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When your world is turned upside down

Right now most of us are dealing with change across multiple areas of our lives: work, family, social and recreational. It’s a lot to deal with all at once. It’s normal to feel tired and overwhelmed at times. Adjusting to change is challenging, and to be dealing with it on multiple fronts with uncertainty is particularly difficult. But it is also an opportunity.

Right now it feels like your world is upside down. You may feel uncertain of your (and your family’s future). You may already be unsure about your business and job situation. And of course, the main concern- your health and that of your loved ones.

I want you to know that it’s okay to feel completely thrown off balance by all this. I want to share what the common experience of dealing with a crisis, a loss and change are for most people.

I want you to understand that what you’re feeling is normal and very human. It’s nothing to be ashamed about. We all have a similar experience when it comes to loss and change.

I also want to remind you that you are resilient. For almost all of us, this is not our first experience of a crisis in our lives. It may be the biggest one you’ve seen, maybe not. But a lot of us have already seen and experienced difficult times before.

If you have ever grieved, lost or left everything you know and completely started over… you already have the skills to be resilient. You may need to be reminded, but you still know deep within, that it will be okay. You will manage it. Your world may not be same again, but you will emerge stronger and more compassionate. It is the vulnerability that you’ve already embraced that will be your strength.

For now though, you might be at the surface level where the waves are rough and there is little stillness. At the beginning of a major crisis when the chaos is still whirring, you may experience some challenging feelings and thoughts.
It is common in a crisis to experience one or more of the following:

Feelings of overwhelm and powerlessnessNo, we cannot control the world. When the world reminds us of this in a big way, it can be very overwhelming. We experience feelings of powerlessness. We feel as if we’ve been beaten down.
This is a normal reaction to big changes that you didn’t choose to make. 

Anger
Are you posting angry comments on social media? Are you complaining about the government? The people that bought all the toilet paper? Large unexpected changes can trigger anger in many of us. Underneath anger is usually fear, so be compassionate with yourself and others if you come into the firing line.
Anger can surface when we feel fearful or threatened by a situation. 

Sadness
When we experience any change, there can be a sense of loss. Even positive changes can still leave us contemplating “how it was before”. Change on a large scale, as we are all experiencing, will cause many of us to feel sad for the way things are(because they are not the same as before). You may also experience sadness about the impact generally on people’s health and lives.
Sadness is a part of processing change for most of us.

Feeling tired or exhausted
Stress and change will make you tired. At the moment you are likely experiencing a lot of both of these. 
It’s normal to be feeling more tired than usual.(Although I do note, that if you have other symptoms that also accompany the tiredness, seek your GP’s advice)

Panic and anxiety
If you’ve read any of my posts or come to a workshop about habits, you know already that our human brains don’t like change. Change requires more effort from your brain ( it’s got to create new neural pathways) and it basically freaks it out. Our brains get freaked out by change because it is unfamiliar and potentially a threat. Throw in a health epidemic on a global scale and it’s easy to predict that many of us are experiencing anxiety or even panic. 
Panic and anxiety can be experienced when the human brain kicks into survival mode without regulation. By regulation I mean you becoming aware or managing your thoughts. Read more about that here.

Loss of identity or sense of self
You might not feel like yourself right now. All things familiar are drying up and you’re not sure of your place in the world. Many of us attach our identity to our roles in society and they are currently being disrupted. You are also likely experiencing a shift in your personal values. In the midst of large scale life changes, we can often reassess (consciously or unconsciously) what we truly value.
Feeling a shift in your identity and values is often part of the change process and dealing with a crisis.


I hope that sharing this information about how we experience change and difficult times has helped you in some way. My aim is just to set you at ease that it’s okay to be feeling these things right now. Be compassionate with yourself and others and most importantly, implement coping strategies now to get you through what will be an extended period of disruption.

Here are some helpful links to help you manage yourself, your emotions and thoughts:

Coping tips for the Coronavirus pandemic

How to quieten your mind chatterBlack Dog Institute: 10 tips for managing anxiety during Covid-19

How to beat stress, trauma and adversity with resilience

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Coping tips: Coronavirus pandemic panic

With the caronavirus being declared a pandemic and our government and institutions recommending social distancing, we do indeed live in unusual times. For many of us, this is our first experience of a global health crisis with a potentially significant impact on our home soil. In such situations, it’s natural to feel a little uneasy. But what you don’t want to do is panic.

