Tag: Crisis Management

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Anxiety Counselling Dealing with a Crisis Distress Tolerance happiness Healing letting go of fear

How to Stay Strong and Calm During a Crisis

Achieve steadiness of mind or equanimity with your daily routine. This develops the ability to stay balanced and calm no matter what your situation. External circumstances are unpredictable, with uncertainties, challenges, and surprises around each corner. Inner peace and strength become our allies as we navigate through this turbulence that makes up our life journey. With these positive qualities, you stay calm in your life’s adventures, learn emotional control, and gain a solid connection with yourself. You can then become receptive to solutions, even in the face of great adversity. 

Learn the Ability to Stay Calm and Balanced No Matter What Your Situation

“You always own the option of having no opinion. There is never any need to get worked up or to trouble your soul about things you can’t control. These things are not asking to be judged by you. Leave them alone.”  

  • Marcus Aurelius:Roman Emperor

Tell Yourself There is No Room in Your Mind For Worry, Fear or Anxiety

Patience is the ability to stay steadfast and composed in challenging times both large and small. Limitless patience involves being steadfast and present at the moment with a calmness that lets you watch as events unfold without you forcing them without attachment to a future outcome. Tell yourself there is no room in your mind for worry, fear or anxiety, only inner peace, calm and trust through your heart’s wisdom and guidance.

First, acknowledge those uncomfortable feelings or emotions you may be avoiding. Allowing yourself these emotions puts you in a position of strength. It helps you to listen to the still voice within your heart. Accessing this powerful wisdom allows you to focus on enjoying where you are along your path and to savour each experience as it presents itself. 

Living from the heart takes courage and determination. Sometimes we have to leave the comfortable and predictable future others have created for us and enter our own journey towards a life in alignment with what our heart’s desire is and believe it is possible. 

Our Primal Brain Looks for Fear and Can Become Reactive

Years of counselling people with anxiety, trauma, and depression, has enlightened me on the human condition. We are all works in progress with raw potential and capable of self-improvement to become the best versions of ourselves. Our primal brain looks for fear and can become reactive. By understanding our biology, we can maintain a calm state of mind despite challenges, chaos and painful life circumstances. 

Notice what is going on in your inner world, and what you are doing with your thoughts and actions. Practice letting go of fears about the future and stop ruminating on past events. Instead of wishing you could control challenges and problems, accept the circumstances.This does not mean you condone what has happened; the grief and loss is extremely painful and you want to acknowledge your feelings and express them and allow yourself to heal. Although equanimity means the practice of staying calm and centred despite adversity, the way we cope with adversity, loss, and distress is individual. We are better equipped to help ourselves and others when calm, which is a healthier state for our heart, health and immune system. If we show resilience during humbling failures or debilitating losses depends on our perspective. 

Each person handles adversity and loss and distress differently with their own perception of the event. Some go over the edge with small demands, others show amazing courage and strength in handling massive challenges. How you re-frame and put events in perspective and use mental imagery influences the way you see the circumstance. For example, if you have a painful experience you recalled, you may have an emotional thought surrounding the situation, but if you reframe and evaluate it differently you can move toward  a solution. Practice the fine art of relaxing and then re-framing your story of the situation with a helpful solution. This builds strength and resilience during a stressful event.

Call to Action: REST

R- Relax your jaw, shoulders and hands , take a deep breath and say RELAX on the exhale.

E-Evaluate.Take a big step back outside of  the issue. How could you reframe this situation to improve this moment?

S-Stay solution focused. Find the wise voice within you that knows what to do.Become quiet, present and still for two minutes  and ask for your wisdom within yourself: we all have it. 

T-Take action.What can you do to improve how you feel right now?Imagine the best outcome, despite the chaos. Practice emotional control and steadiness of mind daily. This does not come easily to us due to our primal tendency to be reactive and anxious to stay safe. You are not denying the chaos, but can helping others shine a torch on a new direction. Never underestimate your ability to be compassionate to others, and uplift them during painful times.

Relieve anxiety symptoms and improve mental health with Heartmath

Seek calm everyday instead of waiting for it to happen. Accepting that things change lessens your suffering. Equanimity helps us stay calm during painful events. The world is unstable and consistently changing. The practice of equanimity means you learn non-reactivity without being carried away or swept by the good, the bad and the ugly and find wisdom instead.

