10 ways to help you feel calm, confident and in control in uncertain times

Are you feeling uncertain and not sure what the future holds? Here are my top tips to help you feel calm , confident and in control in uncertain times.

1) Breathe! – If in doubt breathe! When things are getting too much or you’re feel you’re in overwhelm take a breath! Breathing changes our physiology and it can calm our thoughts. Breathe in for 4, hold it for 4 and breathe out for 4. Alternatively you can breathe in for 3 and out for 6 which indicates to the brain that you’re safe. If in doubt just take deep breaths in and out, as simply focusing on your breathing will help calm your mind and body and help you to feel more relaxed.

2) Focus on the things that are in your control - Focus on things you can change and take action on those rather than focusing on what you can’t control. Energy flows where focus goes. Our brains are constantly being bombarded with information- around 11 million pieces of information per second! That’s way too much information for our brains to cope with and in fact our brains can only process 126 pieces per second, so its impossible for our brains to process everything that's going on around us. What we pay attention to is governed by several things - our past experience, our state/mood, our mindset. If something pops into your mind that you can’t control, flood it out with positive feelings, emotions and experiences.

3) Be kind to yourself! – Self talk is so important! It can be really easy to be hard on ourselves or say thinks to ourselves that we would never dream of saying to another human. Be conscious of the things that you’re saying to yourself, and when you catch yourself saying negative things flip it! For example if you keep thinking “I’ve never got any money” stop yourself and say to yourself the positive version of that for example “I always find the money I need”. Remember if you’re looking for something to go wrong you’ll find it. As you notice the things you say to yourself its really important to not get frustrated with yourself for saying them, be grateful that your mind has brought into consciousness to deal with as otherwise you’d be doing it and not even realising. Awareness is the first step to change.

4) Change your state – How we hold our bodies is so important. Be aware of slouching and frowning, this is the go to place when we are feeling down. Sit up/stand with your shoulders back and smile. It might feel strange to start with, yet quickly you’ll feel a difference. And if you have a favourite power song play it whilst you’re getting ready in the morning, or at times during the day where you feel you need a burst of motivation or energy.

5) Get present! – Anxiety usually stems from thinking about the past (what has gone wrong) and the future (what might go wrong). To get present concentrate on what is happening immediately around you. What can you see, hear, feel, and taste. Combine this with breathing to bring anxiety levels right down. To add another level to this you can say to yourself or say out loud ‘I’m safe’ or ‘I’m safe, all is well’.

6) Gratitude - We can sometimes take for granted what we have in our lives, and instead focus on what is missing or lacking. Positive psychology research shows that gratitude is strongly linked to happiness. What are the things that you can be grateful in your life for? If you’re finding this difficult start with things like having running water, or that you have a roof over your head.

7) Focus on what you’ve done rather than not done - Life can be really busy, and it can be easy to focus on what you haven’t done and still have to do rather than what you have achieved. Focusing on what you haven’t done can leave you feeling stressed, out of control and overwhelmed. We can take for granted the things we do each day through as its part of our routine - for example getting the kids ready for school, housework, emails and admin. Write a list of all the things you have done, even small things like getting ready, having a shower, making meals - because all of this time adds up!

8) Let it go! - There are times when overwhelm can be so strong that we just need to take a free pass and let it go! It's surprising how much changes when we release attachment. A letting go list can feel really liberating. Write at the top ‘I’m letting go of’, then write everything that feels like it is annoying you or holding you back.

9) Take your power back - When we think people or situations have made us feel a certain way, we are giving our power away. We are effectively saying anything or anyone can control how we feel. This can lead to feeling dis-empowered, hopelessness and feeling depressed. Take back control. I like to physically do it by reaching out in front of me and taking my power back from whatever situation happened where I felt like I gave it away. You can even say to yourself or out loud, ‘I’m taking my power back’, or ‘I’m taking back control’. There’s no need to involve others in this, as when we do this can lead to emotions being escalated unnecessarily.

10) Cord cutting - I work with everyone from super scientific logical minded people to super spiritual and everyone in between. Regardless of whichever way I describe things it comes down to the mind is incredibly powerful and you get what you focus on. It can really help for the mind to have something to focus on, so I find the physically doing things can feel incredibly powerful. (Not sure whether I need to keep this in or not?) If something or someone has been bothering you it can be helpful to cut the energy between you and whatever it is. It can feel alien to cut our energy from others, especially those closest to us, however in reality we don’t want to be connected to anyone energetically, we want to be separate in our own energy. For this exercise close your eyes and imagine the person or situation is in front of you. Then imagine a cord is connecting you and that person. Take the cord in one hand and with the other hand use a chopping motion to sever the cord, you may prefer to imagine having a pair of scissors and cutting it with them. Imagine the cords falling away. Afterwards imagine you have a light within your body and then expand that light outside of your body, creating a bubble of energy that you are within - like a protective shield.

I’d love to hear from you about your experiences and how you have found activities in this guide. You can contact me by email at anna@annawood.co.uk.

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