I have been working on “being calm.”  I consider this to be a great attribute–to be calm in the face of the storm.  Besides it is healthier–blood pressure stays low, less wrinkles scowling — and I believe that there is a power in being calm, that you can help everyone around you who is starting to melt down, just by being the one calm person.  Sometimes, it is almost a game for me, to see if I can remain calm when one of my kids or husband is beginning to “lose his cool.”

Last night, I dropped Gene off at the airport for one of many flights that is part of his work.  It was a late night flight.  He arrived and I had reserved him a room in a new place.    He had to take a shuttle, get a rental car, the whole deal.  I  called him about 11:30 pm ( 12:30 am his time) and sure enough he was lost.  We have iphones that are perfect for everything–you can map your destination and have it locate where you are.  So I was trying to talk him through the “how to use the map function” and he was  getting frustrated.  I remained calm, as I could see he was tired, and could not get the map application to work, so I pulled out my laptop, got his location on google map–

“Are you on I-70?  you need to find the 60, also called highway 60, go east… yea if you are passing Jefferson Park on your right, you are going the correct direction.”
Eventually he made it.

One of my favorite “be calm” moments is helping my mom over the phone with an IT computer issue–even as she is getting annoyed “it’s not working, it’s not working!”

Or when one of my sons cannot find something, usually shoes, because of course I wear his size 10 shoes–I breath deeply and calmly ask him, “ where were you when you took them off?”

Nail clippers are inevitably lost–it doesn’t matter that I have purchased a pair for each person in the household and told them,  “here, these are yours, put them in a place where you will find them when you need them.”  That,  I have calmly learned to accept.

Of course, I do consciously have to work on the “be calm” in the face of the storm.  It is like a hurricane, and you have to remain in the calm zone— in the eye–good symbolism, as you can see better to help solve the problem when you stay calm.

But I have not always remained in the calm zone, and sometimes I may have started a storm or two.  But I do feel better, have more power, and often resolve the conflict quicker when I can calmly say,

“…hmmmm, do you see the little icon shaped like a book at the top, right hand corner of your screen?”