Finding Freedom In Our Fears

So there was a very young married couple,

Really happily married.

They had been high school sweethearts.

They loved doing the same things.

They had the same interests.

They would finish each other's sentences.

They were just a perfect match.

And not long after they got married,

The husband was called off to the Great War.

And after he went to the war,

They would send each other these long love letters,

Really intimate letters,

And talking about what they were going to do when he got back.

And the letters were just beautiful.

But after a couple of years,

The letters started to get a little less frequent.

And they became a little shorter until eventually the husband was barely sending any letters at all.

And while the young wife,

The young woman,

Was really afraid of what was happening,

She figured,

You know,

He's at war.

I mean,

It's probably really hard to write these really loving letters.

And,

You know,

I'm not going to worry about it right now.

So then she gets word that he's coming back.

And she's so happy.

She's so excited.

And she's running to the train station to meet all the soldiers are coming off.

And as soon as she sees him,

She breathes this big sigh of relief as if she's been holding her breath for four years,

Because she can see he's fully intact.

He didn't get harmed.

But then when he comes towards her,

She notices that there's a little bit of distance between them,

That he doesn't quite seem the same man as that went four years ago.

But she just dismisses any fears she has about it.

She thinks,

You know what,

He's just gotten back.

He's just back from war.

Let me give him a little bit of time.

But as the days go on,

And the weeks and the months,

He doesn't get any better.

And then one day,

She realizes all of her worst fears have come true,

That he is a changed man.

He's not going back to who he was before.

And she goes into total despair,

Has an absolute breakdown.

For days,

She's left in her room,

She can't do anything.

And then she remembers that many years ago,

She remembered hearing some of the townspeople talk about this very old wise woman that lived up in the mountains.

And she thought to herself,

You know what,

I'm going to go see that old wise woman because I've heard she can make magic.

And maybe she can fix this problem for me.

So the next morning,

She gets up,

She goes up the mountain,

And she's looking all over for where the woman might be.

And she finds this entrance to a cave.

And she thinks,

You know,

That's kind of the type of entrance I would expect a wise woman to live in.

And she peers in and she sees at the end,

She can see some light.

So there's a fire at the end of the inside the cave.

Inside the cave.

And so she walks in,

And she comes to the back and she sees the old woman and they exchange some pleasantries.

And the old woman then asked her,

She says,

So what can I do for you?

What brings you here?

And the young woman tells her what's happened to her husband and how frightened she is that this is how it's always going to be.

And the old woman listens and she says,

Ah,

Yes,

Yes.

She's like,

Yes,

Yes,

I can do something for them.

I can make you a potion.

And the woman,

The young woman is just ecstatic.

Oh my God,

That would be amazing.

She's like,

Yeah,

No problem,

No problem.

So she starts looking around for different,

Different bits and pieces,

And she's putting them in her bowl.

And then she says,

Okay,

Well,

There's one final ingredient that I'm going to need.

And I really need,

You need to be the one that gets it.

The young woman says anything,

Tell me what it is.

I'll go get it right away.

She says,

Okay,

I need you to get the whisker from a tiger.

And the young woman's like,

What?

And she goes,

Yes,

The whisker from a tiger.

And not just any tiger,

A live tiger.

And the young woman thinks you're crazy.

I can't do that.

The old woman says,

Well,

A moment ago,

You were willing to do anything.

And then the young woman thinks,

Yep,

Yep,

You're right.

I am willing to do anything.

I will get you that whisker of the tiger.

So she goes down the mountain.

She is racking her brain at what,

How am I going to get the whisker of a tiger?

And then as the day progresses,

And she's making the evening meal,

And she remembers hearing some people talk about on the other side of town,

There's another mountain.

And up in that mountain,

There's an old tiger.

And you know,

Maybe that tiger is so old,

He has difficulty getting food.

And I'm sitting here making our evening meal.

So maybe I could make a little bit extra.

And I could bring some food to the tiger.

So the next morning,

She gets a big bowl of food for the tiger.

And she sets off for the mountain.

She's walking up the hill.

She's frightened out of her mind,

But she's like,

I got to do this.

And she's looking around,

And eventually she comes across a cave.

And she sees out front of that cave,

All the tiger paw prints in the ground.

She thinks this must be it.

This must be where he lives.

This is his den.

So she's so afraid at this point,

Though,

She just thinks,

I'm going to drop down the bowl of food.

And she runs back down the mountain,

And just wanting to get away from the situation.

