Staying Grounded in the Face of Fear

Hello, loves! I had another post ready for today, but I’m feeling like I want to touch base with you all about the uncharted territory we find ourselves in these days. With so many big and devastating things happening in the world, it’s easy to understand why so many of us feel overwhelmed and helpless. It’s enough to make even the sturdiest among us take pause.

Below you will find ideas for how to move through anxiety and overwhelm and into a more grounded intentional mindset. I’ve used these concepts myself, with clients, and also my children. I hope that you can find some comfort in them, too.  

3 Ways to stay grounded in the face of fear:

1. Stay Present: 

There are so many changes happening daily and it’s normal to feel fearful when we’ve been pushed out of our comfort zones. During these times it’s so important to make conscious and empowered choices and responses. When we let fear take the reins, we’re left only with reactions, not intentional choices, and we feel much more helpless and at risk when we’re reacting rather than responding.

Ask yourself, “What is happening right now in this moment? How does it impact me directly? Am I safe right now in this moment?” Reasonable levels of anxiety nudge us toward pragmatic preparedness, but there’s a big difference between living with fear present, and living in fear. Fear is energy – let it rise and be present with it. It will pass. Stay grounded in your power and in the present moment while the fear moves through you.

2. Be Informed: 

Separate your feelings from the facts and equip yourself with knowledge. Our world of the 24-hour news cycle and information available on every device at any time of day or night leads to information overload and conflicting reports on the same issue.

Often, combating our overwhelming sense of nebulous fear is as simple as taking the time to go directly to the (reputable) source. Dig into the research, find the facts. You just might find the reality of something to be much less menacing than you first believed. Arming yourself with knowledge also makes step one, above, (staying present) a lot easier. Making empowered intentional choices is so much more straightforward when you’ve got all of the information you need.

3. Take Action: 

There are actually two parts to this.

a). Now that you’ve armed yourself with facts and knowledge, you can decide how you’re going to respond. This is a great way to ease feelings of overwhelm and helplessness. “Doing something” empowers us and gives us a sense of making a difference while, in fact, making an actual difference. This will look different depending on a variety of factors. It could be: making a donation, volunteering, voting, using social media, talking with friends and family, etc.

b). The second piece of taking action is taking good care of ourselves. I’m not necessarily talking about green smoothies and bubble baths, although those are amazing and you should totally partake if you have the bandwidth and it feels good to us. For now, I’m talking about the very basics: drinking water, getting sufficient sleep and rest, breathing deeply, taking prescribed medications, moving our bodies in ways that feel good to us. Stress makes our immune systems more vulnerable and if we’re also neglecting the very basics of self-care, that has a compounding effect on our mental and physical health.

c). I’m going to sneak in a third way to take action that’s often overlooked, but incredibly vital. Take care of each other! Essayist and critic Meghan O’Rourke writes, “COVID-19 gives us an opportunity to frame our fears not in the context of panic or overwhelming anxiety, but as care. Our interconnectedness is part of the very meaning of life.” 

Please remember the many people who don’t have the same privileges that you or I might have, and who are experiencing the health and economic effects of this pandemic (and the many other global emergencies) much more severely. We are all connected, and together we will carry each other through.