Sometimes, we humans are able to transcend worry, yet we don’t quite know how or why. Much of the time, it’s because we’re able to create a positive vision of the future to live into rather than “fearing into the future.”

Sri Chinmoy wrote: “Transcendence is a never-ending climbing process, a dynamic reality.”

To “climb” out of worry requires forward vision and a realization that, as Chinmoy says, we are engaged in a never-ending, ever-changing process. Worry is often based on a belief – and a mostly vain hope – that if we handle what we’re currently worried about, we’ll somehow reach a state of no-worry and everything will finally be okay.

Yet, experience teaches many of us that situations over which we could worry just keep on coming at us. Do you have a practice with which to meet difficulty that indulges very little in worry? If so, how reliable is it and what makes it work for you? If not, what is the likelihood that you have a pattern of worry in the face of life itself that you may want to work on?

“Now it seems to me that love of some kind is the only possible explanation of the extraordinary amount of suffering that there is in the world.” Oscar Wilde

Is there any other area of life that has produced as much worry and suffering as love? Must love produce suffering, or is the suffering a product of a combination of love with something else . . . like fear of loss and / or regret?

If so – if suffering is unnecessary with pure love – it’s because love is unconditional and to create suffering because of what one “feels” is love is to create needless suffering.

Have you ever worried over love and turned the experience into suffering? How did you transcend it? What role, if any, did fear play in your experience of suffering? Wilde says “love of some kind” plays a role in all suffering. What other kinds of love besides romantic love, if any, have contributed to your suffering in your life?

Worry is irrational, when you think about it, because worry falls into two basic categories: things we can’t do anything about and things that we can.

For the things we can’t do anything about, worry is needless suffering. When we can do something about what worries us, we can take action. Of course, this is a simple approach – but it makes sense. Sometimes, the hardest thing has been to do what makes the most sense.

Worrying is a habit that we most likely were taught by powerful role models in our lives. Like most habits, it can be changed with focus and attention.

What have you been worrying about that you can’t change? Can you give up at least that worrying?

What have you worrying about that you can change? What actions can you take to address those issues?

The world can be a scary place, and there are endless reasons to be concerned. Yet, meeting those concerns with worry generally produces no worthwhile result. Most often, worry causes needless suffering.

Dorothy Thompson said:

“Only when we are no longer afraid do we begin to live.”

Consider that worry is a form of fear. Worry can range in degree from mild to completely debilitating. Fearing the unknown and creating movies in our mind about what can go wrong is a bit like focusing on having an accident while you’re driving: not the smartest, safest or most effective thing to do.

What has been your relationship to worry? Has worry ever truly served you? How do you manage worrisome thoughts when they occur?

The intersection of power and adversity sometimes yields freedom. Alexander Solzhenitsyn wrote:

“You only have power over people so long as you don’t take everything away from them. But when you’ve robbed a man of everything, he’s no longer in your power – he’s free again.”

This is a surprising paradox: that we humans become free when adversity has taken everything away and we have nothing left to lose.

Life’s difficulties can have this kind of effect. For example, people report bursts of freedom and exuberant power when the adversity of illness has left them with very little time. Similarly, severe financial adversity often results in expanded power to appreciate life and the non-material world. Losing a job can transform into a feeling of liberation.

Have you ever participated in or witnessed the kind of scenario that Solzhenitsyn describes? Can you think of life experiences where all was lost, yet there was freedom and power because adversity had wiped away everything? What is your relationship to this paradox? Is it familiar? How does it resonate with you?

Last night, I had the privilege to participate in an evening called, “How To Cope With Challenging Economic Times,” and I was personally challenged by a woman in the audience who asked a question to the effect of, “After all the cliches, the support of friends and family, the positive self-talk, the resume rewriting and the networking: after all that, my family is still desperate for money because both my ex-husband and I are now out of work. What do we do then?”