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Anxiety Dealing with a Crisis Distress Tolerance letting go of fear Mindfulness

When in a Crisis,Try These Four Steps That Work Quickly to Keep You Calm

“Sometimes there is no time to wait for the sea to calm down! If you have to reach your target, let your voyage start and let the storm be your path.” Mehmet Murat Ildan

Kim co authored the #1 Bestselling book Emotional Intelligence: Mental Health Matters,which provides a set of supportive tools and inspiring stories to help women conquer negative influences, harness the power of psychological wellness and thrive emotionally.For more information go to:https://www.awomanofworth.com/kim-mowatt

Julie Blackwater’s legs were going like pistons, a pure celebration of speed on her morning run. She pumped through the burn in her thighs, keeping her pace to the rolling tunes of rock music. The sun was high overhead; the heat pressed all around her. She gradually slowed to a stop and stooped over panting. Her muscles hummed, tingling as she stretched. Sweat was heavy on her lids, she swiped at them, and flicked her wrist to check her temperature on the screen of her smart watch. She blinked. She was burning up, hotter than the usual. As her breathing gradually dropped to normal, the adrenaline quickly dying out, her senses took in her surroundings. The air was different. She sniffed it, noticing a pungent scent. Her eyes strobed the area as her mind struggled to place it. 

The first alarm went off in her head, when she realized her eyesight was hazy. It felt wrong. She keened her vision and picked out the feathery wisps of smoke. Smoke on a summer’s day? She downed the last contents of her water bottle. The cool liquid quickly disappeared down her dry throat, doing little to quench her thirst. She frowned down at the empty container. 

Her gaze swept wildly a second time, coming up short of an explanation until she spun to the east. A few yards away from where she stood, a thick wall of smoke slowly crawled its way towards her, its ghostly mass swallowing trees as it hovered closer at a steady pace. The sight rooted Julie to the spot as her thoughts blanked, her frantic nerves struggling to piece reasoning.

Without thinking, she burst into a quick run in the opposite direction, climbing up a slippery slope on all fours until she had gained a few meters above level ground. She paused to glimpse back at it, and that was when she saw it, above the tops of the trees, a blazing wall screamed towers of thick smoke into the sky. The blood in her veins curdled, the shock pinning her in place, but only for a moment. 

She cautiously swept a scanning gaze around her, realizing that the wall of fire stretched down south and beyond view. How had she missed it, she thought to herself, snatching the pods from her ears. The crackling of the burning forest and the roaring of the fire surrounded her hearing at once and the pulsating flames, though a distance away, beat sweltering waves of heat towards her.

 Stress is a very distinct feeling in the body. We can get hijacked with an unexpected crisis along with a torrent of concerns with worry and regret. Emotions are natural and part of being human. However, when we remain in our emotional mind, upsetting circumstances and negative states can break away on us like a colt out of control galloping for home. When we have overwhelming emotions, just like the horse bolting out of control, they can take charge. Don’t clear away painful emotions, but  shift them, and remain solution focused. When something unexpected happens, acknowledge that emotional shock wave that you’re feeling in that moment. You have earned the right to say WHAT! Are you kidding me? You must become aware of what you’re feeling before you can let it go. Acknowledge it, but don’t park yourself and stay there. It doesn’t hurt for you to take a pause, take a step back, and objectively and cleverly find a solution.

This doesn’t mean that you’re just suddenly all together and over the situation, and it doesn’t magically erase what happened, but by bringing a  different perspective this now refocuses your mind. The Reticular Activating System (RAS) is the brilliant google of the brain. When you focus on a solution, ideas that you may have never thought of before will pop up, sorting and filtering through data on information that you are zeroing in on. In Julie Blackwater’s case, she needed those solutions for her very survival.  This newfound strength and understanding is not a perfect science, but you always know that when you take a step back and trust your RAS as well as your heart’s intelligence, you will be OK. Despite the pain, accept that there are always things beyond your control and that you can make some room for what could be an opportunity in looking at your life differently. This insight may not happen overnight but be patient with yourself, as sometimes ideas take time to show up.

“Change the Changeable, accept the unchangeable, and remove yourself from the unacceptable”

In Julie’s case she was in crisis and there was no time for contemplation as the only option was for survival and to forge ahead with creative ideas. When we look at what crisis has happened, sit with some acceptance of it and not try to change it, anxiety lifts. By letting go of wanting things to be how you want them to be and free yourself of controlling events, you’ll spend more time focusing on what you want rather than what you don’t want, and feel lighter and happier. Take a good hard look at what happened and problem solve on what you can do. Immediately let go of what you can’t control about it, and take a giant step back outside of the problem, knowing that you are in the drivers seat with your RAS at your side.

Four Steps to Use in a Crisis:  STOP

S: Stop: look at the situation

T: Take a giant step back in your imagination outside of the problem.

O: Observe your feelings, put your hand on your heart and name the emotion. This gesture reduces the stress response in the body.

P:  Problem solve, by using your RAS which is the reliable google of the brain, and seek 1-3 solutions. Sometimes you have to think outside of the box.

I invite you to share with me in the “Leave a Reply” section at the very bottom of the page your experiences, and how you creatively problem solved through them.