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Swimming in Uncertainty: How to Overcome Fear of the Unknown
Psychology
There are people who suffer a lot for not being able to obtain the answers in advance, suffering from fear, anguish or even anxiety
When we are waiting for an exam note, the results of a doctor’s tests or a decision that concerns us from someone we care about, we weigh the different situations that can arise and we put ourselves in one place or another depending on what we think is going to happen. It could be said that uncertainty is the lack of certainty, the unpredictable and the unknown. It has a lot to do with what uncontrollable, with the probability that something happens, or not. And it is understood as a human motivation towards the search for confirmation.
And although this feeling does not tend to be pleasant, people live with it because life is constantly changing, such as the
situation that we are currently experiencing. However, Oceanía Martín Recio, coordinator of the Cepsim psychological center, indicates that there are people who suffer a lot for not being able to get the answers in advance, suffering from fear, anguish or even anxiety.
La uncertainty It is usually related to learning and a distorted belief of what control means: «The identification that in many cases is made of control with calm, with professional and / or personal success, with happiness, etc. It leads the person to focus so much on it that it can become an obsession, generating little tolerance for frustration, uncertainty and causing a lot of energy to be spent, which in many cases is lost, because there are changes that do not depend on oneself and situation that we cannot control, not having for this reason, to be the negative result “, explains the psychologist.
«Living in the day to day more than in the future is how we move forward. If we occupy our days in what we believe may or may not happen, we mentally expose ourselves to a great diversity of situations that will wear us out mentally and emotionally, while we are not living our present either, ”warns Oceanía Martín Recio. The way to get out of that loop, as he says, is “to start taking care of ourselves here and now, of what we can take responsibility for today, of what depends on us and becoming aware of the limitations that each one may have when tolerating the uncertainty not to see it as a monster, if not as something that is part of life.
Keys to overcoming the fear of uncertainty
According to the psychologist of the Cepsim psychological center, each person has a series of innate or learned qualities in their life history to be able to overcome fear of uncertainty. “It is important that the person can identify what their fear is like and what they are fearing since we do not all fear in the same way.” Apparently, being able to identify and face it, little by little, each person at their own pace would make us better assimilate the limiting thoughts about uncertainty, since they usually anticipate negative and catastrophic outcomes.
Another trick to better cope with this feeling of uncertainty is to promote self-confidence and confidence will help not to set expectations in the day to day to not anticipate. «Asking ourselves about what we need, what we want and that this becomes a motivation gives us information about ourselves, keeps us in the present and prevents us from creating demands for the future of which we cannot be certain “, says Oceanía Martín Recio.
“Working on knowing our emotions, on being able to manage them, being able to practice meditation and / or mindfulness, helps to develop a better tolerance of uncertainty”, concludes the psychologist, as a third piece of advice.