Upheavals and Downheavals: The Search for Dry Land
Have you ever felt like the dove that left Noah’s Ark in search of dry land only to find more sea than ever and nowhere to land? Or perhaps you have been valiantly resisting the urge to bail out during all the disastrous news because you are determined to avoid buying high and selling low. And just when you were thinking it couldn’t get any worse…
- your car needs replacing, or
- a major system breaks down in your house, or
- your kids want you to finance another “mistake” they made, and
- you are worried about how to make ends meet, either immediately or in the future.
The earthquakes in our financial systems don’t seem to be over yet – large forces continue to collide while each of us feels like ‘collateral damage’.
So where is the good news?
Frankly, I don’t know. I do not have enough economic knowledge to know if the world governments have made the right decisions recently. But I do know psychology and mass psychology.
And every fibre of my body is telling me not to go with the flow! Not to buy into the doom and gloom. Not to panic.
What to do instead?
As you probably realize, it isn’t enough simply to “not panic”, without having a strategy. In fact, this is a great time to check where you revenue goes and how you spend your money. And most importantly where you put your mental and emotional energy.
The big questions are around how we focus or don’t. Recently I relooked at where I spend money. Then a friend and I were sharing about our lives, our businesses etc. She said you are spending what??? You have what?? Why are you doing that?
Great questions. Why was I forking out lots of money on systems I don’t really need? I reorganized and reallocated my financial budget and cut out equipment and services we don’t need. I outsourced things we don’t want to do. And I relooked at potential revenue streams. Refocused and redirected.
Okay it was helpful. But that alone won’t help anyone thrive during the upheavals and downheavals.
Then I looked inside my head. Well, that was an experience. It was like wandering around an abandoned basement where everyone had left their treasures and their junk, in no particular order. Lots of things to catch my interest; all distracting.
So during this downheaval in the external world, I decided to clean up my internal world. What do I think about in the mental and emotional space from here to there? It turns out I’ve been thinking about thousands of things per minute and then I wonder why I wasn’t focusing on the things that matter.
No more. Enough. Basta! Breathe, get centered, ask yourself to focus on your breathing entering and leaving your body and pay attention to your insides. Where are you flowing? Blocked? Full? Empty? Notice your thoughts. Notice that you can unwind and relax your body, while breathing in and out and shake out the kinks. And now notice as you center your body and even out your breathing, you feel different…… better…… calmer…… more serene…… present.
I have been doing this several times a day as a 1st step to clear some space in my internal world.
Then I began to ask the big questions, waiting a long time between each one and being attentive to all your internal signals:
What IS important?……
What IS important to you?……
What is important about that?……
Why is that important?……
How will I know?……
And of course, this is where it got interesting. While I still don’t yet know what all the answers are, my whole internal reality is shifting. I’m feeling clearer, more energetic, more connected. More focused on the key activities that are moving me in a good direction. And that basement in my head has a lot less junk in it.
And the external downheaval doesn’t feel so insurmountable. In fact I know where the dry land is. Inside me. “You have all the resources you need, don’t you?” Breathe and notice……
Warm regards,
Shelle
Shelle Rose Charvet,
Certified Speaking Professional, author of Words That Change Minds, President-Elect of the Canadian Association of Professional Speakers.
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