How Are You Responding To The Financial Train Wreck?

Have you noticed the growing fear and panic about the current financial situation that seems to be spreading across the globe? Have you found yourself caught up in the fear and panic yourself? I know I have from time to time.

Fortunately, there are some things you and I can do that will help us through the coming months of up, down, and sideways. This is the first in a series of posts that will offer some thoughts on how you can ride out the current storm and find an internal state of well being amidst the turbulence.

This will take some effort on your part, and especially so if you are one of those who tends to find the glass half empty. I will be tying this advice to work I have previously posted, most especially the piece on Symbols vs. Experience and the one on What If?

Please forgive the blunt approach here - my premise is that your experience of well being has nothing to do with what is happening around you. And it doesn't matter how you have been impacted by the current financial situation, right up to perhaps having lost a job, a house, and virtually all of your worldly possessions.

In simple terms: it doesn't matter what happens to you, as much as it matters how you respond.

I know of which I speak, so allow me a bit of a shaggy dog story to provide some context.

By the time I was 18, my family had gone through bankruptcy twice - not that we had all that much to start with - just a 1200 square foot house and a few modest furnishings. Ozzie and Harriet were definitely uptown from us. That disappeared as my Dad tried to transition from employee to small business owner. Great craftsman, lousy businessman.

I wound up working 40 hours a week through most of my high school years, first mowing lawns after school and on weekends, progressing through a stint flipping burgers at the local A&W Root Beer, and finally landing at Peninsula Music Center, selling records, guitars and sheet music. All that I earned went to supporting the family.

Perhaps surprisingly, I had a blast during this time. Sure, there was a lot of work and we had to find creative ways to feed the family on a buck or two a day. But heck, I didn't spend much time comparing our lot to the more fortunate families we knew. I just enjoyed busting my tail on those lawns and it was sheer heaven to wind up working for Chet and Betty Lane at the Music Center.

I wound up going to University of California at Davis, with a promise from my Dad that he would find the money to get me through. Well, that fell apart when he collapsed the first day of classes, wound up with leukemia, and died within six months of being diagnosed. Enter bankruptcy number three.

Back to working full time, this time in the school cafeterias. By the time I was a junior, things got a bit more complicated when I couldn't find housing I could afford, and wound up living in my car for a while. I literally lived on $1 a day.

The point of this little tale, is that I know a bit about getting through what some would call difficult times, and I would like to share some of these lessons with you over the next few weeks.

Let's start with fear.

Almost 30 years ago, Jack Canfield and I were teaching a seminar together and he taught me a very simple way to think about fear. It's an acronym for Fantasy Experiences Appearing Real.

Have you ever been scared by something that almost happened? Like standing on a corner, waiting to cross the street, when a car zooms by and almost hits you? Fear shows up and you can feel it in a very real way, right down to adrenalin coursing through the veins, stomach turning flips, and tension all over the place.

What qualifies this experience as a Fantasy Experience Appearing Real? Did you get hit? NO! Did you get scared anyway? YES? And why? Because you could have been hit, and might have been injured. Your brain was more than capable of supplying the scary thoughts with enough detail that your body reacted as though something actually happened.

And, even though "that was close," nothing actually happened. You might have been standing there in a perfectly serene state, and something that didn't actually hit you, was enough to yank you from serene to terrified.

Yesterday, I was teaching a class and after about 90 minutes, I asked everyone how they were feeling. The participants responded that things were good and that they were enjoying the class. I then asked them if they were aware of financial situation spreading across the globe. Of course everyone was. I then asked who had been impacted, and just about every hand went up. From there, it was pretty easy to point out that despite what the press is calling global panic, everyone here had been doing just fine - until they were reminded about the "crisis."

So, how do you go from "just fine" to "panic and crisis?" Well, that's the whole point. What if the only difference between "just fine" and "panic and crisis" is a question of focus and what you tell yourself? That's not to say that you may not have some financial hardships ahead of you, even present right now; it is to say that, in the paraphrased words of Viktor Frankl, "freedom is that point in time just after they do something to you, and just before you choose your response."

Even if something hit your bank account, or your home or your job, you can still find a place of well being. Stay tuned - more to come.
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You can find out more about Russell Bishop at http://www.lessonsinthekeyoflife.com. Contact Russell at: [e-mail]

The author of Lessons in the Key of Life, Russell is an Educational Psychologis, professional life coach and management consultant, based in Santa Barbara California.

Comments

[research]

Preparing? I left the stock market last year. Distributed my money in several banks. Thinking about gold coins, possibly some Foreign accounts.

Voting

Obama!

