Dear MDECOE Community,
Even as we plan to transition back to in-person work, concern remains over the recent uptick of the corona virus due to the emerging Delta variant. How with this affect future plans? Ambiguity has become a daily experience for us, and it’s not an easy feeling to have. “Our brains perceive ambiguity as a threat, and they try to protect us by diminishing our ability to focus on anything other than creating certainty,” states Dr. Christine Carter in her article “Seven ways to cope with uncertainty” in the UC Berkeley sponsored Greater Good Magazine. But it may be our healthiest choice right now to accept uncertainty in our world. “Uncertainty is the only certainty there is,” wrote mathematician John Allen Paulos. “Knowing how to live with insecurity is the only security.” How do we cope with a world that is constantly shifting? Dr. Carter offers seven helpful strategies:
- Don’t resist-Practicing acceptance in the face of difficulty is hard, and it’s also the most effective way to move forward.
- Invest in yourself- Practice self-care. We humans don’t do well when we defer maintenance on ourselves.
- Find healthy comfort items-- One of the most important ways we can invest in ourselves is to comfort ourselves in healthy ways.
- Don’t believe everything you think- In uncertain times, it’s particularly important not to believe thoughts that argue for the worst-case scenario.
- Pay attention- Notice what emotions you are feeling, and where in your body you feel those emotions. Bring curiosity and acceptance to your experience. Even when it feels like everything is out of our control, we can still control what we pay attention to.
- Stop looking for someone to rescue you- Rescuers tend to give us permission to avoid taking responsibility for our own lives. On the other hand, emotionally supportive friends (or therapists) see us as capable of solving our own problems.
- Find meaning in chaos- Social psychologists define meaning, as it applies to our lives, as “an intellectual and emotional assessment of the degree to which we feel our lives have purpose, value, and impact.” We humans are best motivated by our significance to other people. We’ll work harder and longer and better—and feel happier about the work we are doing—when we know that someone else is benefiting from our efforts.
To learn more about ways to cope with uncertaint , please see the article at:
https://greatergood.berkeley.edu/article/item/seven_ways_to_cope_with_uncertainty
For a list of many self-care options, please see our COE self-care website for resources for faculty, staff, students, and the community at:
https://www.csun.edu/eisner-education/self-care/articles-information-self-care
Let’s move forward with a positive outlook and supporting each other in these uncertain times.
Warmly,
Shari