Today I share with you some coping tips for you and your business, to get you through the next few weeks (or months) of this crisis.

It’s important to stay calm, most especially for those of us who are in a leadership position at work or home. What we all need right now is good leadership. 

It’s also important to stay calm simply for your own wellbeing and for those around you. The situation is challenging, so try not to add to it if you can help it…

Try implementing a few of these tips over the next week or so to better manage this situation:

Stick to the real facts
It can be confusing with a variety of information that seems to conflict, so go straight to the source of the facts. Don’t rely on your favourite social media platform for your information. Social media does serve a great purpose to distribute information but it’s also heavy on emotion and opinion. This is likely to increase any unease you may already be feeling. Check out the World Health Organisation website and NSW Health.

Self-care practices
Regardless of whether you’re feeling particularly stressed or not, it’s a good time to implement some regular self care practices. Self-care is any activity that we do deliberately in order to take care of our mental, emotional, and physical health. Self-care can help deal with and prevent anxiety and stress. It also promotes your general wellbeing. Self-care is a very subjective practice, choose what works best for you: cycling outdoors, getting a massage, colouring in, dancing, climbing, listening to music, relaxing on the couch with a book, walking in nature…

Have a plan for your business and family
Most of us are living day-to-day in expectation of changes to our work and home practices. With such uncertainty it’s best to counter that by creating a plan. A plan will outline how you will deal with the pandemic moving forward. In the case of your business (with or without employed staff) you must examine the potential outcomes: How will this affect my business over the next few weeks? Is cashflow affected? What can I do now to prepare?Those of us who also manage a household should have a plan. It could just be a discussion that you have with your significant other: What will we do if one of us becomes ill? What do we tell the kids? Are we financially okay if one of us can’t work for a month? What new rules should we be enacting? 

Apply for the government rebate on your business PAYG
Most small businesses that employ staff are eligible for the government rebate and it looks like it will be almost an instant rebate. When you lodge your BAS you will receive a refund if you are eligible. Quarterly lodgers will be eligible to receive the payment for the quarters ending March 2020 and June 2020. Monthly lodgers will be eligible to receive the payment for the March 2020, April 2020, May 2020 and June 2020 lodgments. Check out the Factsheet here.

Talk with others
While social distancing is the new approach, that doesn’t mean to stop communicating all together. Keep in contact with colleagues and other business owners to chat about how they’re dealing with it all. It will help them deal with it and potentially give you some ideas.
Limit your news intake & social mediaIt’s normal to want to keep getting updates about a situation that is potentially threatening, however, this will only increase your anxiety. Stay informed and connected but limit your internet time each day so it’s not excessive. 

Focus on keeping yourself and family/staff well
Are you doing all you can to keep yourself and your family/staff healthy? Good quality wholefoods (otherwise known as fresh fruit & veggies, unprocessed grains..) and plenty of water. Keep up your exercise routine if you’re feeling well, rest if you feel you need it. Make sure staff have clear directions about what they should and shouldn’t be doing for the benefit of their health and those around them. Be flexible and understanding as everyone in the office deals with it in their own way.

Keep laughing
Yes the situation is serious, but it’s also important to remember to laugh when you can. Laughter is one of the best ways to deal with difficult situations as it shows us the lighter side of our experience.It lightens our viewpoint and releases some tension. So watch a comedy or trade stories with your friends about your experiences. 

Double down on your kindness to others
When people feel threatened and start to panic, it can happen that they lose all consideration of others. We are all in this together. It is not about survival of the fittest. Now is the time to double-down on your kindness to others. Small things go a long way… thank the bus driver, smile at your waitperson, let someone in line at the supermarket, offer your elderly neighbour assistance, call your parents/relatives…

Get enough rest and downtime
Dealing with uncertainty on a daily basis is tiring. Our brains like certainty and if the boat is rocking every day it really feels uncomfortable. Dealing with more information, changes at work and to your plans… all these things can make you a bit more tired at the end of the day. So, make sure you get adequate rest.

