When did I first start to believe

The Level of StressedOn the surface the pain is often described as ‘just being there’ and it hasn’t really been closely looked at.It is inside these painful experiences that the original situation lives on, but the core can be so deep and painful that we have learnt to avoid it by engaging in tiles 30–59 to escape it.When a therapist is trying to help someone out of the 20s to above 60, they are asking them to talk about stress in order to uncover what may lay inside of it.If it is not uncovered, it can keep opening up like a scab that is hit over and over without a chance to heal.If the stress is pushed down and not dealt with, it builds up.It may take weeks, months, years or decades, but eventually your whole system will have some kind of ‘crisis’.The body is telling you it needs to release the accumulated charge.A trigger can reopen the wound that was supposedly ‘dealt with’ and the original charge is still there.One small incident can tip the person over the edge.The results showed that 88 per cent of leaders found work to be a primary source of stress in their lives.In addition, more than 60 per cent of leaders cite their organization as failing to provide them with the techniques they need to manage stress.The survey also shows that 85 per cent of leaders believe they are actually managing their stress levels effectively when this is not the case.Leaders seem to lack insight into the fact that they are actually extremely stressed and burnout is perhaps the first time they acknowledge that the stress is not being managed appropriately.Anxiety can have acute psychological repercussions, which may include hypersensitivity, chronic worrying, decreased capacity for concentration, poor levels of perception, loss of memory, appetite and sleep.A leader may even lose touch with what is required as the anxiety increases.Isolation can be common in the top leadership position in an organization where there is a separation from other executives who report directly to the leader, leaving him without peers, confidantes, support or reassurance.The leader may not be seeking external help, therefore not getting that help, despite 79 per cent of leaders stating they would benefit from a coach to help deal with the stresses of leadership.Unrealistic employees, not being what the leaders expect because the employees might imagine their leaders to be infallible and even gifted to some degree with magical power.Stressed leaders can panic about the lack of time they have to execute strategic ideas that will make a difference for shareholder returns.These feelings of detachment manifest in leaders’ work and personal life – resulting in a distancing from colleagues and from family and friends.Under new leadership, it is the responsibility of the leader to work with the organization, not compete with all the people within it.Hesitant, 29Being hesitant is a pause button without answers.It’s a space where a person is not getting what he wants and is not sure why, or what can be done about it.Even if I or someone else has a plan, because of the perceived problem, difficulty or lack of ease that I have regarding getting what I want, I take a step backwards or away from the situation.My default pattern is ‘hang on a moment’.Doubt enters as to whether I can achieve the goal/aim/want.‘Maybe I am not meant to have the promotion, others have been here longer than me’, or ‘Maybe I don’t deserve it?’ or even ‘Maybe others deserve it more than me’.Maybe is the key phrase here.A person at this level does not know so guesses using past experiences but that doesn’t provide a clear, solid enough plan to galvanize the person into further action to acquire the want.Uncertainty and apprehensiveness surface and infect the project, performance and people.Others feel it and those susceptible to its impact can join in, especially if the hesitant leader is using words like reluctant, dubious, tentative, averse or ambivalent.These words trigger hesitancy in others and undermine as well as disempower the team.Small and large cogs each play their part in the turning of the wheel.If the tiniest cog fails, that wheel stops turning.I am not as confident as others.I need to be willing to do trial and error and not be so hard on myself with the error part.I am not certain of what is required.Who really knows anything anyway?What can I do to know more?Where do I go for more context?What questions can I ask?I will learn how to let go of having to be ‘certain’ and replace it with a goal that’s less pressure.This is just out of my comfort zone.I can be just outside of my comfort zone.This grows me, I can enjoy a challenge.Insecure, 28A leader may feel unsafe in a particular situation or environment because he is not getting what he wants.Precarious predicaments arise when I am not able to communicate what my needs are, or I do and those needs are being ignored, overlooked or forgotten.Instead, I can feel exposed as someone unable to establish what it takes to make things work or generate desired outcomes.At this level I am starting to feel passive and disempowered in my ability to cope with what I see might be a problem.I can feel unprotected here because I have stated what I think I need but I cannot find a place to land.Without the energy of the want being met, I am left waiting, unclear and unsettled.What does safe really mean for me?Can I be more for myself?I think in terms of safe and unsafe and try to create my version of