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The first step in working with uncertainty is: Accept discomfort.

Second step: Become curious and explore your uncertainty.

Mindfulness, researchers have found, can help regulate aversive reactions to uncertainty.

During times of uncertainty, it’s natural to experience a range of emotions, heightened levels of stress, and even confusion, as well as mood changes, among other reactions. Of course, the extraordinary and dire circumstances of living in the middle of a war, security threats, or occupation requires a vigilance around uncertainty that is quite different from living in a place where there’s relative safety and order.

When you arrive at a place that feels like you just can’t go on, this is the time to pause. Allow this to sink in. Acknowledging this is the beginning of moving into a state of greater inner freedom and resolve.

Hidden Messages in Times of Crisis

What if the current challenges in the world are just what you need right now to grow and flourish? What if times of crisis can serve as a kind of active agent, a lever that inspires personal and collective change? What if these circumstances which present themselves as unsettling and uncomfortable will soon grow into stronger and more robust qualities of leadership?

First step: Accept discomfort. Mindfulness practices and meditation can help.

Second step: Become curious and explore your uncertainty.

While many of us are conditioned to "buck up" and "get strong" in the face of stress or as activists working on an important cause, it’s helpful to explore your authentic response to uncertainty. What does living through a phase of the unknown trigger in you?

Uncertainty and Future Threats

It’s not surprising that researchers have found that uncertainty about future threats can lead to increased anxiety. It’s theorized that five processes are involved in poor responses to future threats: inflated estimates of threat cost and probability, hypervigilance, deficient safety learning, behavioral and cognitive avoidance, and heightened reactivity to threat uncertainty.

Mindfulness, researchers have found, can help regulate........

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