Happy Tuesday, everyone! How’s it going out there? I hope life is going alright despite the transitions and change.

Like we talked about in the last post, things are challenging with ups and downs, and we’re all looking out at the world totally unsure of where we are headed. Have any of you been so stressed you walk out the door and look down just to make sure you’ve got appropriate clothes on, a.k.a. not your bath towel or robe? *raises hand* Guilty of this two days ago. It’s when we get stressed or tapped out that we kind of lose words or we forget half the grocery list… or we forget our dogs’ names for a second (sorry, girls).

There are many situations where we feel powerless, like: 

• Experiencing family feuds out of left field
• Dealing with increased sarcasm or tension at the (online) office
• Feeling COVID can’t be controlled right now, so it’s time to control or be a perfectionist at something.
• Getting triggered and falling back into self-hatred or loathing
• Or having deep, embedded fear about what the future holds

Do you find yourself getting caught up in some of these? Poking the bear, like your partner, colleagues, family? Poking at yourself? Or lashing out when someone does it to you?

Here are five ways to shift feeling powerless:

1. Reflect on what’s true and what isn’t true. Reading Byron Katie’s Loving What Is a couple of years ago opened my eyes to this. When we’re in a whirlwind of an experience, it can help to ask this simple “yes” or “no” style question, to take the edge off and make the complicated more simple. Pro tip: If you answer to yourself that something is true or not, sit with it longer than two seconds to really assess if that’s the case. Be honest.
2. Declutter your mind to get things done: start with a plan, and here’s a post about that.
3. Create time for a daily grounding experience. Don’t try to make time, create time. For some, routine helps; for others, meditation, an activity, cooking, or prayer. Think of what resonates with you. Grounding will help you feel centered and less all over the place. If you can, try to have that grounding in the beginning and end of the day to support yourself full circle.
4. Remember that your wise self is still in there, even when feeling like things are chaotic. I know that this is my go-to reasoning, hell, that’s why this business journey started. Really though, you have already seen, heard, felt, and been through lots of things in life. There’s this piece of you that is so resilient, strong, expansive, and loving. Identify with that, if you can. Listen to that voice inside at the heart.
5. Forgive yourself. This might seem like a weird, counterintuitive way to feel powerful but hear me out. There is very real empowerment to owning things: owning when you blamed everyone else for being pissed off, owning how you lashed out at your family member because you felt vulnerable, or whatever. Own it, reflect on it and why it happened, and forgive yourself to move forward and do better.

Dear ones, you will be able to get through this – I promise you – and we are all here together. When you’re feeling powerless, come back to some of these steps, and most importantly try to take time for yourself. Connect with wise yourself, know yourself, and as each day goes on we can begin to balance out fears and faith.