Fear: Contraction

Lesson number four.

Fear,

Contraction.

We'll begin as usual with a meditation.

Silence is not the absence of noise.

It is the sound of your soul.

Life at times can be dangerous.

The natural emotion of fear provides us with a valuable tool to protect ourselves when necessary.

There are times to contract,

To curl up and make ourselves small,

To hibernate and shut the world out.

This can be a time of protection,

Rest,

And renewal.

Fear is useful to get our attention and to alert us to danger.

It is crucial,

Even life-saving,

To listen to fear,

To hear what it is telling us,

To respond to a threat,

To move,

To contract,

To defend ourselves,

To get out of the way.

Fear,

Like anger,

Is also useful for giving us the energy to take a stand,

To plant both feet on the ground,

To harvest the immediate support and energy of Mother Earth.

We can shelter ourselves when necessary.

There will be times when we must do that to protect our physical and emotional being.

Yet,

While these survival skills are necessary to employ when needed,

This is no way to live a life small,

Contracted,

Defended in fear.

Purpose of fear.

The purpose of fear is caution.

Fear is a healthy response to the threats in the environment around us.

When I get in my car after a winter snowstorm,

Drive down the street,

And I see that the surface of the road is icy,

I sometimes feel a clutch of fear in my chest.

My fear tells me to slow down.

That fear is purposeful and could be life-saving.

However,

If I become obsessed with the fear that I'll have a car accident in the winter,

The natural healthy emotion has become locked into place over time.

It no longer serves me,

At least if I want to live in a snowy place like Maine.

Families who have suffered a loss may know that they are grieving,

They feel their sadness,

But they don't like to feel the fear.

They want to get rid of their fearful feelings.

They are afraid of the fragility of their family,

The strength of their anxiety.

What misfortune might come next?

They are often afraid of very practical things.

They worry about who will shop for food,

How will family meals go,

Especially holiday gatherings and family anniversaries such as births and future losses.

Should we leave her chair at the kitchen table or put it away?

What do we say to well-meaning friends who ask how we are doing?

How are we doing?

Should I see a counselor take medication?

Will I ever be able to sleep through the night again?

What will my life be without him?

To ask these questions is a good way to begin to express fears.

To investigate these fears instead of ignoring them or pretending they don't exist is purposeful.

These are questions without easy answers.

They must be lived into.

The search is valuable and provides meaning and direction.

Like the other natural emotions,

What fear seeks is expression.

We can acknowledge that we feel fear and then find some way to express it out loud.

We can say the words,

I'm afraid.

This may mean we let go of our expectations and others' expectations of us,

Such as being fearless,

Of being the rock of the family.

We often want to play an old role,

To be cool or unafraid or courageous.

We may be trapped in an old prescription,

Pattern or role.

We'll look at that in the class Living Our Essence.

To feel fear may not fit with our self- image or how we wish to be seen by our family and friends,

But fear,

Like the other natural emotions,

Cannot be willed away.

Indeed,

It has a profoundly valuable purpose.

Fear is deep and primal,

Built into us to ensure our survival and help us make course corrections.

Let's look at the distortions of fear.

If the natural emotion of fear is not expressed,

It builds up over time,

Months and years,

And can turn into anxiety.

A clue about anxiety that can help us work with it and melt it away is that anxiety is always about the future.

We worry about some catastrophe that might happen to us in the next minute,

Tomorrow or next year.

Thus,

To the extent that we can return our attention to the present,

The anxiety will diminish.

A primary way to be in the present is to say the feeling out loud,

I feel afraid.

We can use the five senses to ground ourselves in the present.

We can focus on the present moment,

What is going on right now.

Then anxiety tends to melt away.

Another distortion of fear is phobia.

When the original feeling of fear is not honored and expressed,

It expands and takes more emotional territory.

The fear grows and then gets locked into place.

Ignored,

It can go underground and become unconscious.

Such fear can be debilitating,

Especially when it solidifies into forms such as agoraphobia and terror.

Entrenched fear holds us prisoner.

A third distortion of fear is panic,

Which is sharper and more extreme than anxiety.

Panic can produce psychological symptoms such as hyperventilation,

Sweating,

And even uncontrolled bodily movements.

Literally,

Shaking with fear.

Panic can make us act in harmful and dangerous ways.

