A snafu: “situation normal, all f*cked up”.

A fubar: “f*cked up beyond all recognition.

Brilliant military terms for all those crises, big and little, that do occasionally pop into our lives.

Martha Beck has four tips on how to handle these bumps - big or little - in the road:

1. Go ahead and freak out.

Let yourself react physically to crisis situations. Apparently, people who react physically are better able to cope with a crisis, and less likely to be traumatized afterwards, then people who simply hold still.

2. Release your expectations.

Let go of your expectations, and don’t rush into action, or you might end up just making things worse. So take a deep breath, and remind yourself, “it’s okay.”

And if you have trouble doing that:

3. Narrow your time aperture.

Focus totally on the crisis at hand. Don’t let your mind wander into all those expectations that you find you just can’t release:

“Be here now, and you’ll realize there’s nowhere else you ever need to be.”

(Beck also relates a wonderful story a meditation teacher once told her, about how you might be obsessing about all of life’s little problems as you take a walk through the woods, but if you make a turn, and there’s a bear, it’s like magic - it’s quite easy then to surrender your worries as you run back to safety. It’s called attaining “one-pointed attention”.)

And finally …

4. Make Loosey-Goosey Plans

Stay flexible. In a crisis situation, the next step will arise almost automatically, and then the next one after that.

“A strategy that works well one moment is useless the next. That’s okay. Keep moving. Keep letting go of expectations. Keep your attention on the here and now, and keep adjusting. And finally, refuse to contemplate the distant future until the snafu is over.”

Beck has a great and quirky-style, and her advice always comes from a balanced and centered perspective. She doesn’t fail us here.

Source: Oprah Magazine, April 2007