Oh %&*#!

“We all wish to be brave and strong in the face of disaster. We all wish to be looked up to for our endurance and efforts to help others.”

— Clarissa Pinkola Estes

When it seems like the world is falling apart around you, whether it's events in your personal life or in the world at large that are leading to this impression, what will you do? We all go through periods like this, and while they may never fully make sense to you, even in distant hindsight, we all want to get back to having a sense of balance, purpose and momentum. In my opinion, the worst thing we can do in this situation is retreat from thought and emotion and deny what's happening (except to the extent that we may be in shock and need some time to recover). The best things in life come from using our conscious awareness.

In most cultures, we are not taught to handle discomfort and stay functional while in periods of intense difficulty. We're definitely not taught to be open, even with ourselves, about our emotions, and techniques for handling them artfully. Both of these skills have an important place in dealing with particularly difficult, even tragic times.

I'll be honest, the first skill is not easy to build if you're an empathetic person, and if you are, it may never be your greatest strength. Focusing in on the moment at hand and allowing yourself to think only of what you can do to help yourself and others in this particular situation takes strong intention, concentration, courage, and a willingness to reach deep into your reserves of confidence for belief in your ability to serve yourself and others. This is more difficult to do if you feel deeply for others who are in pain. But working on finding these qualities in yourself makes you massively useful when the going gets tough or even horrible. One of the most important things you can do if you want to grow your capacity in this regard, perhaps counterintuitively, is to meditate regularly. There are many styles of meditation, so if you do some research, hopefully you'll find one that appeals to you. You cannot function well under duress if you don't have access to a quiet place within that feels familiar and clear when you need it most. On the outward, action-oriented side of things, it also helps to challenge yourself regularly to stay calm while outside of your comfort zone. Knowing that you can experience discomfort without sustaining long-term harm is an important foundation for getting through tough times. You gain confidence by proving this to yourself through experience. You also gain faith in your own creativity and resourcefulness as you figure out steps to succeed on the fly when you're not sure what to do.  Even if you fail, at the very least, you'll gain data on how to do better next time. And that is priceless.

Knowing how to be open about your emotions and handle them, the second skill set, is more about picking up the pieces when you've made it through the worst of your challenge, because it's far easier to process emotion in the relative quiet and safety of the "after" picture. If you're dealing with severe trauma, it will be best to work with a professional who can guide you appropriately so that you  can avoid being retraumatized as you work back toward a calmer baseline. If what you have work with is more manageable, you can work through it in small chunks using EFT's numerous techniques and often reach a truly gratifying level of insight and peace. There are many ways you can make progress in processing emotion—this is by no means the only way—but I have found it to be the most empowering because EFT is a self-help set of tools that you can use free of charge whenever you need them. Because EFT brings the body (which stores many aspects of difficult experiences until we find a way to release them) into the equation along with your private store of experiences and impressions, it brings about permanent change in ways that just talking about an experience, or turning it over to a practitioner of some sort, can't do.

As you become more accustomed to the process of admitting how you feel while taking simple steps to tap down the intensity of your stored emotions, you find that suddenly big emotions are not as frightening. Releasing them, and allowing in the perspective changes and resulting healing, starts to feel like a natural and even enjoyable sequence. The feeling of freedom that results in knowing that you can thoroughly let go of old "stuff" and feel lighter, as well as get back the energy it took for the body to hold onto that stuff, is a natural "high." Churning through the backlog of old emotion you've stored over the course of decades takes some doing, but as soon as you experience what it's like to get a taste of this freedom, I think you'll begin to understand its value.

Functioning well no matter how crazy life gets can be a pretty tall order.  Building your ability to do this takes time and effort, true, but it also gives you powerful options for creating the life you want despite what's going on around and inside you.  Using tools that support this goal but don't require you to pretend or ignore your real needs is a revolutionary act, and I highly recommend it!  The best time to lay the foundation for sailing through challenge with the highest degree of functionality, and to repair damage you've sustained afterward, is always when you're not in the thick of it. Start now. As soon as things get hairy, you'll be grateful that you did.