How Often do You go Down the Yellow Brick Road of Fear & Worry?
How do emergency personnel, police officers, soldiers, first responders, etc. attend to a critical, sometimes horrific situation and remain calm and focused applying their skills to do their job? Oh, they are special people called to do that you say? No, they are normal but very committed, people who were trained to perform important functions during a time of critical need. So, besides the specialized training, how do they bypass their emotions and apply specialized training, which is immediately required when viewing a crisis that could derail them from functioning? The answer is still training. They have been trained to make an immediate choice to act by applying their training instead of spending time focusing on their emotion of how horrible the situation before them may be.
Fear is an important emotion in our human experience. It is part of our alert system that tells us to pause and proceed with caution. Animals instinctively feel fear also. The instinct to pause is important because it affords us the opportunity to first trust our senses of sight and hearing. Then the body reacts and our breathing is shallow and our heart beats out of our chest. Sometimes this happens all at once. In a dangerous situation we, hopefully, immediately take steps to keep ourselves or others safe from harm.
However, there are normal life challenges that we face every day that are not life-threatening or necessarily physically harmful to us. When fear rises up in us in those non-life threatening situations, we often have a little more time to safely pause and assess. If we remain present at that moment it affords us an opportunity to choose. We can either ask ourselves: “What is mine to do?” and begin to look at possible solutions; or we can follow the “yellow brick road” of emotional projection called worry. Like first responders, we have a choice to act with our wisdom and power or we can convert our fear to worry. Worry is that space where we immediately dredge up all the past negative experiences or the perceived beliefs that we have held on to and imagine possible disasters. Then we artfully apply them to the current challenge before us. Worry is a self-created affirmation or vision of the worst possible thing that “could” happen to you.
Depending on how much thought, emotion, time and energy we invest in this worry place, it determines the size of the “emotional tornedo” and degree of physical reaction that results in us. This pattern of following the “yellow brick” road of worry, if it is not intentionally interrupted, could go on for some time and become an integral part of our ability to function in life.
What if we paused when we are faced with a non-life threatening challenge and introduce acknowledgment before worry? What if we could acknowledge the crisis, but affirm: “I am safe”. “I see what this is and I can choose how to deal with it”. “I have seen this before and I will find a way through it”. “I don’t have all the answers but I can create a solution”…. And if the worry continues to arise, say: “No thank you, I got this!” “Screw the path of the yellow brick road of fear and worry!” “I choose the path of my own power!”
How do emergency personnel, police officers, soldiers, first responders, etc. attend to a critical, sometimes horrific situation and remain calm and focused to apply their skills to do their job? Oh, they are special people called to do that you say? No, they are normal but very committed, people who were trained to perform important functions during a time of critical need. So, besides the specialized training, how do they bypass their emotions and apply specialized training, which is immediately required when viewing a crisis that could derail them from functioning? The answer is still training. They have been trained to make an immediate choice to act by applying their training instead of spending time focusing on their emotion of how horrible the situation before them may be.
Fear is an important emotion in our human experience. It is part of our alert system that tells us to pause and proceed with caution. Animals instinctively feel fear also. The instinct to pause is important because it affords us the opportunity to first trust our senses of sight and hearing. Then the body reacts and our breathing is shallow and our heart beats out of our chest. Sometimes this happens all at once. In a dangerous situation we, hopefully, immediately take steps to keep ourselves or others safe from harm.
However, there are normal life challenges that we face every day that are not life-threatening or necessarily physically harmful to us. When fear rises up in us in those non-life threatening situations, we often have a little more time to safely pause and assess. If we remain present at that moment it affords us an opportunity to choose. We can either ask ourselves: “What is mine to do?” and begin to look at possible solutions; or we can follow the “yellow brick road” of emotional projection called worry. Like first responders we have a choice to act with our wisdom and power or we can convert our fear to worry. Worry is that space where we immediately dredge up all the past negative experiences or the perceived beliefs that we have held on to and imagine possible disasters. Then we artfully apply them to the current challenge before us. Worry is a self-created affirmation or vision of the worst possible thing that “could” happen to you.
Depending how much thought, emotion, time and energy we invest in this worry place, it determines the size of the “emotional tornedo” and degree of physical reaction that results in us. This pattern of following the “yellow brick” road of worry, if it is not intentionally interrupted, could go on for some time and become an integral part of our ability to function in life.
What if we paused when we are faced with a non-life threatening challenge and introduce acknowledgement before worry? What if we could acknowledge the crisis, but affirm: “I am safe”. “I see what this is and I can choose how to deal with it”. “I have seen this before and I will find a way through it”. “I don’t have all the answers but I can create a solution”…. And if the worry continues to arise, say: “No thank you, I got this!” “Screw the path of the yellow brick road of fear and worry!” “I choose the path of my own power!”