Hey you guys! Traci Fisher here with The Wellness Coach. I wanted to take this opportunity to connect with you guys in a slightly different way and address any of you who are feeling what I’m calling “brain chaos” right now because of the circumstances in our lives. My intention here is to help settle things down a little bit and give you some ways to think about what is happening so that you can continue, in the midst of this environment, to be who you want to be, to lead your lives personally, to lead your families, and then also to continue to lead your communities, whether it’s your colleagues or your employees or people that you know or your neighbors; in the midst of all of this, to be the very best version of yourself.

So, I’d like to give you three “tips,” if you will, in the midst of this and the first thing that I want to remind everybody about is that without our thoughts, there is no fear; and without our thoughts there’s no anxiety; and without our thoughts there’s no discomfort. It is very important to distinguish between these current, external events—what I call the ‘X marks the spot’—and our thoughts about those events. We have to remember that these current events—whether we’re talking about the coronavirus or the stock market or handling college kids who’ve now for a couple of weeks or homeschooling our kids or dealing with family members—that all of those circumstances are in fact neutral and that the waythat we think about them is what causes our anxiety or our fear. I believe that these new, uncertain thoughts and these new, uncertain circumstances are always opportunities for us to work on our minds and to get stronger and to embrace the experience of being human. Because if we look back in history, there have always been opportunities for us to practice this very same thing whether we’re talking about other viruses or wars or terrorism or anything in history that you can think of, it is always an opportunity for us to understand the environment and then for us to decide how we’re going to react to it. That’s exactly what is going on here. And the ones who emerge as leaders are the ones who are able to understand that and witness it and experience it and then act accordingly. So it’s very important right now to stop and acknowledge the very simple fact that there are external circumstances in the world that are neutral and then there are thoughts in our brains, and only one of those causes us to freak out. And those are our thoughts. So, the reason that this is important to understand right now is because when we see that, we can take back the power of our thinking and own it and remember that we have the choice, right now, to choose our thoughts and use this opportunity to make our mental health stronger and to model that for other people. Because we know that we do not get stronger by doing easy things and through easy times, but that we get stronger through difficult times, just like the ones that we are all experiencing right now. So that is the first point: to really understand the difference between the external environment and our thoughts about it.

In addition to that, the second point here is to remember that if we are experiencing anxiety and sadness and feeling overwhelmed, that that is an opportunity, not to hurry up and change our thoughts necessarily—even though we recognize that it is our thoughts that are causing those emotions—but to also recognize that we are human and that we have brains that are going to look for the danger in our lives—that’s how we have survived as a human species. It’s the job of our brain to look for what is going on and what might be putting us at risk. And so, when we have those thoughts and we have those emotions, it’s not necessarily immediately time to change our thoughts and to try to avoid feeling those emotions, but this is also an opportunity for us to experience our emotions and to experience those emotions without freaking out, without buffering or overeating or overdrinking or throwing our hands up in the air and saying, “Oh, there’s nothing I can do about it!” We have an opportunity right now to experience our emotions, to let them flow through us, and to be sad and to be upset or to be whatever it is that you need to be and to let that flow you. So, I want to make sure that I was pointing out that there are many ways for us to approach this and one of them is to change our thoughts and to experience different emotions. Another way is to just experience our emotions and to let ourselves be human and to be okay feeling what we’re feeling. One of the main reasons that that is really important is because what we learn there is that we can do sad, we can do upset, and we can do anxious, and we can do fear, We can feel those emotions without having to react to them, without having to yell at our children or our spouse, or to overeat or to overdrink. And so, that’s the second point: is to allow yourself to feel your emotions

The third point has to do with our actions. So now we know that we are responsible for our thoughts and our emotions, and that we do get to experience our emotions, whatever they are. And then, we get to consciously decide what we are going to do in the midst of this environment, which is in reference to our actions—what are we going to do? I have a couple of different ideas that are linked to our thoughts and our emotions and how we can help serve ourselves in the midst of all this. My first suggestion is really to limit the fuel in terms of the conversations and the information that we are receiving on a daily basis. I’m not saying to put your head in the sand and not turn on the news and not understand what is going on, but to recognize that you are literally feeding your brain thoughts and to be very conscientious about what thoughts you are feeding your brain—what ideas, what words you are feeding it—and how long you are doing that for. I’d like to suggest that if you are going to listen to the news for a half an hour in the morning and a half an hour in the evening, that you follow that with a half hour of a podcast or a half hour of journaling or a half hour of playing a game with your students who are home or doing something positive to remind yourself and your brain that there are other things that are still happening in this world.

I would also like to encourage you at this time to really think about what it is that you can do to continue to make yourself healthy and happy. Maybe that has to do with cooking a homemade meal—a healthy homemade meal—or going out for a walk or deep breathing or meditating or just spending some time out in nature. You now have probably more time to dedicate to your health and to your energy so that you can manage your mind in the midst of all this.

This is all about leading yourself in the midst of an unprecedented time. You have an incredible opportunity to step up and to practice and dare to be your optimal self right in the middle of all of this. Thank you guys for spending time with me today and for being willing, or what I call “welling,” to be aware of your external circumstances, to choose your thoughts around them, to be aware of your emotions—to change them or to sit with them—and then to take your next right action. Know that you are supported and uplifted by me and so many others as you, right in the middle of this world that we are living in, dare to create who you want to be and to create your great. Thanks you guys. Take care.