Calm Under Fire: A Lesson In Staying Calm

G’day. Maybe you’ve got someone at work who’s good in a crisis, so calm under fire. My colleague, John certainly was that for me. He was always so wise and practical and funny but there was that other quality to John that emerged one day.

It was a wild and windy day, the sort of day when nature seems to be venting its spleen and kids go wild. I had a special case with a young boy, Joshua, who had Downs Syndrome and was proving a handful for his parents. They needed to speak to me without Josh present so we set him up out in the waiting room with a kids’ TV program. I then took the extra precaution of alerting the secretaries that Josh was a somewhat uninhibited boy and asked them to ensure that they kept an eye on him.

John was in the adjoining room doing a hypnotherapy session with a chap on leave due to dysfunctional anxiety. John told me at the end of the day that his session had gone something like this – he was in the process of getting this chap to relax and focus just on John’s voice – “Damien, I just want you to relax, shut your eyes and just listen to my voice. Just leave the outside world behind for just a little while and enjoy the peace”. At that point, with the storm raging outside, a branch flapped and flapped at the window and John could see Damien was getting agitated. So he tried hard to get Damien to ignore it and re-focus just on his voice. Having just about achieved that, a large branch of a tree hanging over the clinic then fell with a loud thump onto the wrought iron roof. Damien startled and opened his eyes and gripped the sides of the couch. Again John managed to draw him back just to their room and Damien started to relax again. They were just getting back into their session when suddenly the door was flung open and in burst Joshua with my worrywoo Fuddle, just hoping this was the room his parents were in. He was closely followed by a very embarrassed secretary who swung Josh into her arms and apologized profusely and repeatedly to John and Damien as she took Josh back to the TV.

At no stage did John raise his voice or lose the confident connection he had with Damien. But he did apologize to Damien and they rescheduled their session. Don’t you just admire people who can do that? So calm under fire. The truth is nothing is ever resolved or improved once the amygdala takes over and we get into fight or flight mode, but sometimes it’s hard to stay that calm. When I asked John how he did it, he said he just did to himself what he was asking Damien to do – breathe deeply and slowly and keep the brain in charge of the chaos. I’ve tried to follow John’s style, don’t always make it but it’s always a better outcome when I do! Thanks Johnno!