The Power of Calm Presence: Curiosity (Part 1)

Reactivity is an enemy of wisdom. Few situations are resolved wisely when, in the heat of moment, we react on an untrained impulse spurred by some real or perceived threat. This could be physical danger (imagine a wild animal charging you) or an emotional threat (something experienced in a heated conflict with a coworker or friend). The gift of the fight/flight instinct, while it aims at protection, very often narrows our choices to only a few options that rarely give us the best chance for deeper preservation.

Wisdom is hard won—it’s not haphazard or instinctual. It’s not only about knowing the appropriate response, but it is, in many ways, knowing the right response with our very being (body and spirit) in the moment when it is needed. Wisdom is the appropriate application of knowledge. Reactivity is the physiological response to stressful events or stimuli—it is ingrained and default, and therefore difficult to bypass without prior practice.

How, then, is wisdom possible when we are flooded with all the hormones that demand immediate, instinctive action? How do we become people who can respond wisely even in the face of intense emotions and stressful stimulus that don’t permit a moment to pause, breathe, reflect, consider, pray, consult, or any other step we might take when some choice is thrust upon us?

Let me disappoint you now by saying that there is no quick fix. There is no in-the -moment technique to simply become non-reactive. There are helpful strategies and tools to lessen the intensity of moments and processes to get out of conflict with as little collateral damage as possible; however, when the moment arrives and the pressure is on, it is the instinct, untrained or cultivated that will often win. So, the work is done in the becoming and there is a path for becoming. The simple answer is a resolute commitment to cultivating what the writer and pastor, Rich Villodas, calls Calm Presence.

We’ve all encountered people in our lives who carry this calm presence in their way of being. We remember them because while they seem perfectly at home in the world, they also appear out of place by common convention. They are vibrant with life, but more akin to a still forest than a bustling city. They appear as thoughtful and unhurried when the emotional alarms are going off around them and others are frantic. We often want to be around them because they draw out the best in us as if they see beneath any single situation to something more persistent than circumstance. These are the men and women who have been steeped in the power of stillness and seem to carry it into the noise of daily life. They are weighty boulders unmoved by the torrent floodwaters encountered each day from within and from the outside pressure to sweep us away. Calm presence is a powerful force that quietly opposes the grasping, clamoring, and hustling world that is born in scarcity and ego-protection.

The beginning of this journey, from one way of being to another as with all stories of transformation, starts with learning too notice. Until we can notice, we cannot name. And as the writer, Brandon Cook urges, “we cannot change what we are unable or unwilling to name.” Curiosity is key to genuine noticing. We begin with curiosity because curiosity can gaze at uncertainty with an openness that silences worry. In this way, curiosity is the kind twin of worry. Curiosity and worry are both cognitive elaborative processes in the brain. They are both a response to uncertainty; however, curiosity is a response that doesn’t wrestle for control. Worry always aims at certainty, and curiosity is unburdened by the need to close off with certainty.

Judgement is the sure-fire way to close off curiosity. On the other hand, when we notice without the coloring of judgement, we see beneath the surface of a thing and the story we tell about it. We shortcut our commentary and see a thing as it is. This is especially true when we turn our attention to ourselves. To cultivate calm presence, we must become lovingly curious with ourselves so that we can bypass the defenses that keep our fragile egos from facing the sharp edges that exist within each of us. When we are too tightly tethered to the story we tell about ourselves, we cannot reach for who we could become.

So, what is genuinely true of us? You are now, in this moment, the beloved of God. You will never be more loved or more deserving of his love than you are now. When we explore from this foundation and let the magnitude of this current reality become our experienced reality then curiosity is an easy choice. When we are growing in love, we can face any shadow that may live under the surface, or whatever pain and brokenness we carry—even the ones self-inflicted.

There may be no better writer on this reality than the apostle Paul. He was a man whose zealous choices could have led him to incredible shame, self-hate, and pity, but the radical encounter of God’s love gave him a new place to stand. From there, he could look honestly at himself to see where he was most thirsty for grace and most desperate to give up his “grasping” lifestyle and let trust lead him to calm presence. In his letter to the Colossians, Paul urges the church that in the face of this unimaginable place in God’s love and redemption we can stare right at the patterns that keep us from wholeness in him:

For you died, and your life is now hidden with Christ in God. 4 When Christ, who is your[a] life, appears, then you also will appear with him in glory.

5 Put to death, therefore, whatever belongs to your earthly nature: sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desires and greed, which is idolatry.

The truth of who we are, and who we belong to, means that we need not fear the reality of what was formerly in us and still lingers in our hearts and bodies. Fear not! We can be gracious with our faults but be rigorous about our expectations for who we can become. We mustn’t settle for the old stories we’ve told in view of this bigger story God’s wholeness. Let’s look for curiosity as a doorway to calm presence, trusting that God is at work in us and through us, and we can be tomorrow, by his grace, what we never imagined we could be today.