We are deceived anytime we find ourselves busily considering all the possibilities in a fearful moment. The only possibility those busy thoughts hold as we anxiously consider fearful options is which one of them is going to make us its prisoner. And it doesn't matter which fearful thought you choose...

You plant a fear seed; you will grow a fearful tree.

Key to sailing through any crisis is learning to deal first with the fact of fear, instead of what fear says is the fact.

What am I looking at when I'm dealing with what fear says is the fact? An event has taken place and fear says, "Oh my God, look at this!" But the event is gone, so what am I looking at? Am I looking at the fact? No. I'm looking at what my mind is saying the event is through a process of measurement in comparison to what it had and what it feels is at risk due to the event.

What is the fact of fear? The fact of fear is that everything passes. But fearful states live on inside of us as they do because something in us unconsciously animates them. Fearful thoughts are the ripples that follow the impact, aren't they? These fearful states, these fearful ripples, roll on as they do because they keep getting life.

What happens when a crisis comes? The event strikes you and you don't want it. What do you do? Start thinking. You link up with one of the ripples, and the ripples are negative imagination. You start talking to yourself about what the event means and what's going to happen to you. And instead of letting yourself see that the impact struck what you're clinging to, you cling to each subsequent ripple in the hopes that you can somehow control reality and restore things.

Facts are real-time and they speak for themselves. That's something that we really don't understand. A fact speaks for itself. But we hire an interpreter! How can the fact of a crisis explain to you what it means, unless it is talking to you through who and what you have been in order to explain the crisis?

We are not the creator of our own fearful states. We are not the creator of the ripples. Rather, we empower them every time we act from a fear of them. Negative reactions produce the ripple. Trying to control the ripples produces more negative reactions.

The key here is that no matter what I look at, if I look at it and it produces fear, I am not looking at what is real. I am looking at what I have made real for the self that wants to be in a crisis. And the fact remains that it doesn't matter what I do with this crisis, I remain the same human being because I keep dealing with it from the same nature that's produced it.

What does this understanding mean? As much as I don't want to, I have to make a change, which means to meet the crisis with something that I have never met it with before. I let the moment show me what it needs to show me about myself. I have to give up all of my supports, those things that I cling to, people I blame, situations that seem too great for me.

No situation is too great for who you are! The situation, the crisis has appeared to reveal to you a greatness that you don't know lives inside of you.