Her question cuts to the nub: what happens when there is so much adversity that nothing we do seems to change things and we feel powerless? The most I could do in the moment was to empathize and to focus on our shared human condition. Most likely, everyone past the age of 30 has had some loss from which there is truly no recovery – if we define “recovery” as restoring things to the way that they were.

Yet, the answer that most resonated with me – and the group – was that each day is to be taken one day at a time, and we get through it by loving each other. Cliche? Absolutely. True? You tell me. What else is there when all is said and done?

When adversity is so huge that nothing seems to work, do you: (a) withdraw to yourself (b) allow and invite others to support you emotionally (c) feel ashamed and try to work your way out of the situation by being tough, or (d) love yourself and allow others to love you through it? There is no right answer for everyone.

What do we do when prolonged adversity seems to be permanent? How are we able to access our power?

Continuing to explore the relationship between adversity and power, our friend, Tobey Crockett, reminds us of one of our favorite quotes:

“What doesn’t kill us makes us stronger.” Friedrich Nietsche

Tobey writes: “This is related to the concept of design limitations that actually channel creative energy more powerfully into a narrower range of possible solutions and, thus, offer us a chance to do brilliant work.”

“It is much more challenging to do more with less and, thus, elegance arises. Or wit! Bennett Cerf, Dr. Seuss’s publisher, famously wagered $50 that Seuss could not write a book using only fifty different words. This, after Seuss had written the Cat in the Hat with only 225 words!”

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_Eggs_and_Ham

Cat in the Hat is a book with only 46 words. Thanks, Tobey, and others who have written in on this topic!

Can you observe positive consequences to your power and abilities as a function of designing your way out of adversity? Where has adversity made you clearly stronger and more capable?

How often have you consciously chosen to take adversity and make it into personal power?

Adversity can be a catalyst for growing one’s power – or it can induce whining and complaining. Similarly, misused power can be a gateway to abuse and, thus, to adversity. There’s a fascinating relationship between the two dynamics.

Emerson said, “We acquire the strength we have overcome.” In this context, one might rephrase that to say, “My power increases by the degree of adversity that I have overcome.”

I’m no fan of “rose-colored-glasses thinking,” but I do know that adversity can – if we allow it – make us more powerful. However, that’s a far more likely outcome if we set our intention and choose to make adversity into power.

Think of current adversity in your personal and professional life. How likely is it that that adversity is ultimately making you more powerful? Have you chosen that outcome in advance?

The recent movie about aviation pioneer, Amelia Earhart, failed at the box office, but her spirit continues to be legendary. Earhart said:

“The most difficult thing is the decision to act. The rest is merely tenacity. The fears are paper tigers. You can do anything you decide to do. You can act to change and control your life; and the procedure – the process – is its own reward.”

Interestingly, Earhart died trying. Do you consider her death a failure – a winning of the battle, but a losing of the war? Should we romanticize her vanishing during an attempted circumnavigation of the globe in 1937 as tenacity and perseverance, or is her will power to be ascribed to something else?

If one dies trying – and ascribes it all to tenacity – is tenacity all that it is cracked up to be?

Dig deep to challenge the thinking of the collective mind – especially that part that wants to candy-coat and make it “all better.” Where does tenacity end and recklessness begin?

Many of you know Allen Roland’s phenomenal work: the supremely talented author and therapist who wrote the seminal book, Radical Therapy (and a great friend). His very popular blog had a great quote today apropos of the unfortunate situation that Tiger Woods has created.

“The true test of a person’s character is not how they handle adversity. It’s how they handle power.”

Allen’s sentence (and the entire blog) caused me to consider how diversity and power are related. Adversity can cause people to steal and hurt others, and so can power. Both adversity and power can be met with good or poor intentions. I think Allen is right that power is far more likely to test one’s character than adversity.

What is the distinction between your experience of adversity and power as tests of your own character? How have others treated you when they had the power and you perceived you had little to none?

Stay close !

Hutt

P.S.: You can find Allen’s original post here:

http://blogs.salon.com/0002255/2009/12/06.html

The link to his blog is here:

http://blogs.salon.com/0002255/