An emotional response doesn’t have to mean an extreme reaction is necessary.
My father would always say, “take a step back and regroup.” He is a calculated man with a big heart. There wasn’t any time in my life that a difficult situation was met with anything more than a quiet breath from this man. He would retreat within and plan his solution then and there.
My mother would often take the path of fake it til you make it. She taught my sister and I confidence this way even though she has no discernible feelings of it even today.
These two have made me to be a very tactical thinker and to take my time with an issue to find the best solution. So I will show you how each method works as I have spent my life dissecting my parents like a frog in science class.
My father is an engineer by trade so as you can expect his strength is overthinking and executing a plan. His preferred method is, and still is, a black day planner in which every facet of life is documented. This allows him to access an external hard drive with all information that would clutter his vast and complex mind. He does this to free up space so that if something unexpected happens he has far more resource energy at his disposal.
This method is called Planning Ahead.
My mother is a survivor by force. No one becomes a survivor because they choose it from a booth in a high school job fair. She was forged in fire and became as strong as steel. She has mastered the ability to take it to the chin only to stand back up like Rocky. This has made her mind into a hyperactive processor taking in five times the information as others may take in. At any moment she will be audibly noting anything that may be going on around her.
This method is called Adaptation.
At the time I am writing this the tides have turned in the world as we battle an invisible enemy called the coronavirus. While people panic they make ill decisions like hoarding toilet paper as if it is gold. Shelves are void of beans and people avoid others like they are covered in vomit.
This is a time when panic is not welcome and a calm calculated response is the medicine especially when we don’t have the many answers. We are biological organisms with a primal nature. When met with stress we are biologically given two choices: either fight or flight.
But here is the secret….
We are an animal without claws, horns, poison seeping from glands, or an inclination to run at remarkable speeds. Instead we have a vastly developed brain. As a human you don’t have fur or weapons that grow from your anatomy because we have a brain capable of building tools to act as these pre-evolutionary appendages.
This vastly improved brain allows us to think around a problem, finding a solution. Fire doesn’t come from our hands like superpowers, but we are intelligent enough to create it.
What this means is that there is a third option for us humans in time of crisis….
CHOICE.
This story perfectly reflects this point….
An old Cherokee is teaching his grandson about life:
“A fight is going on inside me,” he said to the boy.
“It is a terrible fight and it is between two wolves. One is evil–he is anger, envy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, false pride, superiority, and ego.”
He continued, “The other is good – he is joy, peace, love, hope, serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion, and faith. The same fight is going on inside you–and inside every other person, too.”
The grandson thought about it for a minute and then asked his grandfather: “Which wolf will win?”
The old Cherokee simply replied, “The one you feed.”
You GET TO CHOOSE which emotions to respond to. They can be very strong, so here is how I manage this based on my lessons from my parents.
My method for this is as follows…
I plan what I can control which limits the amounts of things that can come up.
When something comes up that is surprising or disturbing of my flow I either respond with a plan or fake it til I make it. Always keeping myself calm to make the right decisions in the moment.
Mr. Sods 