You know that feeling you get when you wish you knew what to say about something (globally) important—yet you can’t find the words? You’re so full of feeling that any words you might have spoken have simply died in your throat?
Yeah. I’m right there with you.
It’s not that I haven’t been up to my eyeballs in the personal stuff that the aftermath of my recent medical adventure requires. It’s not that I’m so delighted to create a very exciting international online leadership program for one of my favorite clients of all time. And it’s not that my caregiving practices haven’t increased recently with some new medical developments for my beloved MIL.
It’s that I honestly haven’t been able to think of anything useful or powerful to add to the conversation, while being helped tremendously by my own teachers and colleagues, who are out there administering Emotional First Aid in truly nourishing ways.
Then I realized that in the past week, the biggest strategy I’ve been using to stay sane is a Simple Shift I learned at the start of COVID in March 2020 from my Reinvention teacher. It absolutely saved my sanity when I was in danger of losing my mind when my 30-year-old business when up in a bright flash of smoke right before my eyes. I’ve been sharing my version of it with clients and friends ever since—I call it The 3-Bucket Strategy. It’s the one thing I can pretty much guarantee will give you the biggest boost of Emotional First Aid whenever you use it.
The 3-Bucket Strategy
OK. It might sound crazy as all get-out. I know. AND … if you imagine that everything that exists in the world can be put into one of three buckets, you can calm yourself down in the direst of circumstances.
Meanwhile, the first thing you do—before we get to those buckets—is breathe. One long deep breath OUT. Whatever you’re feeling: fear, terror, distress, disappointment, frustration—whatever—will only last for 90 seconds. So just breathe and let the feeling pass through you. (Trust me on this one. Really. Just breathe and let it pass through you. I promise you that it will.)
Now just breathe for as long as you like: that’s your first big job.
(I have no doubt this strategy plays directly into managing your Vagus Nerve. However, the most important thing to recognize here is that this is Basic Biology: you’re quickly shifting yourself out of your intrinsic “fight or flight” response to danger and into your “relaxation response” so you can THINK. Frankly, it makes no difference whether you care about the deeper function at work here—unless of course, you’re a geek like me. So I will leave those details to your discretion as we move on to those truly useful BUCKETS.)
Your 3 Buckets
Imagine that everything in your life can fit into one of three buckets.
- Bucket #3 contains everything in the world that you have no direct control over. That means EVERYTHING…War. Political upheaval. Natural disasters. Weather. Traffic. Layoffs. In-laws. Community—or even family—unrest. You name it, if you have no direct personal control over it, it goes in this bucket.
- This blew my mind when I first learned it. What really blew my mind was the absolute sense of relief that flooded over me on March 12, 2020, when the COVID shutdown in my state of Ohio essentially evaporated my business. 30 years—gone in the blink of an eye. Because of this bucket, I was still breathing.
- Bucket #2 contains all the things you can influence. You know somebody who knows somebody—and you have a shot at having a conversation that can change the course of events that you normally have no control over.
- The trick here is that you have to be in relationship with someone to be able to influence them. So, no relationship = no influence = this goes into Bucket #3 … and you have no control over it, so you can let it go.
- Bucket #1 is the ONLY bucket where you have any power at all. It contains everything you think, believe and can DO. It’s the one place in the world where you have Unlimited Cosmic Power to take action and affect change in any situation in the world.
- Here’s how it works: although you have no power in the global scheme of things, you do have the power to send your money anywhere or volunteer for any cause. You can personally call someone, drive someone, sit with someone, hug someone, help someone. It turns out that getting into action is the absolute best way to eliminate that feeling of powerlessness that hits when the world seems to be burning down around your ears.
The Bottom Line
You can’t do everything. You can’t do anything about some things that are simply outside your reach. Still, you can absolutely do something.
Play of the Week: So as the world continues to do what it does, I hope you will join me and pick the one thing you can do each day, to bring more life to some situation or bring more love to some person.
Try this out and see what happens. The Big Win here is to consider the possibility that this has merit—something you can only prove one way or the other by trying it out.
Important Note: All you’re doing this week
is PLAYING & EXPLORING.
is PLAYING & EXPLORING.
There’s NOTHING to SOLVE—and EVERYTHING TO DISCOVER.