What should we do when everything feels so out of control?
Living with so much uncertainty is hard. Human beings crave information about the future in the same way we crave food, sex, and other primary rewards. Our brains perceive ambiguity as a threat, and they try to protect us by diminishing our ability to focus on anything other that creating certainty.
Research actually shows that job uncertainty, it takes a more significant toll on our health than actually losing our job. It is no surprise that there are entire industries devoted to filling in the blanks of our futures. For instance because of the popularity of astrology apps it is possible to fill in your entire life, just by our birth dates. Religious centers tell us their “rules and truths,” we need to live by with it not even being written in the Word of God. I don’t know about you, but I don’t need a list of rules to tell me how to dress, or who to like. I have the Word of God to show me how to live with His blessings.
Evolution might have rigger our brains to resist uncertainty, we can never really know what the future will bring. In improbable situations like pandemics and everything else going on it’s sure true that the only thing is certain is uncertainty.
Knowing how to live with insecurity is the only security we have. So, how can we best cope when everything feels so out of control?
Here are a few surprising strategies:
1. Don’t Resist
There’s no doubt we are living through challenging times. But resisting this currency reality won’t help us recover, learn, grow, of feel better. Ironically, resistance prolongs our pain and difficulty by amplifying the challenging emotions we are all feeling right now. There is real truth to the saying that what we resist persists.
There’s an alternative. Instead of resisting, we can practice acceptance. Acceptance is about meeting life where it is and moving forward from there.
Acceptance allows us to see the reality of the situation in the present moment which frees us up to move forward, rather than remaining paralyzed or causing us to be ineffective by uncertainty or fear.
To practice acceptance we can surrender our resistance to a problematic situation, and also to our emotions about the situation.
For example, right now I’m finding this knee replacement challenging. The uncertainty of not knowing how I will heal, if I will limp and rest of my life. But, will all the uncertainty, I still have to face the reality that this has changed my life. All I can do is be strong and accept what is happening for the time being. It doesn’t mean that I won’t feel frustrated anymore, or disappointed by the state of things. But a big part of acceptance is accepting how I feel about my difficult circumstances. Allowing this challenging surgery to be as it is right now and acknowledging my feelings about it puts me in a betting position to move forward.
Acceptance is not resignation. Accepting a situation doesn’t mean that it will never get better. We don’t accept that things will stay the same forever; we only accept whatever is actually happening at the moment. We can work to make a situation better, while at the same time allowing the reality to happen right now to be complicated.
Practicing acceptance in the face of difficulty is hard, and it’s also the most effective way to move forward.
2. Invest In Yourself
The best resource that you have right for making a contribution to the world is YOU. When that resource is depleted, you most valuable asset is damage. In other words, when we underinvest in our bodies, minds, or spirits, we destroy our more essential tools for leading our best lives.
We humans don’t do well when we defer maintenance on ourselves. We need to sustain the things that bring us connection and meaning. We must get enough sleep and rest when we are tired. We need to spend time having fun and playing, just for the joy of it. Self-care is never selfish. Self-care is personal growth.
3. Find Healthy Comfort Items
One of the most important ways we can invest in ourselves is to confront ourselves in healthy ways.
If we are to stay flexible, we need to feel safe and secure. When we feel uncertain or insecure, our brain tries to rescue us by activating our dopamine systems. This dopamine rush encourages us to seek rewards, making temptations more tempting. Think of this as your brain pushing you toward a comfort item…like a extra glass of wine instead of a reasonable bedtime. Or a whole bag of chips. Or a extra little something in your Amazon cart.
Turning to social media, junk food, or the booze to soothe our rattles nerves, we do better when we preemptively comfort ourselves in healthy ways.
Make a list of healthy ways to comfort yourself. Go for a walk in nature, call a friend, or reflect on what you are grateful for. Let yourself take a much needed nap, or seek comfort among family members.
While those things may seem small or even luxurious -but they enable us to be the people we want to be.
4. Don’t Believe Everything You Think
Perhaps the most essential stress reduction tactic that I’ve ever learned is not to believe everything I think. In uncertain times, it’s important not to believe thoughts that argue for the worse case scenario.
It can be helpful for us to consider worse-case scenarios so that we can weigh risks and activity prevent disaster. But when we believe these stressful thoughts, we tend to react emotionally as though the worse-case scenarios is already happening in real life, rather than just in our heads. We grieve for things that we actually lost, and react to events that are not actually happening. This makes us feel threatened, afraid, and unsafe when we are simply alone with our thoughts.
Our negativity bias can also set us up for failure. Expectations can become a self-fulfilling prophecy. When we expect the worst,we often feel too afraid or close-minded to seize opportunities or respond to challenges with creativity and grit.
Instead of buying into every stressful thought, we can actively imagine the best possible scenario. We can find silver linings to replace rumination’s. This counters our natural tendency to overestimate risks and negative consequences.
5. Pay Attention
The opposite of uncertainty is not certainty; it’s presence. Instead of imagining a scary and unknown future, we can bring our attention to our breath. From there, we can check in with ourselves, with a simple mindful exercise we can realize everything is under control..
Even when it feels like everything is out of control, we can still control what we pay attention to. We can learn to turnoff alerts to keep the news or social media from hijacking our awareness. We can drop our rumination’s and negative thoughts by attending to what’s actually happening in our inner world, right now, here in the present.
Attending to what is happening within us at any given moment keeps a crappy external reality from determining our inner truth. It allows us to cultivate calm, open-mindedness, and non-reactivity.
6. Stop Looking For Someone To Rescue You
When we act as though we are powerless, we get trapped in narratives that leave us feeling angry, and helpless. And we start hoping other people will save us from our misery.
While it can feel good when others are doting over us, most rescuers don’t really help. Our friends might want to save us – because helping others make people feel good and their intentions may be noble. But rescuers tend to be better enablers than saviors.
In short:
As hard as it may be to say, the best way to cope with uncertainty, is to stop complaining. When we drop friction on the problem,we can focus on the outcomes we desire. How can we make of this mess? What can we gain in this situation.
When we take responsibility for our lives, we trade the false power of victim hood for the real power that comes from creating the life we want.
From Pity to Praise 