The Cure for the Recession (article)

“The quality of our life is the quality of our emotions.”

Gas is over $4 a gallon, meanwhile foreclosures are up, workers are being laid off, and business owners are tightening their belts.  The word “recession” is bandied about, sometimes in whispers (as if we’re afraid the economy might hear us), other times in not-so-soft complaints. 

I’m a prosperity coach, not an all-powerful genie who can cure this country of what ails it.  However, I may have some “cures” that may help our individual suffering in a measurable way.

We all have feelings about the current economic climate.  Maybe we feel fear, frustration, worry, or resignation.  Perhaps we feel relief that our job is safe, and guilt that our neighbor’s was not.  Typically, the more we are personally and physically affected, the more intense our negative emotions are likely to be.  And from a sheer “happiness” perspective, I would suggest that these emotions, and not the recession itself, are the cause of any pain we might feel. 

Understandably, when unemployment, foreclosure, illness or death comes to your household, it presents challenges, often challenges we have not yet learned to face.  But who has not known or heard of a person with incurable cancer who was as peaceful as the Dalai Lama? 

Illness is not a reliable predictor of negative emotions (though much research indicates that laughter and optimism aid in healing).  Being wronged does not preclude forgiveness and inner peace.  Bad traffic doesn’t necessitate road rage.  And call me crazy, but I don’t think a recession (whether personal or national) means we must succumb to gloom, doom, and fearful fretting.

I once heard an intriguing statement: “The quality of our life is the quality of our emotions.”  In other words, whatever we are feeling at any given moment determines the quality of our life in that moment. 

It makes sense.  We might be enjoying a Sunday evening with loved ones, miles away from work, while a tightness in our stomachs betrays our mental focus on Monday morning and the coming workweek.  Likewise, it could be 2:30 on a Friday afternoon, and though we are actually “at work,” our spirits could be sailing as we focus on our weekend plans. 

The quality of our life is the quality of our emotions.  And our emotions tend to be driven by thoughts of the future we believe is coming towards us.  Weekend.  Work.  Wealth.  Struggle.

Within us is the ability to actually stop reacting to the world around us and start responding from the place of our intentions, the things that inspire us and draw us forward.  I.e., we can use thoughts to create our world instead of being victims whose thoughts and feelings are like puppets pulled by the strings of every external circumstance. 

I believe we have to stop pretending that our outer circumstances dictate our inner thoughts and emotions.  We need to discover the power, the creative force, that lies within.  And when financial challenges come our way, we can accept them as our teacher, and then move forward to create something new.

Have you heard of the law of attraction?  Though it is not the only determiner of our experience, it is one of the ways that our thoughts and feelings can create our experience.  Put another way, the quality of our emotions is the quality of our lives.

You may think this all sounds peachy keen, but you’ve spent years developing your mental habits, and maybe you’re not sure how to change them even if you wanted to!  Here are three specific ways you can keep your mind aligned with your highest good.

First, expect the best.  Henry Ford said that whether we think we can or can’t, we’re right.  Christopher Howard says we don’t get what we want, we get what we expect.  Proverbs tells us that “As a man thinketh, so is he.”  

I’m not suggesting you should cancel all your insurance policies, but I am saying that the more you focus on your “worse-case scenario,” the worse your scenario might become.  Spend 5 minutes every morning picturing how you want your day to go, how you want your life to be, and you’ll start discovering ways to move towards the life you envision.

Second, live in gratitude for all that you have.  Maybe your job just came to an end… do you still have your health?  Your spouse?  An employable skill?  The ability to juggle while singing the national anthem?  Then celebrate!  If for no other reason, celebrate that you’re alive to read this.  If you’re willing to commit another 5 minutes a day to giving thanks, perhaps making a list or saying your prayers before bedtime, then get ready for miracles. 

Third, keep things in perspective.  You’re reading a blog.  Think about it – you are living in a time and place so prosperous and technologically advanced that you actually have the education, the political freedom, the leisure time, and the computer equipment (or computer access) to be reading this BLOG!  WOW!  (We live in a time of such rapid change and advancement that my spell check doesn’t even recognize the word “blog”!) 

We tend to focus on our own “bad luck,” whatever is not going our way.  It’s a short-sighted way to think.  But when I ask a coaching client if they think they were born into a wealthy country, they say, “Why yes, I was.”  When I ask them to consider all the centuries that have come so far and tell me if, relatively speaking, they live in prosperous times, they admit that yes, their standard of living is probably higher than if they had been born at any other time in the history of humankind!

Everybody reading this post lives a life only dreamed about by most people in most times.  (Even in a recession.)  Live in gratitude always.  Expect the best.  Keep things in perspective.  And remember, the economy doesn’t control the quality of your life.

You do.

Kate

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