The good news is, I have landed a job and I start this week.

I’ve spent the last month living with the constant distraction of being unemployed. For me a job means safety. Like a meerkat popping up on her hind legs, I am surveying the horizon constantly. It that a threat? Is that an opportunity I need to chase down? Where is the danger?

Stay Alert. Look for disaster.  I can be sure it’s always coming. What is a moment away from killing me?

Never shut my eyes.

Without the safe haven of a job, my frightened prey instincts are zinging. I’ve re-calibrated the state of my world to red- DANGER.

But I am more than prey. I also have to chase down my own quarry. Fear can inspire me to do that work—to get skilled and stay moving. Lord knows, I’ve burned that fuel before.

It turns out that if I’ve got any distance to travel, fear is a very unpleasant companion. It comes with poisonous by-products. Honestly? I’m not sure the poisons isn’t the main product. Fear is a motivator, but it’s not the only one.

Avoiding the negative is a big boost. Like touching hot metal, my hand jerks away fast. Thank you pain, thank you fear, for getting me out of the danger quick!

My life has been arranged so that I encounter true pain seldom. I have shoes and oven mitts to protect my skin.

Unemployment is painful, but doesn’t require instant reaction. The solution to resolving the unemployment is actually the opposite of the fear story. I have to convince a business that I am the answer to their fears.

I had to switch from focusing on the fear to the positive solution.

Fear is easy. That hyperdrive to Get Away is a button ready to press.

 Maintaining awareness of the positive is a lot harder. My wiser higher self can see possibilities that fear hides. The fear has become the enemy. The battleground is internal.

I’ve had to create habits and practices to win the battle of positivity. Setting the stage for quiet remembering. Vaporize the fear by not looking at it. Practicing the stories of possibilities.

As I start practicing the discipline of attention, I start to see that fear has henchmen. Each of us have an instinctual army ready to leap up into action, it’s a reliable response. But that’s not all.

There are henchmen ready to manipulate that fear to their own purposes. Marketing and publicity seekers, ones who seek to gather and manipulate attention are using fear like a tool. Stories that worm into my mind and ask me for attention, getting my heartrate up and my mind racing. The news is a common villain. Certain people I know can be drags on my potential.

I’d be angry at these henchmen. But they only succeed when I cooperate. I do not consent. Even if I have to move it out of my mind again and again, I will say no again and again. Fear is not welcome.

This is my space. I say yes to my own possibilities.