Happy new year! It’s a bright and shiny 2021, what are we going to do with it?

I’m currently listening to an audiobook by Mel Robbins called Take Control of Your Life. In this book, she is coaching people who have been affected in different ways by the feeling that they are out of control. What they all have in common is that fear is triggering them, based on things that have happened in their lives.

Mel says that the fear that silences and paralyses us comes down to control. When we think we are likely to lose control, we become nervous and afraid. As children, we learned to deal with fear by running away and hiding, either physically or emotionally. It’s not a great coping mechanism for adults. However, as Mel says, there is good news – if we can recognise these patterns of behaviour, we can change them.

Mel teaches the people she is coaching various techniques to avoid being overwhelmed or silenced by the fear. In particular, I loved one episode in which a young woman is infuriated because her eyes well up in tense business situations, putting her at an immediate disadvantage. Mel taught her to recognise the feeling as it started to come up her body (many people feel fear and anxiety in their chest and throat), and intercept it before it could reach her eyes and cause her to cry.

If there’s anything 2020 has taught us, it’s that we have a lot less control over the world than we thought we did, especially those of us who live privileged lives here in the western world. No wonder there has been so much fear and anxiety around. Those two things are not conducive to creating a better world.

If you have the opportunity to listen to this audiobook (it is an Audible Original, so not available in other formats at the moment), I would recommend you check it out. It’s a great source of information and support in making the changes in our own lives that we need in order to navigate these stressful times.

What ways are you finding to cope and make this coming year better than the previous one?