How can we keep a balanced emotional well-being mindset in uncertain times?

The next few days and weeks can be an opportunity to tolerate uncertainty.  The anxiety, insomnia, distress, and agitation you might be experiencing are messages from your body to your brain to activate Being Prepared thinking because you don’t know what’s going to happen. In these circumstances, your brain automatically tries to help by creating images of what might happen. Then, it pushes you to think about how you will handle the possible scenarios. 

This process keeps you thinking about how to handle potential worst-case scenarios.  Suppose you observe Being Prepared with curiosity and flexibility. In that case, it’s useful to examine and analyze it, which will create an action for you to engage in. You’ll be more able to move forward and move on from the Being Prepared loop.  If you fully immerse yourself in the images like a character in a video game fighting the enemy, you’ll have the neurons in your brain firing a worry message: How will I protect myself in this fight?  Even though the fight isn’t actually happening, your brain believes the video game is real. Consequently, it triggers your survival mechanism of fight, flight, or freeze.  Since there’s nothing to fight in front of you, you’ll produce worried thoughts about whether the perceived threat will actually happen. This is the useless worry that straddles the thin line between what is happening and what is happening in the video game in your head. Whatever moments of calm, peace, productivity, connection, or joy arise in front of you are white noise in the background of your video game. Does this sound familiar?

If this happens:

Stop.  Exhale longer than you inhale.  Count, inhale 1-2-3, and exhale 1-2-3-4-5.  Tell yourself either quietly or aloud what you see in front of you. Then, engage in one of these two exercises:

1. Imagine yourself stepping out of the video game and being an observer of the game, while also looking at other things around you in your current space. Observe it all with curiosity. You are bringing yourself to the center.  You can step back into the game or move on to something else.
   
2. Ask yourself questions and inquire with curiosity.  Ask yourself some reflective questions:  Is this thinking useful?  Is ruminating helpful?  If it is, why?  If not, is there something I can do about the situation?  Do this, rather than be immersed in thinking about what should or should not be.

Moment by moment, minute by minute, hour by hour, day by day – live by observing what’s in front of you and stepping out of the game, stepping back, and watching. Live by observing what’s in front of you.  Then check your level of distress.  Are you an observer?  Or a game player?

—Elizabeth