How Mindfulness Keeps You Calm in a Fearful Crisis
Meditation -> Impermanence -> Non-Reactivity -> Calm
Yesterday, a buddy and I crashed a rowing boat worth $17,000 head-on into a sailor. We’d borrowed the boat from a school rowing club run by a friend, and it wasn’t insured for collisions of this kind. Shit-Show.
I’ve crashed boats before, and when we crashed yesterday was grim as ever. The consequences are dire. A boat I don’t own is out of action because of me and the repair is going to cost a lot of money.
But my reaction to the crash was calm — so calm even I was surprised. And I wasn’t calm because I didn’t care. Quite the opposite — I coached at the club for 5 years, I’m friends with the guy who runs it, and I care about its equipment. After the crash, I was concerned, apologetic, and eager to solve the problem I caused.
Yet I was calm, constructive, and unaffected by the negative emotions that the situation brought on. I knew I had the emotions — I just wasn’t reacting to them.
In the past, crashing a delicate rowing shell brought on despair, regret, and anger. And I had these emotions on this occasion as well. But they weren’t dominant — they didn’t determine my response. They were in the background.
