I’ve learned so many lessons from the crisis we’re in. The horrible situation provides many gifts which are not horrible. I’m greedily gathering them around myself.
Monday night I hit a low point. I crawled in my bed and pulled the covers up to my head. When I had recovered myself enough, I called a friend of mine who is a crisis manager and I asked him for his advice on how to just *be* during all of this.
He gave me this advice about how to manage a crisis.
1) You can only work with the information you have. Check regularly, what new information do you know, and what new actions does the information inform you to do? Write those actions down and do them.
2) What additional planning steps can you take?
3) Put confidence in your ability to get from point A to point B when you can't actually see the path. Don't let your lack of knowledge of the path prevent you from taking steps in the darkness. Move forward slowly and carefully.
Once you've done all you can for the day to deal with the crisis, put it in a box and put it away, and spend the rest of your day living. Take care of yourself: rest, eat well, work on something else unrelated. This is better than continuing to go over the same crisis prep again and again.
Three helpful reminders:
a) Find small ways to exercise control over your life.
b) Just keep moving.
c) "I reserve the right to freak out from time to time.”
I found his advice so familiar…It seems I act this way on a regular basis. Meaning: I’ve been living my whole life as if I’m in crisis mode!
Why I didn’t know how to handle this crisis when I have so much practice dealing with them? It occurred to me that this one is much more present, and because it feels so different, because the fear is different, I had to be taught all over again. This can happen a lot with “what we know,” if the situation that arises isn’t like other situations we’ve seen before.
While I was listening to him, I found myself sketching mountains on a piece of paper. “I don’t like these mountains I’m drawing,” I thought. “I wish I had a picture of a mountain to copy.”
At the end of our conversation I looked at my computer screen where I had been sitting for the last hour. What do you think was on the screen? Mountains.
***News From A Jazz Musician Who Writes Books***
I've been posting online music classes for little kids.
Class #1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QgEOycV7d_Y&feature=youtu.be&fbclid=IwAR3KLq75mgEZSiqQ2Vh0PIw0bx5ky03ILAj-omn6JLB90FUTwY70L7SMKwc
Class #2: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UIkZw6UogUY&feature=youtu.be&fbclid=IwAR3qzE1F2sg-St8y89sIeiUQTmcEo7X7tH_dmbWtjKLRqTmNz_u1rWZIWSg
Class #3: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ebbz38Nl2Hs&feature=youtu.be&fbclid=IwAR0WmcVfWCdbH3GQ79Q1nNhTMqZ60qPT26J5_kMJDRD307kYw-e8XxtWPq0
If you're stuck at home and you're tired of watching stuff, why not give a listen to my new album? It's on Soundcloud for free while I prepare production. https://soundcloud.com/user-286084790
Adam Cole is a Jazz Musician Who Writes Books. Fantasy author, music educator and performer, Adam chats weekly on the subject of listening, creativity and living your best life. To get a free book on marketing tips for passing out fliers, getting on your own radio show, and writing a blog people will read, please go to www.mymusicfriend.net and subscribe.