If you've missed the first part of this series, we have gone over three reasons why we may experience fear during a global event. You can catch up HERE.

One of these reasons was that some puzzle pieces are missing, and our brain somehow replaces these missing pieces with fear. Which leads us to the first of seven tools to make you feel more in control during global events... Watch the following video or keep reading for more.

Instead of placing fear in the space created by the missing pieces, what if we placed curiosity? In the prefrontal cortex of our brain, all emotions are created equally, and the brain does not know the difference between fear and excitement, or fear and curiosity. What happens is, if you decide that it's fear, as we've seen in the previous part, then your brain will pollute you with 1400 chemicals to make you feel a certain way, and it's going to bring you down.

Instead, whenever you experience this feeling, try saying: "Oh, here's this feeling again. What do I want this to mean for me?" Instead of experiencing fear, why don't you switch into a different gear, and say: 'I am curious as to how things will unfold and as to how it will happen. I know that somehow, we're going to be okay. That somehow, this will get resolved. 

We don't know what's going to happen. We have no idea. We cannot predict the future. If we cannot predict the future, if we are making it up anyway, we may as well go into curiosity mode and try to fill in the blanks with something that serves us. If you aren't feeling good right now, you are not capable of facing what is happening to you. You need to be at your best.

I borrowed this tip from Wonder Woman's mother. Figure out what you are learning. Wonder Woman's mother once said: "Sometimes, we don't see what we're learning until we are on the other side." Sometimes, you have to position yourself on the other side of this and say: "Okay, a year from now, two years from now, what will I have learned from this?" Try figuring it out. If every single experience in your life is an ally designed to bring you a gift, bring you a silver lining, if it has a purpose, if it has a positive learning, what would it be?

We have lived through different events. Think back to the beginning of the pandemic. March 2020. We were afraid. We did not know what was coming. What have you learned during the pandemic? What has changed for you? What have you learned from it? Is there any lesson that is still there, in that special place you have for all your positive learnings that could be serving you right now?

Ask yourself: "What have I learned before, from my past experiences, that could serve me right now?"

What would you do if you were not afraid? If this was not happening right now, what would you do? Very often, whenever I'm hired as a coach for CEOs in big businesses, they are stuck because they don't know what they are moving towards to. What we need to understand is that time goes on. What the future holds is what we decide the future will hold. 

We need to figure out what we would be doing if this was not happening. What would we want our future to look like? We are moving forward anyway. We cannot just put ourselves on hold and wait, as we have previously learned thanks to the pandemic. The future is happening right now. Things are gonna keep moving!

Believe in what you can control. Believe in you, because you can always control YOU. What do you know for sure? There are things that we know for sure that will happen, that have already happened. For example, the price of gas went up. Okay. You know that. What can you do about it? Can you walk more? Can you take the transit? Is there something you can do about it? 

What do you know for sure? This works for business decisions as well. When looking at your to-do list, focus on the tasks that need to get done anyway. Are there some things that you can see in your future that you can control right now? The things that may change because there's too much unknown, then don't choose these to start with.

When you're trying to decide what it is that you should be doing, focus on what is really important to you. What really matters to you? What are your blessings?

There are people that are in much worse situations than you are, and that may help you stop feeling sorry for yourself and figuring it out: "Okay, wait a minute. Let's face it right now. Today, I am safe. I have my health. I have my family." What is it that you have and what is really important to you? Start adding some tasks to your to-do list that maybe would not have been there if there was not this global event happening. Call your close friends. Spend time with family. Think about what you're thankful for, what you're grateful for, what is important to you and focus on that. And focus on the things that you can do for sure that you know.

You may want to limit your news intake to the very strict minimum, just to keep yourself updated about what is going on. It might not be a good idea to be continually connected to constant negative news, because it might feed the wrong fire. Choose which fire you want to feed and which fire you want to let die. Which fire will you put the wood in to make it grow bigger?

Hopefully, this might have helped you figure out how to gain a little bit of control over your feelings whenever you are facing a global event!

Check out some of my previous blog posts...