Archives for December 2010

10 Life-Changing Facts About Fear

freefromfear1 Note: This article is a follow-up to the guest post I wrote for The Bold Life (thanks, Tess!) about how to flourish in the face of fear.

“The presence of fear is a sure sign you’re trusting in your own strength.”
~A Course in Miracles

If you’re a human being, chances are you experience fear. These bodies we live in are built for survival, and fear is the gatekeeper. It protects us, keeping us safe and secure by making us wary of any potential threat that might come our way. Fear breeds caution, vigilance, and suspicion.

Which is fine if a hungry lion is chasing you. But if your intention is to live in the abundance that is always here, to lead with the heart, to be open to the depth and breadth of what might be possible in your life, then fear deserves your attention.

A Sacred Choice

Simply said, running from fear doesn’t work. If we avoid turning to face it, it will nip at our heels forever. What does this mean? We live a fear-led life, choosing partners, jobs, and friends out of fear. Habits and addictions run wild because we are afraid of meeting our feelings. We feel separate and alienated, while deep inside, we recognize the echo of truth whispering softly.

Here is my question to you as we move into 2011. What do you want? I mean what do you really want for this precious life you have been given? If you are committed to knowing yourself fully, to living fully, then get to know fear. Start with these facts, then step aside and let your life unfold in all its glory.

Facts About Fear

Fear-motivated thoughts are all about “can’t.” They create a negative, imagined scenario about the future. Here’s the truth: you don’t know what is going to happen, so these thoughts can’t possibly be true. Buy into these thoughts, and you are inviting limitation. Let them float on by, and you will see what is actually true for you.
Fearful thoughts are designed to keep you safe and limited. They are not wisdom, and they are not truth. You get to choose what to follow.
Fear always includes physical sensations. Learn to recognize these, and receive them as they are with an open heart. Channel the energy of fear into excitement and enthusiasm.
Fear makes us think that something negative will happen, when the truth is that we don’t know what is going to happen. Become comfortable with not knowing so that fear doesn’t rule you.
Resisting fear strengthens it. The antidote is awareness – being willing to directly experience fear as it appears to you in the moment, recognizing the thoughts and physical sensations.
The goal is not to get rid of fear, as you don’t have the power to make this happen. But you do have the power to change the way you relate to fear. Learn to receive it with curiosity and a loving heart, get to know how it spins thoughts that deflate the things you are enthusiastic about. But don’t feel like something is wrong or you have failed if it continues to appear. Simply meet it lovingly every time.
A surge of fear tends to arise directly after a moment of truth. Say that an idea appears in your mind about something you’d love to do. Soon after, you might notice that your mind is filled with reasons why you can’t or shouldn’t do it. Recognize that this is fear speaking.
Recognizing the presence of fear allows you to make conscious decisions. You have the clarity to see what fear is guiding you to do, and you can consider what you really want.
Fear is not the enemy. It can be the voice of reason, caution, and practicality that serves you well at times.
It takes energy to resist fear. Getting to know it and allowing it to be lets your body and mind relax, as the fight is over. This opens a space for creativity, wonder, awe, love, beauty, inspiration.

Learn about fear. Know it so well that it can’t sneak up on you. Free yourself from the chains of fear, and every moment of your life will shine.

How have you dealt with fear? Does it hold you back? What happens when you embrace fear? I’d love to hear…

Are You Willing to Let Go and Trust?

scenic “Cease trying to work everything out with your minds. It will get you nowhere. Live by intuition and inspiration and let your whole life be Revelation.”
~Eileen Caddy

My natural inclination is to be a little on edge. I don’t trust easily. I want to know what I don’t know, and I’m rarely willing to take anyone’s word for anything – I need to have the direct experience myself. This made me an interesting child to raise, as you might imagine.

A Reflection on Trust

But recently, I’ve been reflecting on trust, and it’s been a beautiful exploration. When the tendency to be on guard arises, when I am indecisive and doubtful, I consider the possibility of trust. And I see, with a huge sigh of relief, that I can simply relax. I can let go of the need to figure everything out. I can have confidence that something way more intelligent than my thoughts is at play.

Trust and faith go hand in hand. I’m not talking about blind faith or sinking into passivity. Not the faith where you cling to a belief in something. But faith that the life force that animates everything is trustworthy, that there are no mistakes, that I can surrender personal control and let myself be carried.

That I can put down the struggle along with my needs, desires, and fears, and melt into being. I have faith, and trust, that when I stop trying to live, I am perfectly alive. No effort needed.

