Don’t Get Derailed, Get Intense

February 12, 2009 by Mary Wynne-Wynter 

During times of extreme uncertainty and massive shifts, its human nature to have thoughts of panic and self-doubt. These become self-fulfilling only if you believe in them and identify with them.

Solo professionals are often alone and vulnerable to getting lost in thoughts triggered by events that are exploding in frequency. A deal falls through, there’s not enough money, inquiries slow down to a trickle or less, investors pull back, unexpected family needs show up, losses accumulate. And if that’s not enough, millions of other professionals are telling (and selling) other solo’s what they’re doing wrong and what they should be doing.
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When you don’t separate who you are from the onslaught of triggered thoughts, you’re at higher risk of getting derailed. A precursor is a sense of urgency to do or chase something different, and its accompanied by a lot of anxiety, tension and doubt – paradoxically, the exact things you’re trying to get away from.

Its not possible to stop all negative thinking, unless you live perhaps in a monastery. But you can refuse to identify with the thoughts and the debilitating emotions that accompany them. You do that by observing them and feeling them for what are: thoughts, not you. And then you refuse to respond to them by unconsciously going off in an unwanted direction and getting derailed.

Resolve to replace urgency and scrambling with intensity. Urgency scatters energy and attention and inhibits poise and readiness to receive. Intensity is focused on intuitively choosing to do one thing at a time with the highest quality.

Nobody can tell you what that “thing to do” is. It could be, for example, producing a creative work, taking a walk, washing the car, helping a client, eating an apple, working on finances, being with other people, looking for a job, playing with kids, doing errands, taking a nap.

What’s important is that you merge with what you do and not with your thoughts about it which make you doubt your choice. Florence Scovel Shin tells us “Let God juggle your affairs”. You don’t need a religious orientation to accept truth in that statement and to feel a sense of relief.

We’re part of something that needs to happen. Although its huge, and beyond our knowledge, control and understanding, with awareness and intensity, we are the conductor and on the right track.

Photo credit:Pewari Naan Photostream

Filed under: alignment, counter-direction, going solo, self-awareness, self-management, solo psf, stress relief
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