It’s almost June and the Coronavirus-19 uncertainties and hardships continue to lurk amongst us and throughout the world. While it may be scary, there are things you can do to help yourself get through this difficult time.
One place to start is to focus your energy on turning your anxiety into curiosity.
Curiosity will help keep you from becoming captive to the tunnel vision of anxiety that leads straight down the path of worst case scenarios and overwhelm.
Now, while it is important to have some elevated stress in order to align yourself with the importance and urgency of this pandemic, it is important to employ tools that keep it in check. If you intentionally choose to conceptualize what you’re experiencing as being curious about how things are going to unfold and impact you versus being “anxious” then you’ll be able to:
Think more clearly
Plan for extenuating circumstances more effectively
Be more discerning with the information you’re receiving
Take appropriate precautionary action when needed
See the things around you that are still normal and positive.
So, how do you do that you ask? Well, surprisingly it is easier than you think!
Here are the 3 steps to turning your anxiety into curiosity.
Reassure yourself that whatever situation comes your way you will figure out what to do, next step by next step. You are a living, breathing machine that is designed to figure things out. That is your default, factory-installed, base-model setting you were born with as a human. Knowing this, your task is to remind yourself of this over and over. And over and over.
Recognize there are and will be things you can’t change or control and choose to accept them vs resist or fight them. The tension or pushback you’re feeling right about now is the fact that you don’t want anything to have to change. Or you don’t want uncertainty, or you don’t want people to be suffering, or…a bunch of things that you don’t want. That’s totally normal and ok. The key to changing anxiety to curiosity is to try to accept the things you can’t control at this moment and focus on the things you can (refer back to step 1).
Remind yourself that these are truly historic times and give yourself lots of self compassion and get-out-of-jail-free cards. Ok, the first part of this last one might ramp your anxiety right back up. If so, go directly to step 1. But it really is important to remind yourself that there is no play book here. We are living through something that took us off guard in a huge way. For many, this will be the most difficult thing that has happened in your life up to this point. Extraordinary times call for extraordinary acts of self-compassion, self-love and forgiveness (get-out-of-jail-free cards :-)
If you’re the DIY, super busy, dip-your-toe-in-before-diving type and would like to overcome your anxiety in the comfort, convenience and privacy of your own home, check out my book.