safe and when I cannot, I feel unsafe.How can I meet all unfolding events as a challenge to grow rather than with avoidance?I don’t know what you’re going to do next, or what’s coming next.What does it take to be resourceful in the face of change?I don’t know what’s coming or what the future holds.I will train myself to prepare for anything and have the outlook that I’ll always be doing my best.This is not pleasing the other for the other’s sake.It is pleasing because it stems from insecurity and the avoidance of the consequences that are perceived to be unfavourable.Pleasing becomes a learned pattern to not feel something negative.However, that something negative is still there, waiting to be triggered.For example, staying back at work to be liked or win brownie points or to avoid getting into trouble, or perhaps doing whatever senior colleagues want so they do not make life at work challenging.At this level I can say ‘yes’ when I really mean ‘no’.Initially, any friction can be avoided, but this is never a solution as the ‘yes’ can cause complications and difficulties as more demands or requests are made.Niceness can be very stressful as who a person really is, isn’t able to shine through.Do I even know who I really am when the focus is pleasing others?What will it take to keep the peace?Realizing what it is that is being avoided or desired.Rejection, attack, aggression, not being accepted.I can become whatever is required to stay friends and I will ‘belong’ if you stay happy.This is not my truth.I need to find out what makes me happy.We can be friends but not at the expense of depriving me.What will happen if I don’t please you?What boundaries might I consider?Can I help them to above 60?If I challenge that energy, we all have a chance to grow.If I don’t please you, I will lose everything so I will comply, no matter what.What’s the worst that can happen if they are not pleased?What stops me overcoming that?A deep tension sets in, accompanied by a troubled mental or emotional state.A direction in which to move in order to feel secure is not forthcoming and an underlying apprehension to make a decision grows.Anxiousness is often expressed here as concern and its accompanying biochemistry affects the body, especially the nerves.I can feel ‘on tenterhooks’ at the uncertainty of what is coming.The unpredictability of attaining security and safety is taking its toll and I can feel pressed to make a decision but unable to know the way forward.This is experienced as ‘ill at ease’.‘What if’ can be the dominant thought form and usually ends with a negative interpretation.A positive interpretation can either not be found from memories or cannot arise because I do not trust myself, those around me, or the situation.Wariness abounds and relationships are strained.The fear and anxiety at this level can show up as being disturbed, perplexed, fretful, on edge, overly sensitive or being ‘on tenterhooks’.I will look to find calm in nature.Whatever decision I make does it have to be set in concrete or can I change my mind?I am not practised at following my higher intuition.This engages Intuitive Witnessing Mind.I will learn the code Mastery Techniques.I am pulling back and the walls are starting to come up as I feel a spiked nervous response to this situation.There are always higher and lower potentials.Anxiety closes down higher potentials.What is the story activating?Things are starting to speed up and scramble.I aim to speak my truth.Worried, 25Being worried is a step closer into fear.The anxiety has built to a point where the person is now troubled by an outcome or unresolved situation.That which is not opening up for the person to create feelings of safety is experienced as increasing apprehension.Thoughts are repeating themselves and looping without resolution.I am building up the charge of negative and repetitive thoughts and the story is becoming more limiting as time goes on.A growing distress can be felt and my positive patterns and behaviour can be disturbed by the growing negative story.I am increasingly perturbed by the situation and reading it as a problem rather than a challenge.I can even become anguished, twisting and turning inside a story that is not coming up with answers.Combined with sleeplessness, this state plays havoc with my immune system and hormonal balance.My nerves can feel jittery and I can begin to fret that it will not improve, or that a solution will not be forthcoming.Feelings of being ‘strung out’, bothered and Wars - tic tac too flash game. edgy all live in this level of Entrapment.What if it doesn’t ever work?I am not a fortune teller who constantly predicts negativity into my future.What if it does work?Let’s go with that for now.How is this possible?I am to make it possible.Instead of closing it down, I am to open it up.It’s not clear how I’m going to break this.How have I found solutions in the past?If I just sit in ‘not clear’, it will never be clear.I can only find questions, not answers.Questions are excellent, just ask to find the answers.More context is great.Frightened, 24Being frightened is another layer deeper in.It can become quite scary to be worried either for an extended time, or intensely over a short duration.Groundhog Day can wear me down.Being frightened really can take a lot of energy and the story that keeps fear alive can be quite compelling.There is no foreseeable future or resolution.My worrying intensifies to a state of contraction called fright.This can set off