(This article originally appeared in The Weekly Simplifier #12.)

by Lance Brown

We’ve all heard of the so-called “calm before the storm”. Personally, I’ve had a lot more experience with the calm after the storm.

Perhaps you’ve had this happen to you.

Your life gets so hectic or overwhelming that things actually start to crack and fail. You miss things you shouldn’t miss, or get behind, or over-committed, in a way that you feel you can’t resolve. You get caught up in a frazzled mindset which stretches out until it feels like a way of life (and not a good one). And at some point in the process, you realize that it just doesn’t add up—something has to change, before you start doing real damage (to your state of mind, your career, your family, etc.) Or alternatively, you finally wrap up some giant burdening drama in your life, having essentially “lost” weeks or months to some all-consuming, stress-radiating, life-crunching conflict (like one involving court, or high emotion, or family perhaps).

Haven’t had anything like that in your life? Consider yourself lucky. But if you have ever found yourself getting stretched or stressed to what feels like the breaking point, or if you are right now, I hope you’ll take advantage of the calm after the storm. It’s that period just after all the craziness has ended, or the time when you’ve finally cleared your schedule enough to take a deep breath and a fresh look around you.

To get to the calm after the storm, of course, the storm has to stop.

Clearing the Air

If you’re burdened by an overload that you can control, you have to de-commit until the air starts to clear, or you have to change your circumstances to something that you can live with (and keep up with). It might not be easy, but better to do it by choice than to start having serious breakdowns in certain areas because you literally can’t keep up with your self-imposed agenda.

Possibly, the storm is not something you can necessarily control, like a divorce or other serious legal proceeding, or a major family crisis. I’m not going to try and “talk you down” from inside something like that…I haven’t entirely mastered riding the actual storm itself, to be honest. But every crisis eventually has an end, or at least a chance to catch a breath and reposition oneself.

When you do find the calm after the storm (or in between waves of it), you have a great chance to help yourself out, so as to be better prepared for any future bad weather.

What’s so great about the calm after the storm? Perspective.

A chance to replay things in slo-mo

Let’s take the example of being self-overloaded or over-committed, to the point where burnout occurs or is imminent. As I said above, the solution to that is to de-commit from that which you have saddled yourself. You’re no good to anyone if you break yourself in half doing too much. Your commitment to being happy and healthy in your life has to come first, ultimately. (Feel free to quote me here when telling folks, “No, I can’t help out this time.” :-))

So you’ve cut down your commitments and cleared out your schedule as much as possible, and you’re breathing the clear air of peace and quiet for at least a little while. What a perfect time to examine the “crash site” and learn how you can avoid ending up there again. All your overwhelming commitments are fresh in your mind (perhaps even still trying to fill up your voicemail and inbox), and yet you have the free time and quiet mindspace you need to come to terms with what’s most important to you.

Heightened sensibilities

You’re never a more cautious driver than in the time just after you’ve had an accident. For a while, your awareness of the various perils of driving is heightened, as is (hopefully) your awareness of ways in which you could potentially be a safer driver. Well, a near-burnout situation in life can be the same way. Your sense of what it means to take on certain commitments or projects, as well as your sense of your own abilities (or weaknesses), will probably be very sensitive. Which is great, because it gives you a tool to improve your life. Just don’t overdo it (in either situation). Driving 10 miles under the proverbial speed limit is probably not the answer. But you can use your increased awareness without becoming over-cautious.

“I will not let myself get that way again”

The situation where the overload is beyond your control still provides the opportunity of perspective. When events that are not really optional demand your attention (like court, family, ill health, etc.), you may find yourself carried off to a stressful paradigm, where your state of mind (and therefore your life) feels constantly unsettled. This can stretch on for weeks or months sometimes, or even longer–and during the crisis, time can almost seem to not matter, because it becomes hard to imagine or recall your life as not having this problem dominating it.

But at some point, you will find yourself past the state of crisis—and that moment can be a great opportunity for self-examination.

You may have heard it said that we can’t control what happens to us, we can only control how we react to it. Crises are where that truth bears the most import. When the crisis was imposed on you, did you let it have control of you, or lead you to a frame of mind that you regret? Did you feed the flames at all, making the crisis harder for yourself and others to bear? Were you at your best in the face of the storm, and choosing the best reactions among your available options…or could you have handled things better?

Just like after a near-burnout, the period immediately after the air clears from an imposed crisis is a great chance to take a second look at how things just played out. You can spend that time feeling discouraged and drained, or you can spend it reflecting in a productive way, while reveling in the opportunity for a few unique moments of clarity.

You learn something new every…storm?

I used to just thrash around (internally) during, and after, periods of crisis in my life. They were almost all negative, with no positive impact. At some point I became aware of the calm after the storm—the unique feeling of post-crisis quietude, when the source of intense stress has finally passed. Since then, I still have crises in my life. But now I use the calm after the storm to my advantage, and try to re-examine my role in the situation just past—so that I can fare better in the situations to come.

As a result, each crisis now comes with a little boost afterwards, and I end up with a bit more clarity than I had before I entered the storm in question. Maybe eventually I’ll learn myself an umbrella and galoshes! :-)

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Lance Brown is Co-Editor of The Weekly Simplifier