good stuff

within hours after writing the blog below, i picked up david richo's
book 'daring to trust' exactly at the spot where he was tellin' me
how to do what i was thinking of doing in the post below.

sometimes that kinda timing just takes my breath away.

(you may want to read that post first if you haven't already)

there's too much here to type out......but i'm gonna snag some lines to share....

he talks about how learning mindful contemplation helps with the crisis stuff in life.
and i'm taking this and applying it to my fear stuff.

'We all construct a life narrative to condemn or exculpate ourselves or others.
From this story we form a fixed set of governing prejudices. They help us explain
our predicaments in life and get us off the hook about truly addressing them."

so to get by this he's talking of doing mindful contemplation, which he describes
in this part of the book.

 'We use our present crisis of helplessness to free ourselves from landing in a story.
 Instead, we move through our crisis into a new chapter in our lives.'

he talks of the challenge being to stay present in the here and now.

'The paradox is in the fact that going further into hopelessness can grant access to hope.
That is how contemplation is an act of trust.'

okay....that totally caught my attention.
cause it felt like it was directly tied into my thought of letting go of the fear,
you have to totally trust that you don't need it. letting go of the fear is an act of trust.
and what he talks of here sounds like the same deal -
if you can walk into hopelessness on purpose, allow yourself to be there without
fighting it.......you're trusting yourself.

and then he mentions the embracing stuff!

'When we unconditionally embrace our predicament, it becomes a threshold to
something new. The 'either/or' changes to 'both/and.' How? We do not jump into
the unexplored wilderness of helplessness brandishing the banner of hope and
declare it under control. We simply stay put in our helplessness, and that fidelity
creates the milieu in which real change can happen.'

and then he actually lists the steps to take that he's been describing as i read.
so what the heck, i'll give you the list. maybe it'll make sense even if you don't read
this whole section and maybe it'll help me remember it!

1. Inhabit rather than withdraw from the weakness, helplessness, and hopelessness.

2. Recall the same filling state in earlier life.

3. Affirm that you are now mature enough to deal with it.

4. Say yes to the given that we all feel this way sometimes.

5. Stay with your feelings until a shift into serenity occurs.

6. Open to the new forms of energy that begin to appear on
the horizon: take the world up on what it offers.

7. Affirm self-trust for the future: "I can always surrender to what I feel,
and new energies will arise in me." This is trust in the power of the human
psyche as self-restoring, self re-newing.

ha!
good stuff.
now........to try to apply it!
whew.