OUTLOOK WEEKLY • 15
INSIGHTOUT by Regina Sewell
Hole in the Bucket Bliss cannot be disturbed by gain or loss Quote from yogi tea bag The economy has pretty much gone to hell in a hand-basket. Banks have been dropping like flies. Lehman Brothers has filed for bankruptcy. Merrill Lynch & Co. agreed to a buy out from Bank of America and federal regulators seized Washington Mutual and sold its branches, deposits and loans to JPMorgan Chase. Mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were lurching towards a financial black hole until the government took them over. One of the world’s biggest insurers, American International Group (AIG) was teetering on the brink of the same black hole before the government bailed them out – a move that cost the government (read tax payers like you and me) a hefty $85 billion. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson and Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke have been pleading with Congress to bailout the financial industry, arguing that if the financial industry crashes, the entire economy will pretty much go down the toilet. (OK they didn’t say it quite like that, but that’s the gist of what they’re predicting.) Their original plan pretty much said: Don’t pass go.
Don’t collect $200. Just give your money to corporate America and all will be well. Our Congress balked at this plan and have hammered out a plan of their own. At the time I’m writing this, they are gearing up to vote to belly up $700 billion to bailout the financial industry. (Again, a reminder - even though Congress expects to get the money back someday, you and I and several generations of great nieces, nephews and grandchildren are footing this bill and paying the cost in terms of lost services due to the lack of funds for anything else but this debt and the war.) And while it’s easy to sneer and say, “Let Wall Street pay for their misdeeds,” nearly 7% of the American workforce is employed in the financial sector. We all know that the folks who will pay the most are the folks at the bottom — the security guards, cleaning crews, customer service folks and other folks who don’t get to fly in the corporate jets. And if all these folks lose our jobs, many of us are at risk of losing ours. In the meantime, we are all paying the price of deregulation and greed. In this moment, it looks like those 401 K plans, mutual funds, stocks and investments that we have tucked money in so that someday we can retire and live someplace not made from cardboard and eat something that doesn’t involve a soup kitchen are teetering on the edge of the same financial black hole Wall Street has started falling into. And it’s not just the future that looks grim. Oil is selling at over $100 a barrel, keeping gas prices up over $3.50 a gallon. As
a result, you should just expect your winter heating bill to go through the roof. Given all this, it’s easy to panic and run around in circles screaming, “My money’s gone! My money’s gone!” and panic that it’s the end of the world as we know it. When you catch yourself doing this: Stop it! Panic never helps. It’s impossible to make wise decisions when you’re running around in circles. Other than running around in circles, what can you do? First and most basic, breathe. Take a deep breath in and let it out. Do this again - but this time slow down to notice what the air feels like entering and leaving your nostrils. Take in another breath and notice the rise and fall in your belly as your diaphragm expands and contracts. If you need words to wrap your mind around, try repeating, “Just this, here now. Yesterday’s gone. Tomorrow’s not here yet. Right now, I’m fine.” This will help in the short run. In the long run, it’s helpful to look at the framework through which you view the world. Do you see the world through the lens of scarcity and calamity or through the lens of abundance and possibility? If you focus your attention on “there’s not enough” you’re probably going to feel somewhere on the anxious – panic continuum. From here, you’re likely to get lost in a spin, bury your head in the sand and/or take solace in food, alcohol, drugs, sex or whatever other diversion you regularly use to avoid feeling your feelings. If you see yourself
spinning or avoiding, bring your awareness back to your breath. Once you’ve gotten yourself a little more centered, as you watch your breath, imagine what it would feel like to trust in the idea of abundance and the idea that anything is possible. If for example, you’re worried about losing your job, what would it be like to imagine yourself in a work situation that you would love, making a decent income? The idea isn’t that you can dream your troubles away. The idea is that it’s a lot easier to take the steps you need to take in order to secure your financial security and happiness if you can imagine that it’s possible. And what if you could take this a step further and look for the silver lining of this whole financial mess? At the end of the day, the truth is, even if there is financial disaster, we will survive. Thousands upon thousands of people survived the Great Depression. They had to cut back. They didn’t download songs from the internet at 99 cents a shot, buy bottled water, or stop by Starbucks for a double espresso or mocha cappuccino, but they got through. It was hard, but it wasn’t the end of the world. Regina Sewell is a mental health counselor with a private practice in Worthington, OH. To ask a question, propose a column topic, read about her approach to counseling, or check out her books and other writing, go to: www.ReginaSewell.com . Her most recent publication, “Sliding Away” can be found in Knowing Pains: Women on Love, Sex and Work in Our 40s, edited by Molly Rosen.
OCT 09 - OCT 15 2008