Читать книгу The Way of Nowhere: Eight Questions to Release Our Creative Potential - Nick Udall - Страница 63

We have already hinted at the distorted energy in this direction. It is the archetypal distortion, fear, which diminishes our trust in life.

It is easy to lose awareness of the relationship between out there and in here. When we perceive what is going on out there through our lenses of memory, thought and emotion, our emotional reaction to a situation becomes our dominant reality. Then leadership of our emotional power is lost and we become its victim. So a setback can become life-threatening, a look a huge personal slight, a small piece of good fortune a life-changing moment. Everything is either the worst thing that has ever happened or the best. We become afraid that each event might threaten our survival and believe our only chance is to react to each challenge as powerfully as we can.

This fear exacts a high price. What happens and how we feel about it begin to fill our consciousness to the extent that there is little time or space left for anything else. The moment-by-moment miracle of life is lost to us as we miss the sunrise, or the smile of our child, because of our obsession with what someone said or did. We begin to cut ourselves off from our creative life force. We lose the natural joy and confidence that come from letting go a little and trusting life to take some of the strain. We stop learning about ourselves because we cannot be honest enough to face up to our own authorship of the situation. We end up looking at life through eyes of fear and reinterpret events to provide evidence that feeds it.

The compulsive nature of this emotional rollercoaster is stressful and tiring. Imagine being strapped into a fairground ride for days, weeks, months or years.

This over-reactive mind often demands the company of others so it can gossip and explain who is to blame. The listener in turn pays a high price for choosing to hear this pessimism and negativity. At worst, the co-creative space between the two people disappears and each simply waits their turn to moan.

Over-dramatizing the ups and downs of life can be like a virulently infectious disease that can sweep through any family, group, team, community or organization. The challenge is to always be on guard for this powerful distortion by looking first into ourselves and then, and only then, at those around us.³

Our positive emotions – trust, hope, love – can fuel our journey into the unknown. The negative emotions – fear, distrust, jealousy and pessimism – will undermine us and keep us imprisoned in the known.