Daniel A. Bochner, Ph.D.

When all we’ve worked hard to build seems threatened by the times, how do we keep going? How do we deal with all the stress of losing everything? A lot of folks ask those kinds of questions. We tend to like nice things and comfort. We want to know that everything is going to be okay. But sometimes it seems there just might be a chance that things won’t be okay, like we’re holding on by a thread or that the thin cracks we’ve been diligently patching might open into gaping fissures. Sometimes, it seems like the bottom might literally fall out and we’ll be left groundless, plunging into a nosedive, wildly out of control.

Perhaps in merely reading those many metaphors for these commonly felt emotions, a slight panic began to well up inside of you. In writing them, I know such feelings were not completely alien to my experience. In fact, maybe the most important thing to say in this article, before imparting any particular advice, is that no one is immune to these feelings. We work hard to have things a certain way because we want some kind of security against these feelings. But when that security is threatened, of course we get scared. It would not be normal not to be scared. Nevertheless, when things are truly out of our control there has to be something we can do. Maybe, at the very least, we can establish a particular attitude toward our circumstances that will help us get through.

Since you have likely already been inundated with ways to deal with stress, I will leave that part of this article simple. It is absolutely true that dealing with stress requires that you take good care of yourself. You need to use relaxation techniques, eat right, exercise, and balance your commitments wisely. But when things get really rough and seemingly way out of control, there is something you must do for yourself that goes well beyond balancing things in your life. You have to ask yourself the question that I call the "Big What If..."

The "Big What If..." is the question that helps you sort out things, people, and values that are really important in your life. It helps you understand what it is that you really need and what’s just fluff. It helps you understand who is truly important to you and who it is you’re trying to impress. In a way, it helps you figure out who you are and what it is about life that make life valuable to you.

The "Big What If..." you ask to yourself. In this case, the questions is, what if I lost all my worldly possessions? The "Big What If..." can also be used to help you deal with other horrifying eventualities like the possibility of becoming ill or injured or a loved one becoming ill or injured. It can even be used for worries like, "what if my spouse stops loving me?" or "what if my children stop calling?"...

For the remainder of this article, please buy The Emotional Toolbox book.