How to stay calm when stressed (6 things you can do to stay calm in times of chaos)

Today I want to talk about how to deal with stress in times of chaos when it seems like the world is out of control. I want to talk to you a bit about how you can manage this so that you can feel in control with what you can do and how to feel better about what's going on out there and separate the events that are happening out there from the events that are happening in your own head. So stay tuned. All right, so the first thing that I want to tell you is that if you're feeling anxiety right now, or if you're feeling any kind of negative emotion— fear, anxiety, shame, whatever that might be— it's because of a sentence that you're thinking in your head. So I want you to ask yourself, what is the sentence that you're thinking in your head that is producing that feeling of of anxiety or fear. And our brains is going to do this. Our brain is going to focus on what is going to freak us out. That is what is most interesting to our brain. It is trying to protect us, right? And it's doing its job. So what we want to do is notice that our brain is doing its job and watch it do its job, you know. And it's going to feed us a lot of really scary thoughts. It's been doing it to me too. And Just recognize what is actually true and not let any of those really scary thoughts get ahold of us and believe something that's not actually true, right? Because we, we are in uncertain times right now and we don't know what's going to happen, but that doesn't mean that we have to go to the worst-case scenario. But that's what our brain does, right? So our brain is automatically going to go to the worst-case scenario. And that is, for me, death. Right? We're all going to die. That's the worst-case scenario, right? But for most of you right now, you are healthy and you are in your homes and you are okay. And that's what I would encourage you to focus on is those things right now. Even though if you watch the news, it's going to feed you all sorts of things that are going to be even more amplified, right? So I would advise you to limit your intake of the news. And if you're going to watch the news, you want to get the facts from the news. Like, yes, I am watching the news as well, and I am understanding the facts, but I don't want to sit and watch the news all day or keep getting updated from the news all day because that is feeding my brain in a negative way, right? So I might not have coronavirus in my body, but in my brain I might have it because I'm thinking about it all day. So I don't want you guys to do that. That's just what I'm offering. So Limit your intake of the news, get the facts, and then focus on something else that's either unrelated or completely positive, something that you can control. So things you can control versus things you cannot control. Focusing on things that we can control is so much more powerful and so much more empowering and feels so much better than focusing on the things going on out there that we cannot control. The first thing you control are the sentences in your brain. So ask yourself, how do you want to think about the situation? How do you want to feel? Right? And recognizing that the reason that you're feeling a certain way is because of that sentence in your brain, as I talked about in the last point. How do you want to think and feel about this situation? You can choose that. And the difference between you and somebody else who's just freaking out and full of fear and anxiety all the time is that you can understand that you can actually choose that, right? So you can choose to be cautious and be smart and at the same time be calm about it, right? You can choose to take action from a calm place and that is okay. Whereas someone else might be taking action, the same action from a very panicked place, right? And that is a different result, right? So they might be feeling very panicked and you can take the same action from a very calm place and just understand that you are doing the things that you know are best to do, but that you are okay because you understand what's actually causing your feelings. And when you understand what's causing your feelings, then you are in so much more control of your life. The third thing is giving yourself some perspective. So everybody has been affected by this in a different way. My sister, for example, she was laid off. Her company laid off half its staff and will probably not survive this. Like, maybe they will, but I don't see it happening. The company is based in travel and they provide photo shoots for people traveling around the world. And everybody is just canceling their travel shoots and they were just refunding and refunding and refunding. And so my sister's position was eliminated. So that's affected her in that way. And she has a choice as to how to respond to that and how she responds to that is everything, right? So if she responds and wastes any time in panic mode, she's going to have a harder time than if she's able to just get up and start being solution-focused right away, right? So if you let your thoughts about that kind of seep in and go too far down, down the spiral of negative thoughts, then that's going to have a different result than if you immediately say, okay, I understand what's happening. How am I going to solve this? Right? And so some people are going to be better at this than other people, right? So I've trained myself to be pretty good at like, Quickly shifting my thoughts in order to get into a solution-focused mode that's going to serve me versus staying in a panic mode or letting those thoughts creep in that are freaking me out, right? And I still do it. I still have scary thoughts that creep in because our brains always do that. Our brains are always feeding us the thoughts that are saying, you know, everybody's gonna die. This is the scariest thing. And this was happening even before this whole thing happened. And now that it's happened, we feel like we have the evidence to support the fact that, oh my God, everything's going to go crazy and everybody's gonna die. But the truth is that is not true, right? That is not the fact of the matter, right? So focusing on the sentences in your brain, asking yourself what are those sentences that are actually causing you to feel fear and anxiety, focusing on what you can actually control, like what could you do right now to help somebody else What can you control in your life? Like just having that sense of control, organizing your closet or doing a home workout, doing something that you can control and decide to do that makes you feel good and accomplished. So those are things that you can control. And when you focus on those things, you're going to feel a lot better than if you are focusing on the news, watching the news for prolonged periods of time. You're going to feel a lot like you're out of control because that is what it's feeding you. And the news is doing its job. It's to get our attention, and our attention is definitely gotten by things that are scary and worst-case scenario. So just be mindful of that. That's all I'm saying, right? So get the facts, be mindful of it, and just bring yourself home to your own brain and be like, okay, these are the facts. How do I want to think and feel about that right now? So then the perspective that I was talking about— the perspective is that like you are affected in a certain way. I am affected in a certain way. Some people are affected in a way worse way, like the people that have it, the people that have died from it, the people who have