When we panic,

We lose sight of the purpose of fear,

Caution,

And reason.

We forget or block awareness that our actions,

Including what we say,

May have negative consequences.

Again,

The natural feeling and its expression is paramount.

We do not always have to go into the explanation of why we are afraid or what is making us fearful.

Quite often,

We cannot control that,

But we can feel what we feel.

Let it be known to ourselves and we can take action to express it.

At an Elizabeth Kubler-Ross workshop that I was leading in Alaska,

On the third day when participants were deeply into expressing their natural emotions,

A native Inuit woman came up front to do her work on the mat.

She lamented the many losses her village people suffered from fishing and hunting accidents due to the deadly combination of alcoholism and extreme weather conditions.

She wanted to go outside,

So I walked with her out into the snow.

She was still trembling with fear.

I followed her as she and two friends from her village went around to the back of the big log building where it was private and quiet.

She knelt down in the snow,

With her friends supporting her,

And began to choke and gag.

Then she vomited into the snow.

I watched in amazement to see a small round,

Brown hairball slide out of her mouth down onto the white snow.

It was about the size of a golf ball and it looked slimy and dirty.

Her friends acted as if this was a normal occurrence,

Looked at me and said,

Now she'll be okay.

I realized that if we can express our true feelings before they become physical,

It is easier and takes less toll on our bodies.

Here's another story about fear.

Late one summer,

As the fall season approached,

I agreed to help two friends sail a 40-foot boat south from Massachusetts.

Three of us set out and sailed past Boston Harbor through the Cape Cod Canal and out into the ocean off Long Island.

We made a long,

Slow turn south and past New York Harbor in the distance.

Soon we saw dark clouds building in the western sky.

The wind strengthened and the boat began to roll in the increasing seas.

The waves became white caps and the wind began to whistle in the rigging.

We were out of sight of land and the weather was deteriorating into a storm and we began to feel helpless and afraid.

We knew that few sheltered harbors were available along the New Jersey shore.

The boat was sturdy and well-equipped and the three of us were experienced sailors,

But we were concerned and anxious.

We put our worry into action and,

With the last of the daylight,

Prepared to shorten sail.

While one steered,

Two of us went forward and took in the jib.

We hauled down the mainsail and in its place set a small storm,

Tricel.

Soon the wind rose and eventually we needed to turn on the engine to stay on course.

The engine fumes made me seasick.

As the boat tossed around in the rough seas,

I slid all over the cockpit floor,

Getting myself up when I had to lean over the side to vomit.

The night wore on and we got tired and we became more anxious.

We were afraid we might run out of fuel,

Lose the use of our engine and then be at the mercy of the storm.

We checked the fuel level in the gas tanks and reduced engine speed to conserve fuel.

Eventually,

The sky began to lighten and soon we could see beaches way off to our right.

My fear melted away as the sun rose.

I felt great relief when we identified a buoy and then saw a stone breakwater marking the entrance to a protected inlet near Cape May.

We motored into the channel and finally found a quiet anchorage.

Fear wakes us up to danger and gives us the energy needed to avoid harm.

If we had not shortened sail and used the engine,

We would have been further endangering ourselves.

Even though to feel fear is uncomfortable,

If we can see underneath the discomfort to the real purpose of fear,

We can then use it to create a needed and welcomed measure of safety.

If I had remained stuck in my fear to the point of phobia,

I would have overreacted and might never have set foot on a sailboat again.

I'm glad that did not happen.

I continued to listen to the purposeful voice of fear,

Knowing it has something important to tell me whether I am offshore or onshore.

We'll conclude this chapter with a spiritual practice called a safe place.

Sit by yourself and imagine being in a storm with noise and chaos all around.

Make your body as small and contracted as you can.

Close your eyes tightly.

Wrap your arms around yourself and breathe through your nose minimally and quietly.

Take up as small a space as possible.

Don't move.

Feel yourself contracted and sheltered.

Wrap safely in a shell of protection.

Relax into the security of being small but alive as the seed is tiny yet full of potential.

Rest.

Allow yourself to be safe and secure.

When you are ready,

Expand your breathing,

Stretch and slowly come out of your safe place knowing that you can return when you need to.

Thank you.

I'll meet you next time for Lesson 5,

Love,

Expansion,

The Purposes and Distortions of Love,

And A Story About Robert Frost's beloved poem,

Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening.