When fear gets a hold

How caught up have you been in the drama of the global financial panic in the last few days? Have you been finding it scary?

I was running a workshop with staff from a bank this week when the share price of banks hit the floor. They were very, very unhappy people. The sense of stress was palpable. In the City of London there is tension everywhere.

Look too at the photos in the media of traders holding their heads as stock prices plummet.

What have you been doing? Checking on your savings and investments, moving money out of exposed locations? Listening to others as they tell of what they have heard. Noticing the rumour mill pounding away?

From a personal development standpoint, this is a time when we get tested. And we regularly get tested on what we are about - from which we make learnings. Right now, for those who are keen to make empowering learnings, one thing to keep uppermost is clarity of focus on managing our own state.

Fear is the number negative emotion, that gets us firmly stuck in a dis-empowering mode. Full blooded fear freezes us and reduces our capacity to think creatively. We become imprisoned in knee-jerk survival responses. It is not who we are. But if we stay stuck in fear, particularly this all-consuming fear, then we get more of the same. This is how we create our reality. The universe brings us more of what we think about. Then other negative things follow in train, like "I'm poor". "I don't have much of value". "I have no value". A great way of creating what we don't want.

And this stuff is co-created. In other words, if others are also thinking it, then we do it together.

So the message here is to become powerfully aware of your current state, step outside it, and witness it. In NLP terms that's dissociating from it. Anchor yourself in your one true state, who you really are, that steady, contented, all-knowing self, where real joy and happiness lies. Do something that helps reinforce that state. If necessary read the stuff being put out on this site. Go meditate. Seek out good company, not those who are keeping you stuck in negativity. Go to church, or the temple or the mosque. Pray if its that that works for you. But bring yourself into a centred state. From that place, witness fear but do not allow yourself to be caught up in it. Do not let it be part of your reality, even if it is others' experience.

From your centred place you can make empowering choices that create your vision of the world and communicate with others from that standpoint. Thus can you provide truly inspiring leadership.

And support others in not allowing themselves to be imprisoned by fear.