Facing Your Fears
Shoshin
No one in particularNowhere Special Veteran
"Fear is an emotion induced by a threat perceived by living entities, which causes a change in brain and organ function and ultimately a change in behavior, such as running away, hiding or freezing from traumatic events."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fear
"Root of All Fear
Self-grasping is an ignorance of the way things are, a mind that grasps at ourselves and the world around us as real, inherently existent, existing out there independent of the mind, having nothing to do with our perceiving consciousness. To overcome this root of all fear, Buddha taught the truth of emptiness, or no self. This is a very profound subject, but we can gain some understanding by considering our dreams."
http://www.meditationinsantabarbara.org/dealing-with-fear/
Just out of interest, what techniques/methods do members have in place for facing and conquering their fears ?
Or have you developed a technique for harnessing the fear 'emotion' and putting it to good use?
Comments
Over the years, I've come across many different approaches in my struggles with anxiety, and it all basically comes down to this: Accept the fear, do it anyway.
That is basically what all of the teachers above are pointing to: you can't always choose how you feel, so setting the course of your life at the feet of your emotions is putting you in a very powerless and helpless position. Working with meditations that help you allow the entirety of the human emotional repertoire to play out within you without making an enemy of anything was what helped me immensely.
@Shoshin
I thought meditation was a practice field to address fear.
What do you think really stops any of us from being able to accept anything?
What is meditation but the learning curve of willingness to allow fear to freely arise, live and move on by instead of being habitually compelled to defend ourselves in it's presence.
I am not sure that I conquer anything so much as find that fear, like any phenomena, has always been my real meditation teacher.
Many moons ago I use to suffer from panic attacks, nothing major, but enough for me to pop a couple of mother's little helpers "valium".to help 'me' chill out..
However when Buddhism came my way I started to see things in a different light..Through acceptance of the situation and exploration of the feelings through meditation I overcame them. and now at any hint of anxiety creeping in, in an accepting manner I explore the feeling, which soon dissolves....In other words let it have its say then send it on its way...
When it comes to worry, Shantideva said something along the lines of " What's the worst thing that can happen ? And if it does what can you do about it ? If you can do something about it, then why worry ?.And if you can't do anything about it why worry ?!
i also like the 15th century French philosopher Michel de Montaigne's take on it "Those who fear they shall suffer, already suffer what they fear!"
has always been my real meditation teacher.
That's true @how, meditation is the key....I guess I'm just bringing it to the attention of others... Food for thought so to speak....
@How: you manage to articulate the most amazing things. I feel like you see 'stuff' several steps down the road 'ahead' of perhaps a relative truth that is, for the person, THE truth that just hasn't been seen through and (pardon the word) transcended.
My Buddhist practice has had me on both sides of the fence, sort of swinging between the relative truth of dealing with a fear that looks, sounds, tastes and feels REAL while on the other hand, I know better than to believe it.
It seems though that for a 'relative' truth to be put aside for a 'greater' truth, there's a process to go through where a person wrestles with the fear AS IF it were absolutely real, and THEN arrive at
That resonates SO much with me -- WHILE I find myself fighting the angel.
@Hamsaka, It's true @how does have a magical way with words, it's like he manages to hit a home run each time, but I must admit at times the ball flies way over my head and it take awhile for me to find it....
I don't like to mentally agonize over imaginary fears before they actually materialize.
It drains you of valuable energy that you will need to face real problems when -or if- they ever actually take place.
I like Shantideva's saying that you have quoted above, @Shoshin, (“If you can solve your problem, then what is the need of worrying? If you cannot solve it, then what is the use of worrying?”), but also Mark Twain's fantastic “I've had a lot of worries in my life, most of which never happened.”
I look upon my fears as figments of my imagination which only deserve my attention if they ever become real.
I am highly efficient on short-term assignments: give me a concrete problem to solve now, and I'll come up with a solution on the spot.
But don't present me with hipothetical situations (what ifs) which could be happening or not from tomorrow onwards.
I'll deal with them tomorrow.
I have a present moment to attend to right now.
Yes. Fear, like pain, compels me to find a way to accept my situation or to fight to be free from it. Either way I have to be present to face it.
There have been times at sea when the weather is really crappy and all I want is to get to somewhere calm. But the rougher things get, the more I have to pull back on the throttle and slow down to stay safe.
So I maybe I can see the shore but I can't be there. There could be miles to go and time drags slowly.
I have to sit with the anxiety and just try to let it come and go.
The sea looks vast and dangerous, but I have to deal with each wave as it comes, which keeps me present.
I imagine ocean kayaking is similar.
They go over my head too, while I at the same time sense they actually LAND somewhere real, somewhere I just haven't been yet!
Maybe I'm being over-simplistic, but I just tell myself my fears are liars.
