Calm Is Not the Goal – Capacity Is
- Renu Nijjar
- Dec 4, 2025
- 4 min read
Many people enter therapy with a quiet, hopeful intention: I just want to feel calm. Calm sounds like the natural destination for someone who has lived in emotional intensity, vigilance, or overwhelm. However, calm is not the full story. The nervous system was not designed to remain calm at all times; it was designed to respond, adjust, protect, and return to safety (Porges, 2011). The true aim of healing is not the elimination of activation, but the expansion of capacity.
Capacity allows a person to remain emotionally connected to themselves while life is happening, not only when it feels peaceful.
When Calm Turns Into a Performance
Within modern wellness culture, calm has unintentionally become a performance metric. People equate calm with being healthy, mature, and healed, even when their internal experience tells a very different story.
Over time, calm can become a form of emotional masking. Many individuals learned early in life that appearing calm prevented conflict, preserved attachment, or signaled compliance, making calm feel like an expected identity rather than a regulated nervous system state.
This type of calm is often created by survival states such as fawning, shutting down, dissociating, or numbing, which are well-documented adaptations to perceived or remembered threat (van der Kolk, 2014). In these situations, calm is not regulation; calm is camouflage.
Calm Is Not Always Regulation
Stillness is not the same as safety. It is possible to be quiet and motionless while the nervous system is highly activated. As described in somatic trauma research, the body may learn to suppress activation when safety or expression are unavailable, leading to patterns in which stillness is misinterpreted as stability (Levine, 1997). Regulation is not about eliminating activation. Regulation involves remaining connected, aware, and responsive while activation moves through the system.
Some of the most externally composed individuals are carrying the most activated internal physiology. Remember, Calm Is Not the Goal – Capacity Is.
Therapist’s Take: What We Actually Look For
Clinically, growth is never measured by how calm someone appears. Instead, healing is reflected through nervous system capacity, meaning the ability to stay present, aware, and connected while experiencing emotional activation. Small and gradual shifts such as noticing sensations earlier, pausing to orient to the environment, verbalizing internal experience, or asking for pacing are signs of capacity building. These shifts align with Siegel’s (1999) concept of expanding the window of tolerance.
Clients sometimes apologize for expressing emotion, believing that emotional expression means they are “backsliding.” In reality, the nervous system allowing emotion to surface without losing access to the self is a meaningful sign of progress.
What Capacity Really Means
Capacity is the ability to experience intensity, discomfort, or activation while remaining connected to self, grounded in awareness, and able to move through the experience without collapsing or abandoning oneself. It reflects the ability to stay within an expanding window of tolerance rather than moving quickly into overwhelm or shutdown (Siegel, 1999).
Capacity sounds like the following types of internal statements:
"I notice I am overwhelmed, and I can stay with myself."
"This emotion feels big, and I can move through it slowly."
"My body is activated, and I still have access to choice."
A lack of activation does not define healing. The presence of self-connection during activation defines it.
Why Capacity Matters More Than Calm
Calm is a temporary state. Capacity is a durable internal resource.
Calm depends on external conditions being manageable.
Capacity allows a person to navigate emotional intensity, relational conflict, uncertainty, and stress with internal anchoring.
When capacity increases, activation no longer feels like danger. The body learns that activation can be experienced, moved through, and resolved. As van der Kolk (2014) noted, the nervous system learns safety through repeated experiences of returning to connection, not through forced suppression.
How Capacity Is Built
Capacity develops gradually rather than instantly. It grows through titration, interoceptive awareness, co-regulation, gentle exposure to tolerable activation, and repeated experiences of staying connected during emotional movement (Levine, 1997). Capacity develops through safety, presence, consistency, and relational support rather than pressure or perfection.
Capacity strengthens like a muscle: It is practiced, not performed.
If You Are Not Calm Yet, You Are Not Behind
Calm may feel inconsistent or unfamiliar, but that does not mean healing is not happening. It may simply mean that your nervous system is still learning what safety feels like rather than working to maintain an appearance. You may be shifting from a survival-based strategy to a capacity-based way of relating to yourself.
This experience is not a setback. It is evidence that learning is in progress.
A Reframe to Carry With You
Healing is not measured by how calm you appear. Healing is measured by how safely you can stay with yourself when calm is unavailable.
Resonating with that Renu is saying.
Schedule a free 20 minute virtual consultation to discuss more!
References
Levine, P. A. (1997). Waking the tiger: Healing trauma. North Atlantic Books. https://www.northatlanticbooks.com/shop/waking-the-tiger-healing-trauma/
Porges, S. W. (2011). The polyvagal theory: Neurophysiological foundations of emotions, attachment, communication, and self-regulation. W. W. Norton & Company. https://wwnorton.com/books/The-Polyvagal-Theory
Siegel, D. J. (1999). The developing mind: Toward a neurobiology of interpersonal experience. The Guilford Press. https://www.guilford.com/books/The-Developing- Mind/Daniel-Siegel/9781462542758 [KL1]
Van der Kolk, B. A. (2014). The body keeps the score: Brain, mind, and body in the healing of trauma. Viking. https://www.besselvanderkolk.com/resources/the-body-keeps-the-score