“It’s only fear, it’s only fear that keeps you locked in here.”
Songwriter Alexi Murdoch
Q: Make fear my friend? Why would I want to do that?
A: Because it’s the only way to be at peace with it.
Be at peace with fear? That might sound impossible, but I can guarantee that learning to be at peace with fear will completely transform your life. I’m not saying you’ll never feel fear again, as it is a natural part of the human experience. In fact, you will even discover that fear has something to offer you. When you do experience fear, however, you will know how to be with it so it doesn’t run your life. Until we know fear intimately, until we allow ourselves to welcome it in as a friend, fear is in control of our lives. And when we can relax with fear, it truly becomes our ally rather than our adversary.
āWhat You Resist Persistsā
Speaking of adversary, many of the strategies we frequently use to deal with fear view it as an opposing force that needs to be reckoned with. We try to overcome it, push through it, fight it, conquer it, avoid it, cope with it, and manage it. Whew! Sounds like a lot of work. What is common to these strategies is resistance: we move against our experience of fear in an effort to eradicate or control it. Even gentle strategies, such as deep breathing and calming self-talk, although useful at times, create resistance through their intent to get rid of the fear. No matter how accomplished we are at using any of these strategies, the fear will undoubtedly rise up again, requiring more of our precious energy. As the saying goes, āwhat you resist persists.ā
Moving with Fear
A clue to an alternative, freeing way to address fear comes from the martial art of aikido. The philosophy behind aikido is to blend with the motion of the attacker rather than opposing him head-on. We already know how to oppose fear head-on, but how to blend with the motion of it?
For some reason I have never quite understood, people find fear scary. All that’s needed is a subtle sign of fear, and our bodies and minds go into hyperdrive to try to eliminate it as if fear is an unwanted intruder, an enemy poised to destroy us. The only way to find out if this is actually true is to stop running and turn around to meet fear.
Avoiding or suppressing our inner experiences that are actually here perpetuates anxiety, separation, and dis-ease. It’s like taking an apple pie and throwing out one slice because we don’t want it to be there. Fear, like all of our experiences, is a tap on the shoulder that says, āCan I come in, please?ā Why welcome it in as an old friend? To quote the Everest climber George Mallory, āBecause it’s there.ā When we know our experiences intimately, they cease having the power to control us. We are integrated and relaxed, and we can, finally, put down our vigilance and weapons of defense and separation.
The Process of Welcoming Experience
If I have piqued your interest, and you are willing to begin to sincerely know fear, turn your attention inside. It starts with a very simple greeting: āHello, fear.ā The meeting comes from a place of openness, curiosity, and not knowing. After all, this may be the first time you are actually welcoming the friend that may have been your companion for a very long time. Realize that as much as you may have strategized in the past, you don’t really know what fear is like.
In addition, tenderness is required. Fear may have been the excluded one, the friend who has been ignored, left out in the cold. It takes warm and loving attention for the ice to melt, for the fear to come out of hiding and be seen for what it is, which is actually much less scary than anything you might imagine.
As you begin with, āHello, fear,ā see how your body feels. You might notice tension, vibration, or fluttering. Resist the urge to avoid, and simply stay with the sensations, allowing them to be present without doing anything to them. Don’t freak out. All that’s happening is that you are feeling some physical changes in your body. Simply let them happen, and stay with it.
Notice your thoughts. As you are witnessing them, you will see that they don’t define who you are. The witness of the thoughts is kind and receptive, so you can just allow the thoughts to be. It doesn’t matter what they are saying, just allow them to come and go.
Listen
In welcoming fear (or any other experience), you are open, available, and non-judging. Spiritual teacher Jean Klein says, āYou are in a state of listening.ā There is no doing, strategizing, or manipulating, no wishing for the experience to stop, not limiting it in any way ā simply a kind and loving noticing of what is true in the moment. This is a radical way of being with a seemingly difficult feeling and ends the suffering, resistance, and efforting.
As you are with the experience of fear, you may become aware of a story about it, as in, āI’m afraid of…ā The true medicine of directly meeting fear is devoid of the story ā it’s meeting the fear itself without any content. Experiment with letting the thoughts about it float away, and pay attention to what is actually appearing.
Inquire
Now, let’s go a little deeper by asking the fear questions. Here are some suggestions:
- Why are you here? What are you trying to tell me or do for me?
Hint: You may find that fear is trying to protect or motivate you. - How do you look at the world? What do you expect from people and situations?
Hint: You may find caution, suspiciousness, doubt, or mistrust. - Anything else you would like to tell me?
Hint: Simply be open.
