By Dr. Wayne D. Pernell
Our survival as humans depends on taking in bad news. Paradoxically, our individual survival and our ability to thrive depends on blocking out that same news. We’re “wired” to be on alert.
We could walk into the most intricately decorated cathedral with beautiful tapestries and stained glass, but instead of taking in all the beauty, our eyes would find the one tile that’s missing, as if to say, “This is out of place! Alert! Alert!” Our limbic system provides us with key clues about potential danger.
Adrenaline responds to violations of integrity and fires up in our demands for justice as we prepare to fight what we watch on TV or read online. Cortisol pumps through our bodies in response to that stress. And though the adrenaline abates rather quickly, cortisol lingers for up to a couple of days. Our sleep cycles are thrown off as our nervous systems keep us on alert.
Tightened jaws result in clenching and grinding at night and, as an interesting aside, dental practices are reporting huge jumps in the number of fractures and cracked teeth.
This isn’t all as a result of the media bombarding us with bad news. In fact a new malady, COVID fatigue, takes center stage here, serving as the cause of major life stressors.
Our lives shifted.
The routine we maligned as drudgery a little over a year ago became the exact thing we began to miss as “the novel coronavirus” made its way across the globe. The psychological subtleties behind what we’ve experienced and continue to experience are fascinating.
We’re biased. That’s not a surprise, but bears being stated. We filter for things we want, or more accurately, what we expect to see. And that’s a problem. Because, as noted above, we’re wired to be on alert. It’s not that we actually like bad news, we just get fed a lot of it and it creates a kind of subconscious cycle of finding more of it.
We all know the feeling of having purchased something (a cell phone or a car, for example) only to find that we’re seeing more of them around us. This is the Baader-Meinhof phenomenon which is all a perceptual illusion; your awareness of a product or other image expands which leads you to believe it’s actually occurring more frequently.
Bad news leads to bad news. We see more of it. We expect more of it. We’ve become acutely aware of and desensitized by the amount of bad news we ingest. It’s a subconscious feed and we’d actually feel a little off if we didn’t have it. If you’re looking for bad news, that’s it right there. We would actually feel a little empty if we didn’t get our daily dose.
Retraining is The Key
There’s an adage in both child-rearing and in managing team members that goes, “you get more of what you focus on.” If you focus on the “bad” behavior, sure enough, you’re going to see more of it. And if you focus on what’s going right, you’ll find more of that, too.
Seek the positive — recognize that most countries never experienced a true “lock down,” so we need to stop saying that. The countries that did experience that have actually recovered more quickly, but that’s a side story. Here, focus on your reality. Business as usual was shut down, and that’s different from lock down. We feel as though our individual freedoms were impinged upon. We can’t do ______. And that’s true.
With everything that’s been taken away, what’s the mindset we need to have?
Focus on the positives.
First, remember that this pandemic isn’t personal. It might feel that way, but it’s not. No one woke up and said, “Ohhhhh you are the only one who can’t go to grocery stores or restaurants; you must stay in, go without toilet paper (of all things) and if you do go out, you must wear a mask.
Nope, it’s not personal. The absurdity of the situation is that this IS global. You can get through this by remembering a few key points:
First, what you do matters. You wake up and you make a difference to someone. Whether you’re working from home or you’ve lost your job in the midst of all of this, if you’re engaging with anyone else, your presence … your positive presence makes a huge difference in the lives of others. Decide to deliberately, actively, positively lift someone’s spirits by engaging with them positively today. Try that and see how it makes you feel when you lift another!
Second, there’s nothing wrong with asking for your own parade. Call a friend or family member and tell them you’re feeling off. Ask them to tell you something nice about yourself. It might sound selfish. It might even be selfish. And, it’s amazing what happens when you do that. Practice asking for what you need. And soon, you’ll be giving others exactly what they need too!
Third, stay curious. Because we tend to leap to judgement, remember that everyone — everyone — has a story going on and we can’t even know the half of it. Instead of leaping to judge others, ask yourself what might have made another person act in a certain way. This will lead you to compassion and even gratitude for your own life. Curiosity squashes fear, doubt, and judgement.
Finally, remember that even through all the takeaways and what feel like infringements on personal freedom, you have choice. Choice still exists in your life and that’s where your personal power, your sense of self, and your positivity can spring from. Use that to leverage positivity to others!
Dr Wayne D. Pernell is the president of Dynamic Leader®, Inc. He founded the #StartsWithOne™ movement, he is a member of the Forbes Business Council, he is a TEDx Speaker, has been featured in the Amazon Prime Television series SpeakUp Season 2, and is regularly seen on television as well as heard on radio and podcasts around the world. His work can also be found in Fast Company, Entrepreneur, Forbes and the New York Times among others.