Gaining confidence to face an uncertain future

Written by Dr Trevor Griffiths and Dr Marian Langsford

Moving forward

You can feel the hope rising up within you as lockdown pressures ease, and a cautious return to social gathering means less worries. But is that really the case deep down? We all want things to improve, but doubts and anxieties beset even the bravest souls. It’s an uncertain future, and one full of change and challenges. How do we move forward together to make the most of opportunities, while not being weighed down by self-doubt, secretly self-questioning, or wondering cautiously whether others are being sensible or putting us at risk? 

Anxieties, low mood, and even perfectionism can sap your energy to face new choices and see them through to live the healthy and happy lifestyle you have longed for. Fortunately, a new source of inner guidance is available that can strengthen your capacity to make firm and effective choices. This inner guide opens before your eyes a simple plan on how to adapt and grow into the person you want to be, especially when facing an uncertain future. And the amazing surprise is this – you already have this guide within you. Only a small step to new understanding is needed to activate this guide, as thousands of others have discovered when they, like you, start to live out a new understanding of emotions that gives greater confidence.

Your inner guide is called your Emotional Logic

Could you imagine that all the unpleasant emotions that come with disappointments, setbacks and hurts are not there just to spoil life, but are there for useful purposes? The simple truth is that they all connect together as parts of your genetic survival kit. They activate healthy adjustments in you when facing difficult situations, so you can start thriving instead. The kit even has an instruction manual, which most people only read after they have tried other ways to cope. This survival kit and guiding manual is called your inbuilt Emotional Logic. It teaches how unpleasant emotions are not part of the problem, they are parts of a solution. Understanding how that can be opens a treasure trove of potential within you. By switching on the light in your inner heart, new insights can fill you with an inner strength in the face of change, which fuels improved confidence.

So what is your inner Emotional Logic? It is a mental picture that gradually fills out as you make more sense of how you feel when facing times of change. Your emotions are helpful information guiding you to name what is important enough to be moving you like this. When you have the picture, it makes sense that these loss-preventing or loss-recovering emotions are unpleasant, because they are there to move you to explore new ways to face life’s risks reasonably. We are not supposed to stay with the feelings. E-motion is energy in motion to name your personal values and do something that rebuilds your relationships safely around those values. To bring your emotional energy into a partnership with reasoning and naming, your inbuilt Emotional Logic restores an equal balance of heart and understanding in the choices you make.

Releasing your personal energy to explore

Mostly, people criticise themselves for having unpleasant loss emotions, such as shock, anxiety, brittleness, anger, guilty self-questioning, and depressive moods of emptiness and hopelessness. But your inner guide will teach you how all of these loss-related emotions have useful purposes. They move you in different ways to explore active solutions in situations where your values are being challenged. When you have been pushed out of a comfort zone by life’s circumstances, or by some unwelcome inner change, activating your Emotional Logic will release energy within you. Then it feels less risky to try out new ways to reconnect, and so rediscover the joy of living. 

Life can be renewed even after bad things have happened. Much is said these days about post-traumatic stress, but there is a growing recognition that 30-70% of traumatised people experience some sort of personal growth after their experiences. Activating your Emotional Logic opens the path to post-traumatic growth for you to explore while building new connections with others along the way. 

So what do I have to do about it?

The Emotional Logic guide book was written by two GPs after twenty years of helping thousands of people in the UK and abroad to feel liberated from their emotional traps. The stories in this guidebook show how to map outwardly your inner emotional landscape (your inscape), and make action plans based on recovering just one of your named personal values that has been challenged in the situations you face. It is all very achievable and relevant and accessible. The language of loss becomes something to be honoured and not ashamed of, because it is the language of your true humanity. You only name something as a loss if it is something you value. You only grieve if you have loved enough to value things and people. That makes you more of a human being, not less. Join the human race! And make it better with some restored confidence.With Emotional Logic: Harnessing your emotions into inner strength, you will know what to do.

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