loved ones that have died from it. Like everybody's going to be affected in a different way. And I would just want you to see the perspective of like where you're at and just be grateful for what you have right now. We have grass outside. The weather is still happening. We are able to go outside and walk on the trails. We have a safe place at home where we are safe and healthy. We have the ability to access the internet where we have everything that we could possibly need, including home workouts and everything that we could want to access for online learning. And we can take this time to actually grow ourselves and take this time to actually double down on the things that we've wanted to do. And a lot of my clients, I'm so proud of them, they've actually been already doing that. They've already been saying, you know, this work from home is a nice break for me. I've really wanted to do this. Or companies that have never worked from home before are starting to work from home, and everybody is adapting to the work-from-home policy. And so that means that there's also a lot of opportunity happening in the world right now. I want you to see the opportunity here. So the opportunity exists for a lot of companies you might have seen already, like delivery companies, and homeschooling books are going through the roof, and companies like Netflix or Zoom Communications or Webex or anything that has something to do with being online online and working online and doing things at home. So home workouts, the Peloton, the indoor cycling that you can get the bike shipped— those are all things that are doing really well right now, right? So there is opportunity being created in the destruction, right? And while a lot of companies are suffering, a lot of businesses are suffering, there is a lot of companies that are thriving more than ever. And that they are slowed down and need staff like Crazy. So there are opportunities being created, and what we need to do is look for those opportunities for ourselves if we are in a situation where we are struggling. And if you're in the job search right now, then you want to look for those opportunities, and you want to train your brain to look for those opportunities instead of having your brain panic and go into the scarcity mentality, which is what we tend to do in times like this. So perspective is very important to see how it's affected you, and just be grateful for what you. still have, right? Be grateful for what you have. So whether that be the smallest thing like your body, you're alive, we have this life. And whether or not we could choose, right? Like if we chose to have no life or to have this one, we would pick this one. We would take this one even with all the viruses, right? And the viruses are going to come and go and that's okay. This time is our time to just double down and really get to know ourselves, really manage our brains, really see that our thoughts are creating our feelings and our feelings are creating our actions and our actions are creating our results. And we do have control over that cycle. So what you think creates how you feel and how you feel creates what you do and what you do creates the result that you get. And you have 100% control over what you think. And that's a beautiful thing about being a human, right? I just want you to recognize that. And if you are struggling or if you do have anxiety, Just ask yourself, what is the thought that is creating that anxiety? What is the thought that is creating that fear? Right? And once you are aware of that, when you can become aware of that, you can work to shift it. So most of you, a lot of people, our brains will go to the future as a gloom and doom scenario, right? The future as a scenario where everything is terrible and everything is going on the way down, right? And I don't know, maybe it's just me or the people that I've been talking to. I know some people more than others. It just automatically goes to the worst-case scenario, right? And so if you're going to imagine a future for yourself, imagine one that is not the worst-case scenario, because the likelihood is that that's not going to happen. It's always been that case, right? And even before all of this happened, we still had fear. We still had the worst-case scenario in mind. We— that's because that's just what our brains always did, right? And now it's just heightened and it's brought up. And it seems more intense than it was before. But our brain was always doing this. Okay, so I want you to imagine a future that serves you. So in a couple of months, you're going to be able to look back on this and be like, this crisis happened, and I got through it. And I was able to accomplish a lot in this process. So you created something that you wouldn't have created otherwise, because you had extra time at home. Or maybe you lost some weight. Or maybe you achieved a goal that you wanted to achieve. You started working out at home, or you did something, you wrote a book, or you did something, you created some masterpiece, right, that you always wanted to do. So I want you to say to yourself, what could I do? Like, what could my plan be? So you should have like a 30-day plan of something that you can control and make progress on, right? So even if that's just running, or something physical that you can do, we can always control our physical body and what we do there. Like, I've been doing rebounder Because I have a rebounder that I've never used and I always wanted to use it. So I've got that out. I'm starting to use that. There's always something that we can control, that we can do, that we can make progress on. And when we see that progress, that will make us feel good, right? So I want— I would encourage you to make a 30-day plan for yourself so that you can do that. And then imagine a future that is amazing for you because viruses come and go. The world, it just keeps chugging along no matter how bad our brains make us seem that it is, right? No matter how bad our brains tell us that it is. Okay? And I want you to know that I am here for you. I will be offering some free live coaching. Watch your inbox for that. If you'd like to get on my list, you can click the link below and sign up for my workshop. I have tons of free resources on my website. You can find me at www.nataliefisher.ca, and I have tons of free resources for you. And I am here if you need me, if you need help, if you're struggling with this, I'm very happy to step up and be here for you. So thank you so much for watching. And I appreciate all of you, everyone here who comes to the channel, subscribes to my channel, all of my clients, I love you deeply, I am there for you, we are going to get through this. And managing your brain is going to be the most important thing that you can do right now is just recognizing what are those sentences that keep coming up on you in your brain. And yes, Some of them are really unrealistic. Some of them are even silly. I've had a lot of silly ones myself coming up, but like, is that really going to happen? Probably not. And some fears are really real, but then we just need to turn those obstacles into strategies, right? So there's an obstacle, yes, but you have a very intelligent brain and it is capable of being solution-focused. And panicking is just part of the problem. So we don't want to do that. We want to focus our brain on the solutions. Because that's what's going to serve us. Thank you so much for watching. If you liked the video, give me a thumbs up. If you didn't, give it a thumbs down. Thank you so much, and I will see you next week.