Converting Crisis into Creativity
How to work with your fear and anxiety
This past week, I saw my parents for the first time in seven months. Like many people, seeing family members or friends has to be taken under serious consideration.
How safe has everyone been?
What are their safety protocols?
How close can I get?
How comfortable is everyone?
How can I reduce or remove risk factors?
I delayed the visits until there was mutual comfort from all parties and a plan.
Since March I have reflected daily on my feelings, beliefs, thoughts and concerns. What I uncovered is a deep desire to identify and communicate my own comfort level and needs. Examining what I need to feel comfortable - space, protection, a clear plan, and an exit strategy.
Last Friday morning I set off to drive 9.5 hours to New Hampshire where my mom lives. I packed up a cooler with snacks and drinks and belted it into the front seat. Next to it was a bag of supplies including two masks, disinfecting wipes, hand sanitizer spray, paper towels. I strategized where I would stop and what I would do when I stopped. I had a process for getting gas, using the restroom and stretching my legs.
A year ago, this over-planning would have stressed me out. Today it is my source of comfort and confidence. It is also my source of inspiration and innovation.
Combining my love of design, process and event management, my partner and I have built an experience for people craving live music. Our secret backyard shows communicate our thorough safety protocols, shared expectations and visual plans with reserved seating and exit and entrance pathways. As I was the person who was most concerned with safety, I knew if I felt at ease with our plan, others could too.
We are all being challenged to change, to adapt, to adjust. And with that comes grief, fear, and uncertainty. But that’s not the full story. We have an incredible opportunity to look within, to see what is most important, what is essential. We can use this trauma to catalyze us into a new version of our self. We can see where our limits are and what we need to feel safe.
Here’s a little bonus. Yesterday on my return trip, I scrolled to a podcast from Harvard Business Review on Post-Traumatic Growth. It’s a new perspective on emerging out of crisis and chaos.
Here is the description:
Richard Tedeschi, a psychology professor and distinguished chair of the Boulder Crest Institute, says that crises like the Covid-19 pandemic and its economic fallout as well as the recent racial violence and social unrest in the United States, can yield not just negative but also positive outcomes for individuals, teams, companies, industries, communities and nations. He has spent decades studying this phenomenon of post-traumatic growth and identified strategies for achieving it as well as the benefits that can accrue, from better relationships to the discovery of new opportunities. Tedeschi is the author of the HBR article "Growth After Trauma."
Take a listen here.
Putting it Into Practice
Take a series of deep breaths. Try the 4 X 4 X 4 x 4 Method (4 count in, 4 count hold, 4 count exhale, four times)
Write down what is most important to you. What makes you happy?
List the constraints or obstacles that make you think that you “can’t do them”.
For each constraint, ask the question, “How I might feel more comfortable or confident about this obstacle?”
What do you need to support that comfort or confidence?
Who can you recruit in to support your new plan?
Solutions are all around us, but we may not see them until we step back and breathe.
Perspective is a beautiful thing!
Me with my mom and her husband Mark on our rock hunting trek to an abandoned mill in Nelson, NH.