Take some time to let what you’ve learned sink in. Let your heart open to honor that fear is present for a reason and has been influencing and controlling you based on its world view. You are doing something so amazing ā you are allowing a rejected part of you to come out of the shadows to be seen and heard. It is no longer relegated to your unconsciousness where it irritates and pressures you. It is invited in warmly as a valid and true arising.
The Mystery of Not Knowing
What happens at this point is part of the mystery. When we end the inner war and put down our arms by embracing fear, we are in a place we’ve never been before. Make the space for clarity to come to you in the space of not knowing, and continue listening. If the spark to make some changes appears, have the courage to follow it, as this is your natural life path, not one based on fear and limitation.
This last point I cannot stress enough, and that is to always open your heart to meet fear fully. Just as good health requires a lifestyle of attention to diet and exercise, being at ease with fear requires an ongoing willingness to meet it directly. If you are welcoming your experience so it will go away, it probably won’t, as you are still resisting. But if you are receptive to whatever arises, as it is, you will find it does not matter if fear is present or not. Life is so rich. Every experience that arises is a friend, a gift, an invitation to break down your inner boundaries. Allow everything in always, and you will discover the peace beyond peace.
I’d love to hear your questions and insights. What role has fear played in your life? What have you learned from it?
Monte Umphress says
Hi, Gail, thanks for another excellent article.
My initial reaction to fear is usually a big should. Judgments about fear and what it says about me. Uncomfortable, unspiritual, impotent. Feeling vulnerable in a dangerous world. It helps me to drop my judgments by dropping the label. Then I can have the sensation. Usually a tightness below my diaphragm. Thinking I know what’s best for me. Fear is spiritual, it’s honest. Dr. Klein would say that this dynamic, receptive listening is who we really are.
Love, peace and healing, Monte
Gail Brenner says
Monte,
You are noticing that when there is a story around fear, which starts with the label, it is sticky and uncomfortable. Dropping the label lets go of the story, and then there is simply sensation. In this way, fear is seen as just another beautiful offering in the moment.
Love to you….
Cynthia says
Hi Gail,
Thank you so much for this website and your words. Fear entraps us into a norm that we are too familiar with. The idea of greeting it and embracing it is liberating indeed.
Gail Brenner says
Welcome to the site, Cynthia! You make an interesting point about fear being the norm. Freedom from it is possible by welcoming it – but most of us don’t naturally think of doing that. I know I didn’t earlier in my life. I have found that dropping all the strategies and manipulation and just allowing it to be is truly liberating.
Jared | SpiritualZen.net says
I have found that fear inevitably is a result of usually two things; fear of not getting something I think I want, or fear of loosing something I think I have.
FEAR (False Evidence Appearing Real)
FEAR (Face Everything And Recovery)
“The only way to find out if this is actually true is to stop running and turn around to meet fear.”
By meeting it head on, I see where it’s rooted, then I can determine what action to take.
The more I’ve discovered that everything I need for inner-peace and happiness, I already possess within myself, the less I fear.
Eiminating fear completely is probably impossible. And yes it can be good. In that when I feel fear, I’m probably getting ready to grow spiritually. I guess it’s more of an uncomfortable feeling today than fear. The more I learn how to move through it, the more experienced I become in dealing with it.
The result is I learn how to let any situation, no matter how fearful, take me to where I’m supposed to be and not just where I’ve ended up.
Gail Brenner says
You’ve expressed some wonderful insights, Jared. Thank you so much. Fear arises from stillness. If we follow fear to its actual root, we see that it arises from space, then disappears. If you bring your attention to that space, the stillness from which the fear arises, you will see that there is no fear there. You can try it out for yourself and see. Then you might see also that all experiences arise from this space, then disappear. This is consciousness, awareness. It is still, spacious, open, and unafraid – it is always present – and is realized to be who you are when everything else falls away.
Christopher Foster says
Dear Gail: I found this piece exquisite, and timely for me. I’m very happy I came across your blog. With thanks, Chris Foster.
Gail Brenner says
Welcome, Chris! I’m so glad you found this post helpful. I love how what appears is somehow exactly what we need – happens to me all the time. Wishing you well…
MrLovingKindness says
āFor some reason I have never quite understood, people find fear scary.ā
Itās actually pretty straightforward.
The purpose of fear is to motivate you to find and eliminate some external threat. If you are being stalked by a tiger, stopping to investigate your feelings results in you becoming a meal for the tiger. We are afraid of our fear because we are descendant from earlier humans who were afraid of their fear. The ones that were not afraid of their fear didnāt reproduce and didnāt pass on this useful characteristic.
That said, this characteristic isnāt as useful as it once was. For most people, there are far fewer threats in their current environment, compared to the environment (millions of years ago) in which the emotions of fear calibrated.
