Uncertainty and Impermanence
Today I’m gonna be talking about uncertainty and impermanence. We are in a state of ongoing uncertainty and impermanence, especially here in the UK. I think some other parts of the world, things are a little bit more settled, but in the UK, there’s a lot of uncertainty and impermanence.
I’m noticing with clients that this is causing a lot of stress. I thought I’d talk about it today, understand a little bit of the theory behind it, why it happens, and also talk about some things that you can do to help it.
Let’s talk first about why this happens.
We all know about stress. We all know about the fight or flight response. We all know that when we feel threatened, our bodies go into this survival response, which is called fight or flight. Fight or flight, it’s to gear you up so that you either attack the saber-toothed tiger or run away from it, or possibly freeze, which is the third option, which is not so much talked about. But it gives you the energy to do what you need to do in order to survive your saber-toothed tiger or the predatory animal of your choice.
Now, in this fight or flight, let’s get our muscles going so we can fight or flight, we don’t really need a lot of brain. We don’t really need a lot of complex decision-making because really, there are only two choices. Do I fight it or do I run away?
Our brains are very hungry in terms of energy, and what the body does in full-on fight or flight is it starts to close down the thinking, decision-making part of the brain because it’s not needed, and the energy is better used in the muscles to actually run away or fight. That’s what the fight or flight process does.
Now, what maybe we aren’t as aware of is that in life in general, there’s a whole range of needs that we have as humans, that when we end up in a fight or flight situation are not satisfied, and we can start to become very uncomfortable.
The model I like best is one put forward by a guy called David Rock. David Rock, he set up a very successful coach training business, and then went on to develop a leadership institute based around neuroscience. David Rock talks about the SCARF model, and I’ll talk about that model in a minute, but it’s a really useful way of thinking about those social and nonphysical reactions we have to certain types of threat.
As humans, we have two fundamental motivations. We’re wired to move towards pleasure and away from pain. They are the most fundamental human motivation. If it looks like it’s going to be pleasurable, we’ll move towards it. If it looks like it’s gonna be painful, we’ll try and move away from it.
For most people, the away from pain, if push comes to shove and I’ve got, well, I could go towards pleasure or I can move away from pain, away from pain for most of us has a stronger pull.
What the SCARF model describes is, as I say, these nonphysical needs that we have, they’re social needs, if you like. SCARF, the S stands for status. We all need to feel a certain status, a certain place in the world. If you think about it in terms of survival, if you’re the runt of the litter, you’re low in status and you’re last at getting your hands on the food.
If you’re low in status in the tribe or the pack, then you will be the last to get that which is gonna keep you alive. Status, being slightly higher up the pecking order, is important at a very deep unconscious level. It doesn’t matter how much personal development you’ve done. It’s still there at a deep unconscious level.
The next one, then, is certainty, and certainty certainly at the moment is something that we don’t have. Certainty is all about our sense of, I can predict the future, I know what’s gonna happen on a, at least on a day-to-day, month-by-month basis. Generally, I know what’s gonna happen. Now, that’s not necessarily true in today’s environment.
Our certainty has almost been ripped away from us. We don’t know whether school’s gonna open, school’s gonna close. We don’t know whether we’re gonna be allowed to meet our loved ones, have personal contact with our loved ones.
Certainty is really being stripped away from ourselves and it’s really difficult to predict the future and to plan at the moment. If you go to the airline industry, I think easyJet or one of the airlines is taking flights now from the first of July, but you still can’t plan ’cause you still don’t exactly know what you’re gonna be allowed to do, what you’re gonna be able to do.
The A in SCARF is autonomy. Autonomy is that sense of control. They did a lot of research a long time ago with the British Civil Service, and they discovered that among British civil servants who don’t feel they have real autonomy and control in their jobs, certain stress hormones were much higher. When we don’t have control, when we don’t feel in control, we feel stressed. Of course, the whole thing of closing down the brain starts to happen.
