Combinaciones de negocios y otras adquisiciones (a) Participación no controlante

Meeting a woman for the first time (or even the fifth time) can precipitate a crisis of nerves. It is an all too familiar feeling, that hard knot in the stomach, the clenching behind the jaw, the sweaty palms, red face, stammering, being unable to swallow. You panic, choke up, and it is a major relief to escape from the situation. Another opportunity blown.

Beneath nervousness lurks shattering fear, the stuff of childhood nightmares. Admit the fear. Confront it. You fear making a fool of yourself. You fear messing up. You fear rejection. You fear ridicule. You fear mocking laughter. You fear what fear itself is doing to you, breaking down your resolve and triggering the reflex to run and hide. Yet, you can grit your teeth and fight back. Know you can be afraid, and still do what needs to be done.

I must not fear. Fear is the mind−killer. Fear is the little−death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain.

"Bene Gesserit Litany Against Fear" from Frank Herbert's "DUNE"

Learn to control the physiological manifestations of nervousness.Breathing is the key. In the midst of an attack of nerves, you are taking frequent shallow breaths, hyperventilating, superoxygenating your blood, overloading your system with adrenaline. Discipline your breathing. Inhale deeply, but only at the rate of once per six seconds (this is the rhythm of the pounding surf). Hold breath, count cadence, 1−−−2−−−3−−−4−−−5−−−6, breathe, hold, 1−−−2, exhale. The rhythm becomes automatic, no longer requiring your conscious attention. Now, silently, within yourself, chant a favorite poem, or an

appropriate mantra, "I−shall−endure, I−shall−endure...". Visualize a deep reflecting pool, a pool of cool, clear water − an island of stillness in the eye of the storm. Cup your hands and drink of the soothing, tranquil liquid. Let the healing cold trickle down your throat and wash away the tightness. Your pulse rate gradually slows, the tension drains from you, and the perspiration dries as calm returns.

Distance yourself from the woman talking to you, exciting you, yes, but crippling you with anxiety. Need, desperation, and loneliness have dragged you into a whirlpool of hyperacute emotional sensitivity. It is as though your feelings were a raw open wound, and a single touch means agony. Weakness! Vulnerability! In your mind, put up a shield, construct an invisible barrier between the two of you. Imagine someone else is there, someone less threatening, perhaps a childhood acquaintance or your third grade teacher. This effectively removes the emotional charge from the encounter.

cannot, will not impinge upon each other, neither physically nor yet in the realm of feelings. You are only just building a bridge to each other,"establishing diplomatic relations". It is a small, safe beginning.

In time, you will learn to harness the motive force, the savage power, the explosive energy that fuels your mind and body's reaction to challenge. Fear can mobilize, rather than paralyze. Think of it as a resource, a reservoir of energy. Harness it. Use it. Learn to fly with it.

Life only demands from you the strength you possess. Only one feat is possible −− not to have run away.

Loneliness

There is a fundamental human need for companionship, for a sympathetic ear, for reassurance, for hearing my feelings and sentiments echoed back, for touching and being touched. Being alone is sensory deprivation, slow torture, and my soul cries out for the company of a kindred spirit, for the comfort that only a friend can give, for someone who can fill the emptiness, who can share the isolated moments of my existence.

Loneliness weakens the spirit. It consumes my strength and dims my inner flame. It tempts me to wallow in self−pity, to descend into a kind of gloomy rapture, depressed and paralyzed, yet at the same time glorying in my own misery, suffering proudly in a private hell. For all that, loneliness is a state of mind, an affliction of the soul rather than an external condition, and it is entirely within my power to fight it, and perhaps work toward self−healing.

Resisting loneliness is more than just "keeping busy", immersing myself in so many activities that I have no time to reflect on my sad state. It means following my interests, improving my skills, developing myself as a multifaceted individual. It's about going out and meeting people, making contacts, learning to survive in a social context. It means living my dream, not at some future time when I might finally be in a relationship, but NOW.

"I was taught to feel, perhaps too much

The self−sufficing power of solitude."

Wordsworth

Aloneness is the riddle I must solve in order to be worthy of the companionship of others, and therein lies the central paradox of being alone − that it can either ennoble, or degrade. The essential difference between

aloneness and loneliness is the anguish, the acute hunger for contact that the lonely suffer. Could I but consider solitude a necessary journey of discovery, a crisis that may ultimately purify and strengthen me, then I might emerge from this Dark Night of the Soul uplifted and exalted, more fully realized as a person. Once comfortable in my own company, reconciled to the austere beauty of silence, of privacy, of total

self−sufficiency, only then can I travel onward and explore the horizons of interaction, of exchange, of binding with my fellow humans.

"...the thinking man is driven... to long desperately for some quiet place where he can reason undisturbed and take inventory."

Learning to Love Another