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Unconscious expectations

Being unaware of your expectations can cause you much suffering (understatement). It can negatively impact your most important relationships and it will ultimately prevent you from attaining the peace of mind and fulfillment that you truly want.

It wasn’t until I started to become aware of my own expectations that I was able to create more peace of mind and more mature relationships. You know, the more evolved type of relationship, where there’s very little drama – if any- and communication is at the forefront. It took some time though. Some of us start on this awareness path early and others at later stages in life. It doesn’t matter when we do this, it’s just important the we do do this.

Ever been disappointment by someone else? Expectations.
Experience that sinking feeling when your partner/friend/family member does not act as you want them to? Expectations.
Have you been angry that someone has not done something? Expectations.
Do you feel like you come up short and can’t rest? Expectations.

Starting with yourself, are you aware of what you are expecting of yourself? Interestingly, what you expect of yourself can really influence what you expect from others. If you lean towards the perfectionist side of the scale, you may have high and complex expectations of yourself. You have many hoops that you have to jump through and these hoops are self-created, whether consciously or not. 

Ask yourself:
What am I expecting of myself?
Why am I expecting that?
Is this a realistic expectation?

After you start applying these questions to yourself, you can move on to asking the same questions about your expectations of others. But start with yourself first. The first task is to reset your expectations of yourself to be realistic. This will make a big difference. Use the questions to work through this.

The second task is to apply compassion. When you don’t meet your expectations, can you be compassionate with yourself? You can hold yourself accountable to your realistic goals and expectations without beating yourself up. Use compassion, imagine you are speaking to a friend who has told you they’ve fallen short. You wouldn’t berate them would you?

As you create more awareness around your own expectations you will find that you can be more detached about the way things happen. Part of it is loosening your grip of on the things that you can’t control. The other part is owning the part you play in creating stress and conflict within yourself and with others.

Ask the questions, be compassionate and see what a difference you can make in your experience of the world on a daily basis.

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5 tips for creating great relationships!

Cultivating great relationships in your business and in your personal life has a whole host of benefits, not least of which is improved connection and wellbeing. If you’ve done work in the area of improving your relationships, you know what I’m saying!

I have done some serious work on this throughout the years, taking onboard many teachings from a range of places such as positive psychology and spiritual teachers. I have not just read the books but actually implemented the concepts – with success!

You can create a whole new world if you raise the bar on the quality of your relationships.

Today I share my 5 best tips to creating great relationships(you’re welcome:)). 

Throw out your conditions
Whether we realise it or not, we all have expectations about others, even moreso when we’re talking about our significant other. We have expectations about how they should behave and what they should say in certain circumstances. We often expect them to be mind readers about these expectations and of how we are feeling. Even in our work relationships, we expect our boss or co-workers to act a certain way. 

I’m not going into an analysis of where these expectations come from. All you need to understand is that we all have these expectations and the sooner you identify yours, the better. Or more accurately, the sooner you identify your expectations of others and drop them, the better all of your relationships will be!

What are you expecting that person to do? To say? It’s easiest to identify our expectations when we find ourselves feeling bad about what other people in our lives have/haven’t done.Next time you feel a bit disappointed or upset with someone, ask yourself: “If I was expecting them to do/say/ be something, what was it?”

You can’t expect others to behave as you want them. Funnily enough you can’t control them. Understanding your expectations allows you to make requests of them (their behaviour etc) when you feel it’s necessary and at most other times, to simply drop your expectations. (This probably deserves a full and very long blog post, so stay tuned, I’ll get to that soon!)

Know the power of your words and tone
In this age of soft skills and EQ you’d think this would be obvious. For many of us it is obvious and makes perfect logical sense and yet we don’t practice it! The most impact we can make on others is in the words we choose and the tone at which we speak them. Ever met someone who made you feel amazing and you walked away feeling uplifted? Yes, that’s the power of their words and tone. How are you using yours?

Listen, harder
The most underrated ability is that of being a great listener. Learning to really listen and be present with others will catapult all of your relationships to a whole new level! Yes, even that chat you have with the random person you meet on the street. It transforms you and them. In the context of our relationships – be them work or personal – being a good listener should be practised daily. Most people are not good at this. They listen to what you’re saying while also thinking of their response to what you’re saying, they’re thinking of what they want for dinner and playing with their phone.

