If 2020 and 2021 have taught humanity anything, it’s that you can’t escape the reality of things not always going your way. With so many family members, jobs, businesses, marriages and more impacted already in the 2020s, many people find themselves touched by – or even entangled in – the collective and profound grief that goes with the unexpected loss of the world as we knew it. In the pain of a dream in progress that suddenly falls. The disappointment; an anger; a hopelessness, where expectations never met for ourselves go unmet.
Dr Morgana McCabe Allan works with frustrated entrepreneurs to help them fall back in love with their businesses, achieve their goals and attract the right kind of clients. Through her coaching and mentoring, coaches, therapists, practitioners and heart-centred service providers can learn how to make their ventures successful without burning out or sacrificing their free time.
You’re not alone, if you’ve found yourself at a crossroads, uncertain which way to go, after change you didn’t plan for. Dr Morgana McCabe Allan talks us through five ways in which you can stay present in these moments and grow through them.
Stop measuring
Measuring where you are now relative to where you thought you’d be keeps you in relationship with things that you can’t change. This keeps you in judgement and takes you away from this moment, but it is only ever “now” where you can actually create change. Allow yourself to be open to the idea that no matter how significant an unexpected circumstance is, you can create something new from it.
Shift your perspective
Seeing new circumstances from your old way of thinking makes everything feel like more of a problem, and pushes you forwards into the future through catastrophizing visions of how the problem will get worse. Kickstart your curiosity and growth by communing with new ideas and experiences through reading and listening to people who already have a vantage point that’s on the other side of where you are now.
Talk it out
With a therapist, coach or other professional who can listen not only to what you’re saying, but to what’s left unsaid. The most limiting beliefs in your life are the ones that are completely invisible to you: you can’t be present in this moment and also hide these big parts of yourself from yourself. Having partnership in opening your feelings is essential transformation because vulnerability and courage are relational. As you are seen, you become present to what’s really going on in your own reality. And that opens up so many creative pathways to new solutions.
Work in your heart
Feel all your feelings, and be ready to hold yourself with absolute compassion. Wherever you are, and however you go there, you’ll need an abundance of self-love and self-care to stay present in the moment, and to be ready to embrace a practice of forgiveness and understanding towards yourself and others. Your instinct will be to fight being present, binging anything from chocolate to TV, wine to shopping, or even gaming. Your body will hold your emotions forever, if you don’t let yourself feel them now, so let go and cry, dance it out, and hold your loved ones.
Slow down
Taking action is great, but frantic reactive action isn’t informed by what you really need, which means it doesn’t take you towards what you really want. Agency is our capacity to act in the world, in relationship with all the people, places, things, ideas, social constructs and more that we engage with. That includes your own emotional state, which you interact with internally, and then again as you interact with it’s reflections back in how other people and circumstances are impacted by you and respond. Make sure your actions are focused on what your heart truly needs, and that you are courageous, curious and non-judgemental in their execution
