Soul Hiker » Fear

How to Survive the ‘Negativity Pandemic’

Gilbert Ross — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 19:27:48 +0000

Lately we have heard so much about the global economic crisis, recessions, job cuts, natural disasters, increasing environmental problems and so on. Continuous talk about these things can easily influence the collective psyche in a negative way.

Even before recent events, we have always been bombarded with news, images and video clips of tragedies, wars,disasters, violence, crime,etc from a very young age. We are not even consciously aware of the extent to which we are exposed to such negative media. We might think that we have grown ‘immune’ to it or that we have become numb or insensitive to such media.

To a certain extent, this is true but there is a residual effect that acts on our subconscious minds and which can influence us negatively by injecting fear, paranoia, hysteria and anxiety. This has the direct implication of affecting our reasoning and decisions even in everyday life.

More than that it is the ‘collective effect’ which we seem to be more vulnerable to. This means that it is not only our own personal exposure to these stories which affect us most (although they do in certain ways) but it is the way that the general morale of the people around us (even those we do not interact with directly)can leave a sort of after effect on our own mood and attitude.

Since no man is an island, we are all subject to this collective effect. The social environment we live in is a highly connected network of individuals. When a network is highly connected, causes and effects spread out throughout the network very fast and effectively. There is a lot of interdependency.

It should therefore come to no surprise that other people’s moods affect us in many ways. Now although these moods can be both positive and negative, it is the negative thoughts and attitudes that are of a concern. I call it the negativity pandemic.

Get your Vaccine:

As one can have a vaccine administered against seasonal flu, one can also get a shot of ‘vaccination’ against the negativity pandemic. This vaccine is called awareness.

In previous articles I have expressed my belief that awareness is the one most single important thing in self actualization and just about anything related to personal development. It is no exception in this case.

If we are aware of the fact that other people’s attitude on life can leave an effect on us, we can consciously understand the signs when we see them.

By being aware of other people’s negative and limiting beliefs, we can choose to take action before being affected. We can, for example, choose not to be around so-called downbeat people or self-victimizing people who drain a lot of energy and vitality from us.

So, awareness is the first and most important step.

Build up your Defense System:

I am sure that nobody likes to be subject to all sorts of negative vibes knowingly and voluntarily. It is a process which happens on a subconscious level, unknown and undetected to our conscious mind.

By being more aware as suggested in the previous point, we can also be preventive and watch out not to enter into situations or relationships that we know might have a contagiously negative effect on us. For example, a social circle where people tend to always whine and moan about something: be that politics, the degeneration of teenage life, cost of living, the battered economy, etc. Or you might also avoid seeing a particular show or a particular site in which a lot of cynical,negative views on life are expressed.

Turn it Around:

When a conversation or an evening out starts getting downbeat and pessimistic, turn it around by changing the subject of conversation or injecting the positive side of the situation into it. Remember that the other person might not be conscious that the flow is going negative so you have to be in charge of arresting the negative syndrome before it creeps in and bounce it off with a positive twist.

Get your Daily Dose of Positivity:

I know the ‘be positive’ suggestion is a tune which has been overplayed. It’s not the ‘be positive’ factor I would want to talk about here but the ‘be around positive things’. Sometimes we slip into thinking that life just happens as in the thought: “Let’s see what today is gonna bring”.

If it’s a negative day then we stick with it. NO! Nobody is telling you not to eject your seat from that negative train of thought and go surround yourself with things that bring you lots of joy. The shittier the day, the wilder you should go! Go fetch and indulge in your favorite ice-cream, listen and dance to your favorite songs at high volume, freak out for a while with friends or family, watch some hilarious or amazingly inspiring videos on the internet and do and be surrounded by just about anything that’s fun, positive and beautiful. After all, life is beautiful.

Overcoming Fear and Breaking Free from its Tyranny

Gilbert Ross — Mon, 04 Jan 2010 20:13:04 +0000

Fear is a cruel tyrant and we all know it. It debilitates us and immobilizes us, by restricting our possible responses to life and thus severely limiting it.

It effectively sabotages us from succeeding in reaching a goal or achieving happiness and peace of mind.

Fear can make us reject an opportunity to make a public speech, hold us from applying for that perfect job, keep us back from making that fantastic trip or keep us awake at night worrying what might happen to our loved ones when they are out of our sight. The examples are endless and I don’t need to illustrate further – I’m sure you get the gist of it.

Some people live in constant fear; some others face fear from time to time when it creeps out from some hidden corner and surfaces to haunt their days and nights.

The fact is that fear is a form of feedback about potential or real danger in our environment. Physically it is associated with a part of our brain called the ‘amygdala’ situated at the tip of the temporal lobe.

It is the part of our brain responsible for the flight, fight or freeze response to dangerous situations. No doubt, such instinctive responses were greatly helpful to the survival of our ancestors in the past. Yet as societies grew increasingly more complex and human lifestyles changed radically, this primordial survival instinct started sometimes coming at odds with everyday life situations that do not require such drastic responses.

