I had a call from a long standing client the other day. The client is a very successful business woman who works internationally, but has immense fear of financial loss.

She lives in Europe and of course for many Europeans the fear of the unstable European zone brings out many fear based emotions even in very successful people did not know they had.

Old memories about the depression, even WW 2 are coming up. Fear is a very physical thing. It affects the nervous system and drains the brain of blood and oxygen thus diminishing logical thought to a minimum.

My biggest concern in all this is that most people still do not realise just how much they are buying into the collective consciousness. It is a paradox of the human condition that we can tune into all the emotions of other people around us: Be they fear and anxiety, or joy happiness and abundance, yet we believe that these emotions are our own.

Actually nothing could be further from the truth.

The reality is that between 70% to 90% of our feelings, thoughts and emotions are not our own. They just appear to belong to us.

In Buddhist practice the student learns to detach himself from his thoughts and emotions and to learn to observe the self. This practice not only calms the mind but also makes you realise that most of your thoughts and feelings are random and have little or no bearing on your authentic self.

In times when the fear of financial loss is high, as it is at present the momentum of fear feeds on itself. This has a huge impact on our view of the world as individuals but it also affects how the organism of the world itself operates. Since most of you identify with their fears and believe that they are real threats to your very existence you are sending out energy ripples that disrupt the normal decision making processes of a calm mind.

This is the start in a long chain reaction: These ripples make markets unstable, destroy normal buying patterns, cause illness and even affect weather patterns. You are witnessing basic laws of cause and effect, However you do not understand that your are the cause and therefore you can change it at your own will. Rather you think that world events cause you to panic helpless, fearful and stressed when actually your thoughts are causing you to be fearful, anxious, stressed and impecunious.

If you can begin to wrap your mind around this concept and start observing how your thinking causes shifts in your reality and this means your prosperity and abundance, you have taken the first step towards reclaiming your power and create the inner abundance which produces real change.

As Mahatma Gandhi said: "Be the change you want to see in the world"