 ‘What have you set in motion? You are meant to be. Others you do not know depend on the fruit of your actions.’ (Christopher Chapman) I find that quite breathtaking. Like the butterfly effect, ‘the idea that small, seemingly trivial events may ultimately result in something with much larger consequences’ (Nathan Chandler), it suggests that our everyday actions – or our inactions – can have ripple effects that lay far beyond anything we ourselves could have imagined, known or understood: geographically and generationally. I like Christopher Chapman’s framing of this in his book, Doorways to Hope. He proposes that, in God’s mysterious eternal plan, we each play a significant role – whether we can see it or not. The question it points back to us is, ‘How are you willing to live your life?’ I want my being and my every doing to make a positive difference for the poor and most vulnerable people in the world. This makes my every decision an act of faith, imbued with a spiritual-existential dimension. It provides a sense of meaning, of purpose, that counters despair.
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 ‘Stop scrolling. Start doing.’ (Kati Kaia) You see the headline. Another war, disaster or existential threat looming on the horizon. Your breath shortens, your heart tightens and for a moment, just a split second perhaps, you feel that primal rush of adrenaline. Your body is gearing up for battle – but there is no enemy in front of you. There’s no fight to be won and no obvious action to take. Just a screen, glowing with catastrophe, and the realisation that you are completely powerless to stop it. This is the fight-flight-freeze response, an ancient survival mechanism designed to protect us from immediate danger. But, in the digital age, it’s being hijacked. Instead of running from a predator or standing our ground in a real-life threat, we’re reacting to the relentless tide of global crises flooding our news feeds. And the worst part? There’s nowhere for that energy to release and dissipate. When faced with a real, tangible danger, our nervous system activates to help us respond – fight back, escape or play dead until the threat passes. But when the threat is abstract, distant or beyond our control, this energy has no resolution. Instead, it lingers, simmering beneath the surface, manifesting as anxiety, burnout or even physical symptoms like fatigue, headaches or stomach cramps. Chronic exposure to distressing news can lead to what’s called ‘headline stress disorder.’ It’s a psychological phenomenon where constant exposure to crises keeps the nervous system in a perpetual state of high alert. The body can’t distinguish between immediate danger and an article about geopolitical tensions. The result? We’re left feeling exhausted, restless, and emotionally drained – and yet, somehow. unable to disengage. While I believe it’s important to remain aware of global events, especially given the international scope of my own interests and work, we don’t have to sacrifice our mental well-being in the process. Here’s are some tips for how to break the cycle (that I’m practising too): 1. Recognise the physical response: The next time you feel that surge of stress while reading, listening to or watching the news, pause. Notice your breath, your heart rate and any tension in your body. Awareness is the first step to regaining control. 2. Limit your exposure: Set boundaries on your news intake. Try checking the news only once or twice a day instead of constantly refreshing your feed. Consider turning off push notifications for breaking news unless it’s directly relevant to your life. 3. Engage in physical activity: Since the fight-flight-freeze response is designed for action, find a healthy outlet for that energy. Exercise, go for a walk or even shake your arms and legs. Physical movement can help regulate your nervous system. 4. Focus on what you can control: Instead of fixating on problems you can’t solve, redirect your attention to actions within your reach. Chat with others, write to your MP, support a local cause or do related volunteer work to restore a sense of agency. 5. Balance negative news with positive (*see below): Despite media narratives, the world isn’t only crises and catastrophes. Seek out stories of resilience, innovation and positive change. Follow groups that highlight solutions, not just problems. 6. Practise grounding techniques: Breathing exercises, prayer, meditation and mindfulness practices can help signal to your nervous system that you are safe. Simple techniques like the 5-4-3-2-1 method (naming five things you see, four you touch, three you hear, two you smell, and one you taste) can pull you back into the present moment. Yes, the world is full of challenges, but it is also full of people who care, who take action and who make a difference. And that includes you – even if your first step is simply putting down your phone, taking a deep breath, saying a prayer and reclaiming your own sense of peace. [*For positive news channels, see: Good News Hub; Good News Network; Positive News]  ‘None of this is about morality, or religion, or dogma, or big fancy questions of life after death. The capital-T Truth is about life before death. It is about making it to 30, or maybe 50, without wanting to shoot yourself in the head.’ (David Foster Wallace) The seagulls woke me with their loud cries. I couldn’t tell if they were singing or screaming. Perhaps it was both. Still, it's better than the bellowing bark of the neighbour’s dog that shatters the sleep, silence and solitude most days. There are no lights outside on my house. Only a single candle with a flickering flame inside: enough, I pray, to hold back the darkness. Tis the season to be jolly and yet, as the sun rose this morning, I felt more like Neil Young’s lonely boy: ‘Can't relate to joy, he tries to speak and…can't begin to say.’ I felt lost for words. Mindfulness won’t bring peace on Earth and no amount of positive psychology will shift the mood. I can’t fake a façade, a smile – and I refuse to do it. This is spiritual, existential. I listened to and felt Anna Robbins’ words: ‘So here it is. The incarnation of God...is not a sweet baby Jesus moment. It is light in the midst of the deeps; meaning in chaos; presence in isolation…(It) remembers his coming, celebrates his presence. and anticipates a future coming when all will be made well. Which means all is not well right now…in an uncertain world filled with conflict and disorientation.’ ‘If you don't feel excited about the usual preparations, there is nothing wrong with you…(and) if you feel out of sorts, it's because we all are, and you choose not to pretend anymore…Honesty about what a mess things are enable(s) us to receive the light of Christ as reality in which we participate, rather than simply offer our carols as spiritual whistling in the dark.’ That resonates. It feels for me like touching a fundamental reality, a rock bottom from which the only way is up. It’s deep and it matters. It’s only against the backdrop of darkness that the nativity, the coming of Jesus – Light of the world – makes sense. As I look around and see worldwide poverty, violence, oppression, corruption and injustice, that Light is hope.  ‘I have started to feel myself fade. It’s not a sudden and complete vanishing, but rather a slow flickering around the edges as my solidity begins to ebb and flow in the eyes of those around me.’ (Kate Lister) If you didn’t see Kate Lister’s article in the iPaper this week, it’s definitely worth a read. With echoes of and resonances with Susie Orbach’s earlier pioneering work in this field (see, for instance, What’s Really Going on Here and Towards Emotional Literacy), Kate models critical reflection by viewing her personal experience through a broader social-cultural-political lens. It reminded me of Richard Marshall’s insight in the human-relational arena when exploring the meaning and significance of experience: ‘It’s about you, but it’s not only about you.’ The question of seeing and being seen – or not seen – has been a recurring theme too in my own reflections over recent years. It’s as if being seen links existentially and psychodynamically to a deeper sense of ‘I exist’ and with that, if it's with an affirming gaze, to ‘I am loved’. Kate’s article reflects on shifts in her personal experience of being seen as a woman, to becoming unseen as she gets older. Since being seen links to being valued, it can have a profound effect: ‘I felt my power base slip…I had passed by completely unnoticed…I was invisible.’ This phenomenon calls into question what expectations and judgements we place on ourselves and others: where they originate, who and what perpetuates them, who benefits from them and what their impacts are. I too have felt this fading at times as I get older, against a wider social-cultural backdrop of norms against ageing. I’ve worked with people in Asia who’ve noticed that social status diminishes with darker skin tones; and with asylum-seekers who feel their perceived value as human beings is questioned now they've become refugees. Who could I notice, perhaps for the first time? Who could I help to fade-in, to not fade-out?  ‘It is the obligation of every person born in a safer room to open the door when someone in danger knocks.’ (Dina Nayeri) Reading Gill Martin’s insightful book, ‘Borders and Boundaries – Community Mental Health Work with Refugees and Asylum-Seekers’ has been an illuminating experience. It resonates well with some of the issues and dynamics I have witnessed too, albeit outside of the therapeutic arena. I remember when, after a long and agonising wait, a Kurdish-Iranian friend in the UK was granted refugee status. It meant that, finally, he could bring his wife over to join him and he could get a job to fulfil his passion and potential as a gifted architect. His pent-up talents had opportunity for release and he’s now making an outstanding contribution at an architects’ firm. Gill comments on the need, at times, to cross (not violate) what may be regarded as fixed professional boundaries, to meet refugees and asylum seekers at their point of need. She draws attention to the therapeutic meaning, significance and value of being-with, of being-alongside, in authentic human relationship. Much of our sense of identity is founded on e.g. our country and culture of origin; the groups and communities of which we are a part; our shared experiences; the work