COPING WITH CHANGE & THE UNITING STATES OF MANUFACTURED ANXIETY

Our levels of underlying anxiety are very much a function of the level of Risk we're living in at a given moment. We estimate the level of risk to our person by how easily we can quote examples of it. And there's no shortage of scary stories; we're being force-fed a diet of crises and disasters, masquerading as a “news cycle”, all implying increased levels of risk from everything from speeding cameras, corrupt public officials to ISIS Jihadists.

In the current world of managed information, masquerading as “news” feeds, we are bombarded by a steady stream of scary news stories and simplistic slogans designed to scare us into some kind of acquiescence to an agenda we're never told about. It suits mongers of power to saturate social and public media with such a stream of un-usual events that we get the impression that these catastrophes, crises and acts of escalating violence are usual and prevalent, and that we should unquestioningly cringe for cover. People who feel they no longer have a life are easy prey for a Cause.

It goes almost unremarked that News is only “news” because it is UN-usual. Get out and open your eyes. Get a sense of perspective. The world is actually a wonderful place – except only sometimes. OK? Don't let the spinmeisters rule your life. 

 

That having been said, unpredictable disasters, drought, divorce, disabilities and other disappointments do happen, and when experienced personally, do knock the stuffing out of you. You can feel as if the rug has been pulled out from under you, the life is being crushed out of you, and that continuity has evaporated. At such times of sudden, dramatic change, every habit, strategy, ploy, certainty, belief and hope that in the past has always restored you to an even keel, no longer works. At such times it helps me to remember something one of my nieces once said to me – “A diamond is just a piece of charcoal that handled stress rather well.”

When circumstances change, habits and inner regimes have to change. My wife had to leave me after 18 years of marriage before it even occurred to me that “This isn't working any more.” The truth was even then, I first had to work through grief before a “Divine Pissed-off-ness” arose, bringing me to the point where I would ditch everything and start all over again – this time consciously. It's my experience after subsequent years of re-learning, then counseling others that change and transformation are not possible until the student is ready: there's no breakthrough without breakdown. Of course, there are exceptions to that, but not many.

The kind of change I'm speaking of here is not often a mere matter of an adjustment or two here and there. Sometimes you have to empty and demolish the old and begin again from scratch – a new scratch. From caterpillar to butterfly. Jeshua the Christ called it being “born again.” – from the inside out and the ground up.

And it rarely snap-changes overnight. Even after an almighty "got-it", old habits still insist and take time to replace. Even now I notice how my unkind mind, when left to its own devices, is so easily distracted and drawn into thoughts of Lack and Missing, especially around the area of romance and relationships.

So I continue the journey noting what happens like this, and I'm pleased to say it's tougher in the beginning, while your mind is still silently screaming blue murder. It gets easier. After a while, mind calms down, and the ride gradually becomes mostly invigorating and enlightening. Apart from physical wobbles, very little knocks me around any more. In surrender and acceptingness I am ironically internally stronger and happier than I have ever been, with more to look forward to each day. I'm beginning to get all the flavours of the wisdom of “Less is more”. Ironically, while my physical sense of balance is now shot to smithereens, my soul, spirit and mind are better balanced than I can ever remember. It's fun just being alive!

Next!!!......