But then that evening,

Again,

She makes some extra food for the tiger.

And she goes up the next day,

And she's scared out of her mind as she's walking up the mountain.

And she gets to the cave,

And she sees that the other bowl is empty that she left the day before.

And so she replaces it with the bowl of food.

And she does this day after day.

She keeps bringing food,

And each day the bowl is empty.

And then after about two weeks of doing this,

She's coming up with her bowl of food.

And just as she turns around,

Turns the bend towards the cave,

She sees the tiger is there.

And she stops dead in her tracks.

But the tiger is eating the food that she had left before.

And he's not even paying attention to her.

And so she walks towards the tiger.

And as she's walking towards him,

He does look up at her.

But then he looks right back down,

And he keeps eating.

She thinks,

Maybe I have garnered some good favor with the tiger by bringing some food.

So she,

You know,

Petrified,

Her hands shaking,

She comes forward with the bowl of food,

And she sets it down just next to the tiger.

And as she does this,

She reaches out,

And she plucks the whisker off the tiger's face.

Again,

He looks at her with one eye,

And then goes right back to eating his food.

She starts backing away about 100 feet until she can't see the tiger anymore,

At which point she turns around and she is running down the mountain.

And she is so excited.

She has never felt better in her life.

She is so happy.

And she feels as though she could take on any challenge in this moment.

At which point she realizes there was no potion,

That what the old woman was giving her,

Instead of a potion,

Instead of having to come to the old woman every time she had a challenge in her life,

Every time she feared something,

That what she gave her instead was the courage,

To see the courage,

To find the courage that she had in herself already,

To face all of her fears,

To face all of her challenges.

So that was a very long story to bring up a topic that we talk about here a lot,

Facing our fears,

And our biggest fear being feeling our feelings.

Again and again,

We come back to this topic and we know that we do fear feeling because we spend an inordinate amount of time running from our feelings,

Distracting ourselves,

Numbing ourselves,

Getting lost in the stories of why I'm so afraid,

Right?

Spending hours and hours and hours,

But never coming in and feeling.

And partly,

Part of this is because we do fear what would happen if I actually felt my feelings,

Right?

We're so used to stuffing our feelings down that we have this fear that if I'm not stuffing them down,

Then they're just going to explode,

Not realizing that it's the stuffing down action that is making it feel like they're going to explode.

And we know,

We have scientific studies to back this up,

And we know in our own experience that the more that we push down on our feelings,

On our sadness,

On our grief,

On our fear of our anxiety,

Of our stress,

Of our shame,

Of our guilt,

The more that we push down on these feelings,

They don't go away,

They don't stay the same,

They get bigger.

And then what happens,

Because all this pushing down takes a lot of effort,

Takes a lot of stress,

And then the feelings keep stacking on top of each other,

And then at some inopportune time,

Some moment when we least expect it,

Our feelings do explode.

They come out in some outsized way that we're unable to be with because it is so outsized,

It's so uncontrollable.

And then we feel again,

Oh,

I have the proof,

See?

My feelings are explosive.

I can't feel them because look at what just happened.

And so we go back to stuffing our feelings again.

And this is the dilemma for so many people,

So many people in the world walking around stuffing down their feelings,

Right?

Feet walking around in tight little balls,

Right?

So tense,

Trying to hold everything together,

And we're just bumping into each other,

Triggering each other,

Setting each other off,

Right?

And this is where we have the moments where people have road rage because someone cut them off on the freeway,

Or where someone has a meltdown when the barista gets the coffee order wrong,

Or there's an inconvenience at the grocery store,

The flight's delayed,

Where people have these complete meltdowns not because of the thing that actually just happened,

But it was just the straw that broke the camel's back.

They couldn't take it anymore,

And so it explodes.

And then the cycle just keeps repeating,

I better keep stuffing my feelings down.

Look at what happens every time I let them out.

And we have to be very,

Very careful on the spiritual path as well,

Because we can still stuff our feelings down pretending that we are doing it in the name of a superficial or an intellectual understanding of impermanence,

Of emptiness,

Of no self,

That we can imagine,

Oh,

I don't feel that.

I'm not hurt because of what that person said to me.

I'm not hurt because someone criticized me or because I felt excluded from some event.

Oh,

No,

No,

No,

I don't feel those things anymore because there's no self.

There's no,

It's not just impermanence,

Just coming and going,

Right,

As a way to rationalize not feeling our feelings.

