HEALTH AND WELLBEING.

Cultivating Calm. 

“There is order amongst the chaos” - Carl Rogers.

No greater example of the opposite is true- of the duality of living- is when considering the notion of calm, and that it maybe found through embracing its contrast- chaos, as psychotherapist Carl Rogers reassures through his words and works. In his book ‘On Becoming a Person’ he writes “there is order within the chaos” and how a sense of synchrony can arise through chaos.

Calm has been associated with rationality, an exclusion of feeling, a state of fixedness or rigidity .However rather than a restrictive quality calm, may exist as a more as a fluid capacity, the ability to be aware moment to moment, to embrace change and chaos- arising as an internal state rather than an external.

We can come to believe that cultivating calm arises from the suppression of our more painful emotions and feelings. In some instances temporary suppression of our emotions can be useful and necessary, to temper implusive behaviours and responses, to respond accordingly. However- if we prolongly restrict our emotional expression, this can lead to states of dis-ease. Emotions are powerful integraters of mind and body and it is through their unity that calm and cohesion may arise.

Seen through a neuroscientific lens, Dr Bessel Van Der Kolk in The Body Keeps the Score writes of how soothing stress can be sustained through what scientists refer to as a top down approach through mindfulness, and focused attention, or through a “bottom up approach” through touch, movement, breath and emotional awareness.

At a foundational level, our needs for safety- physical, psychological and emotional must be fulfilled for us, with a felt sense of love, belonging and connection, required for us to cultivate calm.

Thus the creation of calm is nuanced and individual.. It’s a process, a state, a quality of being.

By Helen Coutts.

11. Dec.2025.

References and Further Reading.

Rogers Carl, 1967, On becoming a Person, A therapists view of psychotherapy, Constable and Robinson, London.

Porges Stephen, 2011, The Polyvagal Theory, Neurophysiological Foundations of Emotions, Attachment, Communication, and Self-regulation," W.W. Norton New York.