[Note from CAF: I first published this on the blog on December 5, 2008. Given the current conversion of the many changes upon us, I am republishing today.]
By Catherine Austin Fitts
In 1998 I was in Washington dealing with the consequences of having stood in the way of a fraudulent housing bubble: 12 pieces of litigation, an insurance company reneging on its obligations to fund my attorneys, 18 audits and investigations by numerous federal and local agencies, a smear campaign and increasingly serious physical harassment.
To fund managing this process, I was selling and auctioning my company assets and my personal assets, including home, antiques, art, furniture and personal possessions. I watched as a life time of friends and network turned on me or turned away from me.
As the pile on of attacks from all sides grew, I realized that the chances of my surviving were growing increasingly slim. Sobered by this realization, I decided I would research who had been targeted in this manner and what had happened. Who had survived and who had not? Why? What could I learn from their experience that would help me in dealing with a similar situation?
I discovered that I was in a process that could drive a person mad or into a state of anger that would cause them to become physically sick, to lose their capacity to think and operate clearly and to alienate those who wanted to or were willing to help. In short, targeted people were failing physically, mentally and socially as a result of their inability to manage their anger. Their own anger was poisoning them. Their enemies had found a way to make their target their most valuable ally by getting them to destroy themselves.
The stories of the physical disabilities that had resulted as a result of the anger and stress were particularly gruesome. Sobered, I made a commitment to not let the anger that serves as invaluable navigation tool in my life become an anger that would poison me physically or mentally.
I committed to attract a future defined by love, rather than defined by anger.
I did a very serious assessment of my situation. Could I see this litigation through in the face of the smear and harassment? Did I have the capacity to do so? I concluded that I had the physical stamina, the courage, the intellect and the training to do so. I was prepared to liquidate all of my assets and to live modestly.
However, I did not know if I could endure the process and retain my capacity to love. I decided that my goal was to use the litigation to serve my original purpose — to emerge with real solutions for the challenges that were coming as a result of the financial coup d’etat underway — and with my personal capacity to love strengthened.
As I now watch those around me struggle with the deterioration of our economy and culture, I encourage you to consider these issues. What does it take for you to survive and thrive? How can you protect and build your energy in the face of the challenges underway and ahead? What is the purpose to which you are called? Whom do you love and serve?
If I can presume to give you advice, it would be to quote St. Paul, “let not the sun go down on your anger.”
GeoMark:
Thanks. Greene’s books are VERY useful.
Catherine
From the Laws of Power (By Robert Greene $15.00. 452 pp. paper. ISBN 0140280197. Penguin Books)
Law 32 — Play to People’s Fantasies
The truth is often avoided because it is ugly and unpleasant. Life is so harsh and distressing that people who can manufacture romance or conjure up fantasy are like oases in the desert: Everyone flocks to them. There is great power in tapping into the fantasies of the masses. Never appeal to truth and reality unless you are prepared for the anger that comes from disenchantment.
Law 39 — Stir up Waters to Catch Fish
Anger and emotion are strategically counter-productive. You must always stay calm and objective. But if you can make your enemies angry while staying calm yourself, you gain a decided advantage. Put your enemies off balance: Find the chink in their vanity through which you can rattle them and you hold the strings.
Catherine, this is an extraordinary message – from the very fabric of your experiences and piercing trials…we thank you…This message provides us with a practical reason and application for the present and coming times of greater chaos, when we are to BE, each of us, through our thoughts, intentions and action, the “Love that underlies the happenings of the times.” So often we are given platitudes, told what to do. But it is not often that we are given the practical ways of doing those things. You offer this…we are grateful. Risa & Esoteric group
Anger is definitely poison. I’ve been an outsider looking in at life since my earliest memories. My angered interpretation of what I’ve experienced, observed of others, and anger with my own failures to find a sane way to live, has cost my health and relationships a lot. I tend to reflect on the harm people cause eachother and myself, as misguided. That people are each at various stages on their journeys of development. This makes it easier to accept and forgive. Lately I haven’t known what to think or feel though. I recently abandoned several of my notions of what is true since in my opion we tend to seek out truths that will satisfy us. I don’t know where it will leave me.
I’ve been struggling to become financially independant since long before this latest crisis. So I can’t relate to the choices and losses others are making and suffering. I have never had the house or the car or the good job. I’m not worried about becoming poor because I am poor and have lived poor all my life. I’ve always saved as able and spent very little except for a few months when I was figuring out the emptiness of materialism through my first job and experiences with money. I’m concerned with the very real possibility of homelessness (in a cold country with a mind that shuts down when poorly nourished due to stress), the health of loved ones failing due to stress (or more honestly, people I’m dependent on), having poor health and only access to doctors that are terribly incompetent and if/when we’ll find ourselves in forced labour camps or being killed off in some way. Most people seem content to maintain a trance-like state right until the end, so that puts a further alienating spin on the whole thing. Or not content but fearful of embarassment, a lack of confidence in their abilities to adapt and so on, such that they avoid the conversations, readings, and careful thinking they need to start doing.
I’m glad you’ve found a perspective that works for you.
Thank you Catherine
Thanks for sharing… and perservering.
According to Dr. Elisabeth Kübler-Ross, anger is an expected stage of the grief process (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/K%C3%BCbler-Ross_model). As such it is useful and evolutionary – something to move through and grow beyond, rather than to become mired in. Allowing myself to languish in anger and resentment would be like taking poison and expecting the other person to die. Instead, I choose Life, and growth, and movement.