and steadied himself

[KLPNO]

Hello everyone,

From the book Choose Your Story, Change Your Life by Kindra Hall.

That Monday morning, Jonathan rose early, kissed his kids and his wife as they left for school drop-off and headed to the bathroom to take a shower. There was something about turning the lock on that bathroom door—how it created a space of temporary respite. A moment alone with his thoughts. It was there—the water in the shower running, the steam slowly crowding the edges of the over- sized bathroom mirror—that Jonathan gripped the cool ceramic surface of the bathroom sink and steadied himself. He raised his eyes and met his own gaze reflected in the glass.
“You gotta do this.” And so the story began.

The paragraph above is about what happened right before Jonathan was admitted to hospital:

reiterated the seriousness

Hello everyone, From the book Choose Your Story, Change Your Life by Kindra Hall. Jonathan and Zara are husband and wife. Some time ago Jonathan had cancer. The doctor warned Zara it was going to be aggressive. Essentially, they were going to take everything out of Jonathan—all the cells, the...

www.usingenglish.com

Does "steadied himself" means calmed/calmed himself/took a deep breath?
Or does it mean that he was about to fall (physically) and gripped the sink not to fall?

 

[tedmc]

He gripped the sink to support himself, which obviously wasn't a wise thing to do as the ceramic surface was slippery. He must have been too weak to even stand his own without support.

 

[KLPNO]

He gripped the sink to support himself, which obviously wasn't a wise thing to do as the ceramic surface was slippery. He must have been too weak to even stand his own without support.

Well, the reason I'm not sure of the meaning is that dictionaries give different definitions:

On the one hand:

Definition of STEADY ONESELF

to keep oneself balanced… See the full definition

www.merriam-webster.com

Definition of steady oneself
to keep oneself balanced
He held the rail to steady himself.

On the other hand:

https://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english/steady

If you steady yourself, you control your voice or expression, so that people will think that you are calm and not nervous.
Synonyms: settle, get control of, compose, calm down

And in this case I don't see any clear indications in the context suggesting that Jonathan was extremely phisically weak.
He even walked to the hospital with his wife.

 

[jutfrank]

Yes, he's steadying himself psychologically here.

 

[tedmc]

Yes, he's steadying himself psychologically here.

Why would he hold on to something physical (a sink) if he was steadying himself psychologically?

 

[emsr2d2]

In order to calm ourselves psychologically, we frequently shut our eyes (which increases our chance of falling too).

Imagine someone gripping the edge of a sink, closing their eyes tightly, taking a deep breath and then opening their eyes to look in the mirror and saying something like "It's OK. You're fine".

 

[emsr2d2]

Does "steadied himself" means mean "calmed/calmed himself/took a deep breath" no question mark here or does it mean that he was about to fall (physically) and gripped the sink so as not to fall?

physically