How to Deal with Uncertainty And Have Peace of Mind

It was March 13, 2020. My 43rd altogether, and the day the world inverse for all of u.s.. The kids were told they would be out of schoolhouse for ii weeks. As you lot know, those "2 weeks" turned into almost two years of uncertain times with the coronavirus pandemic.

Our senses were heightened. Stress levels were at an all-time high. Fearfulness was winning. And one of the virtually significant contributing factors? The uncertainty of it all. Uncertainty about health, piece of work, whether the kids would go back to school, what the mandates would require, how we were going to survive, where we would alive, whether nosotros should travel, what this would mean for our jobs, income, family unit, and of course, whether we should launder our bananas (turns out, that's unnecessary).

Why Is Uncertainty And so Stressful?

"Uncertainty equals danger. If your encephalon doesn't know what's around the corner, it tin can't go along yous out of harm's mode. When certainty is questioned, your lizard brain goes haywire, instantly kicking you in the pants to spur y'all to action and get y'all to safe." ^[one]

I recall when my twins went to Catalina Island on a schoolhouse trip in 5th grade. One of them had just been sick, and the other was in an arm brace. I worried the whole fourth dimension, wondering if they could sleep, what they would consume, if they missed habitation…What if something awful happened? I stressed for iii days, just to have them come home and tell me about the virtually fantastic trip they have always had. My feelings of concern quickly turned to relief, but the uncertainty and fear during their absenteeism were palpable.

Just because something is uncertain doesn't mean we are unsafe, fifty-fifty if it feels that style. Therefore, the question becomes, what are the practical things yous can practise to deal with uncertainty and take command back?

How to Cope With Doubtfulness?

Some of us are more naturally comfortable with uncertainty or ambiguity, while others experience broken-hearted and overwhelmed in these situations. Whether you are dealing with uncertainty around the pandemic, the economy, the wellness of yourself and loved ones, finances, relationships, career, or family unit, here are 11 ways to bring you lot PEACE OF MIND.

P: Perspective

Accept a step dorsum from all your fears and worries to gain perspective. Call up, things are never as bad as yous recollect. That story y'all've conjured up in your listen is likely never going to happen. Here are a few ways to get perspective.

Wait at your situation as a neutral observer. Imagine you're watching a reality tv set prove virtually your life. What insights or advice would yous give yourself? When you stride back and wait from a bit of a distance, it often leads to insights or solutions you lot hadn't yet considered.

You can also find perspective by grounding in what is important to you and your values. As I was writing this commodity, my 10-year-sometime daughter had a friend over. I was talking with them almost how they bargain with uncertainty. Her friend thought for a few minutes and replied, "I used to experience uncertain nigh if people liked me. I would worry and stress about it all the fourth dimension. And so I realized that I like myself. And if I like me, so hopefully they like me too. And if they don't like me, they're probably non someone who I want to be friends with anyway."

Clearly, she is a young lady with keen perspective. Take the time to become clear on what'south important to you lot. That way, when things feel uncertain, you can hold on tight to the of import things, and the rest won't feel every bit stressful.

You can as well get perspective past tapping into your personal belief organization. One of my strongest held beliefs is that everything happens for a reason and that everything is happening for our greatest good. Even if I tin't run into it at the time. This conventionalities has been one of the most significant sources of peace of listen when I've faced dubiety.

E: Excavate

Dig downward deep and bring it up. In that location's power that comes when you allow what is happening at an unconscious level to come to the surface. When you experience fear effectually dubiety, often you don't fifty-fifty know what the fearfulness is.

"Proper name it to tame information technology" is a term coined past dr. and writer Dan Siegel to identify what happens in your brain when you utilise the "thinking or rational" part of your brain to calm the "emotional or limbic" role of your brain.

"Touch on labeling" (putting feelings into words) diminishes the response of the amygdala (region of the brain primarily associated with emotional processes), thereby diminishing emotional reactivity.^[2]

Put only, when yous write, talk, journal, or express how you feel, it lessens the ability your emotions have over you. Sometimes this takes a trivial excavation.

For example, you're feeling uncertain well-nigh applying for a new job. Inquire yourself why. Yous might respond that it's because yous don't know if it will pay enough. Simply don't have the first answer; dig a lilliputian deeper. Inquire yourself, what else? You might realize you're non as concerned well-nigh the money as you are about if y'all tin can do the job. Don't stop in that location; ask again. What else? Perhaps yous've lost some conviction, and you don't feel in a good space to take on something new. Ask once more…until you lot get to the real reply – the deepest worry. Then, and only then, can yous feel better, every bit yous know what's really going on and tin face up it caput-on.

