Ok so a more successful movement from overwhelmed to neutral has just happened and I can confirm it was following the steps I wrote in - What is your experience like of how you get back to neutral? - #9 by Kub933
I was dealing with one of the hen party companies I work for regarding payment for a job I completed for them. They did not make the payment structure clear upfront before I accepted the job and so I was actually owed more money for the work I completed than they had paid me.
My default is usually to simply ‘be the bigger man’ in these sort of situations and take the hit. As in just accept that I got paid less this time and move on. Today though I realised that I tend to do this out of fear of them turning against me if I dare to question them and so I decided to turn around and go down a different path.
Now as soon as I decided to question them and stand my ground in terms of how this situation needs to be resolved I of course experienced the waves of fear that I usually try to avoid by ‘being the bigger man’. Images of the company no longer giving me work, making things difficult etc were all playing out in my head.
So in terms of resolving the intense feelings this is how it went :
Firstly I ensured that I was fully aware of the fact that I am feeling fearful, as in I did not try to run from it and neither did I try to repress it or turn it into something else - Applying awareness-cum-attentiveness.
Secondly I ensured that I keep my hands in my pockets to ensure that I do not act in a way which will cause further issues with the company down the line or that will set of secondary triggers for me. I made an effort to be (psychically) not moving and as such the intense fear had nowhere to go, it could only burn itself out. I equally observed the fear trying to get up to all sorts of tricks such as the fear inspired scenarios I mentioned above. As this was going on there was the intellectual understanding that this is par for the course and that the sensible thing was to continue not moving (psychically) until the fear is capped sufficiently to allow me to look at it intelligently.
Now that the fear has subsided and I am back to feeling good I am able to look back and see just what it was about the situation that caused such a fear in me, I am now able to look at this fear of conflict with the intent of resolving it and all the while feeling good 