Act, don't react

This past month has been a very busy time. Big decisions were made and are still being made, but the good news is, all of the hard thinking seems to be out of the way. The thoughts were about business, groups I am in, and a very serious change that had to occur. It was also about health, and it was about what the next step in life as far as business and where my husband and I call home will be. I had to put blogging aside for a bit, but I think the ship is steaming along just fine now and I can concentrate on teaching.

The old saying is that when it rains it pours, and it is easy to imagine that it just seems that way because we are already involved in changes, decisions or an outright mess. The next little straw can easily break that camel’s back. Yet when you understand energy, you know that everything DOES usually happen at once. When you have productive energy around you , then you are productive, in every aspect of your life.
When you are angry, everything gets a piece of that anger. When you are in peaceful energy, things may be happening all around you, but you are at peace.

So what to do when the deluge comes? Breathe and move forward. The saying that is popular today is “Keep calm and______” . The funny part is that this is NOT new. The “Keep calm” was originally “Keep calm and carry on” and was a motivational poster in 1939 during WWII in England. Everything old is new again. The posters were rediscovered in 2000 and have been making their way into the mainstream ever since.

This is really sage advice. When we act out of fear , we aren’t acting , but reacting. Reacting takes no rational thought, just a response that is often one you would not have in saner, calmer and quieter days. When you act out of fear , you never make a good decision. You may go through a process that you call “thinking” , but if it is inspired by fear, it is not CLEAR thinking and will lead you down a path you won’t like.

I recently watched a person go through this process. His spiral downward was slightly noticeable at first, then greatly apparent by the end. The thoughtless process made the issue, bigger, more complicated and eventually unsolvable in a good way.

We need to act, not react, and we need to do that early on in the process. I will give you an example, this is something my clients do all the time and it drives me crazy. They lose a job. Bad to do, yes, but that is not something you can “undo” so the “act” and “think” process is already too late. It would be great if they worked to KEEP the job, and sometimes it is inevitable, but most times it isn’t. Let’s assume for example that after losing the job they get 6 months of unemployment benefits. Guess when they start looking for a job? You guessed it, month six. They also look for a “better job”. How hard do you think it is to get a “better” job if you were fired from the last one? Pretty darn hard. It is difficult for people to see their role in things sometimes, but if they had more clear sight, they probably wouldn’t be in the “almost losing the job” situation in the first place.

Act, don’t react, and always have a Plan “B”. Always be ready for life to hand you more change as you are going through the first crises. When change energy is around you, it is all around you, not just in one aspect of your life. Don’t react. Stop and think clearly. Get a trusted friend to help bounce ideas off of. Make sure that you ground yourself. Take a walk and expel some of that frustration and anger energy while you are going through the problem solving process.

The energy around you is what you create, so as the British said in 1939, “stay calm….and”  THINK. Stay calm and ACT. Stay calm and PLAN. Better yet, do it beforehand and be ready for just about anything!

Life is what you make it and like energy attracts like energy. Attract the right energy!

Peshaui Wequashimese

(C)2013 Dr. R M Wolf . May not be used, copied or reproduced without prior permission.