Befriending Fear

Most people are not aware of how much fear runs their lives, but trying to get rid of fear only causes more fear. Instead, the shift is all about getting to know the stories of fear you took on.   As soon as you can see the cloud bank of fear you crawled into as you grew up, you can begin to see throughthe cloud bank and come back to the meadow of life.

It is not that you must be free from fear.  The moment you try to free yourself from fear, you create resistance against fear. Resistance in any form does not end fear.  What is needed, rather than running away or controlling or suppressing or any other resistance, is understanding fear; that means watch it, learn about it, come directly into contact with it.  We are to learn about fear, not how to escape from it, not how to resist it.

In order not to be run by fear and to do what he is suggesting – to look at your fear – it is important to ask, “Do I want to be free from fear?”  Initially there will probably be a response of, “Yes, I do.”  But that will be followed by a response such as, “It is scary to look at my fears.”  But when you look at your fear, you will see that it is just mind clouds and is nothing to be afraid of.  It is just fear!   I assure you, looking at fear is one of the safest things you will ever do.

Pema Chodron, an internationally known author and Buddhist nun, tells about a repetitive dream she had when she was younger.  In the dream, a monster was chasing her, and she always woke up in terror at the place where the monster was about to get her.  When she told a friend about the dream, her friend suggested that Pema turn around and look at the monster.  That so scared her that even in the dream she kept on running.  Then one night as she was again running away from the monster, a wall appeared in front of her blocking her escape.  With great trepidation, she turned to look at this monster (feeling like she was going to die) and the monster stopped and didn’t come any closer.  She then noticed that the monster had pink fingernails!  That was the moment she woke up and she never had that dream again!

This dream represents the power of turning and looking at fear itself rather than letting it run you from underneath your everyday awareness.  For a time it is scary, but slowly you realize most of your fear is the result of conditioning you received when you were young.  The more you look and listen, the more your heart opens to how scared your storyteller is and you begin to see that it has been scared for a very long time.  Your heart, however, is not afraid.  It is your heart that can bring your fears the attention they need in order to be healed.  That is why the monster had pink fingernails.  How could you be scared of a monster like that?

I was raised in an environment that fostered terror, and I became so caught in the world of fear that in my early twenties I tried to kill myself three times because the intensity of the fear that I lived in was unbearable.  My fear showed up as dread – the combination of feeling something really bad is going to happen and the belief that it is happening because I have done something very wrong.  I tried psychiatrists, psychologists, group therapy, counselors, medications, affirmations, hospitals, meditation, hypnotherapy, and anything else I could find in order to try to outrun my fears.  It was only when I was taught how to turn towards my fear, becoming compassionately curious about its story rather than trying to fix it or get rid of it, that the pressure was released.  Fear will always be a part of me, but whereas it used to be 110% of me, now it is only 5%, and when it does arise, I can listen to it rather than getting lost in its story, and in that listening it calms down through the healing energy of my heart.

So be curious about your particular stories of fear.  Today, is fear lurking in your mind?  If so, is it the fear of being rejected, or being seen as less than, or being forgetful, or being alone, or being late, or feeling unequal to the task, or that you aren’t smart enough or good looking enough?  Fear has a story about almost everything!   So when you notice that you are paying attention to a fear story, say to yourself, “That is just the scared one inside of me!”  We ALL have a scared one inside of us, and the more you can relate to it rather than falling into its story, the more you will come out of the cloud bank of fear and be truly alive!