If you can learn to sit still and focus only on what the person opposite you is saying, you will create unprecedented amounts of trust and connection. Practice, it takes practice, but it’s one thousand times worth it! Trust me, I know because I listen hard.

Know your own boundaries, respect theirs
You know that first point I made about expectations? Here’s where boundaries are important. While we’re trying to get a grip on our expectations of others, they’re having some about us. And their expectations can influence what we do. You need to understand your own boundaries so that you don’t do things that aren’t good for you. 

Our personal boundaries are often tied to our values. They are self-preserving and essential. For example: You can’t spend all of your days giving your time to others, there must be a boundary about how much time you will spend with them. Becoming aware of your own boundaries will help you to guide others that you are in relationship with. ie. telling them “no I can’t do that”. Of course in return you respect their boundaries. This makes for much better (less resentful) relationships all round.

Understand yourself better
If you don’t take any of these tips on board, at least try this one. It’s fundamental. You can’t have great relationships with others if you don’t understand yourself and your actions. The more self-aware that you become, the better you can act in all of your relationships. You can start by simply being curious and asking yourself quality questions. Become more aware of your moods, your actions and the thoughts that potentially instigate these reactions in you. It’s not about finding fault to“fix” it all. It’s about becoming an observer. And what happens when you become the observer? You naturally make adjustments in your own time if any small modifcations of behaviour are needed. Know yourself to better engage with others professionally and personally.

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How to quieten your mind chatter

With  access to all the information we could want at our very fingertips, its no wonder we have busy brains, right? The convenient and instant access to information has created amazing benefits for us all but with it also comes a few new challenges.

The constant consuming of information and entertainment make for very full minds. In many cases we are over consuming. It doesn’t help that alerts and pop-ups tap into that biological response part of us all which is highly addictive!

So, what can we do to create a little quiet in our minds?

Be present and focus
The more we are simply focused in what we are doing and where we are right now – ie. being present – the more quiet and peace we can create for ourselves. Initially this focus will need to be with you focusing your whole attention into a specific activity that you’re currently undertaking. With practice over time, you can also create this quiet without doing any activity at all. How does it work? Simply do one thing at a time and focus all of your attention on what you’re doing. Call it getting into flow, into the zone… it is about getting into a space of full attention and very little, if any, mind chatter.

Create boundaries
Start small with this. It can be really as simple as turning your phone off during one meal per day, or for one hour. This is to totally disconnect from information. You can also create boundaries by reducing the flow of information to just one source. We are often receiving multiple sources of information at one time and this exacerbates the busy brain problem. For example, don’t have email open while you’re working on other projects, put your phone on silent etc. 

Schedule tasks or delete them
Throw away your to-do list! Yes, I said it. I am a lover of lists of all kinds, but a to-do list rarely gets actioned. This is mainly because the to-do’s don’t have a hard deadline and aren’t actually  allocated time. You need to actually allocate time to do the things on your list. Put them straight into your calendar. Then, you simply honour your calendar and do it when it is scheduled. If you don’t want to put it in your calendar, your really don’t want to do it, so completely delete it from your list and mind.

Make your decisions in advance & final
There is a crazy amount of cognitive effort that is wasted on unmade or half-made decisions. Even for simple things like “what I think I might cook for dinner”, we spend a lot of time and energy going back and forth over the options. It’s such a waste our valuable cognitive space! The best option is to decide in advance as much as possible. If you can plan all your meals for example in advance for a few days or a week, it means you won’t be using your brain space to wrangle with that. Sounds simple and small but try it! Start small and move on to bigger things. You may have heard the story that Steve Jobs only wore the same outfit every day. Why? To avoid the mind chatter and cognitive effort being spent. 

Become more present in your body
When we are more present in our physical bodies, we are less occupied with our minds. Think about activities that get you in touch with your body and your senses… exercise, being in nature, cooking, dancing, sex… Any activity that helps you become more in touch with your senses and/or breathing will bring you into your body and away from the thought chatter. Some people get this from running, meditation or a creative hobby. Look for activities that help you to be present in your body to help you quieten your mind.