How to Cope With a Challenging World

How does one stay grounded and calm while living with chronic stress, ongoing uncertainty, threats, and fear of impending doom?

You may find yourself getting caught up in certain waves of emotions from outrage to anxiety to depression. Maybe you are frustrated with other people’s behavior or overly fixated on the news. Many people are suffering from emotional fatigue. This is compounded if you have your own history of trauma, stress, and worries of safety. It is overwhelming, isolating, and exhausting. Even when you try to disengage from thinking about certain issues, you may still find that you are easily angered, or more irritable than usual. Maybe your strategy is to pretend none of the stressors are happening and you desire to go about your life as if everything is normal. Maybe your strategy is to protect yourself and your family by avoiding or withdrawing from others. Maybe your strategy is to pray, or seek guidance from a trusted authority.

The truth is, regardless of your strategy, none of us can escape our shared global context. Weather and viruses do not care about race, religion, or politics. People can bicker all they want, point fingers at each other, make up stories, and sling blame. People can argue, accuse each other, claim fake news, compete for power, inflict injustices, and none of that changes our circumstances. It is an emotional distraction, grabbing people’s attention and diverting them from focusing on the well-being of each other and the planet.

Meanwhile, heat domes are happening with record heat levels, fires are happening, floods are happening, hurricanes are happening. More species are endangered and some are going extinct. The ocean is warming, causing a cascade of ecological consequences. And despite lockdowns, masks, and vaccines, COVID-19 persists, and new variants have emerged. Regardless of what you believe, these things are happening, not just to one political party or another, but to the whole country, and to the whole world.

There is contradictory information, and highly charged and emotional arguments that fuel existing fears, making it difficult to parse out the truth. This type of chaos makes people vulnerable to accepting a passionate argument from someone they believe is on their side. It helps conflicting thoughts and feelings make sense. Having a single cause, such as blaming a particular person or group of people, may sound appealing. They become the scapegoat on which to focus one's anger. It is emotionally satisfying to have an explanation and to assign blame. But unfortunately, it is not helpful: there is no single explanation, and there is no invulnerability.

If you listen to an individual, ask yourself, “What is their agenda?” There are many tricks that people use to convince others. One common tactic is to pair something that you already believe with something else. If you say yes to A then you should say yes to B. The two get lumped together. People are motivated to defend their A, and by doing so, agree to B, even though the two may not be related. The more emotionally charged the A argument, the more likely people will accept the B one. This is a form of manipulation.

In reality, the cause of our current circumstances is a shared context and a shared history. Many of the events we are experiencing today started many years ago. Many decisions were made along the way that kept us moving in this direction, decisions made by politicians, businesses, and by individuals. We are all consumers and have enjoyed the benefits of our consumption without awareness or consideration of its impact. While there were attempts to change course, at least for issues regarding the environment, the desire for wealth, power, and consumption thwarted those efforts multiple times throughout our history.

Source: Rachael Arnott/Shutterstock

So, whatever you believe, think bigger. Think beyond the immediate passionate rhetoric. Think beyond your own political party, your own in-group, and, instead, think globally. This will help you see that what is happening today in terms of the environment, pandemic, economics, and racism is not simply about politics, but rather the infrastructure of a world built on the behaviors, beliefs, fears, and desires of people who lived generations before us. Rise above the arguments and look for truths that are international, apolitical, historical, and contextual. We got here as a result of the accumulation of all that has happened in the distant and recent past, and all that is happening now. Simply by participating in society means even you have contributed to the situation. We all share the responsibility.

Coming to terms with what is, with eyes wide open, allows us to decide how to move forward. It is helpful to think about what you can do as an individual, such as making informed choices and considering the impact of your choices. We are all connected and interdependent, meaning that the impact of your behavior not only affects others, but eventually, also affects you. For example, we pollute the air, that we then breathe.

It’s also helpful to work on calming and grounding yourself. Here is an exercise that may help.

Rising above it all: Imagine floating above all thoughts and feelings, disengaging from upset and bickering. As you can look down, see all thoughts and feelings coming and going, like looking down on a busy city. Let the anger sink to the ground. Negativity is heavy and constricting, and pulls you down. Instead, imagine releasing the negativity, like releasing heavy sandbags in a hot air balloon. Each time you let a bag of negativity go, you lift up higher. Now you can float with the clouds. There is lots of room up here. It is quiet and peaceful. Imagine floating and breathing the clean fresh air. You have space to expand. Imagine expanding your mind, deepening your breath, relaxing your shoulders, softening the muscles in your face. Expanding with each inhale, and releasing with each exhale. Now there is room for positive emotions such as joy, happiness, and well-being. Imagine breathing in well-being, and releasing all that no longer serves you. By quieting the mind, you allow yourself to rejuvenate, refresh, and reset. Imagine how you might feel if you practice this daily. Maybe you'd feel calmer, more grounded, and less caught up in it all.