Oh, As IF—and, How Do You Deal with Fear?

Today I must admit to something that I'm not proud of.

I'm not always cheerful and upbeat. Nor am I always the best representation of a follower of the LOA or someone of faith.

Sometimes, I fall down.

Yesterday was one of those days. (Before we go on, today is better, so fear not for my well-being.)

In hindsight, I realize there was a lesson in all of this, and that I had to go through it to be able to understand it when others go through it, which they will, so that I can help them by example.

I've been reading Barbara Sher's book with the impossibly long title, "I Could Do Anything If I Only Knew What It Was: How to Discover What You Really Want and How to Get It". We'll call it Sher's book for brevity's sake. Many of the exercises correlate to self-analysis work I've already done, but some are new. I do those. Most of them.

One exercise wants you to ask yourself which of the Four Feelings is the one you're experiencing right now. The Four are Anger, Fear, Hurt and Joy, as these are the most basic emotions we feel. Other emotions, like grief or resentment, are combinations or variations of the Four.

Well I opened up a can of worms Sunday night. The one that came up was ANGER. With a capital everything. I had no idea. I thought I was just sort of sad. Turns out, I am PISSED OFF BEYOND BELIEF. At my Mother. At my sibling. At my childhood. At myself. At former bandmates and beaus. At my old jobs. At all of the injustice I've experienced in my life. I let it all out. It was a long night. But I slept well, and I woke up feeling...

Not so good. REALLY bad, in fact. I haven't felt this down-deep depressed in a long time. And it lasted all day. It was so bad... I actually wrote up a note of whom to call in case I couldn't take it anymore—who gets the cats and horses, who to email... in a way, that might have been part of the purge because after that and hours of crying, sobbing and grieving, I felt better. Not good, mind you, but the feeling had passed.

Yes, it was hours of torture going through it. Wave after wave of excruciating emotional pain kept coming up. I cried myself hoarse and my eyes still feel like sandpaper. Apparently I'd crossed from ANGER to HURT.

Thing is, I'd been attributing the emotion to frustration, and believing it was because of my blocked financial situation. I live in Ohio. Our economy isn't the best right now. The excuses are, I have things to sell but due to the economy in this state (when I switch into the old thinking of "being realistic"), nobody's buying; the estate hasn't closed because the house hasn't sold; my employable skills apply to jobs that aren't available right now and the jobs that are available don't align with my skills (or won't hire me because of that nasty little glitch called being "overqualified"), and the correlation between the amount available in my bank account versus the bills that need to be paid is way out of balance.

Poor me.

Wahhh.

It took HOURS to work through all of this. Alone. At the tail end of the sobbing, when I'd finally wore myself out, I begged God to help me. I became very quiet. I had nothing left in me, nothing left to say.

For a moment or two, there was nothing but the silence after the storm.

Then a small, soft voice in my head said:

Act as if it is all right.

Huh?

It continued.

What would you be doing differently tomorrow, if you KNEW help was on its way, if you KNEW that in a few days, it WOULD be all right?

Well, hell. I'd never considered... that I might be living my life anyway BUT that way. This voice and I had a conversation in which it was pointed out to me that I'd been living as if it was NOT going to be all right, and all of my actions—or lack thereof—sent out that message.

Naturally, it attracted the very experiences to me that I didn't want to have, and voila—here I am.

I realized that if I truly believed that everything was on the upswing, whether it had manifested any visual signs yet or not, I would be living a little bit differently every day.

I'd be focusing on improvement (not just emotional): getting in shape, cleaning up the house, sorting stuff, preparing for the future that was on its way. I would NOT be living every day as if it might be the last day I have heat, or with full-on scarcity mindset, putting off stuff and refusing to "get involved" because what's the point? Why get deeply entrenched in a recording or creative project, or my horsemanship studies, or studying for the GRE, when by next week or next month, I might be giving away all my possessions because the person whose couch I'll be occupying when the money runs out doesn't have room to store them all, or I'll be working two jobs just to pay the bills and won't have time for "such nonsense"?

Yes, one's brain can think up some pretty wild thoughts, can't it? It's tricky, true, but my mind is really making an enormous mountain out of an inconvenient little molehill that I really am quite capable of overcoming. The house is paid for, in fact it still belongs to the estate, not me; so the chance of being evicted by anyone is unlikely. I do have friends who would help me out in a crisis if I'm too embarrassed to request a small advance from the estate, and I'm not in serious debt (no credit cards). There are jobs out there, and who knows? If I focus on what I want, I can create it. Hell, I seem to be pretty good at creating the other stuff, right?

The point is, my mind was tricking me. It was feeding into my fears, and it was using MONEY to set up a crisis so that I would avoid dealing with the feelings that I accidentally wound up dealing with this weekend. I even, at one point, seriously doubted the validity of the LOA.

Sidenote: Just because someone had great parents and a nice upbringing doesn't mean there wasn't pain.

