Crisis Management – How to Handle your Feelings in the Midst of Crisis
This first step to handling anything is to acknowledge what is happening. Looking at any crisis from the perspective of “you cannot change or heal what you don’t acknowledge”, will help in the midst of crisis. At times and depending on the crisis, it may be difficult to understand what needs to be changed or healed, that is why some outside help is important to set yourself in a healthy direction with decisions.
If you are anything like me, it may be difficult to even get to a place where you can pinpoint what you are feeling. Looking at feelings as colors has been a helpful step for me. Feelings are like different colors, some are red, blue, green, yellow, orange, black. They are not right or wrong. They do not determine who you are. They are just a byproduct of the situation at hand.
Men usually have a hard time with expressing what feelings they are feeling. Women on the other hand have an easier time with the expression of feelings. Women have four times as many brain cells (neurons) connecting the right and left side of their brain. This finding provides physical evidence that supports the observation that men rely easily and more heavily on their left brain to solve one problem one step at a time. Women have more efficient access to both sides of their brain and therefore greater use of their right brain. Women can focus on more than one problem at one time and frequently prefer to solve problems through multiple activities at a time.
So what are you feeling during the crisis at hand? Are your feelings controlling you? Allow yourself to express what is going on with you right now. Remember, there are no right or wrong feelings; anything goes, just allow yourself to express what is going on with you.
Character
A mentor told me this phrase a long time ago and I have referred to it in many situations that I have found myself in throughout my life. This phrase is “Talent and Charisma will get you to the top, Character will keep you there.”
In the midst of the Tiger scandal this phrase has been brought back to my attention. There is an intense lack of people looking at their character because it involves accountability. It may not always be comfortable to take off the mask and ask ourselves; what the heck am I doing? This lack of taking off the mask has resulted in a society that will continue embracing a tolerance that is extremely unhealthy.
As I have mentioned in an earlier post, we each have a desire inside of us for greatness. The more human greatness that is achieved by an individual results in a greater level of negative pull if that person is not grounded in something solid!
Have you taken a look at your moral values lately? It’s always good to take a look at where we are at in that area if we want to continue to grow in a healthy direction. Remember, we are always growing, we are either growing in a positive direction or a negative direction.