And if we can't feel the hurt of being excluded,

If we can't feel the hurt from someone criticizing us or being disappointed or being frustrated,

How do we think we will feel the grief,

The sadness when that comes along?

How will we be able to feel the fear of getting old,

The fear of getting sick,

The fear of losing our ability to do certain things,

The fear of dying,

The fear of losing everything and everyone that we love because that is the inevitability for all of us.

So if we keep our understanding at the superficial level,

It actually hinders our spiritual progress.

It stunts our spiritual progress because all we're really doing is continuing to fuel the cycle of samsara,

The grasping,

The aversion,

The ignorance that fuels this cycle of suffering.

And so to break,

To break the cycle,

We come in,

We use the breath to come into the body to feel our experience,

To feel what it is that's here,

Not the story that's telling us how terrifying about something in the future that could happen,

Might happen,

But to feel what is that's here now because the story is not what's happening.

What's happening is we're feeling something.

We might be feeling sadness because maybe we did lose someone recently.

And instead of getting lost in the fear of feeling our sadness and how am I going to cope with this sadness and this grief in the future,

In essence,

Stuffing down our feelings again,

Instead coming in and feeling that sadness,

Feeling that grief,

Opening up to it,

Allowing it to be here,

Right?

Opening and welcoming,

Right?

That we talk about so often like really like it's okay that sadness is here,

Right?

It's okay that anger is here,

Right?

It's okay that disappointment is here.

It's okay that fear is here,

Like really opening up to it and saying it's okay to be here.

It's here anyway.

We might as well open up to it and feel it because this is where we start to really see the teachings,

Right?

Where they go from an intellectual understanding down into a place of knowing that when we open up to our anger and we allow it to be here and we allow the feelings to be here,

So we breathe into it and we give space for those feelings.

And what you start to notice,

Because we're no longer telling ourselves the story of why I'm so angry,

Keeping our attention outwards,

Now we're bringing our attention inwards and we're feeling it.

So the story that was fueling the anger,

Now we're bringing our attention inwards and we're feeling it.

And it's uncomfortable,

It's unpleasant,

But it's not terrifying.

And if we can be with the anger in a really open and accepting way,

In a welcoming way,

Then we can also keep peeling back the layers of that anger.

What's behind their anger?

Hurt?

Was it that you were hurt because you felt ignored,

Because you felt left out?

Oh,

Hurt,

It's okay that you're here too,

Right?

And we tend to those feelings because if we don't tend to the hurt that's fueling the anger,

The anger is just going to keep arising or the hurt,

Sorry,

Is just going to keep arising in different ways.

So we need to come in and we feel it.

And what we know is when the conditions change from the story of what it is that I'm fearing into feeling what it is that I'm feeling,

We notice I feel a little bit better.

I feel a little bit more spacious.

I feel a greater sense of freedom even in this unpleasant feeling because I'm no longer pushing it away.

And we notice,

Ah,

This is impermanence.

This is the teaching of emptiness,

Of no self,

Because a minute ago or five minutes ago,

I was terrified.

There was a little me up here that was terrified of feeling something.

And now that I'm actually feeling it,

That little version of me that I just imagined in my head that was so terrified doesn't exist.

Conditions changed.

It arose based on certain conditions,

Thinking about how am I going to handle this?

The thinking went away.

I came in and I felt.

So did that little me that was so terrified.

And you start to get a direct experience of no self.

Not that you get it one and done in that moment,

Right?

But you start to every time you come to your feelings and you really investigate,

Right?

First recognizing what's happening,

Accepting what's happening,

Opening to what's happening and investigating and nurturing your experience.

This is where the wisdom and the compassion comes from.

And it sounds rather simple.

Just come in and feel your feelings,

Like why aren't we doing it?

If it's so simple,

Why are we not doing it?

Because it's not easy.

Because in whatever we have been telling ourselves,

Because in the story that we have been telling ourselves about what it is that we fear,

Our brain has already responded as though there is a real tiger in front of us.

Even though there is no immediate threat whatsoever.

Just the paper tigers running around in our head that we have created with our thought habits and patterns.

So our brain responds with stress.

We've got adrenaline and cortisol,

Norepinephrine running through our veins,

Our heart rates up,

Our blood pressure is up.

We feel threatened.

We feel viscerally,

We feel fear as though our life is being threatened.

And the stress response is meant to keep us hyper focused on the threat.

