I’d like to share how I discovered my particular experience of fear in relation to all this Coronavirus stuff which, interestingly enough was / is not so much a fear of the virus itself, but rather the fear of going without certain items I rely on.
A couple of weeks back, the whole ‘hoarding’ phenomenon started showing up in my backyard, the city where I live here in New Mexico. I went to the store for some paper towels and experienced for myself the actual, in fact, empty-ass shelves with nary a fiber of paper product to be seen. Up until this moment I’d read about the hoarding but simply hadn’t considered this happening in my area, thinking it was only happening in bigger population centers. Well turns out I was wrong because after visiting 3 more stores I still found only empty shelves.
Now, in that moment when I first saw the empty shelves, I immediately went into a reaction of getting extremely pissed off, feeling a surge of wrath directed toward ‘all those people’ being ‘brainwashed by their own fears’. And I mean I was really fucking pissed. I was throwing a right good tantrum with myself, and in that moment it felt like this is all I can do because man this is such a stupid, unnecessary situation. However, thankfully because of my years of application of the tools I learned through the Desteni Process: breathing, grounding myself in the physical moment, applying self honest introspection in relation to my starting point of the emotional reaction I’m having – I was able to push myself to take Responsibility for my anger, and ask myself the question of what did I actually experience in that moment of seeing the empty shelves – that resulted in the anger being triggered?
In bringing the moment back here and looking at everything that activated / happened within my mind / myself – I saw that what I actually experienced was a fear with a twinge of desperation of ‘now I’m going to run out of toilet paper and paper towels and then what am I going to do? Within this also experiencing an emotional point of powerlessness / helplessness as – I am now no longer in control of my supply of these things which I need. And the thing is, these experiences happen in a SPLIT SECOND – which is why we so easily react and immediately act on our reactions to things. And also why it’s so important to develop the ability to slow down, breathe, and walk back through the moment, self honestly looking at each thought that initiates the emotions, so that those thoughts can be reflected upon and worked through, in order to become aware of the ‘domino blocks’ of the pattern.
So in this case, the domino blocks were: Seeing the empty shelves –> accessing thought of not getting what I need –> accessing fear and powerlessness –> finding someone / something to blame –> accessing anger / blame –> feeling empowered / superior
In seeing how this sequence of information played out within me, I was able to move to a point of self forgiveness and let go of the blame towards ‘all these people’ — as I realized my anger was based on my own fears, and I was just using blame to move from a negative / low energy of fear — to a positive / high energy of anger / illusion of power.
Also within being Self Honest about my own fears and how they influenced my behavior in that moment, I was able to let go of my blame and understand how others, based on their own fears and thoughts, would be led to make the decision to ‘hoard’ something. So, as inconvenient as it is considering that yes I may well run out of something because it’s not in stock — I at least am able to make peace with that fact without throwing a tantrum. And hopefully through sharing how I work with my reactions, maybe support someone to be inspired to do the same.
Here now are some Self Forgiveness statements in relation to the pattern I described above:
I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to, when I saw the empty shelves, not see and realize that I actually went into a thought in which I imagined myself going without what I need, and within this then a fear of not getting what I need
Within this I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to not see and realize that I went into a low / negative point as powerlessness / feeling less than, and from there to a point of ‘getting my power back’ through the energy of blame and anger
I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to not see and realize that in participating in this sequence of going from Thought, to Fear, to Powerlessness, to Anger and Blame — I was participating in the exact same starting point which I was blaming others for – which was allowing thoughts and fears to direct decision making.
When and as I find myself accessing blame toward someone or something / a situation, I commit myself to remind myself that I need to find the underlying fear that triggered me to seek a sense of ‘getting my power back’ through blame.
When and as I find myself faced with the possibility / reality that I may have to go without what I need, I commit myself to take some time to look at what fears are coming up, what worst case scenarios activate within me, and work through those so that I can look at the situation as practically as possible.
To learn more about Self Honesty and Self Forgiveness, check out Desteni’s free course: