A picture was all we needed to take (see above!!!), make some declarations and collect the passport later that same day.

A Passport Story

Several hours we waited in a hot, crowded hallway with no sign of even rudimentary organisation such as a queue (yes, we British love to queue!). Eventually we were sitting in front of a uniformed lady who checked our documents and entered some details into the computer.

Then she passed me a form to sign and told me to write a declaration that I agreed, as a British citizen, for Sara to be issued with a Romanian passport.

No problem.

Except she wanted the declaration in Romanian – a language I know virtually nothing about.

The solution was easy, Mona wrote out the sentence and I copied it onto the form. I had a few challenges with Mona’s handwriting but managed to reproduce it to the satisfaction of the passport-issuing-lady. She told us to go to a different office in 2 hours to collect the passport.

I’ve learned over the years that most bureaucratic institutions are based on a platform of form filling and neatly segregated into jobs inhabited by people who rarely communicate with one another. As an example, we needed to make three small payments for the passport with each paid to a separate segment of the civil service. Each segment operated a separate bank account, each with a different banks. This meant trips to the three banks with no chance of one-stop banking as we needed the proof of payment stamped by each of the three banks.

As you can maybe tell, I was building up a picture in my mind of a highly inefficient, illogical and confusing system designed to make things as difficult as possible for the average person. Kafka’s writing come alive!

A Story Of Stupidity …

Final part of the story.

Back to collect the passport at the appointed hour and more confusion, still no queues, still crowds of people and still very hot.

Two hours after the appointed time we’re called to the front to face the passport- issuing-officer, a slightly rotund lady in a crisp uniform. Beside her is another lady telling us that the declaration (the one I wrote out in my very best Romanian) was incomplete and I need to add a sentence stating that I both speak and write Romanian fluently.

Hmmmm!

Mona stands next to me and spells out letter by letter what I need to write down with me following her instructions as best I can, feeling not a little intimidated by the massed crowd watching every stroke of the pen, to say nothing of the two officials not half a metre in front of me.

We hand over the form and receive our passport in exchange and I’m almost hysterical inside at the craziness of the system and the stupidity of these two people. It was obvious I didn’t know Romanian, yet here they were telling me to write a declaration we all knew to be false so they had their precious forms completed correctly.

I left the place intent on telling everyone how stupid these people are.

But Who Was Being Stupid?

Last night I joint hosted our first discussion group as part of our LightWork initiative. The topic for the evening was ‘How to make space for Kindness at work’. Half way through the discussion I suddenly realised something.

Those ladies in the passport office were not stupid at all.

What they did was to offer an act of kindness in turning a blind eye to my language deficiency. It was kindness to help us through the system so we could have our passport. It was kindness that pushed them to bend the rules which in many ways define their work. It was kindness that allowed them a simple human touch of understanding and generosity.

Without their kindness we would not yet have a passport for Sara. We would not be on our way today to the UK for Sara to visit her family there for the first time. We would be somewhat poorer after hiring a sworn translator, having everything translated for me at a notary office and having to change our flights to the UK.

And I missed it!

I interpreted this act of kindness as stupidity.

Who’s the stupid one?

An Apology

So dear passport-issuing-ladies.

I am deeply sad that I not only didn’t notice your act of kindness but that I went further and interpreted it so negatively. I would like you to know that I now see what happened more clearly and I am very grateful to you both.

And I want to apologise to all those people who have ever offered me an act of kindness I was too arrogant and stupid to see. I wish I could have noticed your beautiful act.

I am deeply embarrassed as I’m sure there are many of you out there.

Post from: Quantum Learning

Dear Passport Ladies

It wasn’t the colour of the world that shocked me. After all, Spring started here a couple of months ago and that’s what tends to happen in the Spring, isn’t it? Especially late Spring!

Everything is supposed to turn green.

What shocked me was I could have sworn that yesterday the park was dead and grey with no green in sight.

Now I see at least two possible explanations for this.

1. A Miracle Happened

There could have been some miracle in the floral world whereby all the trees sprouted leaves overnight while my eyes were closed in sleep. I don’t discount this possibility, though my previous close observation of the plant world is things tend to happen a bit more slowly than that!

I do, however, believe in miracles so when I got home I carefully scanned the local news looking for some mention of this phenomena. Finding none I had no choice but to move to my second explanation.

