LEAN IN – How we feel is perfect

When we change our attitude, how we feel is perfect.

Right now things seem scary to a lot of people. The virus is scary. The measures we need to take to stem the tide of infection is scary. The economic consequences are scary. The panicked reactions of others is maybe the scariest.

We can’t panic though. The experts say that. The Government says that. The religious leaders say that.

How do we do that though? How can we not feel the way we feel?

LEAN IN.

To change how we feel we don’t have to change the feeling or the circumstance, thats impossible, but, we can change our attitude. The panic and fear that we are experiencing is not our Feeling it is how we are processing our feelings furled by our attitude.

What we are feeling is what it’s like to be vulnerable, what it’s like when things are constantly shifting, what it’s like when we realize how little control we have.

Sometimes we translate that feeling into despair and into panic. When we do that, when we translate real vulnerability as fear, our human reaction is to seek ways of banishing the panic. When this doesn’t work, because there isn’t enough toilet paper in the world to take away vulnerability, we only spiral further into fear and into panic.

Instead, we can focus on honoring and respecting our vulnerability as legitimate, we can LEAN IN to our feeling. We can respond to what is and how we feel inside in a way that is focused on thriving and surviving. We can reach out in prayer to express our vulnerability. We can reach out to others, or write down for ourselves, to process how we feel. Then, the best part, we can reach out to others to let them know they are less vulnerable than they might feel, because they are not alone, they are not the only ones who feel the way they do.

When we do this, when we LEAN IN to the feeling, shifting our focus to nurturing our emotional self, to adulting our feelings, to responding responsibly to the facts on the ground, and then most importantly to helping those we can, we don’t need to change how we feel because how we feel is perfect.