Blog - Dr. Gail Brenner

This Is Your Moment

“The thankful receiver bears a plentiful harvest.”
~William Blake

The desire for freedom from our personal suffering appears by grace. Who knows how we end up on the spiritual path?

We get tired of things being so-so, or worse. We know there must be another way. And we get intensely interested in the possibility of moving beyond our habits to know the deepest peace and to live it.

I am so moved by each of you reading this and your clear intention to be free. So maybe you have the same question that frequently enters my inbox and gets posted on my facebook page. It goes something like this:

But I’m still attached…
I do what you suggest, but it’s not working…
The memories keep coming, and I’m still sad…
How do I let go?
I’m still suffering. How can I be free?

And here’s my answer: the solution lies in the moment. It’s only in this moment when you’re suffering, and only in this moment when you can find your way to peace.

Your Only Goal Is Peace Now

If think you’re going to get rid of any of your experiences, if you think your challenges will go away forever, think again. No matter how deeply you know that your essence is love and that you are one with everything, in the course of ordinary life, emotional reactions, stories, and distorted ways of seeing the world will arise. It happens to me all the time.

These experiences are conditioned, and you can’t control the fact that they appear. But, in any moment, you can control what you do with them.

You can continue doing what you’ve always done that perpetuates your problems: trust your thoughts, feed them with your attention, think and talk about what’s wrong, give importance to your feelings, act out your conditioned tendencies.

Or you can take the path of truth and freedom. In any given moment:

Welcome the fact that stories are present—but don’t feed their content with your attention.
Receive every feeling—and feel how it’s expressed in your body rather than getting caught in the drama.
Feel the urges that pull you to engage in self-defeating behaviors—but don’t act on them.

This is what’s so amazing. You can be at peace with your experience by welcoming it, but it doesn’t have to control you.

Every Time Is a Golden Opportunity—Your Moment

An opportunity is defined as a “lucky chance” or a “favorable circumstance.” Instead of being frustrated when you find yourself caught again in the grip of conditioned reactions, or thinking you’ve done it wrong or failed, take that moment as an opportunity.

It’s a lucky chance you’ve been given to find your way to peace, a favorable circumstance that invites you to return home to the truth of you that is always fresh, whole, and at ease.

It doesn’t matter how many times you get stuck—each one is an opportunity to clear the veils and illuminate your true essence.

Next time and every time you find yourself entangled by problems, say, “Thank you” for the gift you’ve been offered. Then don’t touch the problem with your attention. Lose interest in it—it’s not serving you anyway, is it? Immediately, you’ll find yourself: innocent, undisturbed, and so incredibly alive. Every time.

What About You?

Are problems bothering you? Can you take the opportunity in the moment to untangle the feelings and stories? I’d love to hear… And if you’re reading by email, please click here to comment.

Always in love,

Gail

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The End of Self-Help—Book Now Available!

Book now available for purchase. Please click here.

“Brimming with crystalline clarity and the love of truth, Gail Brenner’s The End of Self-Help invites us to see through the illusion of the separate self and discover our inherent freedom, wholeness, and well being in the midst of our ordinary lives. This beautifully written book sparkles with vibrant insight and is a welcome antidote to the endless and errant self-improvement project!”

~John J. Prendergast, Ph.D., author of In Touch: How to Tune in to the Inner Guidance of Your Body and Trust Yourself and senior editor of The Sacred Mirror and Listening from the Heart of Silence.

I couldn’t be more thrilled to be announcing the publication of my first book entitled The End of Self-Help: Discovering Peace and Happiness Right at the Heart of Your Messy, Scary, Brilliant Life.

Writing this book has been a labor of love. I’ve completed a project that’s been in my heart to birth into the world for over 20 years. It’s taken commitment, the willingness to move through unexpected fear, and patience with myself and the process.

And at every step, you, the ones who will be reading it, have been in my vision. It’s an offering that flows straight from my heart right into yours. And I can’t wait for you to read it.

The End of Self-Help

“Until you know yourself to be essentially whole, and not the wounded and broken one who needs to be fixed, the true solution to your personal suffering will remain out of reach.”
~from The End of Self-Help

There are now hundreds of articles in the archives of this blog, but the book offers something fresh. It’s not a compilation of blog posts that you’ve already read. I’m excited to share it with you because it offers the way through your personal struggles to discover that it’s always possible to be peaceful and free. This is what I’ve found to be absolutely true.