2. Sleep Walking

It could be they had indeed sprouted leaves while I slept, and that I’d been sleeping for some days, maybe even weeks. Only this form of sleeping was with my eyes open and my mind and heart closed.

What Do I Fail To Notice?

It got me wondering how many other changes around me do I fail to notice because I’m either so wrapped up in other stuff or I’m just not taking the time to experience the world around me.

What changes in my children do I fail to notice?

My eldest daughter grew up. She transformed from a little girl into a grown woman of 18, not suddenly, but with many small delightful steps. My middle daughter turned 7 a couple of months ago – again, what have I missed?

What changes in myself?

Another year on and what have I experienced that passed straight through me because I wasn’t paying attention. I notice a few aches in my body to remind me I’m not getting any younger but I tend to assume those are passing things and nothing to do with the years of wear and tear on my physical form. What joys have I let go without fully putting myself into them?

What tears have I failed to shed because I was thinking about yesterday or tomorrow and forgetting that life is here and now in the small moments?

What world events out there have I not noticed?

And I’m not the only one. This may be a shallow example but I had a debate with Mona a couple of weeks ago about Bob Dylan, of all people. She was sure he had passed away and I was sure he hadn’t. Sorry, Bob if you’re reading this and I apologise for my wife writing you out of the world before your time. I heard many people were at your concert in Bucharest last week so I’m assuming I’m right on this occasion

Being Here v Being There

The point is how much we miss because we’re in other stuff.

Could we be better prepared for life if we open our eyes to the small changes? Could we prevent things that seem to happen in a moment, but in truth grow in front of us in small changes that eventually reach a tipping point so they seem like an event?

Things rarely happen suddenly – though that’s often how we perceive them.

Wars don’t start overnight – they build up. World poverty and hunger isn’t an event but a process. AIDS didn’t suddenly become a problem but has been around a long time. Volcanoes don’t just erupt – the tension in the earth builds bit by bit – unnoticed but that doesn’t mean it’s not happening. People rarely turn to crime on a whim (it happens, but it’s rare) but the seeds are sown long ago and we allow them to grow like weeds.

Once weeds have taken hold they are difficult to remove.

Are wars, crime, disease, poverty or climate change really in the hands of an individual who takes them over that tipping point or brings them to our attention?

Or are they in all our hands because we fail to notice them and take action by removing the weeds early on? Or worse – we do read the signs and leave it to others to do something about it?

And it’s not just the terrible things but the wonderful things happening around us each moment. Do we really appreciate and celebrate them moment by moment?

Has the world suddenly turned green or, more likely, has been turning for some time and I just didn’t notice?

Post from: Quantum Learning

Everything Turned Green

I’m often overcome with moments of sheer joy and love for the world – mixed in with the not so subtle reminders from my body that I’m not as young as I used to be!

Out Of My Head

Apart from the hoped for health benefits it’s a great time to be in my skin and not my head.

I’m not what you might call an ‘athletic type’ (no, please don’t write in to tell me I’m wrong .. I am NOT an athletic type!) so any form of exercise doesn’t come so easily for me. Which means a lot of my energy and attention is taken up with the physical exertion of running. In turn that means my thinking has far less power over me and is much slowed down.

Running has become my meditation practice.

To some extent I can focus my thinking towards getting something done .. but that takes some control. Usually my head is full of a jumble of different ideas, thoughts, fleeting glimpses of a memory, visions of the future, advice to myself, reminders of things to do – all mixed up with the background noise of thoughts that are impossible to catch. Running quietens my thoughts rather than making them disappear completely, so those I do have are much easier to catch.

Running, or anything that gives me something physical to focus on, allows all that background crap to take a break.

What’s left is much clearer. Much easier to distinguish.

So …. Do I Look Good?

This morning I caught this particular thought as I passed some other runners going in the opposite direction.

“I hope I look good!”

Objectively speaking I’m a slightly overweight 46 year old in running gear that was thrown together from whatever was to hand this morning. My legs are long and my running ’style’ could never be described as elegant. When I had this thought I’d been running for about 15 minutes, so my face was red, sweaty and wore an expression that says something like ‘I’m sure this park was smaller yesterday’.

Objectively speaking there is no way I ‘look good‘ while running.

More than that, one of my beliefs about myself is that what I look like doesn’t matter to me, so it was a shock to catch this thought popping up.

Thoughts Come From Somewhere

Usually what I do with a thought that I don’t like or doesn’t fit with my world view is simply to discount it as a random aberration. On reflection that’s not necessarily the most sensible thing to do as my thoughts, even the crazy ones, could just be telling me something.

The trick, I believe, is to:

• notice them
• listen to them
• step back from them a little
• see if there’s a message

And always be very wary of believing them to be ‘true’.

The Message

I noticed the thought, listened to it and stepped back from it a little.

Do I care more about my physical appearance than I care to admit to myself?

I arrogantly like to think of myself as ‘different’ and ‘Bohemian’ and that I’d like to be seen for the human being I am and not judged for what I look like.

In truth I keep my head shaved and often look a little scruffy, preferring casual to smart and old to new. If I’m honest with myself I tend to dress down as a way of getting noticed and demonstrating my individuality and rebellion against other people’s standards. I often deliberately choose ‘a look’ that’s designed to attract attention but in doing so I’m just playing the same game.

For example this morning I chose a running vest and told myself it was to keep cooler. I think I was lying to myself .. it was to show off the small tattoo of a scorpion on my left shoulder.

In our world, rightly or wrongly, looks count for a lot. I don’t like the extent to which this is the case but I do understand it. After all, what I look like is the first thing that anyone meeting me will notice. They have little else to go on other than my appearance and I’m perhaps more influenced by this than I care to admit.

Anyway, it got me thinking about what other messages there might be in those aberrant thoughts I only catch while running.

I’ll just have to wait until tomorrow to pick them up!

Post from: Quantum Learning

Do I Look Good …?

If anyone had asked me I would have said it was about three weeks since I wrote something. In fact, the date of the last article is 20 March 2010 – definitely longer than 3 weeks. And that time just slipped by.

No-one did ask me, which is a little disconcerting, but I’ll get over it.

I didn’t intend to take a break and was just planning to slow down while Mona and I got used to being parents together – maybe writing once a week, maybe a little more. No way did I plan to stop entirely.

Plans for Quantum Learning

I’m going to restart publishing twice a week (Monday and Thursday) and to make it a bit more explicitly focused on what I consider to be the essential dimensions of peaceful living:

• Inner World
• Family Life
• Work Place

Inner World

Sometimes I experience huge inner peace and self acceptance, even self love. These are what I might call ‘flashes of peace’ and is certainly not a steady state. I wish it was! I’m often stressed about day to day stuff, often paralysed by indecisiveness and often wallow in self pity and doubt.

Sometimes I forget everything I’ve learned and revert to a shallow, mean-spirited creature.

Yet those ‘flashes of peace’ show me that there is another ‘me’ bursting to get out. Finding ways of freeing that ‘me’ – the person I would like to be, is what I mean by Inner World.

Family Life

Even if you don’t have children, you were a child once upon a time. Even if you live alone, it wasn’t always that way. You were, for better or worse, part of a family of some kind.

How I live in intimate relationship and raise my children are two of the most nurturing experiences – and can also be two of the most challenging! I don’t often  think in terms of ‘my legacy’, yet through my kids, part of me will carry on when I die.

I’ve made many mistakes along the way and many people have been hurt by some of the choices I made and decisions I took. On the other hand I can look back over this first part of my life and celebrate some of the wonderful things I’ve contributed to myself and those around me.

I’ve struggled many times with the idea of ‘family’ but I discovered that a firm family foundation supports peace within me, in the connections with others and, through my children, the future of peace on the planet.

Plus, for a site devoted to self development, I can’t ignore the huge amount I learn from my 3 children. The oldest just turned 18 and no longer a child. The middle  is 7 and no longer a baby. My third is 3 months and no longer a newborn.

Work Place

I’ve been working with three dear friends on a concept for a new business venture I’m very excited about.

We believe there are plenty of people in business looking for respect, kindness, compassion and meaning in their working lives – and rarely finding it. We’re hoping to bring those people together and to support them through coaching, consulting and workshops.

We’re calling it ‘LightWork’ and wanting to play with the double meaning of that name.

Where is it written that work has to be ‘hard’ and heavy and a sacrifice? Who decided that competition needs to be tough and aggressive? When did we separate ‘work’ and ‘life’, as though work is not really part of living?

Interesting times ahead. For me anyway, and I hope you’ll join me!

