One of the most common themes that emerges in my work with clients is how to grapple with the stress and fear of uncertainty. Sometimes it’s the uncertainty of a professional transition or the end of a relationship. Or often it’s the more amorphous but still unsettling uncertainty of whether we are making the “right choices” in our lives. In helping clients confront that fear and stress, I often take a two-pronged approach, which includes: (1) developing new tools and perspectives to still find agency amidst the unknown and (2) disaggregating the narrative that life has ever been anything other than uncertain to begin with.
The latter component is often quite challenging because in day-to-day life we have worked very hard to insulate ourselves from the inherent—and often times paralyzing—uncertainty that exists within the human experience. That insulation can be an impressive and complex construction enabling us to feel, on most days, that life is at least somewhat predictable, somewhat within our realm of control. We can mostly rely on having toilet paper, on a new season of sports or reality television coming our way, and on the small comfort of chatter in our favorite restaurant.
Yet, at some point in all of our lives, that relatively predictable quotidian reality is thrown off of its axis when we are invariably hit with a disruptive event such as being fired from a job, or moving to a new city, or becoming sick, or losing someone that we love. Suddenly, our system is in shock, and it feels like the threat of uncertainty—which we had been working so hard to keep at bay —has finally landed and transformed everything we thought we knew or thought we could control.
And, right now, the collective system is in shock as millions of humans across the globe have simultaneously been thrown off of our axes due to a virus that has upended many parts of our lives that we thought were relatively certain. Because, previously, even if we had a bad day at work, or just signed divorce papers, or broke a rib playing soccer, we could still go to a concert, or grab a beer with friends, or casually swing by our grocery store for a delicious snack. We could still rely on certain social structures to give us back that hint of certainty. But, in the current climate, those structures—which previously served as essential scaffolding to help insulate us from the fear of uncertainty—have been exposed as innately uncertain themselves.
For many of us, then, we are experiencing a new and deeply unnerving manifestation of uncertainty.
Still, this may be a helpful time to confront our relationship with uncertainty because whether it is in these current moments of extreme disruption and tumult or on the most mundane Monday morning of our lives before the virus hit, the only thing that is, was, or has ever been certain is the present moment. That was true even when we were commuting to work every day on the subway and meeting our friends for happy hour at the local brewery, and it is true now when many of us are working from home in our pajamas and meeting our friends for happy hour over Zoom.
This is not to minimize how unique and powerful and scary the many emotions and fears that are coming up for so many of us are during this time. It is only to say that the tools we use to confront the uncertainty that comes with a breakup or a new job may very well also be helpful tools to engage with the uncertainty of a global pandemic.
Because, ultimately, undergirding our fear of uncertainty across all of these scenarios is our lack of control over things big and small. But, in a deeply ironic twist, when many of us feel uncertainty brewing, our brains turn to spaces that are, by definition, completely outside of our control: the past and the future. Our brains latch onto narratives about what has already happened (and therefore cannot be changed) or concoct elaborate renderings about future scenarios that do not yet exist. These efforts only serve to further expose our lack of control and to further amplify the uncertainty that we already felt, leading our systems to feel like they are spiraling/grasping for grounding as anxiety takes hold.
This is where step one of my work with clients comes into play, because truly the only antidote for the overwhelm of uncertainty is to focus on the one thing over which we have total agency: the present moment. And mindfulness is the tool through which we can access that agency and exist more fully in that moment. Because, at its most basic, mindfulness is ultimately about seeking to live more actively in the here and the now, and doing so can be as simple as approaching the small habits of our days as opportunities to tap out of the mind’s chatter and tap into our other senses.
For example, one of the first places I directed my mindfulness practice several years back was towards the exercise of brushing my teeth. I used to perceive teeth brushing as something that I had to get through before I could do my much more “enjoyable” activities (eating pancakes for breakfast) or much more “important” tasks (responding to the ten work emails already hovering in my inbox). And because I found no innate value in the tooth brushing experience, those two minutes became a breeding ground for my anxiety as my mind wandered from thought to thought, creating a stew of things that I needed to do, or should have done, or wasn’t able to do, rather than focusing on the one thing I was actually doing.
Now, with an active mindfulness practice, I try and approach the act of brushing my teeth as a deeply relaxing and enjoyable part of my day. There is nothing else I have to accomplish in those two minutes. And so when my brain inevitably starts bouncing around to thoughts outside of the present moment (“Does everyone stare at their own face on Zoom the way I do…?” “Are they 100% sure that dogs can’t get COVID…?” “I wonder if we have enough butter for me to make another batch of muffins…”), I take a moment to loop back to the physical sensations of brushing my teeth. The refreshingly cold water, the tickling on my gums, and the frothiness of the toothpaste. Because, really, brushing my teeth is a free massage for my mouth twice a day. It is a two-minute gift of variegated sensations for me to enjoy before any other moment becomes real. And through this mindfulness approach, rather than feeling overwhelmed by my oftentimes incessant stream of thoughts, I regularly chuckle at myself for how wild my mind can be and then I let those thoughts go.
So, while you are in the process of creating a new schedule or new habits in these strange and disconcerting times that we are in, consider picking three of your most common daily activities (washing the dishes, cooking, playing with your pet, dressing in the morning) and experiment with focusing on the unique sounds, smells, tastes, or other sensations of that activity. Guard those activities (although they may only be minutes long), and be more mindful of them, as they are invaluable opportunities to truly exist in that moment and to gain a bit of respite from the unknown. Because when nothing else in life is certain, those moments, as they exist in the present, still are.