A couple weeks ago my soon-to-be-five-year-old and I were doing our morning chores.

 

Well — more accurately I was trying to get us out the door and he was trying to find a way to turn brushing his teeth into a circus act.

 After asking him to do something multiple times I snapped at him. I have no idea what exactly I said but apparently it wasn’t the first time that morning I’d been short-tempered.

 

My child looked me straight in my eyes and said, “You’re not being as good as you normally are!” He was right. I immediately came back to being in my own body, standing in our bathroom, existing only in that moment. A great relief from thinking about the sequence of events for the rest of the day (or week/or life). Can you relate?? Do you feel like you’re not being as good as you normally are? If so, allow me to relieve some of that tension and give us both space to find some grace.

 

In 2015 my son was born. In the 13 months leading up to that event I had bought a house, suffered the death of one of my dearest people, had a huge change in work, got married, and then had a child. These changes, even the positive ones, are huge stressors. I could not figure out why I could no longer find my footing.

 

We have a tendency to throw terms around like “new normal” as if there is anything normal about feeling uprooted. “New normal” suggests that with the flick of the wrist you should be acclimated to whatever the hell “normal” is.

 

It wasn’t until I learned about the brains reference points that I felt heard… understood… validated. It’s the stress of change. When you experience a major change in your life your brain is constantly searching for reference points, all the things that are familiar. When there is nothing familiar the brain undergoes stress. And nothing just happens in the brain so the body undergoes stress, too. Oh, and nothing happens in just the brain and the body so the spirit undergoes stress, too.

 

Stress is counterintuitive to healing. Stress often leads to discouragement, failure, and powerlessness. Currently you are experiencing a global pandemic, social distancing, and only seeing half of people’s faces. Extra love to you if you’ve experienced big life changes in the midst! We have no reference points. Nothing looks familiar. If there is one thing that is normal it’s to feel “not as good as you normally are.”

In my line of work, I guide people to turn their attention from discouragement, failure, and powerlessness to encouragement, success, and empowerment — with reference points.

 

A lot of “health” programs lead to the former because they aim to change too many reference points at once and you’ve seen what that causes. The first step is understanding the process of change and managing your reference points.

 

Reference points are your sense of normalcy, sanity, safety, and stability. These are things that confirm your identity. If the change is small or something you’ve experienced before, and your brain knows it’s only temporary, the stress is much easier to manage.

 

These are the things like having to adjust your workday to pick up a sick child. If the change in a reference point is vastly different, hard to understand, has no familiar aspects, and doesn’t seem to be something that will quickly subside — the stress is immense. You are a human programmed to learn and you learn by pattern recognition. The patterns make up our reference points. Right now, you are living in a culture experiencing a complete change in reference points. The stress is immense. This information alone should prompt you to award yourself with some grace.

 

You can reclaim your power, baby step by baby step. The most tangible, and important, reference point is your body. Your physical reference point is how you interpret and make sense of the world (and yourself).

 

When Cannon pointed out such an obvious truth, I immediately came back to my physical reference point. I came back to my physical presence in this space of our home with his physical presence, as opposed to the 42 other places my mind was.

 

When you are feeling scattered, overwhelmed, and “not as good as you normally are”— take a moment and look at your feet. Then your knees, your legs, your hips, your arms, your torso, and so on state out loud what you are looking at. Be curious how your physical body feels. And ask yourself what is true right now.

 

During times of change you can also slow down and keep the focus and appreciation on some small yet stable reference points. This is also how we can begin to implement baby steps in creating new habits and reference points. For example, if you wanted to implement a new habit (a new reference point) I’d have you attach it to an already existing and stable reference point.

 

Want to meditate? Instead of ‘I’m going to meditate every day, you say, ‘before I brush my teeth I’ll meditate for 5 minutes.’ This shifts the brains focus and feels more like cooperation and less like change. These small baby steps also eliminate shame and pride from the equation. Remember, this is your life — every day, all day.

 

Being aware of what is happening in your mind and body is crucial. Being in the moment can bring its own feelings of safety and normal (whatever that means to you specifically). Being in the moment will allow you to create and find new reference points.

 

It is also crucial to make sure that your life and what you want to be “normal” fits into the context of who you are and who you want to be and not what the rest of the world expects of you.

 

As you reclaim your power by utilizing your physical reference point and practice coming back to the present moment, you’ll find that your confidence will build.

 

This confidence not only makes change easier it aids you in integrating the bigger, more stressful changes that are far outside of your control.