My holiday gift to you…

…is an invitation to trust. Especially at this time of year, maybe you will discover that you don’t have to expend nearly as much energy as you thought. Maybe you can relax and let yourself be carried.

Can you trust that you will know exactly what you need to know at just the right time?

No need to keep deliberating.

Can you trust the intelligence that is operating right now?

You don’t have to figure it all out.

Can you look outside your thinking mind for clarity?

Maybe clarity is already here.

Can you trust that your life circumstances are here for your awakening?

They are helping you see where you are stuck or attached.

Can you trust that there are no mistakes?

Reflect on how you might be resisting.

Can you trust that life is naturally generous?

It gives us exactly what we need, not necessarily what we think we need.

Are you willing to let go and trust?

Enjoy the holidays! Love to all,
Gail

The Art and Craft of Befriending Your Experience

peaceful “I long, as does every human being, to be at home wherever I find myself.”
~Maya Angelou

I was in a yoga class the other day, and I wasn’t happy. I simply didn’t agree with how the instructor was leading the class. My body seized up, my mind felt dense and pressured, and the dark cloud of needing to be right descended.

Then I woke up. The clouds parted, and the light flooded in. “Oh,” I said to myself. “What is actually here?” I felt the tension in my body and welcomed the strain behind my thoughts. Everything relaxed as the whole problem dissipated. I had returned home.

What happened to me in those moments is a microcosm of what is possible for all of us always. We don’t need to wait for situations to change or for others to realize the error of their ways. In fact, if we do so, we are barking up the wrong tree, placing our happiness in the hands of things we cannot control.

Do you really want to wait for the circumstances of your life to change, while you are missing out on the glorious now?

Meet Yourself as You Are

So many of us go through our lives with painful emotions nipping at our heels. We are chased by discomfort, so we run full speed ahead into busyness, addictions, and passivity. When we try to avoid what is true, we are far from peaceful and happy. And we’re certainly not free.

But here’s what it takes to change everything: a U-turn of your attention. Put the brakes on the momentum of these patterns, turn around, and meet yourself as you are. It is a meeting you won’t regret.

Most of us live in stories that roil around in our minds. We endlessly tell ourselves what we shouldn’t have done and what ought to happen. We criticize, judge, resist, label, sort through, and imagine in a non-stop running commentary. We keep the past alive by thinking about it and needlessly worry about the future.

Then we wonder why we’re not at peace.

But there is a solution, a way out which is actually the way in. In any moment, we move attention away from the workings of the mind and inward to befriend our own direct experience.

This is the end of avoidance. We stop resisting and we turn to welcome the truth of ourselves.

What is Direct Experience?

You discover your direct experience by turning your attention away from the objects of the world. Simply notice what is happening in your inner landscape in any given moment. Break down what you are experiencing into it’s most basic elements, and here is what you will find:

Thoughts, which are sounds in the mind
Sense perceptions – hearing, seeing, tasting, touching, smelling
Physical sensations – what you feel in your body

That’s it. There’s nothing more. And please don’t take my word for it. Do the experiment. Shine the searchlight of your awareness into yourself and see what you discover.

How to Befriend Yourself

You cannot be more loving toward yourself than to let yourself be as you are. Conflict ends, struggle is put to rest. The how-to is very simple. When you befriend your direct experience, first notice it, then allow yourself to feel it as it actually is.

Say you look inside and you notice fear. Ask yourself, “What is this fear?” You will become aware of thoughts about fear and physical sensations. Draw your attention away from the thoughts, and go right into the sensations in your body.

Whatever you notice – tension, contractions, burning – feel it completely. Give the sensations space to be without turning away. Take the time for them to be felt completely. Then keep exploring to the next layer, and the next, to see what you discover.

These are the inner experiences that have been driving you – and waiting for your loving attention. Because it’s love that heals our inner turmoil.

Why not try it right now? Simply be at ease with whatever arises in your direct experience. Welcome it. Allow it to be all the way through.

Q & A

But what now? The problem is still here.

Is it the problem that is still here or your thoughts about it? Drop away from the story, go inside, and receive your direct experience. If a decision needs to be made, shift your attention away from trying to figure it out. Listen, and let the answer come to you.

This is hard to do. I’ve been in this habit for so long.

Embracing your direct experience may be difficult in the beginning because you don’t know what you will find. There is an old teaching story about a man walking down a path who freaks out when he thinks he sees a snake. When he gets closer, he realizes that what he thought was a snake was actually a rope and his fear was unwarranted. Maybe your snakes are just ropes, but you will never know unless you turn and take a look.

