Being Calm: Nature vs. Nurture

I have a talented, kind, and devoted yoga student who has been coming to my classes for years. She may very well be the anchor that keeps me inspired to keep teaching. She’s curious about many aspects of yoga, but one question she returns to often is the practice of being calm.

Is a calm demeanor something we’re born with, or is it something we learn or cultivate through practice?

In certain ways, I am naturally calm.

But in many other ways, my mind can leap straight into catastrophe mode, imagining the worst-case scenario.

Yoga and meditation have been lifelines for me in those moments—steadying forces that help calm me down and be present with what is.

In the past few years, life has offered plenty of opportunities to with daily stressors:

• A child leaving home to travel on their own, with stretches of silence when I couldn’t reach them. That kind of quiet can feel like a storm system moving through the body.

  
  

• A parent facing serious health challenges, when every phone call felt terrifying

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• The relentless news cycle, worrying about friends who live in a war zone.

• And of course, everyday challenges and life that come with being human in an unpredictable world.

  
  

Through all of this, I’ve learned something essential: calm is not a fixed personality trait. It’s not something you either have or don’t have. Calm is a practice. A muscle. Sometimes a daily practice, sometimes an hourly one.

There are days when you wake up feeling light and spacious, when the world seems kind and you think, I don’t need meditation or yoga today. But often, that is exactly the day to practice—because the next morning you may wake up needing every tool you’ve built: presence, breath, focus, grounding.

Being calm isn’t the absence of fear or worry. It’s the ability to stay with yourself while those feelings move through. It’s important to remember that being calm isn’t always what a moment calls for.

Sometimes you need to activate, energize, or rise to meet a big milestone. You need that adrenaline to get you there --- you want to feel the waves of excitement and aliveness and not resist those feelings.

Calm is not a destination, it is a journey—that if we practice everyday, it will grow with us over time.

Being calm is learnable, shareable.

It’s something we can practice together, week after week, through yoga, movement, meditation, and mindfulness.

If this exploration of calm speaks to you—if you’re curious about how to build these practices into your own life—I’d love to have you join me for one of the weekly Yoga classes. We gather not to perfect anything, but to practice together: breath, movement, presence, and the steadying art of building our capacity to hold ourselves, build a container for greater calm.