Archive
Monthly Archives: October 2008
Monthly Archives: October 2008
With what is going on right now with the financial industry, housing, the stock market and the economy anxiety levels are running high. The more things appear uncertain, the more we can imagine ways they can be even worse, humans are creative creatures. And it seems we can imagine the negative quite easily. As we create more undesirable possibilities I our mind we have more to be fearful about.
This can snowball out of control when we collect our worries from several different areas at once, it can be overwhelming. We can feel totally out of control, which can bring on more anxiety by itself, bringing about emotional overload. When this happens we can cease to function in our normal way, giving the vast majority of our attention to all the worries and fears. Your behavior will change, to be more in following your thoughts and feelings. You will find yourself complaining a lot and not able to focus on accomplishing tasks which will increase your anxiety too.
We become consumed with it. As our thoughts are more focused on these fears, then on the anxiety itself, then on worry about being fearful and anxious it becomes a spiral you can’t overpower. You can feel like a beach ball caught in a hurricane being whirled around with no control. When you actually feel you have little to no control apathy can set in, which also will increase the anxiety.
So, you can see, this worry thing can become all encompassing if you allow it. And this is the key, if you allow it? Here’s the thing, any of the situations that you point to as the basis of your fears do not come with these feelings. In fact they come with no feelings at all, that is your doing. This is hard for many to accept but it’s true. Even when someone treats you badly, how you feel about it is all of your doing.
Yes, there are some very common reactions and feelings that you can have, but ultimately you have command over these. They are brought up from your unconscious programming automatically on cue, with out your conscious permission. Much of the reason you have these common reactions is that you tend to easily buy onto concepts and how to feel about when you see this exhibited by many others. You don’t realize how much of your inner programming was developed through modeling others. These common reactions and feelings are passed on by the masses without knowledge.
However, you don’t need to keep them in place. You can choose to have any reaction you want to something. So, back to your reactions to the fear, worry over the state of things in the economy, you don’t need to continue with them as you have. You can reduce or even eliminate them, thus the anxiety level drops as well.
The tough part is that right now it is much easier to fall prey to the negative news and your existing reactions than it is to take command of your thought and consciously consider other ways look at the situation and new interpretations that don’t include so much fear.
I would suggest not listening and reading current news as much as possible, stop allowing yourself to be continuously ‘prodded with a hot poker’ antagonizing your fears. The more news you get, the more this is reinforced. If you are directly involved in one of the problem areas, be concerned based on facts and look at what you can actually do about it, then take action. But just to worry is self destructive because it is based on fiction, choose not to get wrapped up in. And choose to not let yourself worry about anything you can’t do anything about.
Many try to find ways to eliminate anxiety without much success because you must actually look to changing what the anxiety builds on, in this case self chosen fears and related thoughts and feelings. All of these things going on, that you can’t personally do anything about, will evolve as they will with or without your feelings about them. Well, if anything, you will be mentally supporting them with your fear thoughts and even physically supporting them if your behavior follows suit. For example, if you get so fearful that you stop spending money as you normally do when there is no actual reason preventing it, you will be contributing to the economic slowdown. You surely don’t want to do that if you can help it.
Take mental and physical action:
Choose to take command of your thinking and analyze the situation.
Is your involvement in the situation causing your thoughts and feelings about it, or is it your fears about what could happen?
What are your perceptions of the situations, and how can they be changed to bring about different reactions?
What are your reactions, and must they be this way? How else can you react that would allow you to feel better?
Is there an actual personal involvement that you should be dealing with rationally, or are your actions being motivated by fear?
Choose to stay away from the constant bombardment of the news which just highlights the negative.
What can you do purposefully to keep yourself positive, upbeat and productive? Look for the good and create it.
The more you seek out why you think and feel as you do, the more you will understand, the more you can do something about it. When you change the way you look at these things, the way you see them will change, the way you react will change, the way you feel will change, the way you act will change and it’s all based on choice.
Make the choice to take command of your thinking, change it and the anxiety will dissipate.
The economy stinks. What will go sour next? I wonder what will happen? How can it get worse? What if it does get worse?