Y'all tin learn more about this approach here: How to Utilize the v Whys to Get to the Root Crusade of Any Problem

A: Credence

Acceptance isn't about giving upwards and feeling defeated. Information technology's about coming to terms and acknowledging the reality of your state of affairs. When you lot have that things are uncertain, yous can move on from wishing things were different, and deal with what is right in forepart of you lot.

Instance in point: I have three daughters in school during this pandemic. The rules at school are constantly evolving. I'thou oftentimes left wondering if they'll exist at school next calendar week, what might modify, or if someone in class volition go Covid and they'll all exist sent dwelling house to resume altitude learning. I was spending a lot of time and energy worrying most the uncertainty. At present, I take come up to accept it as office of our new normal. I know things will change. I know things could happen. But instead of worrying about information technology, I am consciously opting to move on with our lives until more data becomes bachelor.

One study constitute that knowing that in that location is a small chance of getting a painful electric shock tin lead to significantly more stress than knowing that you will exist shocked. Subjects who had a 50 percent chance of receiving a daze were the virtually stressed while 0 percent and 100 percent chances were the least stressed.^[3] So, if you 100% know things are uncertain, you can be more comfortable in that place.

My dad has always told us kids that the gap between happiness and unhappiness lies within our expectations. If you look things to be sure, anticipated, and stable, you lot will always be unhappy when they aren't. If y'all look things to exist unpredictable and change often, yous won't be and then stressed when it happens.

C: Catastrophize

Aye, you read that correct. Play out the worst-case scenario. Sometimes your mind makes up all these crazy things that could go wrong. Nearly of which will never happen or even in the realm of possibility. But when you play out the worst-case scenario and get articulate on how you would handle it, you'll feel more comfortable.

Consider: Practise y'all take the tools, skills, and support to deal with that result? Who could help you? We live in southern California, where we have to be ready at any fourth dimension for earthquakes, burn, and other catastrophes. It is wise to be prepared. If you can handle the worst-example scenario, you lot can handle anything.

Equally you lot play out the worst-example scenario, ask yourself if it is possible (may happen, merely non likely), plausible (could likely happen) or probable (very probable to happen). Most of the things you're worried nearly probable fall into the possible category. By asking yourself the odds of this really happening, you are bringing yourself dorsum into the logical function of your brain.

In one case you've catastrophized, then it's time to flip the switch. It's time to play out the BEST-case scenario. Life Coach Jenn Perell calls this activeness "Opposite Outrageous" – where you play out the accented all-time things that could happen.

And then, if your electric current thought is, "I am never going to exist able to give this presentation. I am not prepared. I don't know what questions they are going to ask me. I'm going to brand a fool of myself. I might even get fired." Instead, you might tell yourself, "I am going to nail this presentation. I am and so set. I am going to be able to answer every single question with confidence. In fact, they'll probably give me a raise!". Why have ridiculously bad thoughts nigh situations when we could take ridiculously practiced ones?

East: Examine Your Level of Command

In every situation, there are elements within your control and things that are not. Yet, we are often then focused on external out-of-control factors that it feels like everything is out of control. Merely there is a lot you can control.

For case, if you are in a rough patch with your partner and y'all're wondering what is going to happen with your human relationship, focus on what yous practice know to be true in other aspects of your life. You take a stable income. You love your job. You lot have a great back up system. Y'all have made it through 100% of your bad days and interruption-ups so far. Focus on what you know to be true. Focus on what is staying the same. Focus on what IS sure.

Often, this is also about controlling your reaction, feelings, and attitude. My favorite quote about this is in Human being'southward Search for Pregnant by Victor Frankl, an Austrian psychiatrist who survived the Holocaust.

"Everything tin can be taken from us just one thing: the last of human freedoms – to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances, to cull one's ain fashion."

If Frankl can notice something to control when faced with those treacherous and unfathomable circumstances so far out of his control, and so tin can we.

O: Open up

Talk to someone about your fears and concerns, hopes and dreams. A problem shared is a problem halved. Studies have shown that simply talking almost our issues and sharing our negative emotions with someone we trust can be greatly healing – reducing stress, strengthening our immune system, and reducing physical and emotional distress.^[four]

Many people don't want to share because they don't want to be a burden to others. I hear ya, but let me ask yous a question. How would yous feel if your all-time friend, partner, or child was suffering in silence and didn't want to tell you because they didn't want to brunt yous? My gauge? You would want them to share. Take the hazard. Not only volition y'all feel better, but it will bring yous closer. Don't feel similar you have anyone to talk to? Find a proficient therapist, omnibus, or talk to your doctor.