I find it helpful to consider that the original purpose of my emotions is not to make me happy but to encourage behaviors that enhance the probabilities of survival and reproduction. There are techniques which can harness these emotions to āmake me happyā, but they are generally hard to implement because you are essentially fighting against millions of years of evolution (call it karma).
Iām a little late to the party here. I found this blog through another recently, and I have been working through some of the earlier material, which I find to be excellent, clearly presented, and generally accurate.
Gail Brenner says
Welcome to you, Mr. LK, and thank you so much for such a clear explanation of why we are afraid of fear. Stopping to investigate fear certainly wouldn’t promote the survival of the species in the wild, so being afraid of it is adaptive.
And I like your perspective on reminding yourself that emotions are about survival, not happiness. So if what we want is happiness, it serves us to look beyond or through our emotions to the essence of our nature. From my own experience, I have discovered that when emotions are broken down to their elements, all I find are thoughts and bodily sensations. We can then make a choice to have these not define us. And when we do, we discover our nature as vast, limitless, space overflowing with love – with no separation. That’s the benefit of being a human rather than a tiger!
There is always a party here, so all are welcome any time. Glad to have you along as a reader.
I wish you well…
MrLovingKindness says
āwhen emotions are broken down to their elements, all I find are thoughts and bodily sensationsā
I find this too, but, taking it a step further, is wanting happiness just wanting some thoughts and sensations more than others? Preferring the sensations I label tranquility over the sensations I label fear, for example? I agree that trying to find happiness externally is a foolās errand, and itās certainly easier to change the internal landscape than the external, but isnāt it the searching itself that is unsatisfying? Wishing for something that is not already here?
Gail Brenner says
Hi LK,
True peace comes from receiving everything that arises in a welcoming presence. It is our minds that judge things as good or bad, preferred or not preferred. Going beyond the mind creates the possibility for neutral, loving receptivity.
Wanting happiness might seem like it is wanting something that is not here, which creates a kind of striving. But actually happiness/peace/love is our nature, always here and available, interwoven into the fabric of who we are. It is obscured by mental patterns, emotional dramas, and the desire to distract ourselves from what we perceive as painful. When me make the choice to turn our attention inward and allow ourselves to simply be with what is, the patterns begin to fall away, revealing that eternal happiness has been here all along. It is a remembering, a return home.
You might want to check out this post.
MrLovingKindness says
You seem to be suggesting that the happiness/peace/love state is more nearly what we are rather than just another (albeit more enjoyable) temporary, conditional, experiential state around which it is possible to build yet more emotional drama. Instead of just around the fearful, constricted states, now we can build the storyline around the drama of being in or how we can get back into the happiness/peace/love-is-our-nature state.
Gail Brenner says
Interesting, Mr. LK,
My recommendation here would be to not build a drama around getting back to happiness/peace/love. I used to get caught in that, and it is a painful cycle that has no solution.
Getting back to some place that’s not here now is a story. I would say let go of all stories and lovingly embrace whatever is here in this moment. The one who wants to return to a happy state is suffering and feeling lack. If that lack is welcomed, there is peace once again. This is always available because, as you said, it is who we are. There is no separate self.
I appreciate your thoughtful comments.
MrLovingKindness says
I think we are in agreement except for the āwho we areā part. I would say we are no more the peaceful state than we are the agitated state, but thatās a rather subtle distinction that is probably not all that important for many people who are generally just looking for some relief, which is not a bad place to start or even, perhaps, end.
I am glad youāre no longer caught in the getting back to happiness cycle, and I think the notion of āwelcoming the lackā is well put in your response. I also appreciate that you post individually to so many comments and your wiliness to engage the readerās responses. Thatās a great deal of work and a generous offering.
I look forward to reading more of what you are saying.
Gail Brenner says
Isn’t that the truth, Mr. LK? We all want relief from our suffering. That is what got me started on my search. And it’s led me places I never could have imagined.
I appreciate your kind words. I get so much joy from interacting with people who visit here. And it’s great to know fellow lovers of truth and clarity, like you.
Wishing you well…
Becca says
I think one of the biggest parts of fear, for me anyway, is failure. There are certain things I would like to do, but I know what the risks and failures involved are. And that alone can stop me in my tracks. I also know that by being fearful I may not be engaging in what makes me truely happy. I also know that through failures a lot can be learned. I could embrace fear and welcome the experience like you mention, but failing has never been a pleasant experience.
