bad. They are neutral descriptions of emotional states. The functional level of any of these are designed to serve a purpose; to warn us of a possible danger so we can prepare or protect; to motivate us to complete a project. While a dysfunctional level hinders rather than helps, being something that is malfunctioning and does not work the way it should. Below, we will discuss each of these feelings and what they look like at functional and dysfunctional levels.

Anxiety is a feeling of uneasiness or dread, typically about something with an uncertain outcome.

Functional levels of anxiety can be a source of strength, used as stimulation to be more aware, more diligent, and more alive. Like a person going to a new place becomes more aware of everything around them.

Dysfunctional levels of anxiety can disrupt daily life, creating overwhelming feelings of emotional distress, restlessness, fatigue, difficulty concentrating, irritability, and trouble sleeping.

Worry can be defined as giving way to anxiety or unease, or allowing your mind to dwell on difficulty or troubles.

Functional levels of worry can make you more goal-oriented, organized, and self-disciplined. Thinking ahead for possible negative events can motivate you to plan for ways to handle problems and live safer and more effectively.

Dysfunctional levels of worry can make you unhappy and torment you, leaving your mind stuck in a repetitive cycle of thinking about how terrible everything is and how it will only get worse. You have trouble moving forward or having any energy to do anything at all.

Fear is a distressing feeling aroused by the anticipation of danger or awareness of threat, evil, pain, etc., whether the threat is real or imagined.

Functional levels of fear are protective. They are what keep us from stepping in front of a speeding bus.

Dysfunctional levels of fear may be crippling. They can keep us from doing anything, even from stepping out of our door.

Stress is a feeling of tension that can cause physical, emotional, or psychological strain. Stress can come from any event or thought that makes you feel frustrated, frightened, angry, or nervous.

Functional levels of stress challenge us to grow and change, similar to when we do weight lifting or other types of physical exercise we are stressing our muscles so that they will grow stronger.

Dysfunctional levels of stress can cause damage and be overwhelming. Unremitting stress can erode our health, like the harm that happens when muscles are pushed well past any normal limit.

Changing Uneasiness

Anxiety and worry are normal responses to the stresses in life, but different people may respond with different intensities to the same stressor. There are functional responses and dysfunctional responses to anxiety and worry.

Building the skills of a calmer life has many different aspects: body, mind, emotions, habits, environment, inputs, attitudes, values, prevention and planning. Learning how to change is different for each aspect we work on. What all the aspects have in common is assessing the current function, deciding what to change, building hope by creating a vision of how you would like this to be after you change, then planning step by step the way forward to move toward your goal.

Calmness has many components and within each of them is a set of individual skills you can develop that will help to get you through life making better decisions, having less distress, and having better relationships. Moving forward toward a calmer life consists of making a choice. After making the choice, moving forward happens step by step. The journey of 1,000 miles begins with a single step. Your journey toward a calmer life has already begun.

This is an excerpt from the book Keeping Calm: Seven key skills to being calm in the midst of troubling times.

KEEPING CALMSeven Key Skills to Being Calm in the Midst of Troubling Times

What does it mean to be calm?

Changing Uneasiness

KEEPING CALM
Seven Key Skills to Being Calm in the Midst of Troubling Times