Jake Burhans argues that calm isn't a personality trait but a skill. Reactive people fuse their identity with their thoughts and feelings, trapping them in a tornado. Learning to observe your thoughts instead of becoming them creates space and reduces reactivity.
Okay, this clears up a big misunderstanding. Calm isn't really who you are. It's how identified you are with your thoughts, your mental contents, your emotions. Highly reactive people aren't hopeless. They're just too associated with all this mental noise, the emotions and the thoughts. They're fusing their identity with these things. They think they are their thoughts and emotions, and when they think they're their thoughts and emotions, they can't escape. They're caught in the tornado. But as separation increases, as you observe those thoughts and emotions, that reactivity drops because there's space. And you're not as swept up in the tornado. It's like you're observing the tornado from afar and you can figure out what to actually do. So remember, regulation always starts with awareness.
