Life Kit - 7 tips for coping with uncertainty about the future

Episode Date: October 12, 2020

Uncertainty can be hard to live with — especially when it feels never-ending. Three people who have survived tough times and gained perspective share their advice.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

Hi, I'm Sarah McCammon, national correspondent at NPR, and this is NPR's Life Kit. We are living in uncertain times. No one knows exactly how or when this coronavirus pandemic will end or what it will mean for our lives and the lives of our loved ones. We're worried about a lot of things, our health, our finances, our social fabric even. How do we get through this? What will the challenges be in the coming weeks, months, years? And what will the world look like when it's over? I know I'm not the only one lying awake at night asking myself these questions or waking up in the morning wondering how to get through another day of dealing with all the normal life stuff we all have to deal with

while living with this constant uncertainty just percolating in the background. This pandemic that we're all going through together feels unprecedented. But uncertainty is not. People live through all kinds of scary things all the time. That's life. So I wanted to talk to some folks who've lived day to day with looming uncertainty about what happens next, about how they got through it, and what we might learn from them right now. When she was 15, Robin Wallery found her life quite suddenly, uprooted and uncertain. After

her family got a call letting them know there were wildfires burning near their home near San Diego. And then my mom came in and woke me up and basically told me that we were going to be evacuating because the fires were getting closer, but, you know, it was going to be okay. We were going to be coming back to our house and to pack. Like, I was going to a sleepover at a friend's house for, like, two or three nights. That was 2007, when Wallery was a high school sophomore. She packed some pajamas, grabbed some photos. They drove to a parking lot near the freeway trying to decide whether to leave. So we stayed in that parking lot, like me, my dad, my mom and my dog for about six hours, just listening to the radio and listening for updates.

And I remember just constantly asking my parents, like, why are we still here? What are we doing? I remember my parents just being so confused about what to do. Like, do we stay? Do we go? Like, how are we going to make this decision?

It was really just the beginning of a long, uncertain road for Wallery's family. The fire destroyed their house, and the two nights she'd been told to prepare for turned into more than two years of rebuilding their lives and their home. So there was probably about a month where my parents and I, they would pick me up from school sometimes and bring me to our house, and we'd sift through our ashes. I mean, literally with sifters looking for anything that survived the fire.

And that was a very traumatic experience for me, and it lasted what felt like forever. But nothing lasts forever. Wallery's family finally moved into their rebuilt house during her senior year of high school. She's 28 now, working as a nurse in Austin, Texas, and she says her experience of fleeing the wildfire and facing the aftermath taught her something about dealing with uncertainty, which brings us to our first takeaway. So probably the biggest coping skill that I've learned is finding a sustainable way of like getting my feelings or emotions out. So that's number one. Wallery says she learned it doesn't matter how you do it.

It's just important to find a way to check in with yourself and reflect. I remember I went through a lot of therapy and a lot of stuff afterwards and they really wanted me to journal, journaling, journaling. And I know that's really popular and something you hear if you, you know, are really looking for coping methods.

For me, journaling didn't work. I felt like in my head, it's like I have to write a whole diary entry. Like, I can't like understand that journaling can just be like one or two lines. This is how I feel today. It could mean writing in a journal or if that's not your thing, either just setting aside a few minutes each day to stop, think about where you're at, even if it's just for a moment. Robin Waldery says she also learned to cut herself some slack, especially during stressful times,

which is takeaway number two. You see, especially on social media, like people who are doing all these things with their time or, you know, there's just so many messages out there of what you should be doing, what you could be doing. And I think something that I learned many years ago that I always fall back on is should is a bad word. So I tell my friends, don't should on yourself. That's don't should on yourself, right? To be clear. Yes. Don't should. S-H-O-U-L-D. Yes. But I really live by that because

when you're saying you should be doing this, you should be doing that just because you see it or you hear other people doing those things. If you're going through something that's traumatic, that should word is just putting more stress on yourself. Don't should on yourself. In other words, try to let go of other people's expectations for how you should cope with an uncertain situation. Now let's meet Kate Bowler. For Bowler, uncertainty came in the form of a stage four cancer diagnosis in 2015 when she was just 35 and the mother of a young child. Bowler compares living with an uncertain prognosis to swinging from vine to vine, never knowing what's just ahead

or how exactly you'll get through. It wasn't really up to me about whether or not I caught the next vine. It was if I had language to, like, face down the abyss and just say, like, I've come to the end of what I know. Bowler is still alive more than four years after her diagnosis, thanks to promising new immunotherapies. But there are no guarantees.