If there is a tiger in front of you,

There's not a chance you're reaching for your phone to scroll through something and check a message or even to look someone's calling your name.

You're like,

I can't even look away.

I can't pull my attention away from it.

So if the threat came from a thought,

How am I going to handle this in the future?

How dare that person speak to me this way?

Right?

Just from the thought,

It is really hard to pull our attention away from the thought.

We are asking ourselves to override our brain's instincts for survival in that moment.

Because your brain is all about survival.

It doesn't care whether we're happy or not.

It just wants to keep us alive.

So the way that we do this is we start small,

Just like the young woman did in the story.

Bringing the food,

Right?

Bringing something welcoming each day to the tiger and just dropping the food and running back down the hill again.

Kind of building up her capacity so that in the second or the third week,

She was able to see the tiger and not run away.

She kept building up that capacity to face her fears.

And this is how we build up our capacity to face our feelings,

Right?

Little things,

Waking up in the morning.

And instead of just going through that habitual,

What do I have to do today?

How am I going to get it all done?

Do I need to still think about something that I'm irritated from the night before or the day before?

Instead of going through the thoughts,

Instead of going right up into our thoughts,

Coming instead into our body,

Feeling,

Checking in.

How do I feel right now?

How do I feel?

Like really asking ourselves,

We're so used to running from our feelings or even running from our feelings,

But to some degree aware that there's an unpleasant sensation here.

But we never,

We so rarely actually come in and go,

How do I feel?

Let me investigate.

Right?

Come in and feel it.

Use the breath to bring you into the body and pay attention to how it is that you feel.

Every time we come in and we feel our feelings,

Every time that we do it first thing in the morning,

We feel what's here and we get in touch,

We have this sense of this remembering that,

Yes,

When I come in and feel,

When I come in and feel,

I actually feel better.

Even if what I'm feeling is unpleasant,

Even if when you wake up in the morning and you are feeling a little bit off,

Right?

But the moment you come in and you feel it,

You come closer to it,

That resistance,

That stuffing down that is such an automatic habit that we're doing is going away,

Right?

And so we're here,

We're with what it is that's happening.

And throughout the day to keep checking in with how it is that we feel,

To keep checking in with ourselves and a really good,

It's good to have,

Of course,

As much as you can just remember on your own,

But to maybe make it like one day say to yourself,

Every time I reach for the phone,

I'm going to pause and feel.

Because often we're reaching for our phone as a distraction,

Right?

Just to avoid feeling the boredom,

Just to avoid feeling the,

You know,

Just that kind of normal,

Just mundane moment.

We're so not used to just being with what it is that's here.

We're constantly reaching for our phones as a way to take that feeling away.

So if you say to yourself,

Every time I reach for the phone,

I'm just going to pause for just a minute,

30 seconds,

Right?

And then breathe and feel.

How am I feeling?

Because we have to slow down this pattern.

It's like we're just,

We're moving on this kind of automatic kind of conveyor belt,

Just repeating the same patterns,

The same habits over and over and over and over and over.

And the feeling is where we really can stop to go,

Oh my God,

Yeah,

There's just a little bit of an unpleasant sensation here,

Which I'm just bored.

That's all.

I'm just bored.

That's all that's happening right now.

Or,

Right?

Or you notice there was just this,

This,

That craving for something.

Like I just,

I wanted that entertainment.

I felt like there was some news.

I felt like there was something outside of me that was going to complete me,

Right?

And every time we allow that to continue,

That thought momentum to continue and then to reach out and to keep reaching out for it,

We are just continuing the cycle of suffering because nothing outside of us is going to complete us.

Nothing outside of us is going to give us that sense of satisfaction that we're looking for.

It's only going to lead to more craving,

More aversion,

More suffering.

So the more we can come in and feel,

And Alice,

As you were saying,

Reaching for the TV remote,

Another great thing,

Something we do unconsciously,

Another one.

So pick one for the day,

Like the TV remote,

Your cell phone,

Maybe one day it's the refrigerator door.

Someone just shared that the other day on a talk.

And I think that's a good one as well because we tend to go to the refrigerator.

I'm bored.

What can I eat,

Right?

So again,

We're not just metaphorically trying to fill ourselves up.

We're physically trying to fill ourselves up with food.

Doesn't mean that you may,

You know,

You may still get some food,

But just pausing for a moment.

How do I feel?

How do I feel?

So really trying as best we can proactively to keep checking in with our feelings,

Noticing how it is that we're feeling,

And really coming in.

