How to Cope with Uncertainty
The importance of focusing on the present moment when things are difficult
Welcome! I’m Dr. Jillian, a physician leader, mom, and coach who is on a mission to help other high achieving professionals and recovering perfectionists live less stressed, more satisfying lives. If the full post doesn’t show up in your e-mail, come over to the webpage or Substack App to see the whole thing. Subscribe here to get future posts straight to your inbox:
As a Pediatric Critical Care Medicine Physician, I hate not knowing.
I would love things to be black or white or have yes or no answers. And it would be wonderful if the work that I (and so many team members) do guaranteed a happy outcome for the patients I care for.
But this is not the way the world works.
So, in order to avoid perpetual frustration with the fact that I can’t have 100% certainty all of the time, I’ve had to learn to navigate uncertainty. It doesn’t mean that I enjoy it, but it does mean that I don’t often feel consumed by the discomfort it causes me.
During this time of incredible uncertainty and chaos, I’m glad to have a solid foundation to rely on. If you don’t have the same foundation or yours feels rocky right now (because tbh… whose doesn’t these days?), hopefully the rest of this short post will be helpful for you.
To some extent, my work has helped me learn to get better with uncertainty, but it has been meditation and learning from meditation teachers that has really made a difference in my life over the past nine years. Through meditating, I’ve gotten better at learning to allow difficult emotions and feelings to be present and to not get consumed by them.
Recently, I have had a lot of people ask me how they are going to make it through the next four years (and beyond). Clearly for a lot of people in the United States and elsewhere, there’s a lot of uncertainty related to the recent election. For some, it’s more than uncertainty; it’s a fear about physical safety and potentially being completely uprooted from your current life. It’s about your humanity being invalidated.
And I won’t try to downplay that. It’s awful, and it can be understandably terrifying.
The terror or stress of uncertainty can easily overwhelm us if we let it. And, in some ways, I think that’s the goal of some of the people making decisions right now. Because it’s harder to fight back if you’re terrified or incapacitated by stress.
And even if I can’t immediately fix the unfair things happening to you/so many others, I’d like to help you learn to feel a little (or maybe more) less stressed.
If you’re feeling the stress of the world or your own personal circumstances, my advice to you is to narrow your focus.
Instead of thinking about the next four years or what your entire future looks like, think of what is happening now and how you can impact this moment. And then the moment after that.
For example, when I was recently feeling unsettled in my own life about what the future without my dad looks like, I asked myself that I could do to make myself feel a little more settled. The answer may seem unconventional to you, but it popped into my head reasonably easily: Feed the birds.
My dad loved birds. And he spent a lot of time in my yard over the past year filling the bird feeder. So, even in the dead of winter, we have a flock of birds and other animals who come around looking for food.
So, I fed them, and my son helped.
And it didn’t “solve” the issue at hand or contribute to the solution of the world’s problems. But it did feed many birds and squirrels and bunnies. And it provided an opportunity to get outside with my son and show him that it’s worth caring about things other than ourselves. And we laughed.
And that’s not nothing.
So, the next time you’re feeling stressed, overwhelmed, or uncertain about the future and you find yourself getting sucked into a doom spiral, try this instead:
Pause and acknowledge the spiral
Take a few deep breaths
Ask yourself what might be more helpful right now
Do the thing
I’d love to hear what you do when you’re feeling overwhelmed or uncertain.
A beautiful post! I’ve been finding myself reaching out to a friend when I can. I strongly believe community is how we get through this in the long-term and it’s important we come together in anyway we can. So I’ve been doing check ins as someone crosses my mind or sending a note of encouragement when I can. It’s a small moment of outreach to hopefully make someone feel less alone.
Aloha from Hawaii, Jillian! (where, btw, it is NOT snowing). Always love your posts. Narrowing one's focus, paying attention to the small things.. those birds (I feed them as well), little acts of kindness to strangers.. the list goes on. Back in 2001, after watching the attack on the Twin Towers - 9/11 - I felt both burdened and overwhelmed about the magnitude of suffering in the world and my impotence to make any significant difference to alleviate it. But then, I had that same AHA moment: Start where you are, your circle of influence, your patients, your colleagues, your family, every single being you touch with your presence. That is enough.