So here's takeaway number three. Each day, take stock of what's possible and what's not. If I'm in a time that's especially emotionally costly, I will only watch super garbage TV, listen to really gentle music, and just expect that like the tough work should be for another day. Just accepting where you're at. Yeah. Yeah. Without thinking about how you're doing. It's like a ninja, mental ninja work. And just like giving yourself permission to just not be super productive maybe, right?

Yeah. Or watch trash TV. You got to like, I used to just like pick a time and shut it down. So I mean, sometimes by like 3 p.m. I was like, this is not my day. And so I felt like, all right, 6.30 p.m. That's it. I have gone to bed at five. You figure out what you have and when you're done and then you try so hard to call it because if you don't, you'll just ruin the next day. Sometimes you have to just shut it down. Do less.

It's okay. Bowler says that strategy has allowed her to focus her energies on what is possible each day. She's a historian at Duke Divinity School in North Carolina, and sometimes her work is a refuge. So I just try to see the day kind of like a limited battery. You know, like you wake up in the morning, you kind of do a battery check, like how much do I have to give? So I just always tried to figure out like, okay, well, how do I give my best gift inside the economy of this day? You know, I'm a historian. So that's why I ended up writing these like history books in the chemo waiting room is not because I'm a masochist, but I needed a place to go for I could feel like, man, no, actually, like a best gift might be very different for a nurse or someone else.

But this this is me like this is my only thing. So I will write history here in this place because that's the best thing I can do today with what I have. OK, so writing history books in the middle of a crisis might feel like a little bit much for most of us. But we all have our thing. Maybe for you it's baking a pie, organizing a closet, or just conquering a video game. Whatever it is, find the best gift you can give yourself and the world that day. That's takeaway number four. Elizabeth White had to face down a different kind

of uncertain future when she found herself in the midst of a financial crisis in her 50s. So I'm someone who was doing really well until I wasn't. White is the author of 55 Underemployed and Faking Normal. With degrees from Harvard and Johns Hopkins and a successful import business, White says she never expected to find herself facing such an uncertain financial future. 2008 hit, and what I found as a contractor is that I was the first to go. So when companies are retrenched, then they let go of their contractors first. And so you don't right away realize it's sort of unfolding in front of you. But then at some point, your phone is just not ringing.

You're not getting called back. No one is asking you to interview. And it dawns on you, you're in a different place. Once she found herself in that place, White says she had to work through the shame of needing help. That's takeaway number five. But you might have some shame around feeling a little uncomfortable going to a food bank, if it gets to that for you, or feeling uncomfortable applying for food stamps, SNAP, or Medicaid, or programs that you had normally associated with other people.

And as a friend of mine said to me at one point, get off your throne. You got to get off your throne. Because there were some things that, you know, job opportunities, small editing jobs, things that I just didn't want to do, was not used to. You've got to survive, and you're going to be asked to do some things that you don't want to do. For White, that meant getting a roommate at one point, reaching out to her mother for help, taking gigs that didn't feel like a great fit, but helped pay the bills. And all these things we don't want to do, we may have to do when we land here. And to get your brain around, you are doing what you need to do to survive and to the best of your ability to keep yourself and your family safe.

It's important, White says, to set aside the shame of asking for the help you need to navigate uncertain times. That may mean physical needs or emotional support. Set aside the shame of asking for the help you need to navigate uncertain times. That may mean physical needs or emotional support. Something everyone we talked to who'd been through these uncertain times talked to us about was the importance of reaching out to your support network. And here's number six. Reach out. Kate Bowler says that starts with being honest with yourself and other people. The great weird awful universalizer of suffering is that it just it really brings out our common humanity. When I look around I just see all of us needing permission to be as fragile as we are like really are to be as like honest because man this is a culture that does not want us to be honest

about stuff like, I'm really lonely. I could really use love and understanding about the crap in my life. I wish that the systems that were supposed to protect me had protected me. Like all the deep longings we are often socialized out of saying. So I'm looking around seeing this whole