Another factor involved with fear for me is judgement. I’m not sure if fear is the right word, but on my blog for example there are many things I’d love to write about. Things I’m very passionate about like spirituality and politics, but I don’t because 1) I don’t want to be judged and 2) I’m not sure if I want everyone to know all my personal thoughts/feelings. If it were people reading my blog who I didn’t know I would definitely be more open though.
.-= BeccaĀ“s last blog ..Peppermint Nutella Cookies =-.
Gail Brenner says
Hi Becca,
I’m so glad you made your way over here. Welcome to you!
There’s nothing inherently wrong with fear. If you choose to not go in certain directions because of your fear of the consequences, this is a perfectly valid decision. It all depends on what you want.
If your life isn’t satisfying, or you would like to not be holding yourself back, or if you want to explore the outer limits of what you think is possible for you, then the fear is tapping you on the shoulder and asking for your attention.
There’s no right or wrong decision here. As you contemplate these possibilities, you may want to look at this article: Are you brave enough to go the distance for your happiness?
Sending love to you….
maria says
Hi Gail,
I have discovered that whenever I have fearful thoughts, I have sesations associated with it.(usually tightness in head and it lingers very long, sometimes for days). So I find it very difficult to welcome that pain. Please suggest me what can I do to eliminate the pain associated with fear.
Thanks
Maria
Gail Brenner says
Hi Maria,
I appreciate that you want to eliminate this pain, but I don’t know of a way to do that – except possibly by taking medicine. These physical manifestations of fear have a mind of their own, so to speak, meaning that we don’t have control over them. It sounds like you are not wholly welcoming these sensations. The truth is that you want them to go away. As the saying goes, what we resist persists. I know it would be hard, but can you be with the sensations as if they might be there in exactly the way they are forever? This is a way to move past the resistance of wanting them to go away.
Even by meeting them without resistance, I can’t guarantee that they will go away. True meditation is opening our awareness to all things always – no goal, not even a process. Simply the moment by moment allowing of what is.
There is also the possibility that there is more to this. Sometimes our stories need to be told, and we go through the story, without gripping it, as a pathway to freedom. I would be able to offer more about this in a private conversation, if you are interested.
Your thirst for freedom is so obvious, Maria, and so beautiful to witness.
Kadeeja says
Thank you Gail. I have read this countless times and keep applying it on a daily basis and I have invited a lot of people to come and read this wonderful piece so that they can also be at peace with what is. Basically all my fearful thoughts or separation seems to come from points of density or heaviness in the left shoulder and now also in the left part of the head. The sensation in the head now manifests as physical pain – doctors say it is masseter bursitis. No pain medicine seems to alleviate it. When witnessing happens and attention is gently and lovingly placed on this part, there is a blissful sensation. It is like an intense pleasure. That is what is happening now.
About a month back, it gave me insight into a fearful thought that I was having which was preventing me from studying. As soon as I accepted that I may never study, the answer came and when I talked to fear and said it would be all right, I was able to study and write an exam. So you have really helped me a lot. Thank you so much.
Peace.
Gail Brenner says
I am so happy to hear this, Kadeeja. Your courage speaks volumes! You are learning in your own direct experience that you can meet emotions and sensations even if you are afraid of them. I love what you are realizing, and now I want to say, “Keep going…”
Always in love…
Kristie says
Hi Gail,
A very interesting post.. I think I will need to read this a few times. I have suffered with phobias and anxiety disorder from a very young age. Therapy helped/helps and I had a good run for 10 years without any major setbacks. I am struggling with this again. I don’t think I have ever welcomed fear fully. It can get extremely intense and debilitating, so I do not know how to be friends with it.
If I were to welcome it/feel it/accept it, it will show on my face and I don’t know how I could let it be in the company of others? I fear judgement and being so open about it. I am good at hiding it. I know how to do that. I do not know how to allow the terrible feelings/thoughts/sensations to be there without any resistance. I find it hard to see it as a friend… I will read this agin. Many thanks,
Kristie
Bruce Mackenzie says
Dear Gail,
I have come here from a Google search on welcoming fear. As a 67 year old man who has been dealing with the Tinnitus for the last 20 years, I found your analysis of fear so very comforting. Tinnitus survives and thrives on the sense of terror/fear it creates through neural pathways in the CNS. So much of this is driven by fear and our unwillingness/inability to engage with this primal emotion. I have read much around the power of fear to create a distraction to the root causes of our psychic pain but your article is profoundly encouraging. I wish that I had read this 10 years ago and I might have been a bit further down my route to reconciliation with my inner self. Thanks again for a heartfelt comment on fear in all its guises.
Gail Brenner says
Thank you so much for sharing here, Bruce. It’s never too late. Now that you have a deeper understanding, you and your inner self can develop a more friendly and loving relationship. Best wishes on your path….