How Fear Tricks You into Seeing the Tree Branch as a Python

Yesterday I flew from San Francisco to Newark. No big deal. I am used to lots of zipping around the place. Yet, I felt myself becoming more and more afraid that either I would not get to the airport on time (I did),  the plane would be delayed (it wasn't), or some disaster would strike me in my tracks (it didn't).

I'm usually not a fearful person. Then why the fear? I thought about it for those long hours on the plane.

We are living through a tough time where talk about security and survival is on everyone's lips. Is there enough? Will there be enough in the future? What do I do if I lose everything? What do I do if they want to take what I have?

There is a virus in the air, the virus of fear and impending doom. Then I realized, "Duh! "Don't Bring It to Work". My book, that's what this is all about. When anxiety heats up, so do we". I thought about what is infecting all of us. When we become anxious and afraid we all go back to childhood fears.

So I sat and revisited my childhood. I realized that a family story was stuck in a dark corner of my memory. It was about my father losing his job and how my parents had to watch every penny to get through that time. Funny thing is that happened before I was even born. By the time I arrived life was better and pennies went into my piggy bank. Even so, their past upset was registered in my brain.

Today's fears are big and I don't want to minimize them. Yet, if we look hard enough we can see witches and monsters coming out of dark corners. This can limit our capacity to find creative solutions. Therefore, it is a time to be vigilant, not let old stories make us even more worried. Once we dig for the old memories and bring them out of their hiding places we can put them directly in the light.

Using the OUT Technique (Observe, Understand, Transform) you can look fear in the eye and move forward with courage and dignity.

*Observe: Take a break and find a quiet place. Bring a pad of paper and a pen. Ask the question: When in my childhood was I afraid we would not have enough money? When in my childhood did my parents argue over finances? When in my childhood was I told we could not afford a toy, vacation, new home, etc? These questions should prime the pump for other thoughts. Jot down what comes to you.

*Understand: This is an action step. Check out your thoughts with parents, siblings, aunts or uncles. You can even look up old newspaper articles about that time in your life that can shed light on what was going on at a larger cultural level. You may find out that your perceptions, the ones that formed the base of your fear, have been incorrect all this time. Or, you may find out that you have only small slices of what happened and by filling in the blanks you will gain a new clarity.

*Transform: Now you have the power to change your thoughts. This takes some elbow grease and your patterned responses to fear wont change immediately. However, if you stay vigilant and every times the old "OMG!" fear starts to take hold you can begin to face it with the response "That was then and this is now! I am an adult and capable of finding creative, new ways to solve problems". It really is simple, as long as you stay steady and make the commitment to move forward and not retreat into past patterned behavior.

See that tree branch over there? At dusk it sure looked like a python ready to pounce. Didn't matter that I know pythons don't live in this part of the world. Look again, whew; it really is just a tree branch!