and roles we fulfil. When forced to leave all we associate with home to flee to a starkly different culture and environment, it can feel isolating relationally and dislocating existentially. Gill observes that talking therapies have their place but aren’t always what refugees and asylum seekers want or need. Sometimes, it’s because they come from cultural backgrounds that hold very different beliefs about health and wellbeing, including what influences, nurtures, sustains or harms it; or, perhaps, cultural taboos that would deem seeking and receiving help of this kind to be shameful. Sometimes, interventions akin to social prescribing, involving people in activities that they experience as worthwhile and life-giving, can be beneficial. Health and healing often emerge through enabling powerless people to regain a sense of agency over their own lives. (Further reading: Working with Asylum Seekers and Refugees: What to Do, What Not to Do, and How to Help; Counselling and Psychotherapy with Refugees; A Practical Guide to Therapeutic Work with Asylum Seekers and Refugees; Refuge: Transforming a Broken Refugee System; Strangers in our Midst: The Political Philosophy of Integration)  ‘Grief is not a disorder, a disease or a sign of weakness. It is an emotional, physical and spiritual necessity, the price you pay for love. The only cure for grief is to grieve.’ (Earl Grollman) Ambushed by grief. A graphic book title and a profound way to convey the experience of the experience. Grief can, at times, take us completely by surprise, impacting us suddenly and as if out of nowhere; leaving us breathless, broken and bleeding. My most traumatic grief experience was at age 18. I still re-experience it, like living in the vice-like grip of a terrible nightmare that stubbornly, agonisingly and tormentingly won’t let go. One of the best descriptions of grief I’ve ever read is a beautiful and painful personal expression of this phenomenon that, in the midst of such agonies, offers a picture of hope. It resonates with much of my own personal experience too. Only in more recent years have we begun to discover, perhaps to rediscover and to understand, the somatic dimensions and consequences of traumatic grief. The body certainly does keep the score. On Easter Saturday (a day that marks the existential time gap between Jesus’ death and his resurrection) this year, I visited a Christian community where one of its leaders shared a deeply evocative short video clip by Massive Attack. It captured and expressed feelings of denial, betrayal, pain, abandonment and death in such a way that left me stunned and speechless. We prayed for all who feel trapped in a perpetual state of dysthymia.  ‘We don’t have a plane crash scheduled for today, but I thought I’d take you through the emergency procedures just in case.’ (KLM Air Hostess) I love the difference that a sense of humour can make. The air hostess (above) made everyone laugh during the passenger safety briefing on a return flight from the Netherlands today. The airline’s own plane had experienced maintenance problems so it had had to borrow one from another airline. One hostess complained, with a glint in her eye, that the green décor didn't match the blue colour of her uniform. The passengers all laughed when another hostess made an announcement too, aiming to draw our attention to an apparent information light on the plane…only to correct herself moments later with, ‘Oh – this plane doesn’t have one!’ Brilliant. It took the terror out of the turbulence. On a more serious note, I had been in the Netherlands to work with a diverse NGO leadership team, to support its desire to enhance its international teamwork. I referenced briefly a couple of places in the Bible where the writer comments on the amazing potential of human diversity – where the Divine whole is seen, known and experienced to be more than the sum of its parts – yet also hints at the corresponding dark risks of undervaluing, fragmentation and conflict if not. Strikingly, the writer moves on in both places to emphasise a deep need for authentic love as the critical success factor. This insight set a spiritual-existential tone for the day, as we reflected on team-as-relationships. Returning to the plane – but this time as a metaphor, a participant from South Africa asked, ‘How many separate parts is a Boeing 747 aircraft made up of?’ Apparently, the answer is about 6,000,000. ‘And what do these diverse components all have in common?’ Puzzled faces all round now. ‘None of them can fly.’ I thought this was genius. What a great way to dispel the myth of the all-sufficient self in the face of the dynamic complexities of teams, organisations and wider world. We worked through an Appreciative Inquiry next, drawing on positives of the past and aspirations of the present to co-create shared trust and vision for the future. Set the trajectory. Fasten seatbelts. Enjoy the flight.  ‘Our reality is narrow, confined, and fleeting. Whatever we think is important right now, in our mundane lives, will no longer be important against a grander sense of time and place.’ (Liu Cixin) I think you could say we’re a family with an international outlook. My parents travelled extensively around the world and have touched most continents. My older brother lived in Brunei, married a Malaysian woman and has visited almost every country in Asia. My sister lived in Germany, mixes with friends from different countries and travels frequently to Spain to do salsa dancing. My younger brother ran a charity for and in Romania, did a medical mission in remote areas of the Amazon jungle and works in Dubai. I’ve been interested in different languages and cultures from childhood, have worked in 15 countries and have visited, have friends in and have worked with people from a lot more. I watch almost exclusively international news, pay special attention to South-East Asia and my home is adorned with globes and colourful maps. Much of my life has been preoccupied with the Nazis and how to use my own life to help avoid anything like such horrific atrocities ever happening again. Against this backdrop, my own coach, Sue, posed two interesting challenges recently: ‘What’s it like to spend so much of your life – mentally, emotionally and spiritually – overseas with the poor and vulnerable in far-flung places yet to be, physically, here in the UK?’ and, ‘What’s it like to spend so much of your life – mentally, emotionally and spiritually – in World War 2 yet to be, physically, here and now?’ What great questions. They resonate profoundly, for me, with what it is to be a follower of Jesus – a deep dissonance that arises from being in this world, yet in some mysterious way being not of this world. Existentially, it’s a kind of dislocation that, a bit like for Third Culture Kids (TCK), creates a sense of being a child of everywhere yet, somehow, not a child of anywhere – at least in this lifetime. I often feel more at home when I’m away from home, a paradoxical dynamic that both draws and propels me into different times and places and to seek out God, diversity and change. It means being a traveller, not a settler, and has influenced every facet of my entire life, work and relationships.  ‘Human existence is always directed to something, or someone, other than itself – be it a meaning to fulfil, or another human being to encounter lovingly.’ (Viktor Frankl) Existential coaching is a powerful and introspective approach that can empower individuals and groups to confront life's fundamental questions, find meaning and embrace personal and social responsibility. Rooted in existential philosophy, this coaching method guides clients through self-exploration, enabling them to confront their fears and uncertainties and make authentic choices aligned with their values. Here are some examples of existential coaching questions:
Existential coaching recognizes that we all face inherent dilemmas, and embracing these challenges can lead to personal and social growth. Using this approach, the coach serves as a supportive ally, helping clients to confront their concerns, explore their inner personal-cultural truths and develop a deeper understanding of themselves. The client can learn to navigate life's complexities with greater clarity and intention, leading to a more meaningful and purposeful life. [Further reading: Monica Hanaway, The Handbook of Existential Coaching Practice (2020); Yannick Jacob, An Introduction to Existential Coaching (2019); Emmy van Deurzen & Monica Hanaway, Existential Perspectives on Coaching (2012)]  ‘Carpe diem: seize the day. Make your life extraordinary.’ (Dead Poets Society) I was once invited by Lilin, my inspiring Malaysian sister-in-law, to speak at a University of the 3rd Age (U3A) event, for people who are retired from formal employment and interested to explore new ideas, experiences and themes. She invited me, simply, to share something of my own life story. I wasn’t sure where to start or to end or what to include in-between. How to distil a lifetime of experiences into a 45-minutes window? And, more importantly, what would people in this particular group find interesting, stimulating or worthwhile? So I prayed, jotted down notes of what came to mind, and then shared what I found most meaningful. I hoped it wouldn’t sound too alien and that they would feel at least some sense of connection. At the end, I was astonished to see a queue of people forming to speak with me. Apart from polite thank-yous, person after person looked at me, some with tears in their eyes, and said something along the lines of, ‘I too felt that prompt, that calling, that you described here today. But I was too scared to follow it so I didn’t. And now I so wish I had.’ Some expanded their accounts of how they had chosen to live too safely, too comfortably, and how this had, over time, stifled their sense of curiosity, courage and faith. I tried to reassure them with Richard Bach's words: ‘A test to find whether your mission on earth is finished: if you’re alive, it isn’t.’ For many, however, I could still see that haunting look of spiritual and existential angst on their faces: ‘I was too scared then, and I’m still too scared. And now it’s all too late.’ The greatest risk is never to take a risk. The time to act is now. |
Nick WrightI'm a psychological coach, trainer and OD consultant. Curious to discover how can I help you? Get in touch! 
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