A time for challenge?
Put on your face power, and dance…
As a practicing applied psychologist who specialises in wellbeing, resilience and positive leadership it feels even more at times like these that I need to use my expertise to make a difference. Never has positive leadership and wellbeing been more critical to how we function as our best selves.
I’ve always been a creative entrepreneurial thinker driven by a sense of service and dedication to others. And I’ve been thinking long and hard about what I can offer – beyond what I am doing in my day to day work and local community – to my broader community and that is everybody reading/ watching this, and I knew it needed to be clear and practical.
So I’ve written a practical philosophy underpinned by evidence-based strategies to help you navigate all the Cs that come our way – not just Coronavirus (which is understandably gripping us right now and is what’s prompted me to put this together), but all the challenges, catastrophes and crises which we will inevitably face throughout life and I hope this is helpful. I could have written a book on this – now there’s a thought – but for now I’ve kept it to a ten minute read or short watch. Of course feel free to use the strategies that work for you and ignore those that don’t – I personally find them all useful and particularly as a set of strategies, and so have thousands that I have worked with when encountering challenge, but we are all different and powerful in our own ways so be selective if that works for you.
Let’s get started.
My message to everybody is to FACE the situations we find ourselves in with our own unique POWER. I’m going to call this FACE POWER. And let me break this acronym down for you. Each letter signals a different step of a comprehensive strategy you can take to support yourselves – to support your own resilience and wellbeing, and then you are all set to help and lead others.
F – F stands for focus, and this is about focusing your mind on what’s in your control, your sphere of influence. It’s easy to get lost in the worry and rumination of everything – e.g with COVID, the future, the virus, loved ones, the economy (have you noticed how this happens in conversations you have been having?). To help you to develop focus practically you can simply draw two concentric circles – we call these circles of influence – in the inner circle write what’s in your control and in the outer what’s outside of your control (Stephen Covey does this in his writing in more depth if you want to find out more) and visually let go of it, or journal it down (a big practice in all forms of psychological thought management – search James Pennebaker for more). This step is all about moving you to focus on what matters. You’ll soon see the thing you really can focus on and change
ACE go together (see Russ Harris or Susan Davidson for more).
A – A is about acknowledging what is going on for you. What are the thoughts and feelings popping up? Don’t push them away – they’re not going anywhere for good – just write them down, draw them out get them from your head to outside.
C – C is about getting control back physically on your body. This is about physical grounding. There are many ways you can do this based on what works for you. You could:
Slowly push your feet hard into the floor. Notice how that feels?
Slowly straighten up your back and spine; if sitting, sit upright and forward in your chair. How do you feel now?
Slowly press your fingertips together
Slowly stretch your arms or neck, shrugging your shoulders.
Slowly breath (count your breath in and out for a count of four if that helps)
There are a host of mindfulness apps and online resources that can help with this – find one to suit you.
E - This is about engagement, specifically re-engagement with all your senses and what’s around you, so you can re-engage with the task at hand.
Look around the room and notice 5 things you can see.
Notice 3 or 4 things you can hear.
Notice what you can smell or taste or sense in your nose and mouth
Notice what you are doing
Once you have done A, C, and E – move your full attention to the task or activity at hand.
You might want to try doing ACE before F if that works for you or if you’re feeling particularly whirring or overwhelmed. It’s a good place to start.
Ok, so once you have grounded yourself emotionally, physically and cognitively with FACE, we move onto POWER. And Power is all about getting your drive energy back and setting your direction with deep recovery in your emotional bank in order to move forward.
P – P is for Power and Purpose- what is the vision for your life you are working towards, what are the values that give you direction in life? If you haven’t though about your life vision, take time to do this – this is all about the big, hairy, audacious goals you have for life – and what are the short term goals you can have through the challenge you are facing? And if you haven’t thought about your values, this is a critical time to do this. I have an activity that can help guide you linked here. Knowing your values is so important for your psychological wellbeing and performance. When you’re taking committed action you should be guided by your values: What do you want to stand for in the face of this crisis? What sort of person do you want to be, as you go through this? How do you want to treat yourself and other? Sprinkle these values into your day and let them guide you. Of course, there will be all sorts of obstacles in your life; goals you can’t achieve, things you can’t do, problems for which there are no simple solutions. But you can still live your values in a myriad of ways, even in the face of all those challenges.
O – This is probably my favourite one. O is for opportunity, the opportunity that you uniquely offer the world, so when I say opportunity this is about knowing and using your strengths. If you haven’t taken time to assess your own strengths – and if that’s the case, I’m sorry we didn’t talk about this sooner – then you can do a simple brief free test at viacharacter.org. (And I personally love the CharacterScope online platform which combines a look at strengths and leadership). When we face challenges we need to be thinking what are my character strengths and how are they going to help me right now? This helps open up our thinking and optimise it. I am all about being curious and brave and that’s what caused me to think about writing this blog and making this video.
Moving onto….
W – Remember to allow yourself to WoBBLe. What’s this all about? This is about when you need to help yourself get perspective. It’s a little thought reframing technique which allows your mind to run wild and then you can reign it back in with fun and love. Get a piece of paper, create three columns and in the first column write down all the worst possible things that your overworked mind is worrying about. In the third column write down the very best best thing (hence two Bs) that could happen for you. And think really big – like on April the 1st, I thought maybe I’d wake up and be told Coronavirus was just an April Fool’s joke?! Let your imagination play with both. And then weighing both that first and third column up I want you to write in the middle column what is the most likely thing that could happen? This is a really useful and pragmatic way to reframe your thoughts in a more accepting way.
E – Is for Physical Energy. Finding ways to build your physical energy through healthy behaviours. For example, finding ways to exercise regularly (and I’m very glad we’re all doing this – we’re doing more than ever before and I hope we keep it up). Getting good sleep – that’s 7-8hrs. Eating healthily and happily – chocolate is essential for me right now, so I make sure it’s good and I try to make it a reward to not over indulge. Playing is important. Rediscovering your hobbies and passions – indoor hula hooping for me. A note on alcohol – if you are an alcohol drinker, and I admit I love a glass of red wine – go easy on this – it’s a quick fire way to reduce your physical energy.
R – R stands for emotional regulation and particularly for recovery. We need to ensure we access high quality recovery every day of our lives and particularly when we are facing challenges. Right now there are an abundance of threats and negative drive triggers, but you need to balance this out by using the recovery system in your brain – the slow brain. By high quality recovery I mean, recovery that relaxes, rejuvenates your mind and gets your mind to act in a very different way than when you are in execution mode – this could be playing the violin, reading fiction, climbing a wall – what works for me will be different for you.
Ok, so that’s it. That’s FACE POWER, positive face power – and how you can equip yourself and others to stay strong during times of crisis and beyond – in fact, always to live a meaningful, purposeful and psychological balanced life. You can recap on this in the blog that accompanies this too by clicking on the link in the post.