And as you breathe,

Right,

Be with what's here so that now your next movement isn't out of the old habits and patterns,

Right?

Now you're acting out of the present moment.

Do I really need something out of the phone right now?

Probably not.

Do I really need to click on the next TV show?

Probably not.

Do I really need some food right now,

Right?

I mean,

Maybe you do,

Right?

But at least now you're probably going to eat more mindfully.

And we will also make healthier choices because when we're grasping,

When we're craving,

I want it immediately.

I want it now,

Right?

I don't have time to make the salad.

I don't have time to cut,

Chop up the veggies,

Right?

I need the bag of potato chips or I need,

You know,

Something quick,

Fast,

Right?

I got to feed this hungry beast inside here,

Right?

That's always craving this endless desire for more and more and more.

And we're trying to take away the feeling.

It is an unpleasant feeling,

The craving,

But we're so focused on the object,

We don't even notice it.

So it also gets us to connect.

Oh,

Actually,

Actually,

This does not feel good.

This does not feel good at all.

So proactively,

Proactively in the morning when you wake up,

Throughout the day,

Pick one thing,

One thing,

The TV remote,

The refrigerator door,

The front door,

Getting in your car.

If you do that a lot during the day,

You know,

The phone,

Pick one thing and then make that be your mindfulness of feelings reminder.

Okay,

Here it is.

It's time to feel.

And notice how that changes your days,

Your day.

Notice how it changes the habits,

The constant repetition of these habits that aren't bringing us happiness,

That aren't bringing us contentment,

But we are simply just running away from our feelings.

And then at the end of the night as well,

When you get into bed,

Feel your feelings,

Notice how you're feeling,

Right?

So if there's anything there that you need to tend to,

Maybe there was some hurt during the day and you hadn't noticed it yet.

Okay,

It's here.

There's some hurt now.

Maybe it was a busy day and you didn't have enough time to really tend to it then or you just didn't notice it because things will still get by us.

But then in that moment,

You go,

Oh,

I feel it here.

Yeah,

There's some hurt.

Let me tend to that hurt.

It needs my attention.

It needs my openness.

It needs my kindness.

It needs my care.

It's not going to go away.

It's probably just going to wake us up at 3am or not let us fall asleep at all.

And that's another time when you wake up in the middle of the night and if you have difficulty going back to sleep or regardless,

Just you woke up in the middle of the night,

Come in and feel how you're feeling.

Don't get lost in the fear of how am I?

What if I don't fall back asleep?

This is going to be a nightmare.

I'm going to have such an awful day tomorrow because I can't fall back asleep,

Which is only amping up the fear,

Amping up the stress,

Not helping us go back to sleep at all.

So instead,

We come in and we feel whatever it's here,

Fear.

Okay,

Fear,

You're here.

I get it.

I get it.

You're afraid of how we're going to feel tomorrow.

So let's just stay with the fear now.

It's okay that you're here,

Fear.

I'm here with you.

I'm here.

Breathe into it.

Give it space,

Right?

Acknowledge it,

Right?

And that's how we start to feel more relaxed,

More at ease.

And even if the fear starts to subside enough,

But then we know how it starts to come back again because we think,

Oh shoot,

But I haven't fallen asleep again,

Right?

Just to keep coming back to it.

And then even say to yourself,

And I do this,

I say,

If I can't sleep,

And maybe like once a month,

I have a situation like that where for whatever reason,

It's part of old age,

I can't fall back asleep.

Okay,

I guess I'm going to meditate the rest of the night.

And just lying there,

First dealing with the fear,

First dealing with the fear,

And then just focusing on the breath.

And if I have to meditate for the next four hours,

I'm going to feel just fine tomorrow.

No problem.

So it really,

Again,

Coming in and feeling,

But if you go to,

Oh,

I'm just going to meditate through this without tending to the feelings,

Right?

You're still going to be lost in the fear.

You're not really getting into it.

So proactively,

And then also responding to what it is that's arising.

If our anger is here,

Allow the anger to be here.

Feel it.

Anger,

You're here.

It's okay.

It's okay.

You've got my attention.

I know I never give you my attention,

But you've got it now.

And we open to the anger and we allow it to be there.

And we peel back the layers,

Because what we always find behind the anger is some form of hurt,

Some form of fear.

And then we get to the hurt and we get to the fear and we go,

And you too,

And you can be here as well.

Let me make space for you.