[Pdubya]

I've researched extensively and realized that Obama and McCain have the same puppet-masters, the international bankers. They've just destroyed our currency and they just got 40 years of constitutional destruction finalized. Obama is prepped to sell us the New World Order.

si, third party for me.

I'm buying gold and silver and paying off my mortgage. Stocking up on food and supplies and involved in local government.

Enjoying reading Peter Schiff's "Crash Proof". Heavily involved with www.campaignforliberty.com.

We must take our country back.

[research]

Then you are voting for McCain, the sure road to national ruin.

You KNOW Obama and Democrats will at least be different.

[darker]

I'm RESPONDING to the economic mess
by VOTING FOR OBAMA-BIDEN on Nov. 4

No more years for failed Republican deregulation and war mongering
policies snowballing since Reagan 1980!
Republicans? WE CAN'T AFFORD THEM any more.

[sweetgreensnowpea]

an american who lives in canada (and we have an election on tuesday), i lost my job 4 mos. ago, have 2 mos left on unemployment insurance, my 90 year old mother lives on her own in florida..
i gave up the teevee! no election brouhaha, no market brouhaha. .just read "running with scissors", am finishing "blink".
i think my blood pressure's gone down, i'm not sputtering so much.
and my sense of humor is coming back!

[sweetgreensnowpea]

oh, and favorite blogs (aside from huffpost)
jon swift
jesus' general
balloon juice
(irony may be dead, but thank God for satire!)

[sparkey]

I responded by removing my money from the corporate owned bank and putting into my member owned credit union. By the way, was anyone else asked all sorts of personal questions when you closed your bank account? I was. I told them it was none of their business what I did for a living or what my physical address was. I also took it in cash. I don't trust a bank check anymore.

[koyaanisqatsi57]

How am I responding?

1) I'm sleeping like a baby--I wake every two hours and cry.

2) The "experts" keep telling me "not to panic". Great advice! What does it mean? Should I "not panic and sell" or "not panic and not sell"? Isn't panicking a good option at this point?

In truth, I'm not big-time consumer and live fairly frugally. House is paid for, car is paid for, and I don't carry a credit card balance. Like many other people, I do count on my savings for what once looked like a not-too-distant retirement. After 28 years of Republican fiscal management, with a brief break with Clinton, retirement may be many years off.

[Steamboater]

How am I responding? I contributed money to Obama's campaign, the first time I ever gave more than my time to a candidate.

[JBS]

Fear and Panic ain't got nothing to do with it, but I'm mad enough to chew nails.

Got my IRA statement today, lost an average of 25% since Jan 1.

[medon]

I bought my favorite silver stock at the low of today as so far its up about 15%

[hoopesaz]

I'm being conservative in my purchases. And, I'm slowly starting to dollar cost average my way back into the market starting yesterday. May be too early, but putting a little bit in here and there while I watch and see how things shake out. I've had my 401k in money market accounts for the last year. A wee bit over conservative, but by sheer luck alone perhaps it will have paid off for me.

[2sleepy]

I refuse to worry about it, I grew up poor, and while I live well now, I own things- things don't own me - so I think I can adapt to almost anything that life throws at me

[Chavez08]

Me?? I've already lost my house, my job, all of my savings and my (lame) healthcare goes next week...

"Am I worried about Wallstreet", - you ask!?..........

[Paul]

Great story.

I have worked with the homeless and I was surprised to find that their lives have much less stress than I expected. Once you figure out how to get a meal and a place to sleep, the rest is easy.

How many of us stay awake at night worrying about losing all our stuff?

Pointless.

[sandrarita]

"The only thing we have to fear is fear itself." FDR.

[wm1066]

This question was asked on the C-span morning call in show and a woman called in to say she was eating more, now I can understand what she meant, nervous eating during a time of crisis, but the moderator just didn't get it, it totally flumoxed him and he moved on to another caller.

[IneptitudePrideB4Fall]

I will be 70&1/2 years old in 1 week. The Feds are FORCING me to transfer my 401K retirement funds to somewhere else. I would like to NOT take my money out of my 401K. (I know. I know. I have till April 1 to take money out.) People like me need a waiver or new law or something to permit us more time to move our 401 money to another account. I have to think about this and make a decision. But I don't want to think and decide. That's what makes me nervous.

[hoopesaz]

In terms of using your 401K, the tax consequences of passing that money on to family are horrible. I believe one is usually advised to use their 401K money early, as other accounts may allow for more favorable tax treatment if unused and passed on.

Of course, that may not be your concern at all, not sure.

[mamacat]

I sympathise with your problem, but really, don't you consider yourself lucky to be worrying about your 401k at the ripe old age of 70&1/2? No disrespect intended, but there have got to be a lot of people who would like to have your problem.