Post from: Quantum Learning

AWOL and Future Plans

How you react to that will probably depend, in part, on whether you see death as an end or as a beginning. Personally I believe it’s both but I’ll only find out for sure when it comes. I react to the thought mainly with peace with some moments of fear (maybe I’m wrong, and it is only an end).

Scars On the Journey Of Life

The good news is, for now, I’m alive and well in a physical body, subject to emotional ups and downs, learning new stuff all the time and gradually connecting with a spiritual dimension to my life.

Part of this journey I call ‘life’ are the knocks and bruises we all suffer. Accidents and diseases damage my physical form, emotional traumas leave their invisible scars and my intellect gets misled by wrong thinking or factual mistakes. The other part of me – my spiritual dimension – is , as yet, unfamiliar to me and so far less tangible. Many traditions teach that even our souls can get damaged, for example, through ’sin’, though I prefer to believe that my soul is pure and untarnished whatever happens in this life.

The quality of my life, the inner peace I strive for, is heavily influenced by my overall health.

If I’m un-healthy in some way, then my energy is used dealing with that rather than getting on with life. We’ve all experienced the need to rest after an illness – our energy goes on recuperating.

The Healing Power Within

If I fell over and broke my leg I’d probably go to the doctor to fix me up, right? She/he would align the bones, put on a cast to keep my leg rigid and after several weeks the break will be mended.

Who healed me?

Neither I nor, in this case, the doctor do anything to heal my leg. Realigning the bones, administering chemicals (natural or otherwise!), resting, paying attention to how I’m moving are not ‘healing’ but all things that support the natural healing process and allow it to work smoother and faster. The healing takes place at a deeper level from within my organism and is really quite extraordinary – the other stuff is just helping this invisible process.

For me this is vitally important.

Keeping Healers In Their Rightful Place

• Doctors don’t heal our bodies.
• Therapists don’t heal our hearts.
• Religious leaders don’t heal our souls.

No-one can heal me, no matter how much I’m told the opposite.

Healing is what happens within each of us and not something we receive from the outside. We can receive many things from the outside that can help the healing process, and those trained and experienced in healing different wounds have a lot to offer. But doing the healing is not one of them.

I want to keep so-called ‘healers’ in their right place – as people who can offer potential support to the healing that happens within.

I want to take responsibility for my own health and not abdicate to the ‘health’ industry in its myriad forms or to anyone else, for that matter. Nobody cares as much about my health as me and that’s exactly as it should be. I know plenty of people who go running to the health centre at the first sign of illness, for example, or whole communities living their spiritual lives by rules laid down by their local priest or guru.

Doctors, therapists and priests are not gods but most of them deserve respect for their experience and expertise in particular aspects of health and healing. I want to know when and where to seek the support and guidance of others – including those from the health industry with relevant expertise – but not pass responsibility to them.

I confess I don’t yet take as much care of my health as I would like and I’m not very well informed about the support available. I need to be in order to make sensible judgements. My own apporach is to avoid the health industry wherever I can and I don’t take especially great care of my health in all its forms.

Not yet anyway!

Taking Responsibility

What this means for me is:

1.   Recognise that most wounds (physical, emotional, spiritual) will heal

2.   Honour and respect the remarkable capacity for my being to heal

3.   Support the healing by creating the right conditions to allow the inner process to work its magic

4.   Give patience and time to the healing

5.   Call on those with relevant experience and never pass responsibility to them

And I want to always remember that nobody will ever care more about my health than me.

Post from: Quantum Learning

Healing Ourselves

This is the last of a trilogy of articles related to this life changing event to bring closure to this chapter of my life and, of course, start a new one! (read The Miracle of Birth and 5 Questions While Waiting For A Baby).

I’m not one for sentimentality and I certainly do not enjoy hearing baby stuff from others. I love my three kids more than anything, but I draw the line at extending that beyond my blood family.

I’ve heard plenty of men say ‘what an amazing experience’ it is to be present at birth. I was present at Sara’s birth, and throughout labour, as I was with my first two daughters. It’s definitely an honour to be there when new life enters the world, but I can’t say I understand the ‘amazing experience’ when applied to the rest of it.

Am I a freak to be glad I don’t have to experience it myself and to say the whole thing is actually quite unpleasant?

A quick recap

Mona decided she wanted as natural a birth as possible which in many cultures is perfectly well supported and even expected. Natural, for us, meant no intervention – unless absolutely necessary for the safety of mother or child. No chemicals, hospitals, cutting or any other ‘improvements’ on the well-designed-by-nature system for delivering new life into the world.