Are you anxious, uncertain and fearful? Most are. When major things happen we tend to get drug into them usually more than necessary. Now, if you have lost your job, your income has dropped because of the financial markets or the work you do has slowed, I understand that you have less available cash to spend. And I am sorry about your situation and wish to see you get back to normal for you soon.
What I want to address here is the fear and near panic millions are getting sucked into because of what is going on with the different financial problems. What is happening is that as millions of people buy into the mass fear and drastically change their normal spending habits. Based on their anxiety and fear of the unknown they want to hang on to as much money as possible.
So, then what happens? The flow of cash out in society slows way down even more. And guess what, more people will loose their jobs. Think about this, most of us work in businesses that sell things or services. So what happens when lots of people stop buying? Do you think everyone can keep their jobs when nothing is sold? No.
When lots of people stop going out to eat, what happens to the restaurant business? Have you ever thought about how many jobs your normal spending activity supports? I don’t know for sure but consider this. If a waiter/waitress handles about 6 to 10 tables in a restaurant, how many people have to stop going to eat there until the server looses their job. And when they loose their job, there is one more person who actually does not have the same spending power. And this job loss scenario is multiplied millions of times over very quickly.
The point is this. For those who are employed and are receiving regular paychecks I suggest that you keep your spending habits as much as normal as possible in order to prevent a further downturn in our economy. And this is really most people. Think about it, unemployment has risen to about 6 to 7 percent which means that over 95 percent of the population is still working. Now unemployment in the US generally runs about 4 to 5 percent when things appear to be running fairly smoothly. So right now, an additional 2 percent of the population is out of work. Sure a lot of people and I wish it wasn’t so, but should a 2 percent change in employment drive our economy?
Yes, I know there is a large group of people who rely on the investment world for their incomes and this is down, but still not the majority. And I am aware that the problems with housing and finance appear daunting, but are we allowing the tail to wag the dog? Our economy is based on cash flow. And cash flow is people spending to buy, not holding to worry. Your personal association with money for the most part is one of flow. It comes in to your possession as you earn and then goes out as you spend.
It’s the same with a business – in flow and outflow. And like anything that flows, it can be stopped at either end. A water hose can be shut off at the beginning or blocked at the outflow end. So it goes with cash flowing through you. So for the vast majority cash is flowing in just fine, but not flowing out. The result is, someone somewhere is not able to receive their in-flow because you have stopped it at your end.
The real power we have as humans is with our thought. We have the ability to take command of our thoughts and decide what they will predominately be. We don’t need to just follow all the bad news and react with fear. Just because it is the easiest way does not mean it is the best. Fear is made up in our mind, it is the great what if? – based on the worst. There is a law of the universe that states, ‘what you think about expands.’ So what are you allowing to expand?
This ‘crisis’ we are in right now is a perfect example of something expanding due to how much it is thought about. Look around, millions are holding on to their cash not because they have to but because their obsessive fear thinking has driven the motivation. And thus even more people are loosing their jobs making the real problem bigger. Then there really are more and more people with reduced spending ability, but not because of the original problems. And this just keeps cycling faster as the fear grows because more are loosing jobs, then fewer spend, more job loss, and so on.
This is happening right now! Those that are stopping the flow of cash throughout society are making things worse. Now it is in our hands. Real estate and the financial system has taken their hits and will gradually recover. And there is plenty of blame to throw out but that is not the point. How far we allow this to go down and how fast it comes back to normal is in our hands now. It’s in the hand of the people who really drive this economy, the spenders – all of us.
I challenge you to really consider your situation and decide if you truly need to reduce your spending, at least by the amount you have. Going back to your normal spending habits with be the ultimate service to the economy, which does help you personally. You have the ability to take command of your thinking and override the automatic fear thinking that creeps in so easily. This is because of past programming that you react as you do, but it does not mean that it is the only way or the best way. You can analyze your thoughts right now and choose to hold better more supportive thoughts.
If each do our part by continuing our normal spending habits as much as possible we can support a quick economic recovery without more backsliding. Like anything it’s a choice, your choice. I’m just clarifying it for you to help you make it. Choose to have your reason affect your thinking more than your anxiety.
