“Rumblings” – Turning Fear Into an Ally Practice

We are actually going hunting for fear. The way we do this is easy. We take a moment and simply think about what our greatest fears are. For many of us, this will be easy because we are living in that fear right now. Earlier, I mentioned several areas we can go hunting for fear. Let’s review a few of those now:

• financial fears
• fear of others’ opinions and personal attacks
• fear of authority
• fear for the future
• fear from the past (such as fear that something bad will reoccur)

• fear we don’t have enough

• fear we will never have enough

• fear of pain

• fear of the judgment of strangers, friends and spouses

• fear of loneliness and anger

• fear about the safety and health of children or loved ones

• fear we will become ill

• fear of death

• ear our relationship will end in tragedy and we will be alone.

 
Your mission this week is to find one fear. That’s all. And then we’re going to work with this fear.

But before we go on, let’s talk about the belief many of us have that we do not have any fear. If you truly believe this, there is a good chance that you are in denial to the extent that you can no longer recognize fear. Or, another possibility is that you are so far advanced in your spiritual path that fear has somehow been vanquished. For most of us, however, fear is very present in our lives, but we don’t recognize it. Instead of turning fear into an ally. We have spent a lot of time developing strategies for coping with and ignoring and denying a fear.

So, think about something that really worries you, or think about something that makes you uncomfortable when discussed, or think about something that makes you angry very easily, like somebody else’s politics or a type of person you disdain. Think about any group or beliefs you may dislike or judge. Look for any future fantasies you might have. Or go over the list of fears I just mentioned and pick one out. Now notice any feelings in your body.

Fear is a contractive energy. When we feel fear, we tense up, especially in the chest, and throat area. We want to become familiar with this sensation. It is not a pleasant energy. It is very uncomfortable, but that’s okay because it is the messenger that tells us that fear is present. So we want to try this.

Think of something disturbing as described above, and then feel a contraction in the body. Now, identify the fear. What is the fear? What is the real fear? Ask yourself, “What am I really afraid of?” Often the answer is deeper and different than the fear in the surface story. And, often, what we fear is a fantasy about the future.

With awareness we can see this happening; see ourselves creating a fantasy of tragedy and loss and other forms of suffering. Our fear is often rooted in a fantasy about the future. Wow. Think about this. We are actually afraid of something that not only does not exist, but may never exist. If you don’t believe this, ask yourself how many times something that you have imagined happening in the future has happened the way you imagined it. If you are like most people the answer is pretty close to “never.”

The logical mind likes to extrapolate from current fear in a series of escalating events. It says, “if this happens, this may or will happen, and then this terrible event will be the result.” We are actually having a vision based on fear, and that vision affects the path of our life. So one thing we can do is  change, or eliminate, the negative vision.

During this week, rather than running away from fear, we’re going to use our awareness to recognize fear, and I am talking about our fears, not other people’s fears or what we could call “public” fear. Instead of running away or denying our fear we’re going to let it be. We’re going to feel it in the body. We’re going to stay with it. We are going to ask ourselves, “What is this fear really?” Is there something deeper? Is there a deeper fear? And, we are going to notice any fantasy that accompanies our fear, any voyage into the nonexistent future and we’re going to return to the present. We will eliminate the fantasy and decide to be on the lookout for similar fear-based fantasies in the future. Using awareness, we can do this, because with awareness, with consciousness, we suddenly experience the truth that we choose our experience.

The Tao Te Ching, the ancient Chinese “way of integrity” or simply “The Way,” teaches us not to “Push the River.” Pushing the River implies resisting the flow of things. In the Tao, we learn to go with the flow or subtly control the flow. In our fear practice, we are going to allow the fear to flow. This may seem scary, fearful in itself, but how can fear teach us if we are putting up a wall against it, if we always resisting it? Going with it, opens us up to our deeper fear and ironically this is a dragon we can dance with.

Once we have identified our deep fear we can see where we lack gratitude, faith and trust and explore the belief or beliefs that brought us to this non-trusting, fearful place. We can do the inner work that allows us to alter beliefs that no longer serve us and that create fear. There are many paths for this, but we need to recognize fear and follow it to the place we feel unsafe. In this place we can meditate on the ultimate safety and elegant patterning, and we can ask for help in whatever way serves us best. That is the work for the coming week, turning fear into an ally. Until we do this, until we recognize and turn our fear into an ally, it will remain in invisible cage that constantly impedes all of our spiritual and personal growth, our joy and knowledge of personal safety.