Then there’s relatedness. Relating to other people, feeling that we’re in relation to other people. So, that sense of, yeah, Zoom’s all very well and good. I can have a kind of a relationship with you. But I can’t have that face-to-face, that sensing you relationship that most humans need.
The last one, the F in SCARF, is fairness. We like to feel we’re being treated fairly. And I think for a lot of people in this corona situation, they don’t necessarily feel that they’ve been treated fairly for a whole raft of reasons. But for a lot of people, it doesn’t feel like there’s much fairness.
So, the current situation is challenging us on pretty much all of these levels. Maybe not so much the status, but certainly the certainty, certainly the autonomy, certainly the relatedness, and certainly the sense of fairness, at least for some people.
Inevitably, we’re finding it more difficult to make decisions. We’re finding it generally more stressful because our brains, our brains close down. Our cognitive abilities close down. It’s quite interesting, because a lot of my clients were, at the start of this whole situation, they found it hard, and then they settled into it. It was almost like being in a rhythm, in a groove. It was almost like there was a kind of certainty.
There was a feeling of taking control of those things that you could control, take control off. But now, 12 weeks in, certainly in the UK, a lot of clients seem to be experiencing more, more stress, more challenge, more sense of, I don’t have the certainty anymore. I don’t have the control anymore.
What can we do about it?
Well, the first thing, and this is going back to old Stephen Covey stuff, the first thing is to define what you actually do have control over. There definitely are things that you have control over. Getting clear about them and being clear about what they are, then that’s important. It’s amazing. Sometimes you don’t have control about when the door opens.
Identifying what you have control over and getting that kind of a clarity. Establishing that control or identifying what you do have control over. Certainty. The odd thing is that as humans, biologically, we’re changing all the time.
Our bodies are not the same bodies as they were seven years ago. It takes for most, for most of us, there’s a rotation of about seven years when all your cells will have changed. All your cells will be different because cells die and new cells are born.
At a biological level, we are constantly changing on a day-to-day, almost a minute-by-minute, hour-by-hour basis. Biologically, we cope with that. But psychologically, we find that such a problem. There is something about allowing yourself to become aware that uncertainty is troubling, that as a human being, you don’t, probably don’t want a lot of uncertainty. You want certainty.
Having that awareness and starting to allow yourself to be, to be in a space of uncertainty. Because here’s the thing about uncertainty, it does bring possibility. It does bring opportunity. When we close ourselves down and we go, “Oh, it’s too challenging. “It’s too difficult,” we lose the opportunity to make the most of the possibilities, to even notice the possibilities.
Breathing. I teach Huna, I teach heart breathing, but whether you use heart breathing or some other technique, finding ways to soothe your system. I talk a lot about soothing the system, and it’s so important for us.
Just how can you soothe the system when you’re in that state of uncertainty, when you’re finding it really stressful because you can’t predict the future, because you don’t feel in control. Breathe. If mindfulness is your thing, practise mindfulness. If meditation is your thing, practise meditation. If going out in nature is your thing, go out in nature.
We can’t hold and the tighter you want to hold, the worse it becomes. Allow yourself to let go a little. Allow yourself to ease off on the control, on the need for control. I mentioned meditation. I mentioned mindfulness. I mentioned breathing, going out in nature.
The other one that, and it’s something, again, that I’m teaching a lot is using a release process. Huna has some great release processes, releasing anger, sadness, fear, guilt, and so forth. It doesn’t have to be Huna, but how can you release the emotions that build up with the stress and the uncertainty and all the things that are going on?
How can you release those emotions so that you’re keeping your system refreshed and soothed? Because one thing I do know is that when we hold on to this stuff, it becomes a trap. When we release it, it’s like, okay. Now I can move on to the next thing.
I hope that’s been interesting. I hope that’s been useful, and I look forward to talking to you very soon, and hopefully seeing you in person sooner rather than later.
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