Listening to Fear

   Being someone who is often prone to anxiety, I have found that there  is no easy way to deal with fear, especially when faced with some new  development or dealing with the unknown. But what I have found is that fear has the double element of contracting one's vision and expanding it at the same time. Why this paradox? On the one hand, fears can get a person into survival  mode, especially if the fear is related to such areas as money, where one is to live, basic amenities, and employment. In this way, fear of  losing these things or not knowing where to acquire them can be quite narrowing and constricting.
     On the other hand, there are many situations where these kinds of fears can really bring a person to a vivid experience of life. I have observed, for example, that fearing the unknown can help me see what is most important in my life. I am reminded of how the French philosopher Jean Paul Sartre had described how he never felt more alive than when fighting the French resistance in wartime, because it took him to the closeness of life and death. Sartre's example is quite extreme, but he is describing how brushing up against something urgent can bring one's attention down to earth. I think these situations have a way of naturally prioritizing one's life situation. Suddenly,those small or petty worries start to fade or at least seem not so important as they were before, when faced with a decision that relates to the basic necessities of life: food, shelter, that sort of thing.
     I sometimes wonder how contemplative practices (such as meditation or mindfulness) can help a person separate needs from wants, in the same way that major life crises can. One does not want to suffer the stresses related to basic survival on a daily basis, but at the same time, it is useful to know what is truly needed. I have found that the practice of listening to my fears with a wide attention helps in this way. When I am softly attentive to what is making me fearful or insecure, I slowly become aware  of the things I need to do in the situation.. The situation itself becomes my teacher of sorts, as my awareness pans out to explore what kinds of steps I need to take to rectify the situation or make it better. Rather than interpreting the fear itself as an unwanted intruder into my comfort, I begin to softly but firmly inquire: what is this fear trying to tell  me? How can I best heed the fear, rather than seeing it as only a sign  that 'something is terribly wrong'? Rather than seeing the fear as a herald of something terrible or a burden in itself, I can befriend the fear by gently abiding in it for a while.
    Another attitude I find helpful is to try to be with others, even if I am finding it tempting to be alone with fears or to sort them out in a hasty manner. I think the temptation to be alone relates to a kind of 'shutting down': I think, I am unable to handle being with others until I can solve whatever is leading to fearful states of being.  But being  with people  I love can help me to soften the fears and put them into perspective. And I have found that when I am a bit more present to these emotions, I have more space to be  present to others as well, and what they are going through. In doing so, I practice realizing that my life does not need to revolve around the things that I fear, and sometimes these things have a way of taking care of themselves over time, without too much intervention on my part. Being with an emotion is sometimes more valuable than having to solve the emotion right away, even though the temptation is always to try to fix it and get rid of fear itself.
      Finally, I have found that through some kind of observational awareness, I have somewhat been able to let go of the temptation to fix things quickly or arrive at a hasty closure. Sometimes, the pain or suffering have nothing to do with the situation itself. Rather, it relates more to a painful emotional reaction and the temptation to reject it. For example, I had an experience once as a kid when I had fallen off my bike and split my lip. The first reaction I had was to think that my teeth were loose and about to fall out, and the accompanying fear was: "My gosh, what will happen to me if I have no teeth?" But later, I was reassured by my mom that things would be okay, and I just had a split lip. I had a thought that didn't correspond to reality, and the accompanying fear put me in a place of distress.
      These situations teach me that it's okay to observe for a while and collect myself and my thoughts, rather than follow the first impulse and react to it in some way. Of course, the emotions are still going to be there, for me to go through, and there are situations that are deeply distressing no matter what. But the process is to go into that distress rather than to hastily act on it. By "go into" it, I think I mean to be present with the emotion itself, and to take up a faithful attitude that this feeling is not going to kill me, and nor will the situation do so. Hard to practice, yes! But it seems worth it to adopt this gentle faith, as well as a mentality of breaking things down into moments....especially when one is overwhelmed.