I got a poignant e-mail from someone who runs a small business and will soon have to lay people off from a business that has grown for 10 years but is now struggling in the recession.  “I can’t stand the thought of letting people go that I know are not easily employable elsewhere. Now I work all the time to try and turn things around and can no longer sleep for more than a few hours…and now the anxiety is out of control.”

When my own personal troubles escalated – it was at the start of the recession, and the air was filled with gloom and fear – someone told me “everybody survives,” and I know what he meant. Fear is the unwanted stepchild of life and it seems to me it gets so much worse when we lose sight of the fact that we can not control life or its many challenges, we can only react well to them. This is a person I would love to work for – her energy and thoughfulness come right through the compute. She has done the best she can, and I have learned that the worst anxiety comes from thinking we can control the way the world moves, and thus feel responsible for it. It’s a lot to take on. If there is a God, that is surely his work, not mine.

The battle against fear does not ever end. It ebbs and flows, rises and falls, takes different and insidious shapes and forms. This is where I love to think of Winston Churchill. I am not big on wars or military analogies, but there are points in life when you have to put your feet on the ground, take a deep breath, look into yourself and say, I will simply not be brought down by this, not succumb to it. I will survive. Lots of small steps. Every day. Failure and defeat are simply not options.