The first part of looking at our fear is just inviting it into our awareness without judgment. We just acknowledge gently that it is there. That brings a lot of relief already. Then, once fear has calmed down, we can embrace it tenderly and look deeply into its roots, its sources. Understanding the origins of our anxieties and fears will help us to let go of them. Is our fear coming from something that is happening, right now or is it an old fear, a fear from when we were small that we kept inside? When we practice inviting all our fears up, we become aware that we are still alive, that we still have many things to treasure and enjoy. If we are not busy pushing down and managing our fear, we can enjoy the sunshine, the fog, the air, and the water. If you can look deeply into your fear and have a clear vision of it, then you can really live a life that is worthwhile.
Thich Nhat Hanh, Fear, page 4
I talk alot, lately, about that pause between the stimulus and our reactivity, about karma, and about the need to create a spacious expansion between what Life hands us and what we do about it ( physically, mentally, and energetically). Part of creating this spaciousness in that pause, as we work to dig up the roots of our resistance, is recognizing our samskaras that often get shook loose by actual or potential challenging outer circumstances. They are the source or root cause of our resistance and reactivity. Being free of them will create the space needed to respond to Life in a healthy and wholesome way.
One of the biggest energetically charged human aspects that we stuff, and which later becomes a samskara blockage... keeping us from experiencing light, joy, peace etc, is our fear. Fear, I believe, is at the basis of most of our reflexing and reactivity and therefore it is the thing that most often keeps us from living the full and free lives we are capable of living. Thich Nhat Hanh obviously felt the same way when he wrote Fear: Essential Wisdom For Getting Through The Storm.
I also say again and again that all paths lead to one truth. Though I study and relay what I have learned about yoga...I also study Buddhism and other forms of ancient eastern wisdom. I study psychology, philosophy, literature, and science. I see the one truth all are pointing to: Our healing from the root cause of suffering will bring us spaciousness, and inhabiting this space will bring us to the Source of everything which really cannot be named or explained adequately.
Hmm! Fear is too often in the way of our happiness. Fear often leads to us reflexing and reacting when Life presents us with difficult circumstances or people....or when we assume it will present us with such. We often follow the direction of our overactive ( conditioned to be so) amygdalae over the calm inspiration of our higher Selves. We respond to Life unconsciously without exploring the pause between stimulus and response. This is reflexing or reacting. This is resisting that which we judge and deem "unpleasant". This is not living fully. Living in fear is the opposite of living fully.
Stuffed fear is one of the many things that may arise to be seen and later released during that space. In order to be free of fear we cannot keep stuffing it back down when it comes up. We cannot keep running from it. We cannot keep resisting it. What we resist persists and that is especially true when it comes to fear. We need to be willing to allow the fear to come up into conscious awareness when it gets loosened by outside triggers. We need to be willing to look deeply at our fear ...examine it, explore its roots in an objective, nonjudgmental but caring way.
When we are willing to look at our stuffed fear we are no longer putting all that energy into resisting it. Without our focus there, we can pay more attention to the beautiful world and life we have been given to explore. We will see that it was never fear itself that was creating the blockages to our happiness and freedom...but our resistance of it that was.
Without these blockages created by stuffed and resisted fear...we will open up the space between what Life offers us and how we respond. We will therefore respond to life in a joyful and wholesome way.
All is well.
Thich Nhat Hanh (2012) Fear. New York: Harper One
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