FROM CHAOS TO COURAGE

By Janice Dorn, M.D., Ph.D.

http:// www.thetradingdoctor.com




Through the fire, to the limit, to the wall

For the chance to be with you, I’d rather risk it all

Through the fire

Through whatever come what may

I’ll take it all the way

Right down to the wire

Even through the fire….….

From “Through The Fire” sung by Chaka Kahn



These are challenging times. Many in the world are suffering untold pain. You hear daily horror stories about human corruption, greed and inhumanity. They seem far away, perhaps in distant lands or cities you can barely pronounce. You watch and read—glued to the TV or internet images that drive repeatedly into the core of your rat brain with images of violence, riots, murders and what bleeds leads. You are transfixed, captivated or shocked by the stories. How hideous. Those poor people…I want to see more. Something happened somewhere to someone but it wasn’t you. You are OK. You have your life, plans, dreams and watch like a distant observer, never thinking that perhaps one of those poor people could be you or someone you love.

Life is fragile. Chaos can occur at anytime, anywhere. You won’t have to look for it because it will find you. The wilderness is a metaphor for losing ground, finding yourself stranded, lost, afloat, abandoned betrayed, homeless, losing at trading, just struggling to get by. The wilderness is lurking a heartbeat away. One moment you are walking a beautiful fragrant path gazing at the azure sky and the glorious sun. The next moment you are in a barren desert—shaken, disoriented, lost and alone. The sunshine of your life has smashed to the ground like shards of a precious porcelain vase shattered into hundreds of pieces.

How do you navigate through a situation that seems unbearable? How do you cope with loss, illness, and suffering? How can you endure when your back and spirit are breaking and your hopes and dreams are a distant memory?

You have been sleepwalking into the future, shackled by linear thinking--- and now you are lost. It is time to wake up. It is time to grow up. These are no longer luxuries that you can postpone for the future. The reality is that you must wake up now.

You must awaken to the hard cold reality that you don’t need any more pain, suffering, anxiety, depression, anger, and self-loathing. There is plenty of that going around these days. You need a new way of being in and walking through the world. But how? How do you find the strength to endure bitterness, anger, despair, loss, rejection and isolation? Your natural tendency is to push it away, pretend it isn’t there, distract yourself, and indulge in escapism or addiction. Or you can turn your feelings outward—blaming others, looking for scapegoats or even go further inward and tell yourself that you really deserved this because you did something bad. The messages you received as a child--that you would never amount to anything or never be good enough--- come pouring through you. You are worthless, you can’t do anything right and you deserve to suffer. At some perverse level, you revel in this because it feeds and reinforces everything you have always believed about yourself---that no matter how hard you try, how nice you are, what good things you do…it is never enough and you cannot get it right.



There are three steps to work with and through chaos. The first is to move closer to it. Invite it in. Look at it, and be with it. Like the giant insect in the Orkin commercial who comes to your door asking in a creepy voice to come in because its car broke down and it just loves your wooden floors. Don’t close the door and run screaming to the Orkin man. Invite it in. Sit with it. Make friends with it. Soon you will find that all the monsters are in your mind. Everything is in your mind. This is your pain. This is coming from you—not from someone or something out there. Once you wake up and grow up, you will face your pain from a point of compassion and wisdom. You will stop struggling and trying to run away and learn to be with whatever it is. You have taken the first step in dealing with chaos. No more struggling. This is acceptance of reality—no matter what it is. It is yours. Make friends with your suffering. Make friends with your trading and living mistakes as they are your greatest teachers. Manifest wisdom and compassion, and integrate them into your being. Show loving kindness to yourself and others.

The second step is to treat as medicine all people, places and things that your mind tells you are causing the suffering and sickness. Allow them to be just what the doctor ordered to wake you up, energize you and heal your pain. Understand that you are not the only one going through this. Take in this medicine, feel it working inside of you and healing you. Then, take that healing energy and give it back to the world. In this way, you medicate yourself with wisdom and compassion. No matter what you were told, you are good enough and there is nothing wrong with you. Feel how this feels, let it circulate through your body, energizing, renewing and restoring the 50 trillion cells of your being. Then, you take this and send it out to the world. It seems a small act, but small acts are important. Every time you reach out with compassion and love, it comes back to you. It all begins and ends with you. Use what you thought was poison as medicine---for you, those around you and eventually to the world. Hold yourself and everyone who meet in a position of unconditional positive regard. You will find that the more you give the more you will receive in kind. Ghandi said “Be the change you want to see in the world.” It begins with you. You don't have to be loud. You don't have to be eloquent. You don't have to be elected. You don't even have to be particularly smart or well educated. You must, however, have the courage to commit to this.





The third step is to view everything that happens as an opportunity. In everything there is a gift! There’s a pony in there somewhere. No matter what it is, it’s chance for you to get over yourself and to bring flowers to yourself instead of waiting for someone else to do it for you. This is awakened energy. It reverses your ingrained and learned habits of trying to avoid conflict, wearing masks to make yourself something you are not, working yourself to exhaustion, giving until you are a drained battery and wondering why you feel hungry, angry , lonely, tired and empty. Of course, you are going to feel anxious, overwhelmed, have cardiac palpitations, break out in rashes and maybe get really sick or die from being stuck in a “shoulda, woulda coulda” mentality. The elemental struggle is with your feelings that you are wrong, that you can’t do something right, that if you were smarter or better or more perfect or worked harder or paid more attention, you could have fixed it. For too many years now, you have made bedfellows with guilt, shame and regret, allowing them to be false voices telling you how bad you really are.

There is nothing wrong with you; there is nothing to be embarrassed about. It is what it is. You are who you are. That is life. That is the manifestation of wisdom. And wisdom is the foundation of freedom. Whether you accept this freedom as heaven or as hell depends on you.

It’s time to get over yourself completely. Lighten up, play more, enjoy the gift of every breath and relax into it exactly how it is. Every moment in life and the markets is unique. This moment is your perfect teacher, you are always in it and it is always with you.



Where you are, the world is. Without your transformation, there can be no transformation of the world…J. Krishnamurti




Janice Dorn, M.D., Ph.D.

Text Copyright: 2010, Janice Dorn, M.D., Ph.D. All rights reserved.