So welcome.
This is a meditation to help you with your fear,
To help you be with it in a better way and come into right relationship with your own fear.
It will explore three different ways that we can skillfully be with our own fear.
It won't look to remove it,
But it will bring us into a better way of holding our fear within our own heart,
Of finding the information that fear gives us and acting appropriately on it.
I thank you for being here and for daring to look at this tender topic.
We're going to start with a short talk and then explore these different practices that may serve us in moving fear through us.
So if you're feeling a little freaked out,
Congratulations.
You're in the right place.
Feeling fear means that you're not in denial.
It means that you have a human heart and that you're here right in the land of living with us.
Reality is a wild ride and fear is a sane and sensible response to being present to some of the things that happen in our lives.
Fear is one of the prices of admission for being here.
Grief is too.
Yet let's face it,
Fear isn't exactly a fun thing to feel.
Anxiety can have a hard way with us,
Can hijack our systems and send us into dysregulation.
Unfortunately,
Our feelings don't come with some kind of musical mixing desk.
There's no crossfader where we can fade down fear,
Anger,
Despair,
Disgust and fade up joy,
Love,
Light,
Happiness.
There's only a master switch.
We feel everything,
We feel less of everything and the choice is ours.
Some folks live deep in denial and don't feel a lot.
Others get racked with the feels and feel it all immensely and intensely.
If you're one of those people,
This meditation is for you.
We're going to sit together and soothe our nervous systems and look at wise ways through.
Fear is experienced within the body,
Yet sometimes it gets stuck there.
In its healthy form,
It moves on through,
Having given us the information.
Watch out,
Be aware,
There is something that needs tended to.
Yet we can get stuck on hi-a-la.
We can get stuck scanning our external environment for the next threat,
Whether or not it's real.
Sometimes our mind can loop into patterns of fear.
And generally the bravest humans I know who have to work with this are the big-hearted ones who feel everything,
Who look out for others and love deeply.
Learning to work wisely with this does not mean looking to live our life without the fear that lives within us.
It means improving our relationship with our own fear so that it impacts us less.
It gives us information and then goes on its way.
The poet Rumi allegedly said,
Do not move the way that fear makes you move.
Move the way that love makes you move.
So the first way we can tackle fear when it's arising is movement.
It's simply standing and shaking,
Very gently,
Very lightly,
Almost like we could shake the fear out the end of our fingertips,
Like when you splash water off your hands.
Stand up and let your shoulders shake a little,
Let your jaw soften,
And your hands flick the fear off.
You'll see dogs do this sometimes,
If they've just been chased,
They'll stop and shake the fear out of them.
We as humans can do the same.
Sometimes you might need to hide out in your car or in a bathroom stall to do this.
It's not always wise to do it in a public place.
But if you've been through something scary,
Shake it off like Taylor Swift says,
Just shake it off,
Shake it out.
For a couple of minutes.
You'll often find that resets your nervous system some,
That calms you down some.
Another thing that fear can make us do is reach for something.
Track that now.
If fear or anxiety is arising,
See if it has a tendency to make you grab for something.
Sometimes that is wise,
We reach for another human hand for comfort.
Yet sometimes we reach in different ways.
It is at the root of addiction.
We reach for beer or for shopping,
Or for cigarettes,
Or for doom scrolling,
Or for whatever it is for you.
Reaching for something to numb the fear,
Rather than own that it is ours.
That the fear is living within us,
And that it is our responsibility to take care of.
So if you notice that fear makes you reach for something,
Reach for your own hand with your other hand right now.
Feel your two hands grasping together.
Squeeze them a little bit.
Give yourself that sense of,
Yeah,
I got you,
I'm here with you.
You're scared,
I'm reaching for something.
And something is reaching back for me.
Some wise place within me is reaching back to comfort me.
To touch me,
To support me,
To back me up.
You can squeeze your hands reassuringly,
Stroke your own skin.
Bring some down regulation in by coming out of your mind,
And by feeling physical touch on your own body.
This is a really wise way to work with fear,
When it makes us want to grab for something.
The third way we can work with fear,
When we notice that our minds and our guts are whirling and swirling,
Is by noticing just that.
Wow,
Everything is whirling and swirling and shaking and quaking within me.
At times like that,
We likely don't need more movement.
We need to bring our body into balance with stillness,
With simplicity,
With slowing down.
If that is arising for you and the world is whirling,
Take a deeper breath.
Slow your out-breath down.
See if you can increase your out-breath to be a little longer than your in-breath.
If you breathe in for four,
Breathe.
If you can breathe in for six,
Breathe out for eight.
We can practice a few breaths together now to try this.
In two,
Three,
Four,
Five.
Two,
Three,
Four,
Five,
Six,
Seven.
Or whatever count works for you,
Trust your body.
Breathing in and breathing out long and slow and deliberate.
Breathing in,
Here I am.
Breathing out,
Deliberately lengthening my out-breath,
Slowing my body,
Settling down.
Let's sit together for just a quick minute and practice that now.
So if I want to offer one key takeaway from this session,
It's don't fight your fear and don't fear your own fear either.
Fear isn't a sign that there's something wrong with you.
It's a sign that there's a perceived mismatch between the resources you currently have and what might be needed.
It's a signpost to self-care,
To come back to yourself and to get resourced before you do the next thing that is needed to tackle the world.
Feeling our fear doesn't mean that we have to endlessly marinate in it.
That we have to get lost in it or form an identity from it.
Fear is simply a surge of feeling that gives us information.
Something's wrong,
We need to act.
You need to do something to create some safety here.
Working wisely with fear means coming to know yourself as a being who can hold fear and take good care of yourself when it arises.
It means that your inner adult is online,
Here and available to tackle the tasks and that you're not lost in your fear.
Our body has immense intuition within it,
It will give us good guidance.
So as a final practice today,
I'm going to ask you to thank your fear for the information that it gives you.
For sure,
Perhaps sometimes it repeats itself and sometimes very loudly in your mind.
But it comes with good guidance and a wise way through is to partner with our fear.
To thank it for its message and then to turn the volume down when it repeats itself,
Unless it's saying something really urgent.
We're looking to come into wise relationship with it and today we've looked at several different ways we can modulate our own fear and moderate it.
So I see you taking action to be with your fear in a good way and I see you being bold and brave as you sit here and practice with me.
So I thank you and I thank your fear for the guidance it gives you and I thank you for being here with a whole human heart and being brave enough to really be with this human experience.
Bless your practice and bless your day.
I wish you bravery and boldness and deep friendship with your fear and with all aspects of yourself.
Go forth my darling,
You got this.