Maybe I need to take a bigger breath so you can all be here and you've all got my attention,

Right?

And this is how we understand the teachings of impermanence,

Of emptiness,

Of no-self by coming into our experience.

It doesn't matter what the emotion is,

If it's jealousy,

One that we,

None of us likes to admit that we experience jealousy.

We all experience jealousy.

It's almost impossible to not feel it in some way,

Right?

Some people experience it with romantic situations,

Others maybe in success or material goods,

Other things like that.

But we all experience it.

We live in a hyper-competitive,

Ego-centric,

Individualistic society.

Jealousy is a normal response to this.

But instead of getting lost in the story of jealousy,

Of why they have something and I don't,

If only I had what they had,

Then I would feel better,

Because you wouldn't.

You wouldn't feel better.

You'd feel better for a moment,

And then someone else would have something else that's better again.

It's not stopping the cycle.

It's not stopping the pattern.

Instead,

We come in and we acknowledge to ourselves that jealousy is here.

You don't have to announce it on Facebook.

You don't have to tell everyone that jealousy is here,

But at least can we acknowledge it to ourselves.

If we don't acknowledge it to ourselves,

Then we will never tend to it.

And what I always find,

That what is behind jealousy is a fear that there is not going to be enough left for me.

And that's the fear that needs tending.

And every time,

So again,

Welcoming the jealousy first,

Right?

Acknowledging what's here,

Accepting what's here,

Breathing,

Creating space and investigating.

And what's behind their jealousy?

I know you're afraid there's not going to be enough for you.

And it's okay that you're here too,

Right?

And we talk to it as we breathe and we feel and we talk to our feelings in a way that's encouraging and supportive and acknowledging,

Right?

Because none of these feelings are going to go away.

The hurt,

The fear of not getting enough,

The fear of unworthiness,

Of I'm not lovable,

Right?

All of these underlying fears are driving all these other behaviors and emotions.

But unless we get below the superficial level or the obvious emotion that's at the top by accepting that,

Then we can't get into what it is that's driving the behavior.

And so much of it is that we fear feeling it.

But it is not nearly as scary when you actually come in and you experience it directly.

And in fact,

It is liberating to not fear our feelings.

When they come on and we can feel that wave and you've done it enough times,

You've climbed that mountain enough times with the food in your hand shaking headed towards the tiger,

When you've done it enough times,

And that old familiar fear of doubt,

Of unworthiness,

Of shame,

Of guilt,

Of something arising like that,

Right?

Oh,

I'm not enough.

You see that wave coming and you go,

I know exactly what to do here.

Oh,

Unworthiness.

Here you are.

It's okay.

It's okay.

I know.

I know how you feel.

You've got my attention.

It's okay.

And we breathe and we accept what's here and we investigate and we nurture what's here.

Not the stories that's not here,

That's not happening.

But being with what it is that's here,

That's what matters.

And that's where the wisdom and the compassion comes from.

Not from potions that people could make for us to avoid feeling,

To avoid facing our fears.

Doesn't come from potions.

It comes from facing our fears and we do it wisely,

Starting little,

Being more proactive,

Right?

And then as they arise,

We keep getting better and better at it until we no longer fear our feelings of fear,

But we can welcome them and find the freedom in the fear.

It's in the fear that we are freed,

Not walking around it,

Not jumping over it,

Not putting a potion on top of it.

It's in the fear.

This is where our strength comes from.

This is our practice.

This is our path.

So feeling our feelings,

Mindfulness of our feelings,

Mindfulness of our body,

Using the breath to come in and experience more and just little by little by little,

Little by little.

And that's the freedom.

And that's what we're all here for.

That's what we want.

So we all have our own tigers to face.

The more intimate you can become with them,

The more familiar they can be to you.

The more you can spend time with them,

The less overwhelming they are,

And the less they are driving the behavior and patterns,

Keeping us locked in a cycle and a pattern of behavior that is not bringing us the happiness,

The peace and the joy that we want.

It's not allowing us to live our lives.

We're just lost in the fears our whole lives,

Afraid,

Afraid,

Afraid,

Afraid,

Afraid until we finally die.

Instead of facing our fears,

We're facing our fears.

And that's what we're all here for.

Facing our fears and living our lives now,

Living our lives with courage and strength and compassion,

Compassion for ourselves and compassion for others,

Because we all know how difficult this is.

And that's what we're here for,

Is to help each other,

To help each other face our fears,

To find the freedom in our fears.