Have you ever found yourself in a situation where you felt completely helpless? Maybe your child had an ear infection and the medication didn’t seem to ease the pain. Maybe someone you love deeply was grieving the loss of a job, or the death of a loved one, or the end of a relationship. Maybe you just found out that your job is being eliminated or that you have cancer or that your spouse wants a divorce.

Feeling helpless can be really hard. It’s so easy to get trapped in the feeling of helpless or powerless. But the path through that feeling is simple too. Here’s a 4-step process to use when you feel helpless or powerless:

1. Accept What Is: Have you noticed that whenever you fight against or fight with what is, you suffer? What is is. No amount of disowning or denying can change what is true. By acknowledging and accepting what is, you put yourself on the path of being able to move move forward.
2. Show up; Be Present: You cannot change the past and the future isn’t here yet. In fact, it’s the present that lays the foundation for the future. Choose to be present. Stop and take a few deep breaths and inhabit your body here and now. Look at what is with as much openness and curiosity as you can muster, and you will be able to see things more clearly.
3. Focus on What You Do Know and What you Can Influence: In Chip Conley’s book Emotional Equations, he describes the following equation: [anxiety = uncertainty x powerlessness]. Anxiety will keep you stuck. Anxiety causes frenetic energy. Anxiety can cause emotions to arise in a way that feels overwhelming. The path through anxiety is to stay focused on what you do know rather than what you don’t know and what you can influence rather than things you cannot. Doing this will help you see things more clearly. And from a place of seeing things clearly, you will be able to decide on the best course of action.
4. Take Action: Get in action. Do something. Even if you only take a small step, that step is the beginning of making progress and a few small steps strung together will create momentum.

Here are some specific examples of what this 4-Step Antidote looks like in different situations:

The Situation: Someone I love is suffering or in pain and I don’t believe I can do anything to ease their pain or fix their problem

The Antidote:

1. Take a deep breath and acknowledge their pain
2. Be fully and compassionately present
3. Ask what they need/want or decide what action you can take
4. Take action or provide what they need if you can

The Situation: I want something to happen that is (or at least seems to be) out of my control

The Antidote:

1. Ask yourself what you can control or what is in your sphere of influence
2. Focus on what you can do or influence
3. Determine an action you can take
4. Take action

The Situation: This problem seems too big for me to handle, solve or overcome

The Antidote:

1. Take a deep breath and get present;
2. Break down the problem into smaller chunks
3. Ask yourself what you can do today to move in the direction of solving that problem
4. Take action

The Situation: I feel stuck or trapped in a situation I don’t want to be in; I have to do this.

The Antidote:

1. Define the problem and get present.
2. Ask yourself: can you absolutely know that it’s true that you are trapped? Then ask yourself: if I weren’t capable of believing the thought that I was stuck, what next step would I take?
3. Take at least a small step
4. Acknowledge yourself for making progress

The Situation: I want to do something and I don’t have the skills, knowledge or tools to do it

The Antidote:

1. Define where you are and where you want to be
2. Clearly identify the skills, knowledge or tools you need
3. Put a plan in place to acquire them; Get support or accountability
4. Begin now