Living in Britain right now is not a pleasant experience. More of our taken-for-granted’s have been turned upside down than most people realise yet, as a result of power politics, fabrications and fear-mongering. At a time like this, it is hard to see a way through that will lead to anything good.

It is tempting to despair, to feel powerless, to give in to the fear. And yes, I have had my rants about corrupt politics, false democracy, short-sightedness and provoking the worst of people’s fears and prejudices.

And now it is time to take stock. We cannot undo what is done; we can only let the dust settle and see what we can do to make a positive difference to what we now have.

This level of chaos can happen to all of us personally during our lifetimes: we lose our job, or our home; our relationship breaks up or a loved one dies; we become seriously ill. Any of these will turn our world upside down and leave us in despair. Let’s apply the wisdom of learning from our personal experience to what’s going on at a national level.

What happens when we deal with a crisis well?

Firstly we need to step back and lick our wounds. That means allowing emotions to run their course and become more manageable, whilst treating ourselves gently to help ourselves to recover from the shock.

By stepping back, we are able to see what is left that we can use or salvage. So the next step is to take those things out of the chaos and identify what we can now create with them to use as our starting point. It will not be the same as before, but the chaos does tend to reveal some things we had forgotten about or taken for granted that can help us to deal with the situation. For example, friends rally round and offer support, and we re-discover our own passion and determination that had got buried in routine and habitual behaviour.

Now we have a foundation on which to create a revised version of our life that works better for us. Through the chaos, we discover what is really important to us, and what is just window-dressing. We realise which of our personal characteristics are most helpful to us, and which are just conditioned responses. And we recognise the genuine support we have from others and can let go of the ‘fair weather’ friends who are only there when everything is going well for us.

For most of us, when we look back at times of chaos in our lives, we can see that the chaos led to a better version of who we are and how our life is.

For now, chaos reigns in Britain. Let’s all play our part by letting the dust settle, allowing ourselves to recover, and then using our personal ability to create something better. Our government has been questionable, our financial institutions have been shaky, our social values have been corroded for a while. Maybe now we can help to ensure that we don’t have the same story in a slightly different form, but insist on upholding the things that really matter, and create a new and improved version of this world of ours.