an internal alarm, where fear of fear itself may arise.A panicky feeling is accompanied by a building pressure and tension.There can be a predisposition towards feeling frightened about events that are similar or like the original event that caused fear.If there is an external antagonist or persecutor, a person may feel browbeaten at this stage and the wants can get lost in tiredness.A person may feel haunted by a person or situation and find real or imagined evidence to support and justify the waves of fright that can well up from inside.Being shaken, intimidated or being ‘a bundle of nerves’ can all live in this level of Entrapment.It’s all conjecture.What does ‘exposed’ mean here?How can I be stronger?People are looking at me.Is this really happening, or am I in a memory?Is there a problem with them looking at me?Do I look at others?I am hearing ‘I want to have a word with you’.What is the problem with having a word?I am willing to consider whatever anyone brings to me with awareness of how they bring it to me.I will be criticized.How much truth is there in what they are saying?Can I change criticism to ‘positive, constructive feedback’?Are they seeing me and speaking to me from a place above 60?Trapped, 23The experience of feeling trapped has a real stuckness about it, where the person cannot seem to find a way out of or away from a situation or person.The person is caught in some disempowering entanglement, perhaps even feeling captured in someone else’s world of lies, deceit, blame, arrogance or whatever the story may be.The story that’s unfolding has sucked me into being cornered with no way out, confined without the key, ensnared without being able to find or untie the knot.My Ego wants to believe it can control the outside world, get the results it wants.When it realizes it cannot always do that, it can collapse into this state of feeling trapped.This can be very scary and daunting.Or the perpetrator already has me and I am in a type of prison.This can be because of a physical external presence or internal real or imagined chain of events.I can feel like prey to the predator, shut down to the aggressor, enmeshed in someone’s control game, or a prisoner to some jail sentence for something the person may not even know about.I can become too frightened to escape.Feelings of being ‘cut off’, isolated, cornered, closed in or imprisoned all live at this level of Entrapment.How do I not be as attached to what the other person thinks or does?Why am I worrying about what the other person is doing?That is using up my energy that could be put into finding solutions.What does it take to be more solid?Which tile above 60 can help me?There is no way of doing this differently.Just do one small thing differently.It doesn’t have to be big.I’ll do something new to break away, break the pattern.I hear that as an ultimatum.I’m probably projecting a belief given to me from my caretakers or a teacher.I will change my programming.I don’t have to sit and listen to this from the inside or the outside.I know I am better than this, I just have to get moving.Dread, 22Feeling trapped or trepidation for an extended period of time can lead to feelings of dread.At this level of entrapment, a person does not know how, where, when or why.It can feel like torture being this disempowered, especially if no known event or person seems to be causing it.A deep, unconscious story can be operating outside of my awareness and unfathomable dire consequences seem about to manifest without evidence, but it seems so real.There can be an external circumstance that is present that seems to perpetuate the state of dread in me, but Controlling it is too far away so I sink into an abyss of fear.Other terms are distraught, aghast or terrified as things overtake my decreasing ability to hold on.Terrible, horrible and appalling are descriptors for what seems to be going on.The story is getting darker and darker.Feelings of foreboding, alarm and being stricken with fear can live at this level of Entrapment.If I can imagine alternative outcomes, the feeling of doom will lift.A small shift is neither ‘all’ or ‘nothing’ yet can make a big difference.Any action in the spirit of helping makes a contribution.I feel overwhelmed at what is being asked of me and what lies ahead.Which part is overwhelming?I’ll ask for help, map it out.Terror, 21Terror is an extreme contraction and withdrawal away from abusive physical or psychological situations.A ‘panic attack’ can ensue, where the person feels like there is nowhere to turn, no answer forthcoming, and there may be no rational explanation for the intensity of the terror.There is a feeling of ‘nowhere’ to hide.This can be a fear of fear itself and it builds with repetition of the stimulus or thought of the impending confrontation, doom or unknown.If phobias persist or grow in intensity, terror can arise with the presentation of the perceived or real threat.The workplace can feel menacing, even horrifying.I can recoil and start to close down as a protective mechanism.Where can I get help to recontextualize the story?There is no solution.There is a solution, it’s just that I am unaware of it at the moment.There is nowhere to go.I will learn, no matter what happens.Can I do one thing differently?Change just one thing to start moving towards above 60?There is no end to this.Maybe not right now.What tile above 60 do I need to see this through to its conclusion?When did I first start to believe there is no end to this?