How to feel more secure amidst uncertainty

Control your Perception

Feeling insecure and anxious doesn't just appear out of nowhere. It is a response to a signal.

What is the signal? It is an experience that holds information.

Information itself is neutral. It isn't good or bad, right or wrong. We give information a meaning, in other words, we perceive something as bad, or good.

Anxiety then, is the response to our perception of information.

What meaning are you giving to this experience of uncertainty? The meaning you give it determines how you feel and how you act: what you think, what you say, what you do.

A way to manage how information effects your emotions and behaviour is by changing your perception. What other meaning can you give this experience so that it does not trigger anxiety?

Information controls your perception. Perception controls your emotions. Your emotions control your behaviour. In short: Information controls your behaviour.

This is the chain of reaction:

Information——>Perception——> feeling/ emotion (FEAR!)——>behaviour

Perception is the result of your brain processing information and coming up with an assumption: the meaning you give to information.

'We are now in a pandemic' ------> pandemic is really bad, we are doomed---> anxiety----> panic behaviour

By asking 'do I know for sure that this is true?' you challenge this conclusion that 'we are doomed' and you create an opportunity to change your perception and think NEW thoughts. You make it mean something else. Something that does not evoke a fear response.

When you watch the news and hear someone talking about the worst case scenario, how does that feel in your body? Not great!
What else could you do?

1. Challenge what you make the information mean, question the information presented to you, which is often just speculation, not fact, not truth. That feels better already.
2. Change your focus. Become present and observe your immediate environment using all your senses. This is how you change the channel of information. And it feels better already.

To change you perception requires you to challenge the assumptions of your brain, challenge your current thinking, or change the channel of incoming information.

My next video will talk about challenging information itself!