This was always going to be challenging in a country where 90% of birth is by planned Caesarian, it’s generally assumed you must be a masochist if you choose natural birth and where breastfeeding is considered to be for those who can’t afford formula!

Right time

Everything happens at the right time

Sara was due on 9th February by the doctors’ calculations but Mona’s innner guide told her it was going to be 31st January.

Both days came and went, which just proves that neither doctors nor inner guides know everything and babies do exactly what they want, when they want!

Now I’ve never been pregnant so I don’t know first hand what it feels like. From my observations of mothers, the physical side gets more and more uncomfortable as the last month passes. Everything takes longer with the extra bulk. Sleeping is difficult. You start to forget what it felt like to be not-pregnant. Water starts to get retained in places it’s never been retained before. The growing baby makes its presence felt with greater vigour.

No matter how much you want to just get on with life as normal, it becomes less and less possible and more and more frustrating. I’m just waiting on the sidelines. Unable to do anything other than take care of the apartment and reluctant to start anything of significance, not knowing when the big event will happen.

What I do know is that giving birth itself is very painful and no amount of Hollywood ‘30 seconds of pushing and they’re out’ can change the reality of it. You have to be very frustrated to want that! Indeed by the time the day came Mona was so frustrated she was desperate to give birth – pain and everything.

The right time was 00.27 on 17th February 2010.

How do I know?

Because that’s when she was born!

Right way

The best laid plans of mice and men often go astray

Our beautiful vision of natural, home birth and providing a warm, cozy welcome for the little one lay in tatters. It was very hard to let go of this vision but when faced with potentially life or death situations, stubbornness is not always a very helpful trait.

The first part of labour was manageable. I kept out of the way, bobbing in and out when I felt I could be helpful and, according to our midwife, it was a text-book labour.

Until it stopped being so. The story moved to those dreaded final chapters of the text book and the pages about the things that can go wrong.

Basically the labour froze.

For 6 hours the contractions had no effect at all – unless you count the excrutiating agony. They should have been pushing the baby, opening the way and moving to that final stage of ‘Push …. Push … PUUUUUSHHHHH!’

If you’ve been there yourself you’ll remember counting the centimetres (or inches). We got stuck at 5cm and even I can work out that 5cm is not enough. Babies are small – but not that small!

So off we went to hospital.

For Mona it was a desire to get some relief from the pain.

For the midwife it was a desire to be closer to the technology available to help in these rarer situations.

And for me? I hate hospitals – but I’m not the one with a baby inside my body trying to get out.

After a little more waiting and hoping that things will start to move along naturally it becomes clear there will to be no easy way out. No-one seems to know why things are stuck – but stuck they are.

It’s close to midnight and we’re presented with a choice. Continue with a long, painful labour that’s likely to end in an emergency C-section or …. skip the painful part and go straight for the C-section. The staff leave to allow us to have a moment to discuss what we want to do.

I’m starting to appreciate how the baby feels right now – stuck and very small. Mona even more so.

30 minutes later we’re in the middle of the scenario we most wanted to avoid.

Mona is strapped to the table, surrounded by machines and what could be an entire soccer team all wearing masks. There are tubes, needles, scalpels and suddenly the baby is pulled out and whisked away by strangers.

Every cell in my body is screaming this is WRONG! I forget to breathe as I’m trying to comfort Mona who is shaking and crying. This is as invasive and impersonal as you can get.

I have to leave, I’m almost fainting. I feel so utterly helpless.

But.

This is the right way.

How do I know?

Because the cord was wrapped several times around the baby, making it impossible for her to be born the way nature intended. If it was not for the invention of the C-section, probably neither mother nor child would have lived to see the dawn.

All Right Now

All’s well that ends well

This whole experience taught me several very important things I was maybe missing before:

1    I have very little control

I knew this already and it’s been proved to me over and over again but I’d pushed it to one side for the last months and thought I could decide how things would be when it came to the birth. In reality I control nothing. I can help things along, ease the path and gently steer direction. Any illusion that I am in control, though, is just that – an illusion.

2   Humility

Honestly speaking I had very little respect for doctors or the whole medical profession. I believed I knew more than they. This experience proved I’m wrong and I have no shame in admitting it. There are times when they are absolutely wonderful and what they do saves lives. Everyone we met (except one sour faced nurse) was great. I’ve found new respect for the medical world and less certainty that I know better.

