The Covid-19 virus confronts us all with an enormous amount of uncertainty and unpredictability.
And uncertainty makes us nervous.
We like to solve problems and feel like we're competent and that we've got things under
control.
But if you are a psychologist, psychotherapist, social worker, a nurse, or a physician, I'll
bet you are working with patients who are dealing with many factors that are out of
their control.
So I took a look back at our archives to see what we had that might be useful
Dr. Kelly McGonigal addressed a similar situation.
In this video, she's talking about parents whose child is in crisis.
They desperately want to fix the problem, and it's so painful to see their child suffer.
She shared a 3-step approach for working with uncertainty, that I think you will find helpful
no matter what the crisis.
I find that it’s very common that the people who show up in my classes/workshops are at
the stage of their lives where they are parents of teenagers or young adults who are struggling.
It’s so common.
I can’t think of anyone I know professionally, students or friends who haven’t experienced
some kind of major crisis when their child is in that stage – whether it’s recovery
for addiction or an eating disorder, being treated for depression or anxiety, having
to leave college after the first semester because of unfulfilled requirements...and
the list goes on.
There’s a lot of crisis happening for people at this stage, and a lot of parents are trying
to control the situation – they desperately want to be able to do something that’s going
to take away their child’s suffering.
They so want to believe that it’s going to turn out OK and they want to be comfortable
with that version of OK.
They want to feel that: my child will beat this and never suffer in the same way again.
Or my child will achieve this – they’ll graduate – they’ll get through high school
– they’ll go to a good college – they’ll have a successful career.
Whatever it is, the parents I see have this idea that there should be a way to do something
that guarantees a certain outcome.
I find myself talking to a lot of parents who are living in that particular version
of uncertainty – where there is real suffering or a real crisis or real uncertainty about
what the outcome is going to be – an overall sense of paralysis about being out of control.
I’ll give you a sense of what I often talk about with them.
First, I try to affirm their identity – the identity that feels like it is being challenged
or threatened by the experience of uncertainty.
For them, their identity is about being a caring parent and what they’re experiencing
in this moment of uncertainty is a challenge to their value and their strengths as a parent.
They’re feeling: If I were a good parent, this would not have happened.
I would have been able to control my child’s life in some way so that they wouldn’t be
suffering, or they wouldn’t have fallen down this hole, or they wouldn’t have ended
up experiencing this failure… whatever the situation might be.
It’s really important to affirm the identity being challenged by whatever the experience
is.
This goes not just for parenting, as in this example, but for any situation where you start
to feel out of control, and yet you still deeply care.
So, we want to affirm the identity by saying: Yes, one of the reasons this is so difficult
for you is that you care so much – you are such a caring parent – you are so committed
and devoted – it’s not evidence of the opposite.
We want to take time to acknowledge what’s difficult about their situation.
Again, what causes people to seek control or certainty is their wanting to avoid having
to feel whatever the disappointment or the shame or the anger or the fear is.
We want to give people permission to articulate, to be with, and to acknowledge what the pain
is that is making them reach for: I should be able to control this – there must be
something I can do to fix this.
Instead, we want to get them into a compassionate space.
And then the third step: to shift people’s focus from control to choice.
I mentioned that when people are dealing with wanting things to be certain, they will tell
you they want to be able to control what is happening – and that’s the problem they
feel out of control.
It’s very common for people to suggest something like: Let’s think about what you can control
– what do you have control over?
And that step is somewhat in the right direction – it’s somewhat useful, but it’s much
more important to ask questions like: What can you choose in this situation?
What do you want to bring to this situation?
Who do you want to be in this situation?”
Then, people are more likely to identify positive actions like: What I want to choose in this
situation is courage.
What I want to choose in this situation is putting my child first.
What I want to choose in this situation is reaching out for support and finding resources…
as opposed to what they want to control.
If you ask people: What can you control?
Their minds are going to go in other directions which take them away from the idea of choice,
which is so important.
Choice brings to view a wise, compassionate perspective on what you can’t control, and
there’s a phrase I like to use I alone am not the cause of this suffering, and I alone
cannot resolve or cure this suffering.
This type of perspective is important for people who are clinging to certainty or clinging
to control.
With this perspective, there’s a freedom that comes and allows you to re-engage with
the situation and make choices that are consistent with your goals and your values and the relationships
that matter to you.
It’s important to have a sense of surrender and a sense that you can do your best but
you can’t do it all.
The situations that most often trigger this desire for certainty and control are the very
ones that are bigger than the self – it’s important to be able to recognize that this
is bigger than me – that’s critical!