Being admired for calm should not require hiding every difficult feeling.

Being known for steadiness can quietly become a job. People rely on your calm, and over time you start managing it for them, keeping the harder feelings offstage so nobody has to adjust. What began as temperament turns into performance, and the performance is lonely. Composure that costs you every difficult feeling is not really composure.

Tell one person something you would normally keep behind the calm, plainly and without softening it into a joke. You will often find they can hold it, and that they wanted to be trusted with it.