It takes a lot of mindfulness to GET there @Dhammadragon
. If a fear grabs you by the throat and takes you down to the mat before awareness kicks in, then next time a person might become aware AS they go down to the mat, then AS grabbed by the throat, and then hopefully awareness occurs the moment fear begins to manifest. When the conditions that bring forth fear are removed . . .
If we could perceive how much energy our minds put into fear and desire in Samsara I wonder if we would do more to liberate ourselves from it.
When I had my psychotic break I was involved with a new age cult that made me fear I was bound for hell. @aMatt snapped that fear with a bit of insightful dharma when he was around. I was blissed out for days afterward, @aMatt explained to me that I'd spent so much energy on that fear that it rushed back in when he snapped that bond to the cycle of birth and death and I was "buzzing" off the return of that energy.
Curiously enough this thread has just reminded me of a conversation with a guy who worked at the supported housing project I used to live in who was off to become a Tibetan monk who said to me when we were discussing my former drug abuse that if you've done loads of drugs or loads of meditation you get an idea of how powerful your mind really is.
I'm not advocating drug use by the way as someone who has had more drugs than most people has had hot dinners and is permanently damaged as a result all I can say is just say no boys and girls. If you could buy enlightenment at £5 a pop the world would be full of Buddhas. It isn't but the Pxych wards are full of drug casualties. 'Nuff said.
I like this description of Samsara (and Nirvana) by one of the Great Tibetan Masters
Samsara=Mind turned outwardly lost in its projection (This seems to be what fear/anxiety is all about)
Nirvana=Mind turned inwardly recognising its true nature
Martial arts are a good way to understand the physical nature of fear, very often body based. You can not fight effectively unless you relax into the very real potential danger. That is a good way of learning about fear. The body is part of a very real connection to the mind.
Some years back I was waking up in fear and anxiety. I searched for what was the cause. Nothing in my life seemed to warrant this feeling but there it was.
I eventually realised I was dehydrated and the body was fearful that it would not be hydrated. It was the body telling the mind danger existed. Eventually I was able to examine this feeling when it arose. Tell it only when it subsided would I hydrate. It is a very primitive arising but eventually it learned. Nothing to fear. It subsided. I gave the body water.
This very close body/mind relationship explains why fear, anger, anxiety and other primitive emotions subside with meditation. We are relaxing the body, whilst attending to the mind/body.
I've said it before here but it remains true. Every single thing that has ever happened to me that I perceived as horrible, took me down a detour where I found a gift of such worth that I would have gladly paid the price of whatever horrible thing it was.
Before I realized this though, I kept a 'fear notebook' - back in early recovery (alcohol and drugs). Column one was an insurmountable fear - and there were many. Column two was 'time' - when was this going to come to pass? Turns out that the answer was always 'future'. Column three was reserved for me to return and write down 'what actually happened'. Twenty-seven outcomes different than I just knew it would turn out and I threw the notebook away and realized that fear wasn't quite the predator I had imagined it to be.
Don't ask me how, @Hamsaka, but I swear to you not buying into my fears has not been that uphill road for me.![:\](https://newbuddhist.com/plugins/emojiextender/emoji/little/confused.png ":\")
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Rather than mindfulness, it probably took a good dose of Scorpion and Dragon gumption and chutzpah all rolled into one, go know.
I simply won't be bothered with problems which don't pose a real threat in my life.
And I am scaringly cool-headed when dealing with issues which do need my total attention right here, right now.
It probably comes from the fact that I have always been surrounded with scared, chronic worriers and overthinkers (including my present working overtime as my husband's 24/7 personal shrink), so I probably reasoned from early age that someone has to take the reins and actually sit down to attend to the real business at hand.
And that simply can't be done if you let your fears take over and lead the way.
I have noticed my son shares this same trait with me: he's a real tower of strength in extreme situations and never cracks under pressure.
We are hot-headed in overreacting but cool-headed to cope with our fears.
The sanchin kata in karate works well for preparing or coping with fear. There is a tai chi version that I have also learned that does not work for fear.
The reason the karate version works is because there is a dynamic tension or tightening of every possible muscle in the body. This burns up the adrenaline and other fight or flight body chemicals. Tension is not used in Tai chi. However this is a very specialised warrior training kata, often used for pre battle preparation.
There are also versions of yoga nidra that tense and release parts of the body. Sometimes building up to tensing all the body. That would have a similar effect.
"The results will definitely be like this once you have successfully trained yourself in the way of mindfulness and wisdom. But if your mindfulness and wisdom are deficient then the heart will remain feeble and easily discouraged. All kinds of suffering will then converge into the heart because it is the heart itself that accumulates suffering through its own stupidity. Weakness, therefore, is certainly not the path that leads away from harm and danger. It has to be accomplished through diligence and hard work, with a warrior spirit armed with mindfulness and wisdom. Nothing else can bring victory and preeminence, goodness and virtue, excellence and distinction; nothing else brings bravery and fearlessness to arise within the heart."
http://www.accesstoinsight.org/lib/thai/boowa/tolastbr.html