I have walked into a room already bracing for the version of it that goes wrong before anything had actually happened to justify it,
I have walked into uncertain situations and felt my whole body organize itself around the worst possible outcome before I had a fair chance to be what it was going to be,
I have walked into rooms carrying a tension I mistook for readiness when actually it needed from me was something steadier and quieter than the version I kept bringing instead,
Do the people around me feel calmer or more unsettled after spending time with me, have I truly allowed myself to confront the honest answer to that question,
I’ve entered a room, already bracing myself, as if I were bringing a kind of weather into a space that didn’t need it and hadn’t even asked for it…
I have mistaken my steadiness for something I either have or lack on a day, instead of recognizing it as something I can cultivate, regardless of the day’s challenges,
I have mistaken the calm for a mood that arrives or doesn't and treated my agitation as something I was actively choosing to carry forward into every interaction that followed it,
I have mistakenly attributed my unsettled state to the people around me, when in fact, I arrived already unsettled and found them a convenient place to express all of these,
What would change about my next difficult conversation if I treated my composure as the only controllable variable in the situation,
I have mistakenly equated steadiness with an emotion, rather than discipline, this has resulted in more missed opportunities and broken trust than I can count…
I have noticed a distinct shift in a room when someone remains calm while others panic, but I have rarely been the one providing that shift, though I’ve always wanted to,
I have noticed the calm person in the room isn’t the one who feels nothing, they’ve decided their feelings don’t dictate the mood for others who depend on them,
I have noticed how quickly one person’s agitation spreads to everyone nearby, and how rarely I’ve stopped to ask if I wanted to be the source of that particular kind of spreading,
Am I the one who makes a difficult moment easier for others, or am I quietly making it harder while pretending to be honest about how hard it is,
I have noticed how a calm person can transform a room, I’m finally realizing that becoming calm as a person was always within my control, but I never claimed it as something I was allowed to be…
I have practiced staying steady in small, low-stakes moments, but it becomes much harder when something I care about is at stake, and the practice feels inadequate,
I have practiced the calm in the easy version of the test, and I found that the harder version requires a deeper steadiness that the easy version never demanded or prepared me for,
I have practiced staying calm in conversations that didn’t threaten my needs, but I felt completely unprepared when the conversation touched something I feared losing,
What’s the difference between my calm when nothing is at risk and when everything is at risk, does my calm still become steady when everything is,
I have practiced steadiness in places where it was free, but I’ve realized the real practice has been waiting in the rooms I’ve always avoided…
Watchwords:
Bracing arrived before anything justified it,
Steadiness mistaken for a mood instead of a discipline,
The calm one decides what gets to set the temperature,
Unrooted the moment something I cared about was at risk,
The real practice waiting in the rooms I avoided
Here is Tikatarot, who dares you to answer the question, “Who am I?”..
As and will always be reminding you to dream: