If you want to create change externally, first you need to make the shift internally.

So what has the external world view of terrorism today got to do with your own internal state?  Have you stopped to consider where and how “terrorism” lives in you?

Well, I have and what I have realised is that I terrorise myself when I agree with my endless infernal, internal, hyper-critical ego-mind! Every time I agree with this internal critic, I terrorise myself with the possibility that I am somehow really in peril … and the feelings of anxiety, fear and terror begin. The behaviour that follows is anything but pretty – closed rather than open, reactive rather than response-able and resisting rather than accepting.

This “home-grown brand of internal terrorism” is insidious, surprising in its ferocity and comes unexpectedly at times. It is the voice within constantly chanting the “not-good-enough” refrain while relentlessly causing you to question your own self-worth and self-value. It’s you agreeing with the thoughts and feelings that you are not okay the way you are, that the world is a frightening place and the best you can do is manage, protect and defend.

Stopping the internal terrorism is not easy and it’s also not hard. It’s just unfamiliar. It requires practice and diligence and rigour. It requires consciously choosing to remember who you really are and who everyone else really is too: magnificent, powerful, lovable, valuable and creative … willing to choose from LOVE rather than fear, willing to respond rather than react, willing to BE bigger than your feelings and thoughts and perceptions and judgements and limitations …

And willing to show up in love even when you feel afraid.