Are you focusing your time and attention to the right things? Are you placing importance on the right thoughts, feelings and behaviors?
Did you know that for most people, much of what they do in life was not consciously chosen by them? And many times we have done these things for so long they now do seem important to us, but deep down they really are not. At least not as important as what truly is deeply important. This is because doing so requires us to take command of our thinking and analyze the state of our life. But letting our minds just run things is easier, efficient and more comfortable. Most people have not taken the time to discover what is truly important to them, life just kind of goes along with many seemingly important activities going on all the time. Your brain will ‘take care’ of you in it’s own way and understanding this is very helpful if you want any kind of change in your life.
When you put your attention to something you will see and experience more of it, you will think about it more and even expound on it. Have you ever become interested in a certain model of car from reading and pictures, and then in the next few days you all of a sudden see lots of them on the road as you are driving around, and you hadn’t really noticed many before? Now that you have placed some of your attention, and maybe with some heightened emotional feeling, into the car you want your mind will help you experience more of the same. Your mind is just doing it’s job, to help keep you as comfortable as possible, and make your life easier with patterns, habits and easily repeated behaviors.
When you understand the way your brain works you can better work with it to get and experience what you want. In this case, it is valuable to be aware of what your mind will tend to do automatically so that you understand that you must be purposefully proactive with your thought and attention. Your mind gets programmed through repetition to see and pay attention to what you have already paid attention to. So if you don’t consciously otherwise direct your thinking, your mind will normally keep replaying the same things you have already done and have experience with. This is makes life easier, you don’t have to ‘think’ about a lot of things.
This is why we can feel as though our life has just been going on by itself, because it is. Until you step in, taking command of your thought, and direct your thinking – it will remain as it was. Well actually not exactly the same, your mind will continue to help you expand and develop on the theme – good or bad! In addition, whatever your mind focuses on becomes more important to you. This importance does not differentiate between good or bad.
When you place your attention on anything, this is a command to your brain telling it what you want. So, your brain works to fulfill this. Now this can be anything, even what you don’t want, or a bad experience, or a fear – anything you have focused conscious attention on your brain will help you experience more of it. This is one reason why habits are so hard to break, you keep falling into routines and have the same reactions and feelings over and over.
What can be done about this? Your brain is performing as intended but you are stuck repeating many experiences you would rather not have anymore or you want something new and different. You need to consciously take command of your thinking and override the automatic aspects of your brain. This is where your true power resides, in your conscious command of your thoughts. Just because your brain throws out thought and defense of it does not mean you must follow this – your conscious thought is ultimately in control. It may not seem this way because you have become accustomed to allowing the brain to keep things going automatically, but you can step in and take command anytime you choose.
You may not even know your deepest desires even though they have likely popped up once in a while. You will need to take some time and give attention to discovering what is deeply most important to you, it may not be what you have thought is important. There are different ways to go about this, with most consisting of quieting your chattering mind talk and learning to be receptive to inner information coming up to the conscious level. Doing things like asking yourself questions about yourself and becoming receptive to answers may not be something you are accustomed to doing, so it may take time, patience and persistence realizing that you are really in charge of your thinking. Even adding this kind of activity into your day means that you will need to make time by replacing something already present.
There are a few factors to be aware of that can hamper your progress:
Your brain will attempt to defend the repeating thoughts, throwing out ‘mind chatter’ to dissuade you from your new thinking and actions.
There is more short term comfort in what you already know, even if it is very bad for you. Keep your vision on the long term intention and satisfaction, as a way to get by the desire for feeling good now.
You must remain persistent, more persistent than the brains need to protect what you are trying to displace. Utilize whatever tools and techniques you can to help yourself stay on track. Persistence reveals the winner!
When you begin to see what is truly most important, you will then want to start to change what you focus some of your time and attention to. In order for the new desired experience to come to fruition you will need to continuously give it attention and time in your day. It is like a seed that needs to be nurtured. As you do this your brain will help expound on this and gradually have it become part of the automatic norm for your life just as it has with what you experience now.
