Have you ever wanted to stay calm and carry on?

Have you been caught up by stress or in a reaction of concern, worry, fear or hyper-vigilance?

Once you extract yourself from the reaction you’ll find is just an unnecessary drain on your life force.

Here are 3 ways to be and stay calm – even in the face of the unface-able…

1. Drop the vigilance:  There is no doubt you are given every opportunity consume endless hours of news, Tweets, and streaming headlines on tickers on the TV or iPad.   News these days, if you let it – is 24/7.   Somewhere, somehow, we have been conditioned that this IS the information age – and information is what we need more of.

Unfortunately, with the pull towards needing more information, we get caught up in the stress that is caused by our own interpretation of the issues.   We forget there is a distinction between what is happening and our own reaction to what is happening.   In short, we get caught up in our own reactive emotions.   If we feel anxiety, worry, or fear as a result of our needing to take a perspective that we can control more by learning more, it’s a slippery slope to being caught up in it all.

So much better to turn into the awareness that those reactive emotions are not very useful at all.   Once you do, you’ll look at news and information in general – in a whole different light.

I  might even suggest you might want to try putting yourself on a ‘news’ diet for a week or so – and then see if you notice in your own ability to be and stay calm.

2. Unplug from that charged feeling when it happens.   A simple shift to neutral can be all that is needed to turn around a negative state of being into a positive one.  Just like driving a car – it’s so much easier to go from reverse to drive – if you stop for a second and shift through neutral.  Unplug from the charge of the emotion – and just allow yourself to settle down into neutral – then you can calmly respond.

3. Practice ‘Being’ calm.   The more you practice the state of calm, the easier it is to use it.   If you have a meditation practice, a quiet practice of prayer, writing, or sitting – your body becomes accustomed to the mind-body state that practice creates.   The benefit of this is that you can choose to go there quickly if you have rehearsed going there in the first place.

What tips would you give to others to help them be and stay calm?