You’re working feverishly to meet a deadline and suddenly receive some unexpected news that rattles you to your core. The pounding heart in your chest, sweaty hands, and shallow breathing leave you feeling rattled. Be careful where you step! The head of the pin you’re standing on barely has enough room for both feet, and you can feel it teetering beneath you.

Quick check. How are you feeling? Panic courses through your body, and your grounded confidence morphs into uncertainty and vulnerability. Your awareness guides you toward a big, deep breath while you hang on to your pen for dear life. In your head, you’re screaming while you skillfully shift your self talk from “what the hell” to “one step at a time dear; you’ve got this.” Your mind works on solutions and integrating the new information into an alternate plan.

Now, what’s going on? Did you see how dramatically your emotions shifted and took you on a journey you weren’t expecting? Your knowledgeable intuition knows that you want to respond instead of react and jumped in to guide you. That’s magic in the works! See how quickly things can shift from one extreme to the other?

The full range of emotions in this brief story are real, present, and on active duty. That deep breath you took allowed you to see each feeling and quickly adapt. The instant panic set in, you gave yourself a moment to realize the situation wasn’t as life-threatening as your panic would have you believe. Thank goodness your emotional awareness kicked in and alternative choices came to your rescue!

The nature of the universe is going to shake things up for us. You’re going to feel rattled. Things happen and our sturdy legs are going to feel shaky from time to time. The good news is that we can see or feel what’s going on and we can adapt. Hang on to that pen for dear life and take a breath. The internal earthquake doesn’t have to cripple you. You’ve got this!

He found a way to dance with his dynamic emotions…

Explore more feelings in the Stayin’ in Touch – Negative Emotions book. You can play with them when or wherever you like.

Image by Дмитрий Бирюков from Pixabay