culture very hungry for a level of honesty that I don't think has been afforded to us before. Cultivate connections with people you can be honest with, who can help you feel less alone, help you figure out how to solve your problems. Send a text message, make a phone call, or get out the stationery and write a letter old school. Here's Elizabeth White. I gathered a group, what I called a resilience circle, so a few people that I could tell the truth to because there was a lot of pressure to front and to seem like I was okay when I was not okay. That kind of honesty is really hard, White says, especially in a competitive culture like ours

where everybody feels that pressure to pretend. And because we don't talk about it to each other, you'll think you're in a ditch by yourself. You're not understanding that there are millions of Americans who have landed here. And this is the thing that I think is so significant about this moment in time with the pandemic. It has pulled back the cover.

We see all the fault lines that were already there. If there's any redeeming value to this time of collective uncertainty, White says, maybe it will be a greater realization that we all need each other. And one more thing, takeaway number seven for getting through uncertain times. Bowler and White both told me there can be a huge desire when things are uncertain to try really hard to just figure them out, make it all add up. But Bowler says, don't do that.

We are just like meaning-making creatures. We can't help drawing lessons and meaning from Don't do that. Like, for example, when I was very, very sick, I started getting confused about whether it was like my fault that I had cancer. And that's just because I was making too much meaning out of something that there wasn't a reason for. White has similar advice. She says don't rush ahead and assume you know how a situation will unfold because you might assume the worst. You can't make sense of this. It's unprecedented where we are. No one knows what the outcome is going to be. So don't fast forward and run the tape of failure and run the tape of doom and get sucked into that hole. Don't try to make sense of things too soon. White has discovered that even an uncertain,

frightening time can be a time for reassessment and growth. About the path you were on, the things you thought you wanted, the goals you had. And White says we may come through uncertainty and find that the world has changed and that that is actually okay. White has written a book and become a successful speaker, but she's never returned to her previous income level. But I have like an interesting life. have a richly textured life that is made up of people and family that I am very invested in. So I can't say to you now that I have some deep missing, you know, over a decade ago. I don't. So here's what we've learned about uncertainty

from three people who've lived through it for years at a time. First, reflect on how you're feeling and on what's still good. Check in with yourself. Maybe that's in a journal or a prayer or a conversation with a friend. Two, don't should on yourself. As Robin Wallery says, try to set aside other people's expectations. Number three, shut it down. After you've stopped obsessing about what you should do, find some things you want to do that make you feel good, like watching TV or just going to bed early. Number four, once you've recharged, find your best gift for that day.

Think about what you can do, what feels meaningful or gives you a sense of accomplishment, and do that. Number five, move past shame, especially about changes in your life that you can't control. Uncertain times may require doing things differently, reaching out for help, but that's part of being resilient, and it's nothing to be ashamed of. Six, find your resilient circle. Connect with people who can lift you up and point you in the right direction as you navigate the future. People who will let you be honest about how you're feeling and then remind you to keep moving forward. And number seven, don't try to make sense of things too soon. Don't rush to fill in the gaps based on incomplete information or worst case scenarios. And know that life on the other side might be different, but it might be really rich and really

interesting. For more NPR Life Kit, check out our other episodes. There's one about how to start running and another about managing anxiety. You can find those at npr.org slash life kit. And if you love Life Kit and want more, subscribe to our newsletter at npr.org slash life kit newsletter. You can find my work and that of my colleagues at NPR News at npr.org or on NPR One or your local NPR station. And here's a random tip for coping with uncertainty. Go for a walk. For all the mental and emotional coping skills we've talked about, sometimes it's good to just move. It's still okay to exercise outside, especially if you wear a face mask. And I'm

finding that all the positive self-talk in the world is great, but sometimes it helps to stop thinking and start moving. If you've got a good tip for dealing with uncertainty or otherwise, leave us a voicemail at 202-216-9823 or send us a voice memo at lifekit at npr.org. This episode was produced by Audrey Nguyen and Claire Schneider. Megan Cain is the managing producer. Beth Donovan is the senior editor. Our digital editor is Beck Harlan, and our editorial assistant is Claire Schneider. I'm Sarah McCammon.

Thanks for listening.