The title, The End of Self-Help, refers to the fact that we are not damaged, inadequate, limited selves who need help. We certainly can think we are, if we take our thoughts and feelings to be true.

But here’s what’s possible. When we open to the truth of any given moment, we discover that we don’t have to believe false ideas about ourselves and the world. We don’t have to get caught up in habits and emotions that don’t serve.

We can rest our attention here, in presence. We can know ourselves as the space of pure being that is luminous, endless, and alive. We can soften into the heart and find the essence of life everywhere, knowing nothing is separate from anything else.

This is the possibility for all of us—to, as the subtitle says, “discover peace and happiness right at the heart of your messy, scary, brilliant life.”

Nothing about you needs to change for you to be happy—it takes only a simple shift of attention.

Chapter Descriptions

Here is what the book covers. At the end of each chapter is a section called, “Explorations” offering experiments and contemplations to make the content come alive in your own experience. And each chapter includes an audio meditation, which you can find here.

Introduction

The introduction describes the problem with the concept of self-help and offers the alternative: that we don’t need to look outside ourselves or wait one more second for happiness. We aren’t broken, and we’re not missing what we need to be happy. I also offer my story of how I’ve come to this realization.

Chapter 1: Finding Yourself

This chapter begins to go deeper to describe how our attention gets glued to thoughts and feelings that make us suffer. And it guides you to realize, in your own experience, the relief from freeing attention so it can rest in the simplicity of pure presence. The chapter concludes by inviting you to question your identity. Maybe you aren’t defined by your limiting thoughts and painful feelings. It lays out the path, developed in the rest of the book, for discovering your essential wholeness and boundless true nature.

Chapter 2: Clear Seeing About Unhappiness

Together, we explore exactly why and how we suffer, including stories from the past, our current right now experience, and our belief that who we are is separate and limited. You’re continually guided to realize the effortlessness of just being, available in any moment.

Chapter 3: Showing Up Ripe and Ready

This path is radical in that it invites you to question everything you take to be true about yourself, others, and the world. This chapter highlights 6 essential qualities to find within yourself and bring to this investigation.

Chapter 4: Running and Staying

You’re guided to become familiar with all the ways you avoid and resist what you’re actually experiencing—and to be truthful about the painful effects on your life. We go deeply into the topic of emotions so you can learn to relate to them with intelligence. You’ll learn the beauty, and surprising relief, of simply opening fully to what is.

Chapter 5: The Puzzle of Thinking

Believing the content of our thoughts takes us away from what’s true, yet thinking is a powerful force that magnetizes our attention. This chapter offers many suggestions for relaxing attention away from troublesome thoughts.

Chapter 6: Kidnapped by Fear

Fear deserves its own chapter because it lies at the root of the belief that we’re the separate and limited entity our thoughts tell us we are. We learn about the subtle faces and voices of fear and how to be with the experience of fear so it’s no longer in control.

Chapter 7: Hijacked by Lack and Desire

At the foundation of the separate self who we think needs help is the belief that we’re broken and lacking. This chapter guides you to see through these false beliefs to realize that the truth of you has always been pure and innocent, untouched by anything that’s ever happened, and overflowing with infinite potential.

Chapter 8: Awake in Relationship

No longer needing to protect or defend the separate self, we’re free to show up freshly in our relationships. We discover ways to be with emotional reactions, the wisdom of seeing through attachments, and the truth about loss.

Chapter 9: Natural Curiosity

This chapter addresses important questions about change, acceptance, thinking, emotions, and spiritual awakening.

Chapter 10: Finally Home

What is embodied and awakened living? How do we live when we’re no longer driven by thoughts? In this chapter, you’ll find out about goals, stress, life purpose, and the simple joys of ordinary life.

Living It in Your Own Experience

My intention for this book is to break things down so clearly that you can’t help but realize the insanity of identifying yourself by your thoughts about the past, worries about the future, or the disease rampant in our society—feelings of inadequacy.

You’ll understand fully why and how you suffer—and discover another way.
You’ll be so knowledgeable about fear that it stops having power in your life.
Your thoughts about not being good enough just won’t make sense anymore.
And you’ll realize that you’ve always been who you really are despite your distractions—pure consciousness, spacious, open, and transparent.

Then you’ll practice bringing this new understanding to your relationships, life choices, emotions, thought processes, and quest for a life purpose. Maybe, like me, you’ll revel in the ordinary unfolding of everyday life that overflows with palpable presence and love.

