Recently my life has been full of situations with uncertain outcomes. I’ve been navigating new waters in my relationship, my family, my career, and my circle of friends. I even moved to a new town to follow my dreams. It’s been both exciting and nerve wracking. I feel happier than I’ve ever been, and at the same time a bit wobbly with all the adjusting. It’s been a time of tremendous change.
I’ve been able to cope partly because the changes are all so positive. In general, it’s so much easier for me to manage changes when my mind says “yes, this is good.”
But then, literally, disaster struck.
A few months ago in Thousand Oaks, CA, a gunman shot and killed 11 young people, a first responder, and himself. Immediately after that, the same community literally caught fire. Further north, in Butte County, an entire town (Paradise, CA) was burned to the ground. With a death toll is of 86, 3 people still missing, and 13,972 homes destroyed, it is one of the worst fire disasters in recent history.
Many of the people who lost their homes are also employees of the company I work for, and in my role as an employee assistance counselor I continue to personally counsel several of them, providing trauma support and practical resources.
When the fire and the shootings happened, I was already feeling pretty shaken up — then uncertainty hit my own life. High winds swept through all of California, and in a move to prevent more fires, the power was turned off for several days in my little town in the mountains.
Because I was unable to work without power (I normally work from home) I headed for the city, making a couple of trips back and forth to pack up my food and my son. I figured we’d just wait it out down off the mountain. Imagine my surprise when the next morning, the power was also turned off in my new city crash pad!
I was angry and discouraged, and more than anything I just wanted things to return to normal. In the end, I was lucky, and power in the city was restored at the end of the day. But it was many more days before we had power on the mountain and I could return home.
I was totally unprepared to manage all this, being new to a town where, apparently, there are multiple power outages each year for various reasons. And, in all honesty, our world is experiencing great change in climate and how we navigate a host of unaccustomed changes (e.g. the recent polar vortex).
At some point I just kind of went numb. As distressing data about the fires up North continued to pour in, and I continued to feel sad and angry about the shooting, I developed an obsession with the power outage website, checking it every few minutes to see when power would be restored. I just couldn’t accept this was happening. I wanted to have power oversomething.
I went into survival mode, even though there really wasn’t any threat at all to my life or my happiness. I had plenty of money for the extra gas and food needed to navigate the situation. I had a place to stay that was completely free. I had access to candles and blankets, and I wasn’t in a place where the temperatures were even going to get that low. I had a car. I had clothing. I had more than any of the survivors of the fire I had supported earlier in the week. And more importantly, I had my life. But somehow I couldn’t shake the fear. The winds unnerved me. I was worried my home would catch fire while I was away. I was concerned about my kitties, who I’d had to leave behind.
My boyfriend returned from a long trip and I was so shell shocked and tired from the changes to my routine that my heart felt totally shut. It took a lot of cuddling and lovemaking to start feeling connected again and come back to myself. For me, when I’m stressed, what alwayshelps is social contact and physical touch. As humans we’re wired to comfort each other when things are scary! But I seem to forget this when I feel upset, and I experience a powerful desire to isolate and withdraw.
When I finally returned to my home I was still feeling the effects of all of it. I continued to be on hyper-alert. Even though nothing particularly bad happened to me, the threatof it happening was terrifying.
And that’s when it hit me—what I was really bothered by in all this was the uncertainty.
I was born a person who really wants structure in her life. When I was a child, I would organize my toys into groupings, and weed out things I no longer wanted to donate to charity. When I learned to play the piano and violin I always made neat stacks with my music after practice time. Maybe some of that was to compensate for all the chaos in my life. I grew up with young parents who weren’t quite sure how to be parents, and a father who was struggling with alcoholism and being a closeted gay man in the 60’s. In some ways, I tried and tried to create my own certainty by being emotionally rigid.
But it’s like Meg Ryan says in French Kiss: “…there’s no country safe enough, no relationship strong enough…” to prevent bad things from happening. And as she said, when you try to be rigid to keep yourself safe “…all that happens is that you wind up having an incredibly boringtime in the process”.
So I decided to let go and just be in the moment. Was I warm enough? Good. Was I fed? Great! Was I safe and healthy? Fantastic!! “Let it Go” from the movie Frozen became my mantra. And I’m proud that I somehow managed to not only flow with all the changes during that week, but also to stay strong and help others. I went into the office to work, helped train new employees, and continued to help support and counsel people in crisis. I stayed actively engaged with my personal POWERwith the help of my shamanic tools.
Meditation for Uncertainty:1. Breathe deeply, 5 counts in through your nose, 7 counts out through your mouth. Relax.
2. Imagine yourself to be like a tall oak tree, rooted through the base of your spine to the center of the earth, and imagine branches growing from the top of your head into the sun.
3. When you breathe in, draw in energy and support, when you breathe out, release as much tension as you can.
4. Imagine yourself surrounded by 4 helpful energies, one at each direction of North, East, South, and West. You can call in totem animals, archangels, or elementals. Whatever energies suit you. If you are new to this practice, try the Peruvian power animals: a great protective Serpent in the South, a Jaguar in the West, a Hummingbird in the North, and an Eagle in the East.
5. Continue to simply breathe and feel the support and connection to all these energies for at least 4 minutes, or up to 20 minutes.
6. Repeat at least once per day.
With the help of this practice, you can feel invigorated rather than depleted by change and uncertainty. You can develop a resiliency that allows you to help others. You can find the courage to live your best life!