When I realized that I'd been sitting on a schload of anger and hurt, and hiding it behind semi-imaginary money woes that I'd created all by myself, I was in shock. When I realized that I'd been acting and speaking as if it was NOT turning out OK, even though I thought I was doing otherwise, I was horrified.

Shortly thereafter, I outlined how I'd behave if I believed, and I began to feel better.

This morning, I caught myself in a thought process I was surprised to have. I realized I'll need to be very diligent and observant because scarcity thinking can be sneaky.

I was wondering, "should I maybe check into the insurance agents I see advertised on TV all the time and see if I can lower my car insurance payment even further?"

Not because it's a great deal, but because then I would have less going out, more to live on, not use up my savings so fast in the event that things didn't improve...

SMACK! What did you JUST think?!?!?

Oh, my. A very complex, convoluted thought, and it was right back into scarcity.

" in the event that things didn't improve..."

Naughty, naughty!

So it isn't enough just to decide "OK I'm going to act as if from now on". Nope, I have to watch myself because the scarcity thinking is so deeply ingrained it filters out subtly without my even noticing.

How do you fix it?

By becoming aware of it and perishing the thoughts.

How does one live "as if"?

It's not that I should go out and act as if I'm a multimillionaire and start spending like crazy. That would be dumb. But what can I do that is in alignment with being "OK" that doesn't cost anything? There are plenty of actions along those lines. When I start doing those as much as possible, I'm sending out the message that I believe.

My objective is to maintain the lifestyle I had before my parents died, which is a comfortable neither-rich-nor-poor lifestyle in which my needs are met and I'm able to enjoy the small pleasures that make life worth living, like an occasional dinner out, a movie matinee, a short roadtrip, and so on.

Continually trimming out more and more things until I'm down to food, absolute basic utilities, and shelter with absolutely no room for even one night out is sending a message of a belief in scarcity.

But that reality thing... so someone asks me to go check out that new restaurant in town. I could answer "truthfully",

"Sorry. Can't afford to right now. Maybe later."

Or, I could answer "as if":

"Sure, I'd love to! This is a busy time—how about we try for next week/next month?"

Not ruling it out. Not claiming scarcity. Just, scheduling it for the future. Which is going to be FINE. Which will be a time when I am more than able to afford it. And, visualizing ahead to the day we go and check it out. Then letting it go. Forgetting about it until next month, when...

Surprise, I'll be able to afford to go.

As for my bills, I'll do triage. Pay the most urgent. Partial pay the less-urgent. Decide that it's OK to pay some next week, when there is more money. Fix these thoughts in my mind. Hold the visualizations then let them go. Expect it to be fine. Expect that the job is appearing. Expect that the blocks are dissolving.

And act as if it IS working out.

But... what about the fear?

Well, emotions come in and go out much like a ride on a rollercoaster. They start at the bottom, quietly, then rise, rise, rise until they peak, then you freefall back down until they subside and go away.

The trick is to hang on for the ride. I've discovered three ways that we deal with emotions.

• RESISTANCE
• SENDING OUT
• ALLOWING

What usually happens is we sense the feeling rising, and we think NONONONONO and try to push it away. RESIST. Panic rises inside of us because we do not want to feel this. So it tries even harder to get to us, and eventually either we stuff it back down for awhile (ever wary of its next attempt) or it gets us anyway.

When it is suggested that we allow the experience, people worry, "but isn't that going to attract more of it to me?"

Nope. To attract it requires either resisting it (which energizes it) or SENDING IT OUT on purpose. That requires a conscious effort to push it out. Raising your arms and sending it out, or pushing it from your solar plexus—both require active energy.

That's not what I'm talking about.

ALLOWING the feeling is like passive-resistance. You see it coming. Instead of rising up to battle it, or actively sending it out, you STOP. Just stop and be still. Wait for it. Continue to stay calm and breathe through it. You let the energy come TO you and go THROUGH you, but you do not add your own energy to it.

Think of yourself like a reed in the water. Usually it is still and calm. But you see it, on the horizon, an enormous wave is headed your way. If you fight it stiffly, you will break under the weight of it. But if you bend... it will wash over you. You will withstand it, and then it will pass and calm will return.

What you do is you open yourself up, and welcome it. When you feel it beginning to rise, you take a deep breath and set your internal stance to a power position where you cannot be knocked over. Then you wait. The feeling comes. It will rise. It will reach a point where you think "I cannot withstand this anymore". This is the peak.

This is the point where most people cave in, and they either put up the fight or they break.

This is the point where you hold strongest. One more deep breath, and...

There it goes. It's subsiding. Only this time it will likely stay gone.

If it's fear, it'll rise, peak, and fall away.

If it's anger, same thing, but you may need to open a portal and express it safely. Write in a journal, punch a pillow, or yell.

If it's pain, you will have to allow the tears. It's going to hurt like hell at the peak, and that will be scary, but stay with it.

I promise. If you stay with it, and ride over the crest, you will land safely on the ground again, and you will be fine.

I should know. I'm speaking from personal, recent experience.