Bruce Lee captured it perfectly: “One of the best lessons you can learn in life is to master how to remain calm. Calm is a superpower.”
Why is calmness a superpower? Because it allows you to use your mind as it’s meant to be used: solving the situation at hand. When you lose your calm, your mind becomes preoccupied with handling anxiety and worry, leaving little capacity to focus on the actual problem. Simply put, staying calm means you can think and act clearly. Losing your calm? Not so much.
A common scenario where calmness is lost is when someone says something you dislike or disagree with. The process begins when sound waves (changes in air pressure) travel from their mouth to your ears. Your ears detect the air pressure changes, convert them into electrical signals, and send them to your brain. There, these signals are recognized as sounds and interpreted into words. At this stage, no anxiety exists. To your ears, it’s just air pressure changes, and to your brain, it’s electrical signals.
But the story doesn’t end there.
Next, your mind starts making sense of the meaning behind the words. Just as it processes input from your ears, your mind also collects information from other senses. From these it analyzes how the words were said (e.g., friendly or hostile), who said them, the context, and so on. This “historical scan” pulls data from your memory to assign meaning and generate thoughts, feelings, and even a suggested response.
At this point, the simple air pressure change now carries layers of meaning, emotions, and associations. But still—no anxiety yet. Your mind holds this information internally, waiting to share its analysis with you.
Here’s the crucial part:
Your mind is doing its job—analyzing and preparing a response. It uses only the information stored in your memory and the connections between that data. Once it presents its analysis and suggestions, the next step is up to you. What happens next depends on where you direct your attention. This choice determines whether you stay calm or let anxiety take center stage.
If you focus on the negative thoughts and feelings your mind delivers and can’t redirect your attention, you lose your calm. Anxiety, frustration, and impulsive reactions take over. However, if you have the ability to shift your attention away from negativity, those feelings fade, and you can focus on the best course of action for the situation.
A Simple Proof
It’s easy to see that anxiety disappears when your attention shifts. Imagine you’re feeling anxious during a conversation, but suddenly you hear a loud explosion. Instantly, your attention shifts to the explosion, and your anxiety vanishes because you’re too busy analyzing the new event. If you later realize the explosion wasn’t dangerous, your attention might return to the conversation—and so does your anxiety. The key is controlling your attention.
How to Control Your Attention
The first step, as Eckhart Tolle explains in The Power of Now, is recognizing that “you are not your mind.” You know for sure that you are not your finger; it’s your finger. The situation is the same with your mind: you are not your mind; it’s your mind.
Just as your finger is a tool for touching, your mind is a tool for thinking. However, unlike your finger, your mind has the ability to capture your attention without you realizing it—and it often does. When your attention is constantly attached to your mind, you start to believe you are your mind.
When you understand that you are not your mind, a natural question arises: Who am I?
The verbal answer is simple: you are the one who is aware of your mind. However, understanding this intellectually isn’t much. To truly answer Who am I?, you must direct your attention to the source of everything—your thoughts, emotions, decisions, actions, and calmness. That source is your true self.
Your true self cannot be understood intellectually; it can only be experienced. Just as the taste of coffee can’t really be explained but must be tasted, your true self must be experienced directly. When your attention rests on your true self, you experience who you really are and receive the answer to the question.
Building Control Over Your Attention
When your attention is rooted in your true self, you notice everything. You see thoughts and feelings arise, including anxiety, without being overwhelmed by them. With practice, you can consciously decide which thoughts to engage with and which to ignore.
If you ignore anxiety and focus on constructive thoughts instead, the anxiety will diminish over time and eventually disappear. This allows you to experience situations as they are, without being clouded by negativity, enabling you to stay calm in any scenario.
For example, if someone bullies you, your mind will perform a better “history scan,” providing insights into their motives and the most effective response. With fewer anxiety-inducing connections in your brain, your mind can prioritize more constructive information, enabling you to handle the situation skillfully.
Steps to Stay Calm
Staying calm requires the ability to control your attention. You can achieve this through two key steps:
- Realize who you are—your true self.
This often happens through a process of immersion in non-dualism practices like reading, discussions, meditation, and retreats. Over time, the “marinade” of these practices penetrates the mind, leading to an experience of your true self. This “marinating” process typically takes 6–8 years. It is also possible to avoid marinating process if someone can guide you to directly experience your real self. - Learn to keep your attention on your true self.
This step involves practicing techniques like meditation or mindfulness to strengthen your ability to control your attention. At first, you might manage this in simple situations, like when spilling a glass of water. Over time, your skills will grow, allowing you to remain calm in more challenging circumstances, such as managing relationships, bullying, or other stressful situations.
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