What can you do when you are faced with uncertain times? Powerlessness and vulnerability emerge when many of your day-to-day actions are impacted. Things you took for granted like being able to buy products easily at your local grocery store, or going out to eat, or hanging out with a group of friends, or traveling or other simple things, suddenly are changed dramatically.

It becomes difficult to separate truth from anxious thoughts. And many people feel like they are standing on shaky ground. But life does move forward. Everything does not halt completely. How can you best take care of yourself and the people around you?

Part of you says, I don’t want to think about this crisis, and another part of you cannot look away and prompts you to take part in endless internet searches for more information.

In today’s article, I am sharing some techniques and thought reframing exercises.

Techniques and Tips

• Bring yourself back to center when your thoughts go wild and crazy.
• Do what you can to prepare. Follow the guidelines.
• Do the things that bring you joy.
• Help others- examples.
• Frequently step away from the news and internet.
• If you are home more, what projects do you want to complete?
• Stimulate the economy.

How you can maintain your personal energy and empowerment:

• Reclaim and Recover Your Power.
• Motion and Momentum.
• Focus on what you want instead of what you don’t want.
• Perception
• Prayer

Get focused and centered.

One big thing that happens when you feel fearful is you lose your focus.

When I feel fear and stress, I get distracted. My words tend to trail off in mid-sentence. This is my signal that I am stressed or have to much on my mind. But when you get focused, then you can think and act deliberately instead of chaotically

A great exercise that helps you to bring your wild and crazy thoughts back to focused and centered thoughts is deep breathing. Three deep breaths can work miracles for keeping your focus.

Do what you can to prepare.

Once you are focused, do what you can to prepare and follow guidelines. Don’t act from a place of fear. Be sensible. Follow the direction coming from leadership, and listen to your own intuition.

Do the things that bring you joy.

Be sensible and find a way to keep doing some of the things that bring you joy. If you created a journaling habit and that gives you joy, do that. If listening to music gives you joy, do that. Exercise, sing, write poetry, play games, and more.

Being creative brings joy. Keep saying, “I’m open to joy. I’m open to joy”.

Don’t let any situation outside of yourself dampen that spirit of joy and that spirit of truly being in your life.

Help others.

When you’re going through something serious like we are in this world today, helping others gives you the feeling like you can do something, that you’re making a difference, you’re making an impact.  Some ideas for helping are to support your local small business and foodservice industry workers. Tip generously when you order takeout. Offer financial support if you can. Ask people to let you know what they need. Share helpful information and resources.

Manage your news and social media intake.

A big tip for lifting fear and anxiety is to frequently step away from the news and social media that is toxic. Get updates, but don’t spend hours listening to negative story after negative story. Set a timer to remind you to step away.

What projects do you want to complete?

Focus on opportunities. Did you want to go through all your files and reorganize your home office? This is a perfect time. Other ideas:

• Reorganize your closet
• Reorganize your kitchen cabinets
• Take an exercise class on Facebook live, zoom, youtube, Instagram, or cable tv
• Get out those dumbells
• Clean up your computer files, desktop, and phone screens
• Write your book
• Write an article
• Learn new software
• Try new recipes
• Try a new cocktail
• Try a new game
• Read all the books on your to-read list
• Take a course. Try Harvard’s Free Course on Happiness 

Keep stimulating the economy.

• Purchase from businesses, but don’t hoard.
• Keep paying your employees if you can or help them with resources (unemployment etc)
• Keep paying your trainer, maid service, or other services if you can
• Tip generously
• Keep ordering takeout or food delivery (tip generously)
• Buy local if possible

How You Can Maintain Your Personal Energy and Power.

Reclaim and recover your power

I look at excessive worrying as a major personal power leak. Notice your triggers. What worries you and triggers a stress response? Reflect on your specific triggers and figure out what the trigger really means to you. For instance, does the triggering event (an experience, a comment, etc) really mean that you feel unsafe? Or does the event activate a limiting belief? Once you land on the meaning, you can recover and reclaim your personal power from it. I like to think of it like this, “I am not giving any of my power or leaking my power to a belief that (fill in the belief- for example-  I am not good enough).” I imagine myself gathering all of my power back and hugging it back into my body. I keep doing this exercise until I feel confident and empowered again. You can do this each time you sense a “power leak”.

Motion and momentum.

Getting into motion builds momentum. If you are the type of person who freezes when you feel fear and anxiety, you feel paralyzed, like you can’t do anything. Start with one action that will get you into motion and then add another, then you’ll start building some momentum. If you own a business, you don’t have to push the pause button on your business. It’s fun to build momentum and it gives you something to think about instead of just being worried. If you have somebody in your family who’s sick and it takes a lot to care for them.  I see people every day thriving the most when they still keep the important pieces of their life going. Keep doing the things that feed your spirit.

Focus on what you want instead of what you don’t want

If you feel like you are constantly saying, “I don’t want to get sick”. Switch that focus right away to- What do I want? I want to be healthy. So focus on health. Health and abundance, You can reframe anything that you don’t want to what you do want, but also you can use that same reclaiming and recovering your power exercise above. You always have personal power, no matter what is going on in the world.

Perception

Our world is created through our perception of it. Wayne Dyer says, “When you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change. You are in charge of how you see things. If you don’t believe this, notice how people can take the same story and see it completely differently. It’s the same set of facts or data and interpreted completely differently by different experts. You might think the fact is fact, but what do those facts mean? They are subject to perception. How are you perceiving your life right now? Can your perception change? One of the ways that I perceive the world is I see people as good and helpful. And guess what? That is my experience most of the time.

Prayer

Prayer is a powerful practice. When you pray, you acknowledge a power higher than yourself. You acknowledge a force more creative than you could ever imagine.

One of my favorite prayers:

Dear God, Thank you for this beautiful and precious life. We pray for the safety, security, and well-being of everyone on the planet. We pray for peace of mind. We pray for wisdom. We pray for healing. Amen

Encourage each other. Lift each other up.

Journal Prompts

What do I need to do to feel safe?

What inspires me right now?

If you liked this, you will love my course on the Art of Abundance

Sheri Kaye Hoff

sherikayehoff.com

Coach, Trainer, Mentor, and Author, Sheri Kaye Hoff, is known for inspiring massive action and being a catalyst for personal and business growth, joy, and profits in a way that is fun, relaxing, and fulfilling, Sheri inspires people to do the work they love and make more money. Sheri offers business and mindset coaching for business owners and professionals ( including life coaches, health coaches, creatives, personal coaches, spiritual entrepreneurs, consultants, and more) to relax into success. She uses both spiritual and practical techniques to obliterate blocks and create dramatic change. She is a business, leadership, happiness, and mindset expert. She has overcome nearly dying, and the loss of her brother at an early age. She has made it her life mission to share the keys to happiness and success with her clients and community. Learn More About Sheri

Specializing in life mastery for individuals, business coaching for life coaches, business coaching for health coaches, business coaching for creatives, business coaching for spiritual entrepreneurs, business coaching for creatives, business coaching for consultants, business coaching for professionals, business coaching for boutique online retailers.