The Recession and Fear
One of the things that has been driving me nuts about the current recession is the fear mongering. I can’t control what happen with business realities “out there” but I can do something about my reaction to it. I can choose not to buy into a story of fear and the embodied contraction that goes along with it. I wasn’t afraid of the terrorists, the communists or the Bogey-Man so why would I be scared of a recession? The recession and fear need not go together.
Now I’m not saying fear doesn’t have it uses – a healthy respect for the things that one can change or avoid is clearly adaptive – but this looks and feels very different to what’s being peddled right now EVERY day on mainstream and business news.
The upcoming “Riding The Storm” workshop for businesses Saturday April 18th, in Brighton, deals with how to cope with the stress, and keep your head when all around people are losing theirs and blaming it on you. The “randori” exercise we will be doing relating to dealing with multiple requests and challenging will be particularly fun. This is the more athletic aikido version. What aikido and Conscious Embodiment teacher Wendy Palmer has to say on the current climate is also worth a read:
Somatic Intelligence is the unification of mind, emotions and intuition in the body. With all this uncertainty, loss and fear of loss, this seems like a good time to reclaim our intuition and our confidence using somatic intelligence. Internally we know if we settle down, that we are resourceful and resilient. The practice of centering restores the capacity for our long-term, higher functioning aspects of the brain – morality,intuition and strategic thinking. Fear mutes these higher functioning capacities and activates the short-term survival aspects of our brain- narrow focus, hyper vigilance and defensiveness. The brain and the body are intrinsically connected. Centering shifts the energy in the body and the areas of the brain from fear to possibility, from contraction to expansion, from a slumped to an upright dignified posture.
Unless we show the way forward, unless we are willing to be courageous, kind and curious in the face of the unknown, we will surely fall prey to the fear and gloom scenario being echoed around the world. We have the tools and we can use our commitment to practice swimming against the current. It takes generosity, endurance and discipline to meet the intensity of the cultural angst with our higher functioning brain. Let us commit to the practice of lighting up this high-functioning brain by shifting the way we run our body’s energy. Using centering practices we can reinvigorate our resilience and our resourcefulness throughout each day.
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Business So What: Fear makes you stupid, learn how to deal with it through the body
Media So What: Stop fear mongering you muppets
warkmalsh
not sure what you mean – seems fine from here