When you add the fear or anxiety factor of handling uncertainty, it makes the whole idea of “tolerating uncertainty” almost too much to comprehend.

Here is a step-by-step on how you can handle a certain amount of uncertainty.

1. Breathe.
Get to a private place. Go to the bathroom. Close the door. Sit at your desk where no one can see you. Close your eyes and inhale deeply for five seconds. FIVE SECONDS. That’s not hard. Let it out with a push. If tears come; let them. Then get to step two.

2. Identify what’s really bothering you.
So, you’re questioning your relationship. Or, you found a lump. Perhaps, you’ve learned your job may not be safe. Whatever is causing your uneasiness write it down. It won’t bite you harder than it already is internally. When you write down what is bothering you in one sentence or less, you give voice to the thing you feel you must solve or get clear on. And you will. Tuck it away if you have to for the moment or address it right now with step number 3.

3. List possible next steps.
If it’s a lump, the next step would be to call the doctor. If it’s job security, the next step might be to polish up your resume and get back in touch with old contacts. If it’s about your relationship a possible next step might be just having a conversation. Whatever is right for you to find a little more peace in the situation right now is what you should begin listing. The right answer will come. You just need to write down all possibilities. Then sort them.

4. Find someone to bounce it off of.
Often, our own tunnel vision can cloud or cause our own anxieties about any situation to spiral out of control. Finding a trusted friend, family member, or counselor to talk to about your uncertainties may help you put perspective on a situation before your fear warps out of control. You don’t have to go into a lot of detail, just say something like, “I was wondering, I feel a little uncertain about (whatever it is you’re uncertainty is) because (fill in the blank here with why you’re worried). Do you think I’m over-reacting?”

5. Accept anxiety as a way of life.
Yes, it’s true. Anxiety and uncertainty are those blessed little things in life that make us think. In Just Enough Anxiety, author Robert Rosen says, “We’re told that anxiety is bad. We work hard to ‘de-stress,’ ‘stay sane,’ and ideally eliminate anxiety from our lives altogether. But how many of us have ever achieved this? Trying – in vain – to rid ourselves of anxiety actually causes more anxiety!”
Be OK with things not being OK. It’s hard. It’s tough. But it’s possible! Once you start accepting that there’s a valid reason for you to be completely uncomfortable, answers will arise! Then…

6. Act.
Do one thing from your list you made in step 3. Take one step in the right direction to help overcome a feeling of powerlessness. Ask the questions. Do some research. Gather some answers. Knowledge casts out fear. When you act upon solving something, your tolerance level increases for handling the difficulty of the situation. Before long, you will begin the process of not quelling the anguish, or even tolerating it, but freeing yourself from it…step by step.

Going through this process when situations arise will help you cope with uncertainties better along the way as they come. Well, sort of.

Also See:

Live: Tolerating Uncertainty
To Be: Resilient
To Hear: Keep Faith

More on Learn…

I also highly recommend going through The Work by Byron Katie from her book Loving What Is. In this process she wants you to go through and ask yourself four simple questions:

1. Is it true?
2. Can you absolutely know that it’s true?
3. How do you react, what happens, when you believe that thought?
4. Who would you be without the thought?

Of course there’s more to it than that, but that should get you started. You can find her tools and information here.

[ri-zil-yuh nt]

adj.

1. springing back; rebounding.
2. returning to the original form or position after being bent, compressed, or stretched.
3. recovering readily from illness, depression, adversity, or the like; buoyant.
4. Marked by the ability to recover readily, as from misfortune.

“Notice that the stiffest tree is most easily cracked while the bamboo or willow survives by bending with the wind.”

- Bruce Lee

Source: resilient. Dictionary.com. Dictionary.com Unabridged (v 1.1). Random House, Inc. http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/resilient (accessed: September 15, 2008).

For years, I adored the Christmas season.  I planned, decorated, baked, sent cards, bought, wrapped, photographed, entertained, and sang my way through the holiday.  I loved everything about it.  Getting together with my family, giving, recieving, getting caught up in it.  I loved it all.

Something happened over the years, though.  As my day to day responsibilities grew, my stress and anxiety grew over all the holiday hub-bub.  The traveling, the expenses, the deadlines for getting packages in the mail, the organizing, the obligations of it all seemed to dampen the mood.  In the midst of it all, I felt that the reason for the season had somehow been diminished by my overzealousness of celebrating it.

Along came the holidays that brought family members together that didn’t get along, couldn’t look at each other much less talk to each other, then some holidays that just simply passed by without much notice.

While I was writing my book, Holiday Decorating For Dummies, I just felt so … I don’t know… depressed that we took only a few days out of the year to be thankful, to give, to think about others, to think about our beliefs, to atone, to worship, to be together, to call, to write, to do all of those things that are associated with them.  We buy chocolates, drink champagne, plan parties, go to church or temple, and make the recipes that hold us close to our past and remind us of wonderful times gone by.

I wondered:  what would it be like if we didn’t wait to do all of these things?  What if we celebrated every day as if it was a special gift we had been given and an opportunity to do or think about certain things we only did a couple of times a year?

I know that’s a huge undertaking.  There’s just too much!  But we have 365 days a year (366 this year!  A whole extra 24 hours!) to make a small change.

To understand holidays and what they mean requires way too much that I can’t comprehend.  That’s because they mean different things to different people.  While one person can absolutely LOVE them – any one of them – another can despise the same with passion because it brings hurtful memories back, or, reminds them of what they don’t have, what they’ve lost, or how things have changed.  It’s true.  With time, we see things a little more clearly.  And sometimes, we don’t like so much of what we see.

That’s why I want….no NEED you to understand that Make Every Day A Holiday doesn’t just celebrate the happy joyous occasions in life, it celebrates the sometimes messy icky parts of life we don’t like to face and perhaps gives you a new perspective.

Please don’t get me wrong…this isn’t a motivational site.  And though I may sound cynical to some, I don’t go overboard on the optimistic side. 

The way I look at it is this:  if we can accept life as it comes, and look at it for what it really is without shutting our eyes, clamping our hands over our ears, and turning away from it, drowning it, or trying to “get over it” we will be able to appreciate it more because we will know that we are resilient and that the shadows really prove the sunshine exists.  No one likes to go through the hard stuff, but life is full of it.  If we can feel a little better about making it a little more bearable for ourselves and others, we truly will be able to make every day a little holiday.

So I hope in some way I’ve helped explain the site, my thoughts, and given you a little insight into my heart.

I hope you have a great weekend.  Much love and talk soon….

From my heart to yours,

Kelley Taylor