Sufficiency Over Fear
Yikes!
The ground is shifting so fast beneath our feet that we are being realigned several times daily. Chiropracters everywhere are rejoicing at their good fortune. No one I know dares open the mail from their broker for fear of a trauma-inducing shock.
Everywhere we are encountering images and messages that induce a state of fear. The media is especially adept at spreading and profiting from calamity and is doing so now with the economy in difficulty. Fear spreads from person to person like a virus being passed throughout the herd. To weather these times requires a strong constitution, optimism and resourcefulness.
Where does one find qualities that seem in such short supply? Our source of strength in volatile conditions is the self. Specifically, we have all been provided with gifts, talents, character qualities, experiences and personal resources, the sum total of which is far greater than the challenges we face. By aligning the will behind our resources, we access personal power.
Personal power arises from our allegiance to sufficiency over fear. Sufficiency is the recognition that our resources are more powerful than our circumstances. By placing more energy behind our sufficiency and meeting our fears head on, we provide ourselves with a strategic advantage. That advantage is the command of our circumstances and the refusal to allow circumstances to command us. This is an important and decisive moment in the battle against fear.
Here are 10 ways you can feed personal power:
1. Identify your positive gifts, talents, character qualities, and positive contributions. Make a list, keep adding to it.
2. Monitor your self-talk. Make sure you are not feeding fear and self-doubt by terrifying yourself with "what-if" conversations.
3. Take three positive steps every day towards a dream, aspiration or positive change.
4. Be creative in meeting a problem, challenge or obstacle. A defeatist attitude never creates a breakthrough.
5. Ask for help. You will be surprised at the good will that will come your way.
6. Seek positive influences. Surrounding yourself with gloom and doom produces more of the same. Find "can-do" company.
7. Help someone else. There are people all around us that need support, especially those who are already marginalized, suffering or at a disadvantage.
8. Seek inspiration. Jack London points out: "Don't loaf and invite inspiration. Light out after it with a club."
9. Look for the opportunities behind the challenges. Fear erases creative thinking and reduces our capacity to be resilient and flexible. By examining a challenge from multiple viewpoints, we often spot leverage points that were not immediately obvious.
10. See the future as your friend. The future is not out to get us. It is simply a container of time in which we have an opportunity to create and manifest. Whether that creation is heart-based or fear-based is up to us to decide.
© Patrick O’Neill 2008. All rights reserved.