3   The Journey

Over the years I’ve been developing a much greater appreciation of the importance of the journey over the destination. This was a reminder that there may well be times when the result is more important than how one gets there. We now have a healthy, beautiful daughter and a fast recovering mother. The path was not the path we wanted .. but it did get us here safely. The other paths might have ended in disaster.

Impossible Not To Love

You can’t always get what you want

… or the way you want it or when you want it.

At the time it was hard to accept this.

We wanted a natural birth, soft lights, gentle music and a lot of warmth and gentleness. As I was sitting by Mona’s side as she lay on the operating table I had this thought,

‘Am I ever going to be able to love the baby?’

We wanted Sara’s first hours to be laying on the safety of her mothers chest. We wanted the cord to be left and not cut straight away. As they opened Mona under the bright lights, as they pulled Sara out, cut the cord and took her away to clean and check, I wondered,

‘Will this damage her in some way? Will I be able to look her in the eye, knowing that I wasn’t able to protect her at this most vulnerable point of her new life?‘

Three weeks after the birth, as I hold her in my arms or watch her face as she’s sleeping peacefully those thoughts are long dead. She’s safe, warm, happy and cared for.

It is impossible for me not to love her.

Post from: Quantum Learning

You Can’t Always Get What You Want

A ‘big thing‘ nonetheless.

The ‘big thing‘ was the birth of my daughter, Sara Emma Peatey.

I’ve been overwhelmed by the welcome she’s received from those who know me through Facebook, Twitter etc.. So a huge ‘Thank You’ for that.

They say having children changes your life and, even though Sara is my third child and I was ready for that, things are definitely different around here! We are gradually getting back to ‘normal’ as we settle into sleeping, feeding and diapers. There’s not a whole lot else in these first days!

I’m going to be resuming regular service here in the next days, starting with some reflections on the birth – so look out for that!

Basically I just wanted to say I’m alive, well and enjoying watching the first days in the unfolding of new life.

Journey Of Life

I’d also like to take the opportunity to promote a workshop I’m running in the summer with some dear friends.

The workshop is deep in ‘vampire country’ in the Romanian mountains close to Dracula’s castle in Bran. If you’d like to find out more then we have a small website Journey Of Life.

It would be wonderful to have some of you join us there, and as an added bonus you would get to meet Sara!

Post from: Quantum Learning

The Big Thing

Fear is one of the reasons that people don’t get what they want in life.

Fear is the most pervasive psychological problem we have today.

I disagree with this! Fear might not be very enjoyable but, as with many things I’m born with, is a wonderful tool! It’s like the lights on the dashboard of the car communicating that something urgently needs attention. When my needs for safety and security are compromised, fear is my internal warning sign.

Imagine having no mechanism to warn of danger. It would be like driving that car with no instrumentation, no headlights and with my eyes closed.

Exciting, yes, but probably a short-lived trip!

Fear becomes a problem when I misunderstand it, misuse it or allow it to hide what’s essential. I believe I need to develop my  personal relationship to fear on my path to inner peace.

Here are 5 traps I can fall into when I don’t effectively use the fear signal on my personal ‘dashboard of life’.

1.   Pull Out The Wires

If I don’t like the warning lights on the dashboard I can disconnect all the wires.

Hey presto! No fear!

If I can numb myself enough, fear won’t register and I can ignore danger. The price I pay is also to numb myself to all the wonderful things life can bring me.

Modern living gives me a whole range of possibilities for unplugging from the experience of living so if this is your chosen way to live with fear, then try some of these for enhanced effect:

• take drugs – plenty are available legally, many without prescription
• watch as much TV as possible – preferably soaps, reality TV and mindless game shows
• get a routine job – the less mental and physical activity the better

2.   Dance In The Disco Lights

Picture a disco with lots of different lights coming from every direction.

Fear comes in many shapes and sizes, from mild nervousness through to paralysis and panic, and all the shades of fear try to grab my attention. These can be confusing and it’s not always easy to distinguish the feelings and read the signals. Some of that fear might be an urgent warning while others are gentle reminders of things needing attention.

Dancing the fear ‘disco lights’ is most likely from trouble differentiating between fear signals or it could be from an addiction to the adrenaline rush of living the life of a disco dancer (‘Saturday Night Fever’, anyone?).

