by Leigh DeBord
The Command Purpose Foundation focuses on the process of transition. According to William Bridges in his book Transitions, every transition begins with an ending, followed by the neutral zone, followed by a new beginning. The neutral zone is when you experience the highest levels of uncertainty.
In the “neutral zone”, you feel the heat and pressure of the change occurring in your life. In nature, carbon atoms spend long periods of time under intense pressure and high heat before crystallizing into diamonds. Think of your “neutral zone” as the place where you are transforming into a diamond.
Transitioning out of the military is hard and brings up emotions of fear, anxiety, and stress. Thoughts rapid fire in your brain, “What am I going to do for a new stream of income? What career field do I want to pursue? Where am I going to live? What am I qualified to do? Should I go back to school first?”
These are the initial thoughts a transitioning service member has as they exit the military. However, the job search is the easy part. The next set of questions that enter the mind of a transitioning veteran are the existential, hard to answer questions. “Who am I without my uniform? What do I believe? What am I meant to do? What is my purpose?”
Command Purpose decided to host this series not to answer these questions for you, but to provide you with an understanding of uncertainty and equip you with tools to help you manage expectations, alter your perspective, and maintain a feeling of control.
Our facilitator, Sushama Kirtikar, a licensed mental health professional, provided resources and information to help mitigate the paralyzing effects uncertainty can have on you during your transition. She said, “when you find yourself feeling out of control, check your perspective.”
Martin E. Seligman, an American psychologist, teaches the “3 Ps” you can use to check our perspective. They are: Personalization, Permanence, and Pervasiveness.
Personalization is the belief that the problem is your doing. Permanence is the belief the problem will last forever. Pervasiveness is the belief that the problem applies to all aspects of your life. When we feel helpless, it can lead to hopelessness, which can lead to depression.
When you feel the onslaught of stress, worry, or anxiety because of uncertainty, use these three P’s to reframe how you look at the problem and you will find that it is not as daunting or terrible as you initially thought.
In the military, you are used to being in control. In planning sessions, you create multiple courses of action (COA) and weigh the pros and cons of each COA to help decide which one is the best, the one with the least amount of risk.
You train multiple iterations and conduct rehearsals where you try to think of everything that could go wrong and how to mitigate it and react to it. Your sphere of influence is large and you control most of what you are concerned about. However, when you leave the military, that control vanishes. The only thing you are in control of is yourself and how you react to what happens next in your life, at least in the short term.
In his book, 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, Stephen R. Covey explains his 3 concentric circles. The innermost is control, the middle circle is influence, and the outermost is concern.
During uncertain times, you must focus on the innermost circle, control. As you gain control you can expand our influence. You must ignore the circle of concern. You do not have any control or influence over what concerns you and putting energy and brain power towards those things does not reduce stress or anxiety.
“Grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference”. The Serenity Prayer reminds you to ignore the circle of concern, focus on the circle of control, and work to expand your circle of influence. In ambiguity, this is very challenging. The biological tendency is to revert to a fight or flight response.
Dr. Elizabeth Stanley, the creator of Mindfulness-Based Mind Fitness Training (MMFT) and author of Widen the Window, delineates your “thinking brain” from your “survival brain”.
She defines the “the window” as the window of tolerance to stress arousal that each of us has. She says that when you are inside our window, your “thinking brain” and “survival brain” work together as allies. When you are outside our window, your “survival brain” is likely to hijack your thinking, and stress and emotions drive your decision-making which can lead to adrenaline seeking or addictive behaviors.
Your window controls how you move through the world. When you have a wide window, you are thinking rationally and can make good decisions during stressful situations. During times of uncertainty, your window narrows and you feel stressed and anxious. During these times, when you are making a transition from familiarity to something new or the unknown, it is important to recognize the need to widen your window so you can make rational and well-thought out decisions. She provides seven tactics to widen our window. The tactics are as follows:
- Control- identify what you can control in your life
- Schedule- make a daily schedule
- Process- create systems for how you execute tasks
- Reward- reward yourself
- Adapt- move your goalposts closer
- Move- move your body
- Support- offer support to others
Using these seven tactics to widen your window gives you a sense of agency over yourself as you navigate uncertainty. They also release the “feel good” hormones, dopamine, serotonin, oxytocin, and endorphins.
You experience fast and rapid changes all at once when you exit the military. These changes cause you to worry, seek reassurance, overload yourself with information (paralysis by analysis), and/or become hypervigilant. None of these behaviors bring you closer to the answers you are looking for and they actually add to feelings of stress and anxiety.
You cannot always control the changes that occur in life, but you can control how you respond to them. Tom Brady said in his docuseries, Man in the Arena, “The toughest things in my life have been the best things for me.”
Under high heat and immense pressure, carbon atoms transform into diamonds. You might feel like a clump of carbon atoms right now but if you hold fast to your grit, your values, and your purpose, you too can withstand the pressure and heat of uncertainty and transform into a diamond, shining brilliantly for those you will positively impact in your future.