F: Focus on the Present

"If you are depressed you are living in the by. If you are anxious you are living in the hereafter. If you are at peace y'all are living in the present." — Lao Tzu

Be. Here. Now. Find a way to be nowadays.

Perhaps y'all're worried most something happening to someone you love. Be grateful at the moment with them. Accept the time to show how much you dearest them. Say what you lot desire to say. Appreciate every little moment you have together. If you can exist grateful and focus on the present moment, you will feel more comfy in the face of incertitude.

M: Meditate

Y'all knew this was coming, right? Meditation helps to bring your nervous organization from a sympathetic (fight or flight) state to a parasympathetic (rest and digest state). This calms your body and allows you to feel safer and more than at peace.

Don't feel like meditating? Effort grounding yourself by walking barefoot on the soil, beach, or grass.

Yet not convinced? But Breathe. Deep breathing increases circulation by bringing oxygen to your muscles and encephalon. It promotes a country of calmness and quiets your mind. What happened when you started to read this paragraph? Did you take a deep breath? Cracking, you lot should exist feeling much better.

I: Initiate Activeness

Sitting in doubtfulness just makes it worse. You don't know what volition happen until you Practise something, and yous meet what happens side by side.

When y'all stand up at the border of something; waiting, wondering, worrying if you lot tin can do it, you lose confidence. Your fears creep in, and you brainstorm to dubiousness yourself.

But when y'all take a jump of faith, spring in, and get started, your confidence immediately builds. You lot push your boundaries. You learn you lot tin can practice information technology.

Action builds trust, and each footstep you have builds it farther. An incredible thing about the homo brain is that once information technology realizes something is working, information technology volition keep that momentum going. Yes, it is scary to move forwards, especially into the unknown, but your action will conquer fright and build conviction and force. When y'all deed, focus on the commencement stride yous tin have.

N: Navigate

Not sure about something, enquire a question. As a leadership and team development consultant, I've worked with thousands of individuals who must work with ambiguity and a lack of clarity. This is often due to a company restructure, new boss, M&A's, or but lack of information.

Once I was running a workshop where one of the participants shared that he was concerned he didn't take the information he needed to finish a project. He wondered why he hadn't received information technology and voiced that having to piece of work without this information was stressful. A adult female across the table apace replied, "Oh my gosh, I didn't know you needed that; I have it; why didn't you just enquire for information technology?" That thing he was so uncertain virtually? He had information technology an 60 minutes later.

I'm currently working with a company where at that place is a merger happening. At that place is a lot of uncertainty, and people are concerned about what it means for their jobs, careers, and families. To support the process, leadership held a boondocks hall where team members could inquire all of their pressing questions. Exercise they all the same have dubiousness, yes? Does having a piddling more than data and clarity help? Ever. Maybe you tin ask a unproblematic question to convalesce some of your uncertainty – or all of information technology!

D: Decide

But make the conclusion. You volition never have enough information to feel 100% confident or ready. At that place volition always be some level of uncertainty to deal with. Determine to practise it anyhow.

I have a good friend that has been dying to get to Hawaii for years. Her husband is in the film industry, and his schedule is highly unpredictable. Every time they call up almost planning a trip, they cease considering they don't know if he'll be available and they don't desire to book it "merely in case" he'south needed last infinitesimal.

Simply approximate what? Information technology'south at present been ten years. Have they gone to Hawaii? No. Might they take had to cancel a trip? Probably. But old along the fashion, could they have gone and experienced a life-changing vacation? I'm going to estimate yes.

You tin let the doubt stop you, or you can button through it and decide anyway. For case, my stepmom and Dad take planned a trip to Israel later this year. Will they go with everything going on? Who knows! But they weren't going to let that terminate them from the possibility of going. Instead, they planned it, bought the insurance, and will alter things if necessary.

What have you lot been putting off simply in case something happens? What can y'all make up one's mind on, move forward, and change if needed?

Peace Of Mind

Similar with everything in life, at that place is no one size fits all approach. Some times of doubt are more painful, scary, and overwhelming than others, and some of these strategies will piece of work amend in unlike situations.

Applying for a new office or worrying about a big presentation is very different from wondering if y'all're going to find a life partner, moving across the world, or awaiting your fate nigh a medical diagnosis.

Identify which of these strategies feel all-time to you and try them! They only work if you do.

Skillful luck and remember; things are rarely equally bad every bit you imagine them to be, and the futurity is always brighter than it appears.

Featured photo credit: Molnár Bálint via unsplash.com

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Source: https://www.lifehack.org/911490/dealing-with-uncertainty

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