If this is your way to live with fear:

• live ‘on edge’ 24/7 – you never know when danger will come
• treat all danger as equal and life threatening – well, it’s best to be safe isn’t it?
• react immediately to the slightest sign of fear – don’t think, just do it
• move as fast as possible from one trigger to the next
• deal with multiple ‘emergencies’ at the same time.

3.  En-light-enment

If I have no attachment to anything at all I have no need of fear – it becomes a useless tool and disappears from my life.

Danger is only relevant if something I’m attached to is threatened in some way. If I’m not attached to anything then threats have no effect on me and I will feel no fear.

Probably.

Things I might typically be attached to:

• money – fear of losing it or not having it
• health – fear of getting sick, of disease
• image – fear of looking stupid or making a fool of myself
• life – fear of death.

I’ve heard some people define ‘enlightenment’ as the release of all attachment and hence the removal of fear. This can be a very seductive idea and I’ve met a few people who live by this philosophy. It’s hard to have much of a conversation with them as they seem to be floating in the air and there’s little common ground!

If this is the way you choose to live with(out) fear then be prepared to lose:

• all possessions
• everyone you know
• your identification to everything other than your spiritual core
• life itself.

That’s not to say you will lose these things, but your reaction to doing so is the only sure way I can think of to test whether you have lost attachment or not.

[On a side note: I find this a great way to look at life, but not especially practical for the vast majority of us. I do want to make conscious choices about the attachments I form, accepting fear as a possible price I pay. For example, I am attached to my own life and those I care about - I accept this comes with some fear when those are threatened.]

4.   Seduced By Bright Lights

There are plenty of people out there with an interest in keeping me afraid.

Not least of which are all those working in organisations profiting from my fear. The more afraid they make me, the more they profit – and I’m not talking about some secret mafia!

a.  Insurance

It’s  a dangerous world so insurance seems a very sensible thing to buy. The industry has a vested interest in pointing out all the things that can go wrong – theft, flood, accident, illness, old age. Even acts of God (though if I read the fine print I may find I’m not actually covered for those!).

b.  Banking

My money is clearly not safe so, for a small fee, banks will look after it and protect it. After all banks never fail, do they?

c.   Defence

The companies involved in defence might not sell to me directly, but they need my support to ensure vast budgets (from my taxes) are allocated to them. The more I fear foreign invasion, terrorists and attacks on my precious way of life, the more I’ll support money for soldiers, weapons and expensive trips to foreign lands.

d.   Health

Most of the ‘health’ industry is, in fact, more interested in my sickness than my health. There’s not much profit in me staying fit and well all the time.

e.   Media

Disaster, pain, suffering, violence gets my fear-adrenaline flowing in way that warm, safe stories don’t. It’s addictive and it sells.

f.   Government

Obviously my government passionately wants me to be happy and fulfilled with life. I have to vote for them, though, and an effective political tool is to generate fear – of economic collapse, invasion by foreign armies, cheap foreign labour and subversive ideas.

Ways to get seduced by all these shining lights:

• buy and read as many different newspapers and magazines as possible – the more sensational the better
• watch / listen to 24 hour News channels
• spend as much time as possible around politicians
• invite an insurance salesperson around for coffee
• get to know your bank manager (like in  the good old days!).

5.   Blinded By The Light

Ever caught a rabbit in your headlights?

They sit there, unable to move. We tend to think this a very stupid thing but it’s a very valid fear mechanism – I imagine it worked pretty well before the advent of the motor car.

Freezing in the face of fear works if the danger will pass by without bothering me. It can also be as effective as it is for the rabbit going head to head with a fast approaching vehicle!

I have this paralysis response as part of my fear/safety toolkit. I’ve been in tight spots where I was completely unable to do anything. I’ve also been motionless in the face of nervousness around things I really want to do. And sure enough, those great opportunities just fly past withouth paying me any attention!

Here’s a few tips to get in the mood for this approach:

• list all the exciting things you’d like to do in this lifetime
• against each item note all the things that could go wrong
• ge creative, e.g. if it involves flying – write down all the possible ways the plane might crash
• visualisation – close your eyes and for each disaster scenario imagine you are in the middle of the crisis.

Any tips you’d like to share for allowing fear to dominate your life?

Post from: Quantum Learning

5 Ways To Live With Fear