Welcome to this week’s edition of The Source in which we explore ways to master uncertainty.

Our performance at work, at home, and in the face of daily surprises, the uncertainty of the unknown, and unmet expectations is directly linked to our capacity to see clearly, make brilliant decisions, and experience fulfillment in our life.

And guess what? As long as we live, what happens next will be unknown to us. Transcending our daily life challenges – actually interpreting them as non-threats – is one of the keys to our self-actualization, destressifying teaches you to be the calm amidst the chaos… the stillness inside the storm… so you can seize each moment with greater grace & ease and take your life to the next level.

destressifying is not a term we often think about – but it is core to our mental, emotional, and physical wellbeing. Essentially, it’s our capacity to prepare for, recover from, and adapt in the face of uncertainty, overwhelm, stress, adversity, trauma, or tragedy. We’re not simply talking about bouncing back after we’ve faced a challenge; but rather, mastering our perception of the moment, and cultivating our natural ability to seize the moment and express our best version in the face of demanding, difficult, and taxing situations. Our personal growth and self-actualization are the most-powerful bi-products of destressifying.

Mastering the art & science of destressifying calls upon all the aspects of our being – the physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual realms.

• Physical destressifying is reflected in our physical health, flexibility, balance, endurance, and strength.
• Emotional destressifying is reflected in our ability to self-regulate our emotions and reactions, temper our highs and lows, cultivate our emotional awareness & emotional intelligence, elevate our ratio of positive to negative emotions, muster our courage, heal our heart, and enhance the quality of our relationships.
• Mental destressifying is reflected in our resilience, our thoughts, our perseverance, our attention span, our ability to stay focused, and our mental flexibility – finding new creative solutions to problems – and our level of optimism.
• Spiritual destressifying is reflected in our core values, our intuition, our awareness of something bigger than our self, our acceptance of differing values and beliefs, and our self-actualization, which includes being of service to others.

I explain each of these aspects in detail in my book destressifying.

Coping When Uncertainty Stresses You Out

Breathing is another key to destressifying. And it comes naturally – you may just have gotten out of practice. By maintaining awareness on our breathing throughout the day, we will naturally destressify.

While you are cultivating your new destressifying mindset, there may be many moments in between where you will want to deploy some of the many in-the-moment destressifying techniques to move you from conditioned responses to your best version. Here are a couple to practice this week:

Doorknob Breathing

Based on 16seconds, every time you enter a room you can shift your energy. As you grip the doorknob – breathe in; as you turn the handle – hold your breath; as you open the door – exhale; as you step in and close the door behind you, hold the breath out. Your next full breath will bring new energy into the room as you enter. And more importantly, you wont be bringing the thoughts, conversations, or energy that you had only 17 seconds before.

Sipping Breath

Purse your lips as if you sipping a hot cup of tea. Take long, slow deep breaths in through your pursed lips. This will totally release tension and help you transcend any anxiety of the moment. To add more force to the practice, as you breathe in, clench your fists and arms and bring them to the side of your face. As you exhale release the tension in your hands and arms and gently let them rest by your side.

Gargling Breath

With your mouth wide open, take a long slow deep breath in and count until your chest fully expands. And as you exhale make sure that your out-breath lasts one second longer than your inhale. Practice this for a minute. Remember if at any time, you get lightheaded STOP. Take a seat. And just breathe normally.