Let’s get real. You need to be optimistic and hopeful if you want to lead others, but if you are too Pollyanna you won’t be able to deal with challenges that come your way.
There will be heartbreaking disappointments. People you thought had your back will let you down. You will do the right things, give it your all and still come up short. Your efforts will be thwarted, your plans dashed, your goodwill abused. You will get in over your head.
You will experience fatigue and doubt. Despite your best intentions, you will do things you later regret. You will make mistakes and judge wrongly. In moments of high tension, you will be flooded with such overwhelming emotions that you won’t want to get out of bed.
There will be lots of mundane, chop-wood-carry-water moments when you soldier on without any visible reward. Sometimes this will feel comforting, sometimes boring.
There will also be glories. People will surprise you with their kindness and capability. Your hard work will pay off. Victories large and small will be won and celebrated. You will experience love and joy.
The thing to know is that everything—the ups, the downs, the in-betweens—all of it is temporary. Change is a constant—sometimes it happens quickly, like a tornado, sometimes it’s imperceptible, like the change of seasons. Sun will give way to clouds. Storms will come, but they won’t rage forever.
We all weather a variety of conditions. How do we make the most of our circumstances? How do we deal with the shit? How do we manage change?
We Are Wired to Avoid Discomfort
You can try to control your circumstances. On dark days, you will want to move heaven and earth to bring back the sun. On glorious days, you’ll want to lock in the sunny skies.
You may think that if you can’t make good things happen, there’s something wrong with you. You may have heard that the power to manifest lies solely in your own hands. If you aren’t able to get what you want, some spiritual books say it’s because your own beliefs are blocking you.
It is true that you have more power than you realize. Your greatest power as a human is to align … with your own soul, with others, with energies greater than you. This is the source of your brilliance. But there is much that is beyond your control. To be wise is to know the difference, to do what you can and be patient enough to wait for things to change without losing the balance of your mind.
The wise leader’s path asks you to stay present and weather discomfort. Your natural drive will be to avoid, fight, tune out and attempt to change things that make you feel bad. When we are in mortal danger, discomfort snaps us into action like a ninja—and this might be a good thing for our survival. But most of the situations that get our hackles up day-to-day are a far cry from life or death.
When someone criticizes the choices you’ve made, or you’re laid low with food poisoning, or no one sees things your way, or when you don’t get what you want: these experiences suck, but they’re not life threatening. It’s human nature to want to feel safe, but until you learn how to befriend uncertainty, you will limit your power.
Peace Within the Storm
Change and discomfort: it’s going to happen to you. It happens to all of us, all of the time, and it’s stressful. Want to pile on more stress when something yanks your chain? You can panic. You can deny reality. You can lash out. You can eject and go into free fall. You can eat a pint of Haagen Dazs. But why heap on more misery? That’s what all these reactions to stress will bring. More misery.
When stress knocks on your door, it’s much nicer to be able to give it a cup of chamomile tea, listen to it and put it to bed rather than let it ransack your home.
Here’s where the “even keel” mindset comes in. It’s looking to ride out twists and turns with equanimity. It says, “Everything changes, there’s lots beyond my control, the best I can do is to remind myself not to get my knickers in a twist. After all, this too shall pass.” It doesn’t seek to escape the storm—because that’s not possible. It finds peace within the storm, knowing that it’s temporary and trusting that you will come through the other side stronger and wiser.
To be clear, this is not a glass half-empty worldview where you’re waiting for the other shoe to drop. That’s pessimism. It isn’t a passive resignation to more powerful forces. That’s a recipe for depression. Nor is it putting on a stiff upper lip where you deny what you feel. That’s dissociation.
No, the “even keel” mindset rolls with the conditions and seeks to regain center when it’s knocked off balance. When everything is whirling around you, it is possible to tap into a place of composure inside yourself. A place that isn’t reacting to the upheaval and upset. A place that gives you a little breathing room so that you can keep your hands on the wheel and steer the ship rather than spin out.
If you’re like most people, you tend to regard storms as error, but they have gifts to give you. If you’re willing to ride it our, you might gain a new understanding of what is most important to you. It might be an understanding of and empathy for others. It might be a clearer sense of how to proceed. It might be a deeper appreciation for your ability to weather storms. Storms are great teachers and wisdom makers.
Tool: Deep Breathing
To maintain an even keel, you need to be able to calm yourself without turning away from discomfort. When you are under stress and strain, when you’re scared that danger is just around the corner, the body and mind tense up. They’re bracing for impact.
Learning how to calm yourself will help open your mind to all the possibilities and give you a cushion to experience the discomfort without needing to react to it. Our bodies have a built in relaxation system. When it is activated, we feel calm and steady. Thousands of years ago, yogis recognized that to be able to maintain the kind of concentration that leads to higher levels of awareness, they needed to stimulate the body’s natural relaxation response without putting it to sleep.
By experimenting with different breathing techniques, the yogis noticed that they were able to stimulate either calmness or agitation just by mimicking—and even exaggerating—the breathing patterns that naturally occur in these states. Shallow and rapid breathing led to an agitated, irritable, and unfocused mind whereas full, slow and rhythmic breathing led to a calm, awake state of mind grounded in the present moment.
It may seem hard to believe that anything special can happen by breathing consciously, but scientific research supports the findings of yogis. In a study including 21 soldiers (an active group of 11 and a control group of 10), those who received a one-week training in mindful breathing techniques showed lower anxiety, reduced respiration rates and fewer PTSD symptoms.
This practice is so effective we teach it to all of our clients. It’s a powerful relaxation tool. Just 15 minutes of deep breathing in the morning will give you a foundation of calm for the day. In short order, you will have embodied the practice so that you will be able to draw upon it in moments when you need calm.
Calming Breathing Exercise
Try this easy, twelve-minute breathing exercise.