Remaining in focus with what you have now or with what you don’t want will only tell your brain to perpetuate it. The first and necessary step for anything to change is your taking command of your thought and choosing what you do want based on what is important to you, then focus on it even if your brain throws up resistance. It’s up to you to choose your priorities and tell your brain what you want to focus on, not the other way around. Your brain will follow your lead once you’ve established your athority over your thinking. Take charge of your life, utilize your true power, choose your thought and your priorities.
Your life is going on and on and on. This is a good thing of course and your brain is designed to keep it this way. Part of your brains function is to simplify as much as possible and to help you feel good which it is very good at. Now you may think that you are always feeling as good as you want this is because your brain sees keeping things the same as more comforting than change. So even what may not be good for you is perpetuated. Your brain is very good at keeping everything the same, in fact it helps to enhance whatever has already been experienced. The way the brain sees this is, you must want it – you chose it, even if not consciously.
The easiest course for your life is for more of the same and that is likely what you have been experiencing. This of course may be all good if you are totally satisfied with everything. But if you want anything about your life to be different, that’s not what your brain is in charge of. When your day is completely full of what you already think, feel and do where does the new come in? When your unconscious and conscious though are consumed with what is now going on, which I assure you they are, all of your attention is there as well. Your day to day life is essentially a habit that continues to feed and support itself, keeping you locked in as it is.
What happens is that you can become blind to other things, that are different. How this affects your life is this – You can become so involved with your repeating thoughts which increase in importance by default that you are not even aware of what you are not doing, what you are missing, and what is deeply important to you. I ran across a video that illustrates this. Pay attention to the guy speaking and do what he instructs you to do. Perception
This attention blindness keeps us doing what we have done and away from what is different and unrelated. You’ve heard the saying, “you can’t see the forest through the trees.” You may not see things that are right in front of you because your attention is already taken up with something. When focusing on the trees that are right in front of you, you are not able to see the scope of the entire forest and it’s varied landscapes.
Many of the things that you have grown to think are important because of your continual involvement, may not be so important to you at a deeper level. As you focus your attention on something it’s importance increases just from the increased presence of the involved thoughts and actions. With this higher level of importance your brain gives it more attention too making it even more prominent in your conscious and unconscious thought, thus many other things are completely shut out of your awareness.
It is important to know that you can really only focus on one thing at a time. When you are ‘multi-tasking’ you are actually jumping quickly back and forth from one thing to another. There is only so much of this that your brain is capable of doing. Plus, there is the time utilized factor. There are 24 hours in a day and when you have allowed the repetitive thoughts to inhabit those hours you are awake, there is no more time for other, new thoughts. You can easily use up your day pretty much thinking about the same things as you did yesterday and the day before. So where does new thinking fit it?
Essentially your life is easily consumed with what you have already experienced, have thought about a lot and have established feelings for. This is almost too simple. Allowing your daily life to continue on in the same way, as your brain helps you do, you are actually preventing yourself from seeing and experiencing anything new and different.
You do however have the ability and the right to make changes in your life anytime you want, you must choose to first and then follow through with persistence and determination to override what is already established in your mind. Your real power as a human lies with your ultimate command of your thought. Just because your brain functions the way it does does not prevent you from aver changing any of it. Where the problem lies is that most of us have a pattern of allowing our minds to perpetuate the same thoughts and experiences over and over rather than making frequent changes. Making frequent changes and adjustments to your thinking can become part of your normal operating system once do do it for a while. Your brain will support this just as it has supported anything else you have focused on.
To change any of your repeating life experience you will need to assert your command of your thought and make choices about what you do and don’t want to be your life experience. Just be aware of how your brain works, it wants to keep you comfortable by keeping things as they are.
As you work on change you may experience some of the following:
Negative thoughts,
Doubt and worry,
Challenging your ability and self-esteem,
Brain fog, clouding your thought,
Anxiety,
Distraction,
Short term gratification,
and more.
Don’t let this stop you, you don’t need to remain blinded by your existing life experience. Realizing what may occur up front you will be less likely to be influenced by it. Determination, persistence and the belief that you are fully capable will help you learn to make the wanted adjustments to your thought and what you focus on. It’s your mind, use it to your benefit.