The topic of this week’s post is how to discern between feeling a sense of agency versus having a sense of control, with a focus on believing that you are doing enough! I have heard from many of you this past week that so much about life feels out of control right now -- and you are absolutely right. I have heard many of you say you wish you could do more, and I hear you. I’m right there with you in this uncertainty. We cannot control the outcomes of how this global pandemic impacts others or ourselves. We cannot control how we react emotionally. However, we absolutely can work to feel a sense of agency in our daily choices and how we choose to cope with the strong emotions that may be evoked during this time. 

Why am I so careful to use the language of feeling a sense of agency instead of having control or feeling control? Although the terms are often used synonymously, I find it helpful to think about control as controlling an outcome and agency as the energy we put forth. Often, control is an illusion, as the current state of the world is making abundantly clear. When we focus on the reality of all that we cannot control, we might start to think we aren’t doing enough and feel anxious, or swing to the opposite direction and feel completely deflated with no sense of motivation. Staying grounded in your sense of agency allows for personal and collective power while letting go of what is not in our power. 

As a somewhat benign example, we can think about cooking. We may not be able to control what ingredients are in stock at the grocery store or exactly how the end result turns out. If you’ve ever googled “Pinterest failures,” you know that things don’t always go as planned. However, we can feel a sense of agency every step of the way. If an ingredient is out of stock, you can choose a substitution. You can choose to play music while cooking and to give the recipe your best effort. If things don’t work out, you can choose to eat the food, throw it away, spruce it up with condiments, or try again! Having a sense of agency is about staying rooted in your values and trusting that you will cope with the outcomes as they come. It means staying flexible and not taking on the burden of outcomes beyond our control. 

What does that look like now? In a concrete sense, it looks like washing our hands, staying indoors, etc. Emotionally, it looks like investing in our self-care and community care. It means following our intuition when it comes to knowing what to prioritize and how to soothe our emotional pains and comfort our fears. We can’t know that our efforts will fix anything concrete, but we can trust that actions aligned with our values will not be regretted. 

You are doing enough by just being. It’s okay if you don’t feel your most productive, and it’s okay if it’s hard to not feel anxious about things outside of your control. Your sense of agency can be found in choosing to rest as much as possible, choosing to turn off the news, choosing to meditate, journal, or move your body. It’s okay if you find a sense of agency in distracting yourself with TV or movies, or if sticking to a structured routine feels good to you.  There is not one right way to cope. My only recommendation is to remind yourself as often as possible that you are exercising your sense of agency with your choices.  Say it outloud, write it on a sticky note, or meditate on it. You are making choices, you have power, you have agency.  We are collectively facing an incredible amount of uncertainty and we can hold that and hold our power. 

Questions for reflection, discussion, or journaling: 

• What moments do you notice throughout your day or week when you are able to exercise your sense of agency?

• Can you think of a time when you struggled to find a sense of agency?

• In the most basic sense, how is COVI-19 impacting you: 

  • Emotionally

  • Physically

  • Financially

  • Socially

  • Spiritually

  • Romantically or Sexually 

• What is like for you to think about letting go of what you cannot control?

• What support do you need during this time?

• Where can you give yourself a little more grace or flexibility? 

Finally, I want to leave you with a tweet that has been circulating various social network platforms: “You are not working from home; you are at your home during a crisis trying to work.”