Taking Control of Our Narrative

Life in recent weeks has been a bit like living in the middle of a suspense-thriller, hasn’t it?  Protagonists are working tirelessly to unravel medical mysteries and to create structures to sustain us.  Drama (real and manufactured) flourishes on an epic scale.  There are heroes and villains.  And there, in the midst of it all, we find ourselves. We are living in a massive social experiment the likes of which we have not seen in our collective memory.  There are historical analogies, but none of us can look at current events and say, “Ah – this is a familiar story.  I remember what I do about this and how it will work out.”

It is precisely the uncertainty of how and when this will come to an end that is keeping many of us teetering on the edge.  We know the setting, the characters, and the conflict.  We are living the rising action.  When is the climax?  The resolution?  What will the setting look like when this story is done?  How will the characters evolve?  We are living in a cliff-hanger, which is a very uncomfortable place to be.  I have been reading a lot about our individual and collective response to crises in the past couple of weeks.  Today’s blog is about the best and most helpful of what I have learned.

The Debilitating Nature of Uncertainty

It is human nature to think that with more information comes greater control.  We try to fill in what we don’t know through social media posts, news agencies, and internet searches.  The message of the story changes very little from day to day: this is serious; wash your hands; self-isolate; the common good is of paramount importance now. The unwavering message gives us little consolation – we don’t know more about the future than we did yesterday.  Are we making progress?  Is the story advancing?  Maybe if we just had more information…

It reminds me in some ways of when my mother who, in later years, developed dementia.  When we would drive somewhere together, she would sit in the front seat next to me and take her wallet out of her pocket and rifle through it.  Then she would then place her wallet back in her pocket, only to repeat the entire scene about three minutes later.  When I would ask her what she was looking for, she would look at me anxiously and say, “I don’t know.”  She knew that she had forgotten a great deal and it worried her that something that she had forgotten was important.  And so, she searched endlessly for missing bits, finding little consolation in her search.

Leaning Into Uncertainty

There can be no doubt that our inability to decrease our uncertainty or increase our control is uncomfortable.  However, if we could take a 30,000’ view of uncertainty, we would see that in the midst of uncertainty and chaos is opportunity.  Austrian psychiatrist Viktor Frankl has been credited with the idea that “between stimulus and response, there is a space. In that space lies our freedom and power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.”  We have plenty of stimuli right now.  Everywhere we look are reminders that uncertainty will be with us for some time to come.  This provokes us into the anxious response that we need to DO SOMETHING about it all.  Right now!

The irony is that operating from a place of anxiety or fear can drive our response to be reactionary, as if on auto-pilot. When that happens, we give away our opportunity for growth and freedom, which in turn makes us feel more anxious and fearful.  Our misplaced feelings that we need to control the uncontrollable can be what most disempowers us. 

So, let’s take a collective breath.  A big enough breath to find that space between stimulus and response.  Let’s remember the Indian proverb that says that it will all be ok in the end; if it is not ok right now, it is not yet the end.  Let’s stop perseverating in the stimulus, and intentionally – perhaps courageously – choose a response. 

What Can We Do For Ourselves

The key is taking a proactive step forward.  Choose to act rather than to react in just one aspect of your life. What you choose matters less than that you choose.  Choice is empowering, and stepping forward builds some control over one aspect of life.

An easy first-step that has been recommended by a wide variety of experts is to establish a routine. Establish 3-4 things that you will do every day without fail.  Commit to a schedule.  This creates little pockets of control that help reduce the generalized feelings of anxiety.  For those portions of your day that are guided by routine, there is certainty…  Every day I will be up by 7:00 and will begin with meditation before engaging with the digital world. 

As you establish your routine, carefully consider which of your routines fan the fire of anxiety.  Are you starting every day with breaking news or going down rabbit holes of online research about COVID-19?  Remember that the overall message that guides what you need to do doesn’t change from day-to-day.  Ask yourself what things in your day produce joy.  Replace the anxiety contributors with joy producers.  They might be small, short, and simple…  I will spend no more than 15 minutes each day on breaking news.  After that, I will spend 30 minutes with nature.  If the weather is bad, I will at least sit by an open window, breathe fresh air, and watch the birds from inside. 

