Containing our reactors in a meltdown situation

Learning to contain and cool down our ego reactors with the healing waters of love, safety and gratitude is crucial for a happy and productive journey on this planet.

by Scott Kalechstein Grace — 

What do you think spreads and kills faster — radioactivity coming from a meltdown at a power plant or mushroom clouds of fear coming from a mind that has forgotten its power source?

Learning to contain and cool down our ego reactors with the healing waters of love, safety and gratitude is crucial for a happy and productive journey on this planet. No matter what is going on outside of us, we are always deciding between responding with love and reacting in fear. And whatever we choose, we can always choose differently in the next moment or the one after that. We all get reactive and have meltdowns. It is how quickly we clean them up that counts.

Early this week, I was sitting in the dentist’s chair getting a cavity worked on, the most troublesome of three that the X-rays had found. I had not been in for a checkup in more than two years, feeling the scarcity of both time and money, and now I was going to have to pay the price of neglect and cough up some of those precious resources.

Halfway into the process, my dentist looked concerned, stopped and frowned. She called an associate into the room for a second opinion, and the two of them stared into the hole in my tooth. The usual playful banter and levity in the office had suddenly been replaced by a dense layer of seriousness. They left the room and whispered outside the door, just beyond the scope of my radar. When they came back, they announced in solemn unison that my tooth needed a root canal.

Root canal? Noooooo!

My family and I had been going though financial challenges for more than two years, and so the first words out of my numb, cotton-laden mouth were, “How much is it going to cost?” The price quoted made me wish I had had nitrous oxide instead of anesthesia. At over $2,000, this was going to drill quite an unexpected hole in my wallet. My thoughts spiraled into fear as I got on a runaway express train bound for Scare City.

I told them to get on with it and get it over with. The procedure, the actual root canal, was not nearly as painful as my protest and resistance to what had just been served up on my plate. The drama going on in my head was louder and more invasive than the dentist’s noisy drill, as my mind kept spewing out endless variations on the themes of “No!” and “We are doomed!” This day was not going my way, but, much worse than that, I was letting my fears go nuclear.

Fear, I believe, is always a “lack attack,” my ego’s imaginary trip into a future of worst-case scenarios. It plays out as a loud, unruly conversation in my head — one that in any moment I could interrupt and end, simply by injecting some faith and moving into the safety and sanity of the present moment, to notice and appreciate all the overwhelming evidence within and around me that all is well.

And that is what I decided to do. Right there in the chair I performed a self-administered intervention, trading in my grievances for gratitude, starting by silently saying thank you to the doctors who were using their skills to save my tooth. Then I gave thanks for the opportunity before me to release myself more thoroughly from fear. My gratitude soon spread to include various blessings in my life — my health, relationships, peace of mind, the beauty of this planet. Finally, giving thanks for the miraculous gift of life itself, I found myself reclaiming my joy and becoming peaceful again.

I spent the rest of the day being playful and joking with others about my adventures with root canal. My partner told me how uplifted she felt by how I was not letting this turn of events drag down my spirit. If anything, I was more turned on. My spirits were high because I had remembered that Spirit is who I am, Spirit is the only reality and everything else in this world is the temporary passing parade of illusion, with no power but the power I give it.

For years I had been a conditional giver of thanks. I gave thanks when things went my way and withheld my gratitude when life served up any challenges, disappointments or other assorted learning opportunities. But for those of us wanting to use this lifetime for growth and mastery, the situations that stimulate our fears offer our greatest blessings.

Healing cannot be found when fear is held at bay in the cozy harbor of our comfort zones. The experiences in which our egos shout “No” can be the very catalysts for awakening — the Zen whacks from a teacher’s stick that cause us to get present, release identification with ego, and more deeply find and dwell in a peace that is not of this world.

I used to play a game as a child called Hot Potato. Now I am playing it again, this time without the carbs. I am learning to drop my scary hot potato thoughts more and more quickly, sometimes instantly. If someone actually threw you a painfully hot potato and you caught it, you would probably drop it at once. If it is our grievances, gripes and fearful thoughts that cause us mental and emotional pain, why not drop them as quickly as you would a hot potato? The other choice is to nurse them, get agreement about them from others, and huff and puff in radioactive clouds of righteousness, panic and drama. Been there, done that.

A nuclear-free world begins in our heads, spreads to our hearts, and then goes viral all over the world. When we are planted in our authentic power, no earthly power plant can hurt us. Love, divine love, is our authentic power, our only security and safety, our only reality. It hurts like heck to contain it, so let us not. Let us spread it together.

Scott Kalechstein Grace is the author of Teach Me How to Love. He is also a counselor and coach, a modern-day troubadour and inspirational speaker who presents at conferences, giving talks, concerts and workshops. He is a relationship specialist, helping both individuals and couples enjoy more conscious relationships. www.scottsongs.com.

Reprinted from AZNetNews, Volume 30, Number 3, June/July 2011.