How to Pivot Thinking In Times of Crisis

We are living through a global health crisis. It’s scary, it’s stressful and it’s real. Which means that all the emotions you’re feeling about it are real, too. There is nothing wrong with feeling fear, hurt, anger, or sadness. In fact, it’s good and healthy to recognize and express those emotions. But, it’s just as important to develop strategies that allow you to feel your emotions without becoming them. 

This is where intention comes in. First, it’s important to recognize that we all have feelings all the time. Fear. Hurt. Sadness. Anger. Joy. At any point in time, we are feeling something, everything, if we decide to notice. And while we might not be able to control the initial spark of emotion that a situation causes, or we might not be conscious or aware of it, we are 100% able to choose if we want to stay in that emotion, for how long, and how we want to externally react. 

It’s reasonable that in the midst of a pandemic you would feel a whole slew of difficult emotions. Don’t numb them out. Rather, set yourself some time. You have five minutes to feel sad and lose yourself to an overwhelming sense of victimhood. When the time's up, choose to start feeling differently. “Choose” is the operative word here. Recognizing your power over how you feel and how you live makes it easier to build more productive thought and behavior patterns.

What this really comes down to is intention. Behind every decision you make, you, consciously or unconsciously, have an intended outcome. Sometimes that intention can be positive — to be happy, and sometimes it’s negative — to continue in a pattern of anger, pain or fear. The key to having choice is being aware and conscious of your feelings and intentions. Awareness leads to choice.  

This can only be achieved when you recognize that you are 100% responsible for everything that happens in your life, because you are 100% responsible for your reaction to every situation. Without the ability to place blame on someone else, to be a victim, we are left with a daunting amount of accountability and responsibility. While this might feel overwhelming at first, it’s actually quite empowering. If we accept total control over our lives, we are opening ourselves up to the power of building the life we want in every single moment and every single interaction.

Accepting responsibility, setting intentions, recognizing your emotions, and making choices are all muscles that you have to flex. And getting in that exercise is particularly difficult during this time of uncertainty, but there is no time like the present. Our feelings are closer to the surface now and while that can make us feel raw and exposed, it’s the best time to really understand what we are working through. 

Here are a couple of exercises or tools you can turn to when you are feeling stuck and at your wits’ end. 

The first is a tool my wife and I learned from the Wright Foundation. It’s called Sunshine and Clouds and it’s an exercise in switching perspectives. During a disagreement, Sunshine and Clouds asks you to switch points of view and debate in support of the other person's opinion. It’s incredibly challenging to do in the moment, and you don’t get to switch positions to make fun of the other person. Done properly and with good intentions, it opens you up to new ways of seeing things. It’s a reset to your system that you can even practice with yourself. If you’re feeling a certain emotion towards a situation, or towards a person, take the opposite stance and find reasons to feel differently. You might even notice other feelings that were tied up in the stance that you were taking that are unrelated to the issue at hand.

The second tool is using choice and intention. My good friend and mentor Bob Wright always says that regardless of how you wake up feeling, you still have choice over how your day is going to be. Toss the age-old adage of “waking up on the wrong side of the bed” out the window. You have the power to cultivate a life of adventure and joy. It might not always look the way you think it should, and you might not always feel the way you think you should feel, but it is your choice in terms of how you are going to react and be — even when it feels like the odds are stacked against you. When you’re a hugger (looking at myself) and hugs are practically illegal or when you're an extrovert and social isolation is causing you pain and you feel like a victim and out of control, think outside the box to regain control. Make a choice. Intend a different result. As an example, develop new rituals like connecting with friends virtually, grounding your body in nature or immersing yourself in new hobbies. You’re in control, after all. The possibilities for choosing joy are endless.