The effect of that was an embedded sense of fear that manifests itself in many forms such as anxiety, worry, lack of sleep, nervousness and uneasiness, etc.

There are several types of fears we all face in modern life scenarios:

There is fear of rejection, fear of failure, fear of loneliness, fear of mediocrity, fear of change and the unknown, fear of getting old, fear of something bad happening, fear of embarrassment, etc. The list is very long.

How do we overcome these fears if at all possible? How can we control them or stir them away? How can we turn fear into love and happiness?

1. Awareness: The biggest and most effective step to overcome fear is being aware of it. First, you have to identify it, recognize it in any situation, name it and spot it out from other emotions. If you can’t identify it, it will pass by unnoticed and play its game without rules. Secondly be aware of subtle inner feelings that give rise to, or accompany, fear. These could be bodily feelings in the chest, throat or abdomen. They can also be non-bodily feelings such as feeling stuck or imprisoned and limiting and self-defeating thoughts.

2. Calm down: The second step that comes after being aware that you are in a state of fear is calming yourself down. Ideally it is someone else that should calm us down since the other person would normally be in a less subjective and emotional state. In the absence of another person we have to remind ourselves to calm down. This is crucial. By being aware that you are in an irrational state of fear, you can observe yourself. The observer in you is important for it helps you observe things more objectively, without judgment, from an almost ‘third-person’ point of view. If we lose that self-awareness, we practically lose everything including our sanity.

3. Burst the irrational bubble – ask analytical and rational questions: The third step to get out of the subjective and irrational state of fear is by asking ourselves rational questions. This is like someone snapping the finger in our face, trying to wake us up from a state of trance. “How real is this fear?”, “How can it help me?”, “Is it justified or is it blown out of proportion?”

4. Meditate regularly: The reason why me and other people writing about personal development, make very frequent reference to meditation (and awareness and mindfulness) is because it is such a fundamental key to mental health, balance and overall well being. It is never enough to stress its importance. Meditating regularly helps us keep in balance, in perspective and in a calm state of mind, hence in the best possible gear to overcome, or better, prevent fear.

5. Stop feeding fear with your energy – break the habit cycle: Fear does not survive on its own – it needs you – specifically it needs your negative energy to grow. By implementing the previous four steps, you are breaking the cycle that forms chronic fear and anxiety. Being aware, calming down, being analytical and meditating regularly together help you form the opposite habit – that of living fearlessly.

Click here to transform fear into love

Heart Driven Success

Gilbert Ross — Mon, 14 Dec 2009 20:57:58 +0000

Photo by timtom.ch

There are many factors that play a determining role in success. The most commonly identified are qualities such as passion, determination, perseverance, good planning, intuition and creativity amongst a few others.

It is to be said, however, that not all success comes from the heart or leads to happiness.

There is success which comes from taking smart decisions, hard work and perseverance together with a pinch of good luck. But this type of success does not necessarily lead to a happy fulfilled life. It might be the type of success that comes from striking the right six figure business deal or from having your name become big in your area of expertise.

This is obviously a great thing but does not necessarily entail what you really want deep inside.

Authenticity and inner purpose

Heart driven success is the ultimate form of success because it goes beyond limited beliefs about cause and effect, desire for money, fear and expectations and most of all, it is guided from the heart.

When you have stripped off the socially induced values of what is good, bad and ugly and listen more to what your heart is saying, you thrive towards your inner purpose. You would have found your authentic self.

Heart driven success comes from having your heart open to your life’s purpose without fear and limitations. It comes from the power of being conscious of your passion that drives you with enthusiasm and joy.

If you are in doubt, ask yourself: what drives you? What motivates you? What makes you work hard without getting tired and unsatisfied? If you had a guarantee of success in whatever venture you take, what would you do?

Aligning with your purpose in life

Heart driven success is powerful. There is a certain energy that flows through people when they are doing what they are passionate about. This comes from the fact that the person is aligned and in perfect sync with his purpose. When this happens, the energies of life flow through him freely without obstruction.

It’s like an unblocked pipe connected straight to the source. There are even some highly motivated and self-empowered people that would describe this energy as literally too powerful too handle at times. It feels as if it is filling every cell in their body and keeps them revved up as they produce work well beyond average quality and quantity.

Success beyond the self

Heart driven success means also, above other things, not to be limited and enslaved by narrow self-interest. It is not shallow. It’s free, unbounded, selfless and embraces broader interests than self-satisfying ones.

This is why some illustrious self-empowered people have given the world their creations and inventions for free.

They are already blessed by the greatness of following their life purpose with heart-driven success, so much so that monetary compensation falls way below that level of satisfaction.

A perfect example is the following TED talk from inventor Pranav Mistry, who decided to give out his ingenious and mind blowing work on ‘sixth sense technology’ as open source knowledge. Utterly fantastic