Taking stock

Being on automatic pilot is one of the strongest survival tools we have as human beings. Walking, breathing, eating, riding a bicycle, driving – we are extremely gifted in our ability to not notice how we are doing what we are doing.

The same often happens in the work place. We just get on with things, often without needing to think specifically about how we do them. Pretty amazing honestly. We would be pretty bogged down if we had to think about every small action we needed to take  in our everyday lives.

BUT… when things are flipped upside down and life looks nothing like we are used to, we can be thrown into a space where nothing makes sense anymore.
Stress and anxiety mount, anger, irritability, restlessness, sadness – these are all symptoms we experience when our world stops making sense.

With COVID in particular, all the things we JUST DO have been thrown up into the air and what was familiar and taken for granted no longer seems to exist.
We have been thrust into a reality of displacement and separation from family, friends, colleagues and a work environment that made sense. Nothing seems automatic anymore.

What do we do then? Carry on walking through the fog, somewhat dazed and confused and doing all we can to just survive? For some this is working. For others (maybe the larger majority), there is a sense of feeling lost, lonely and out of sorts. With 8 months under our belts of just trying to survive, it seems like it’s time to take stock and re-evaluate what we need to be well.

When we are evaluating was is happening to us emotionally, it is very important to understand that each emotion we experience has a clear need at its core. We are built as systems and everything our body does, serves a purpose.

Sweat cools us, pain warns us that something is dangerous, shivering keeps us warm...

Same goes with emotions.

Looking at some core emotional reactions during COVID it seems important to take stock of what we need when we feel an emotion:

Sadness

This emotion is deeply connected to loss – whether of connection or a sense of safety and home.
A core need at the basis of sadness is soothing and comfort, often something that is found through connection to caring others.
Seeking support, reaching out, talking with others to limit a sense of isolation is really important in times when sadness takes over.

 

Anger

Anger generally takes two forms:

Reactive anger is a secondary anger which comes as a reaction to a deeper underlying pain. Reactive anger can be explosive, unpleasant, even damaging. It often feels out of control and disconnected from how we would like to be and react.
Another version of this is inexplicable irritability or even complaining.

It is hard to understand what need this type of secondary is expressing because it is usually triggered by a sadness, shame or fear beneath.

In times of irritability, reactive anger or complaint, one of the core tools is to “Separate, Regulate and Reflect” – As soon as we become aware of an emotion, it is important to find away to move away from the situation and take stock and ask ourselves “What is really hurting?”. Once we are more connected with the core emotional need, we have a far higher likelihood of meeting it.

Primary or Adaptive Anger is pretty different. It is actually a core, productive and assertive emotion which arises from a deep need to set a clear boundary of self. When we are being wronged, primary anger has an assertive quality to it. It stems from a deep need to protect us.

It is often hard for people to differentiate between the types of anger in the moment.
A rule of thumb is that secondary anger can be more common and is often dysregulated and feels out of control.
Assertive anger actually feels strong and calm.
It is the space we want to reach as we set clear boundaries of self, particularly in a crazy time in life, where boundaries are so unclear.

Fear

Oh Fear… Yes well. Fear is our most clear evolutionary based emotion. It is how our body reacts to threat. Thank goodness really. Without fear, we wouldn’t know how to get the heck out of a place that was dangerous. There is really no problem with core fear. The need is self protection. We fight against a potential threat and run as fast as we can. If neither are going to work, how about freezing and playing dead? Also not a bad plan.

Our problem is that our evolutionary mechanisms haven’t caught up with our actual lived experience. We react in a really smart way (self-preservation) in situations which honestly may feel threatening to our emotional integrity and cause us shame, but by no means can kill us. Having a bad interaction with a boss, making a mistake at work, standing up in front of a crowd to give a speech. None of these actually threaten our physical wellbeing in the moment and yet we freak out like it could be the end of us.

Short-circuiting these mechanism is tough. But the first step is awareness of our sense of anxiety/fear in a moment. With awareness comes the capacity to create a space and ask ourselves some questions:

Magic anxiety questions:

Ask yourself: “What is the worst thing that could happen?”

Then the key questions:

1. How likely is that really?
2. How severe is the outcome really?

Surprisingly, the answer to those two questions is rarely “high” for both.

 

Taking Stock: Our Emotional Rules of Thumbs

In all situations where we feel overwhelmed by emotion, it is important to help ourselves move from a space of automatic pilot to a place of reflection or “Taking Stock”.

For this to happen, there are a few necessary steps:

1. Awareness: We can’t regulate or reflect on an emotion we aren’t aware off. Becoming attuned to changes in our bodily felt sense is often helpful in noticing when “something is up”.
2. Regulation: When we sense a change in our bodily felt sense, a really important step is to separate ourselves from the situation we are in (whether phsyically or in imagination) and take some time to regain our control over our breathing and general bodily reaction. This is often easier said than done but tools to regulate emotional reactions are widely available to us (Suggestions will come in future posts too).
3. Reflection: Once we have separated and regulated, the next step is to reflect. What is the emotion I feel? Is there something underneath it? Based on this, what is it that I need? Is it connection? To assert myself? To remind myself that I am safe?

In a fast-paced world, the need to take stock of our emotional space is key to our well-being.

 

The main part of this is prioritizing this process and taking time for ourselves to actually take stock of what we feel and what we need to be well…