Uncertainty Posted on March 20, 2020 by Lisa Frisch
Each of us is living with uncertainty. The question is, how are we DEALING with it. In the days after my January 2019 spine surgery, when I was in my hospital bed, thinking about my inability to walk, wondering when and if I would be able to get out of bed without help, starting to feel ANXIOUS, I didn’t pray amazing, faith-filled prayers. My mind was not clear enough for that. But I did acknowledge that God was with me. The question would follow, “Do you have what you need for this present moment?” My answer was always, “Yes.”
It was the action of being still in the moment that brought peace to my anxious mind.
As each of us faces the uncertainty of our own situation, we are also concerned for people we care about, not wanting to get sick, dreading the possibility of passing along the coronavirus to someone else.
And life was already stressful before this pandemic, right?
I want to encourage people, but I will not say that everything will be OK. I recently read Ohio’s previous governor John Kasich’s book “IT’S UP TO US: Ten Little Ways We Can Bring About Big Change.” Kasich dealt with a very painful loss as a young man. Here are his insights:
Over the next thirty-plus years, most of them in public life, I was made keenly aware of the very many ways we suffer and struggle: addiction, job loss, estrangement from family, poverty, depression, injury,, and health issues…there’s no end to the burdens we all share. And yet I’ve come to realize that things are never quite as bad as they first appear, and that even the biggest problems in our lives can be brought down to manageable size with patience, perspective, and resolve. For every darkness, there is a light – we must simply keep our heads up and our eyes open to see what we can see.
A U.K. website called Get Self Help offers practical ways to deal with anxiety in the form of an acronym.
APPLE
Acknowledge – Notice and acknowledge the uncertainty as it comes to mind.
Pause – Don’t react as you normally do. Don’t react at all. Just pause, and breathe.
Pull back– Tell yourself this is just the worry talking, and this apparent need for certainty is not helpful and not necessary. It is only a thought or feeling. Don’t believe everything you think! Thoughts are not statements of fact.
Let go – Let go of the thought or feeling. It will pass. You don’t have to respond to them. You might imagine them floating away in a bubble or cloud.
Explore – Explore the present moment, because right now, in this moment, all is well. Notice your breathing, and the sensations of breathing. Notice the ground beneath you. Look around and notice what you see, what you hear, what you can touch, what you can smell. Right NOW. Then, SHIFT YOUR FOCUS OF ATTENTION to something else – on what you need to do, on what you were doing before you noticed the worry, or do something else – mindfully, with your full attention.