Hint: Your fear of welcoming your feelings is probably much worse than the experience of actually welcoming them.

I’ve done what you are suggesting, but things are still the same.

As counterintuitive as this may be, the goal of befriending your experience is not to feel better. The goal, which is not a goal at all, is to find peace in the moment. Any tendencies or habits that play out through you have a momentum that may last for a very long time. So the goal is not to get rid of anything.

The “goal” is simply to be with yourself as you are. To receive whatever is happening without resistance and to be at ease with what is. To know what is actually true about reality, over and over in every moment.

Simply be as you are, and all is well.

Have you befriended your experience? Any questions or reports? I’d love to hear…

There Is Great Freedom in Simply Being Aware

ladybug

“The aim of life is to live, and to live means to be aware, joyously, drunkenly, serenely, divinely aware.”
~Henry Miller

Have you noticed how embedded our habits can be? Even with the best of intentions to act or feel differently, before we know it, we are barreling down a familiar track doing the same old, same old.

You want to change, but over and over you find yourself taking on another project when you’re already completely maxed, digging into that bag of chips, spinning in worry or self-criticism, captured in the same argument with someone, lolling about on the couch, again.

Wouldn’t you love to be free of your most confining habits? Imagine being in control rather than controlled, mindful rather than mindless, fully alive rather than stuck in a very deep rut.

Be Happy Now

There’s nothing wrong with habits, but when they detract from our joy in living life to its fullest, we owe it to ourselves to take a closer look at them. For it is our birthright to enjoy ourselves, to approach the moments of our life with openness and enthusiasm.

Simply said, we deserve to be happy.

Awareness Is the Key

So let’s get down to business and discover how you can step out of the prison of your habits. And it starts with being aware.

The nature of habits is that they occur outside of our conscious awareness. When we’re trapped by a habit, we are like a wind-up doll, programmed to play out the same behavior over and over. It’s a script we know by heart, and we act it out without thinking.

And this is great news! Once we realize that habits operate unconsciously, the way out becomes clear. We take each one and unwind it into its elements. We become aware of every nuance of thought, feeling, and reaction that makes up this habit.

Becoming an Expert

We develop into habit experts, knowing the habit so well and in such detail that we could write a thesis about it. And we don’t shy away just because what we discover is hard or painful.

Each moment is an opportunity to cast a vote for our happiness by becoming aware. And as we become aware, we realize the possibility of making a different choice.

Awareness is freedom. So if you long to be free, become aware of your habits. De-program yourself, throw away the script, and let the tracks of your habits be washed away.

A Strong Foundation for Becoming Aware

As we start to investigate habits, here are some important points to keep in mind.

It’s all in the present moment. The past is useful to learn about our patterns, but the rubber meets the road in the moment. So when you are triggered, when you feel your anger rising or you are reaching out for the ice cream when you know you don’t need it, this is the moment to be aware. No matter what you’ve done before, every moment offers an opportunity to be aware, to pause, to embrace your experience.

Awareness illuminates choice. As we untangle our habits by becoming aware of them, we notice options we never saw before. A friend was working on a habit of being concerned about what other people thought of her. As she investigated the pattern, she realized that people weren’t thinking about her nearly as much as she had assumed. She discovered a new option of not paying attention to a thought that wasn’t true. The result? Freedom.

Don’t force yourself to change. Rather than focusing on a goal, keep your attention on each moment. Lovingly embrace things just as they are. Take every fear and disappointment, every tension, every whirlwind of thoughts and create a warm and accepting space where they can be received. The habit can’t hold up to the power of loving attention, and change begins to happen effortlessly.

Your natural essence is whole and healthy. Habits are conditioned. We learn them to manage difficult feelings and situations. As we unwind our habits, the should’s, pressures, and rationalizations fall away. We realize that peace is possible, that freedom is available always.

A Loving Process for You

Start by being curious and open, willing and patient.
Bring to mind a habit you’d like to work on and a situation in which this habit played out.
Begin to ask questions:

-What am I thinking? What story am I telling myself? What expectations do I have?
-What am I feeling?
-What physical sensations do I notice in my body?

Peel back the layers until all is revealed.
Welcome these experiences like a long-lost friend. Say, “yes” to each one. This is the end of the inner fight and the beginning of real possibility.

With great compassion, shed light on the experiences that make up your habits. They will start to fall apart right before your eyes, leaving you spacious, open, and happy.

What have you discovered about letting go of habits? How do you get stuck? I’d love to hear…

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