The Interruption 12
The Calm Voice of Sanity
The Calm Voice of Sanity
— by Jewels
I’ll admit it — I’m a political junkie.
Not the kind that argues on Facebook or quotes polls at parties, but the kind that’s fascinated by the psychology of it all. The drama, the power plays, the way language can wound — or steady — the room.
I listen to people like Heather Cox Richardson, Rachel Maddow, and Joy Reid because they bring something the chaos can’t handle: calm. Real, grounded calm.
When they speak, it’s not just analysis — it’s containment. It’s the way you talk to a panicked crowd without adding to the panic.
And that contrast… whew.
Because when I hear the current president speak — that erratic, ranting energy, that half-truth rhythm — it’s like being caught in a tornado made of unfinished thoughts. But when those women start talking, the air clears. You can breathe again.
It’s not that they’re soft; it’s that they’re steady.
They remind you that clarity itself is power.
I think that’s why I keep coming back.
I’m not chasing the news — I’m studying the behavior.
I’m watching how chaos tries to control the room, and how calm takes it back.
The Energy Divide
What fascinates me most is the energy divide.
Some people thrive on chaos — it’s their oxygen. The constant outrage, the unpredictability, the noise. It keeps everyone reactive, which means no one has time to think clearly.
That’s how power works when it’s hollow — you create confusion and call it leadership.
The other side of that spectrum — the calm voices — doesn’t fight fire with fire. They slow the tempo, hold the line, and remind you of what’s true.
That can feel almost radical in a culture that treats shouting like strength. Calm becomes the counter-narrative. It’s what happens when someone refuses to match madness just to be heard.
That’s the part I’ve been sitting with — because calm doesn’t mean compliance.
It’s not silence, it’s strategy.
It’s engagement without absorption.
It’s knowing how to stay centered while someone else is spinning, how to move around the noise instead of being pulled into it.
The Original Lesson
The funny thing is, I didn’t realize until recently that I already knew how to do that — the calm, the redirection, the centering.
I learned it a long time ago.
I learned it from my mother.
Not because she taught it to me, but because I had to teach it to myself just to live with her.
She wasn’t a cruel woman, but she was volatile — hurt, frustrated, and often overwhelmed by life. There were days when I didn’t know which version of her would walk through the door. I couldn’t predict the moods, the silence, the sudden storms.
So I learned to stay still.
I learned how to breathe through the chaos, how to keep my face steady, how not to take the bait.
It wasn’t submission; it was survival.
It was my way of keeping control in a situation that offered me none.
And honestly, I haven’t had to use that skill much since. I’ve never really been around anyone who scared me like that again — not in the daily, intimate way that shapes your nervous system.
But that calm, that ability to regulate when everything else is unraveling? It’s still there. It’s muscle memory.
Calm as Redirection
The calm I’m talking about isn’t the same as waiting it out.
It’s not passive.
It’s not that “be the bigger person” nonsense we were taught to swallow as kids.
It’s active. Intentional.
It’s the moment when you decide not to match someone’s chaos — not because you’re afraid, but because you understand the game.
I think of it like aikido, the martial art built on redirection.
You don’t absorb the blow; you move with it.
You use the force of someone else’s motion to steer them off balance.
The same principle applies to emotional energy.
When someone’s erratic or manipulative, you don’t fight them on their terms.
You let that energy pass right by you — acknowledge it, move around it — and then use your calm to reset the room.
That’s what those women do — the Heathers, the Joys, the Rachels.
They don’t argue with chaos.
They guide it out of the way so truth can find its footing again.
And maybe that’s why I respond to their voices so strongly.
Somewhere in me, I recognize that stance — the one that says:
You will not move me.
Claiming the Calm
I used to think that calm was just about staying safe — about keeping myself small and controlled so nothing could hurt me.
But that’s not what it is anymore.
Somewhere along the way, it shifted. The same skill that once kept me protected now keeps me powerful.
When I listen to those calm voices holding their ground in the middle of political madness, I hear echoes of my own training — not from a classroom or a campaign, but from the quiet lessons of survival.
I didn’t know I was learning emotional intelligence back then; I thought I was just trying to make it through dinner without a fight.
Now I see that calm for what it really is — a boundary, a practice, a way of holding space for truth.
It’s not the absence of reaction; it’s the mastery of it.
It’s the knowing that I can still choose who I am, even when the world around me is losing its mind.
I used to think calm meant control.
Now I know it means freedom.