With an established routine, you can then turn your attention to a new project for progress.  What kind of project?  Choose something that will feed your heart, mind, or soul.  Choose something that exercises your creativity or fires the synapses in your brain to create new learning.  It doesn’t have to be something others would consider “productive”.  Maybe you rearrange the living room furniture or organize a shelf.   Perhaps you teach yourself to play the guitar or paint with watercolors.  Or you might learn how to be more effective using Zoom with your students.  Montessorians extraordinaire Letty Rising and Andy Lulka created a 90-minute webinar on using Zoom for teleteaching, in which they talk about the internet as a new prepared environment.  The webinar includes basic mechanics of using Zoom and some great tips for using Zoom with students – some technical, some interpersonal, and some legal.  They recorded the webinar; it can be viewed at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dnirI1JO5QE&fbclid=IwAR2-PfGLd-usHTGheqeGdGa1YGdQn6A9trmalP7cql5mu-uH_3As-DzyZBU . 

You might be thinking, “but wait – isn’t that inviting more change?  It is.  But this much has always been true: a life well lived is constantly in the process of choosing what to reform and what to renew – what to change and what to keep.  We don’t want to allow fear and anxiety to trigger a “hunker down” response.  Trying to prevent change creates stagnation.  Taking control of change through choice creates a sense of agency.

Oh Yeah … And Self-Care

It could be that the most important step forward is exercising self-care.  There has been a lot of advice about getting outside, staying hydrated, eating healthy, and getting daily exercise.  We all know these.  Do them.  No kidding.  It is also really important to pay attention to the emotions that you are having, especially if they are new or more intense than usual.

Loneliness is probably the most common “new” emotion.  If you are lonely, don’t dismiss it. Isolation magnifies negative emotions like loneliness, as can trying to ignore or repress them.  Those feelings are urging you to make more and/or better quality connections.  Of course, virtual coffee (or happy hour) with a friend or several friends allows you to connect.  Over coffee, push yourselves to get past the superficial small-talk.  Be sure that some of your time is spent meaningfully, whatever that means to you and your contacts.  Try to look beyond screen, into the other’s eyes, heart, and soul.  Be sure that at the end of the connection, everyone feels as though they have been seen and heard.  In so doing, we bring one another into being.  Meaningfulness, not activity, brings us out of isolation.  We transform one another from observers of life to participants in life. 

Finally, we often talk about the importance of living in gratitude.  This has never been more important in our collective memories.  Doing this in writing – recording gratitudes by date – creates accountability.  Challenge yourself to name at least 3 things within the last 24 hours that inspire your gratitude.

Image by Felix Lichtenfeld from Pixabay 

Reflection for Adults: Choose whichever of these most apply to you today.

• ON ROUTINE: What things can I commit to doing every day without fail?  Do I know someone else who would benefit from developing pockets of control in their days – someone who could be my accountability buddy?
• ON CHOOSING MY RESPONSES:  Which of my responses are reactive… where am I giving up having the freedom to choose my response to everyday stimuli?  Are there activities in my current routine that trigger these responses that I can replace with other, less evocative activities?  When choosing replacement activities, what would best meet my current needs: activities that create more peace and quiet or less?  More work of the hands or less? 
• ON A PROJECT FOR PROGRESS:   What would I love to explore that I have the resources to do now?  What would feed your heart, mind, or soul and exercise my creativity or my brain?  Is there a project that has been waiting in the wings? 
• ON MY NEED FOR CONNECTIVITY:  Are my needs for connectivity being met?  Am I having authentic conversations with people that make me feel seen, heard, and valued?
• ON OTHERS’ NEED FOR CONNECTIVITY: We cannot shine a light on another person without some of that light reflecting back on us.  Who in my life might need to be seen today?  How can I be that person’s person today?
• ON CHILDREN:  What of this do the children in my community most need to hear and do right now and how can I bring this to them?

“The whole of humanity is really united today,
both economically, materially, and intellectually;
so united that it can be considered to form one nation.“

Maria Montessori, Copenhagen lectures, 1937