This journey is radical because it invites you to question everything you take for granted—every belief, viewpoint, identity, assumption, and expectation. So I’ve offered some guidance.

There are explorations at the end of every chapter where you are encouraged to apply what you’re reading about to your own direct experience. And there are new guided audio meditations available for each of the 10 chapters.

There’s a wondrous discovery awaiting you. It’s the end of self-help, of waiting to improve at some future time, and the living, breathing possibility of peace now…and now…and now…

Always in love,

Gail

A Practical Guide to a Spiritually Connected Life

“There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle.”
~Albert Einstein

There is always a way out of your personal suffering. Always. In any moment, you can stop, investigate your experience to see what’s false and what’s true, and live the truth that you are. This is what’s always available to you.

We’re experts at living the lies that we tell ourselves―that we’re limited and inadequate, that we need a relationship to be happy, that our judgments of ourselves and others are true.

But what about living the truth? Do you need to wait for divine intervention to live fully? Are happiness and joy not in the cards for you?

Your true nature, who you really are, is infinitely loving, overflowing with possibility, impossible to contain. You are the brilliance that lights up everything.

Do you melt when you hold a baby? It’s not the baby; it’s the transparency of love that’s so incredibly sweet.
Are you in awe of a beautiful sunset (like the ones we’ve been having in Santa Barbara lately)? It’s not the sunset; the beauty that is naturally you is right here to be seen in the outside world, with no separation.

I was in Starbuck’s this morning with tears in my eyes at the kindness all around me. It was the one heart seen everywhere.

For most of us, this awareness of the truth of things is hidden. We get distracted by our worries and dramas. We’re stuck chewing on thoughts in our minds, while we’re missing the full-on, juicy humanity and presence of the moment.

So here are some reminders. Living the truth of the way things really are, the way of happiness and peace, is not “spiritual.” It’s practical, tangible, and available to you right now. Align yourself with the essence of life with these heartfelt practices for a spiritually connected life.

Have no personal agenda

If you have an axe to grind, if you’re waiting for your needs to be fulfilled by others, you’re standing squarely in your personal self, and you’re suffering. Rather than pushing your agenda, switch your perspective entirely.

Be humble. Stop the fight with what’s happening and be a welcoming host for whatever appears.

Receive things as they are, as though they were gifts being offered to you, because they are.

For me, my mantra is, “Oh, this.” I’m no longer concerned about what should be happening or how I should be feeling. The reality of the moment is perfection. Who am I to argue with it?

See everything as yourself

In truth, there is only universal consciousness, which means that nothing is separate from anything else. See a tree? The essence of it is the same as the essence of you. Encounter another person? At the source, there aren’t two people, just life unfolding.

If this isn’t known to you in your direct experience, no worries. Just try out some experiments to see what it’s like:

Imagine being with a familiar person, deleting any history, then seeing them freshly as yourself.
Now take this new perspective into an interaction with them. What do you say or do?
How would you walk in the world if everything is you?

If you’re like me, the heart starts overflowing with tenderness and compassion. How can you hurt others when they’re you? This doesn’t mean you don’t intelligently say, “No!” when that’s called for. It makes you even more aware of how suffering moves people and brings clarity about what to do.

Let the one heart be illuminated, and live there.

Befriend the unknown

You can’t know anything beyond what is happening in this present moment. Worried about the future? You’re wasting your time.

We so easily project negative outcomes onto the future―when in truth we know nothing about what’s going to happen. How will that date go? What will that event be like? Really, you have no idea.

When you know that you don’t know, you’re totally receptive to what is. You live in wonder because anything can happen. You’re no longer limited by beliefs you hold about yourself, others, and the world.

Don’t be driven by fear

Fear divides, separates, and gets your mind spinning. Fear can be present in your experience, but you don’t need to listen to its advice. In fact, if you do, you’re out of alignment with the truth of universal consciousness.

There is a natural intelligence to life that guides you perfectly. To access it, you can ask, “What would love do?” or, “What would wisdom do?”

You already know what fear would do. It limits your expression in life and keeps you falsely entangled in confusion. Try out another way―to be aligned with fullness of life that is clear, open, boundless, and wise.

*******************

When you meet life with deep openness and receptivity, it will feel odd at first. After all, you’re stepping outside your self-imposed prison of false beliefs, and you don’t know what it’s like out here in the land of freedom. Let the cells of your body rearrange, be fully in not knowing and openness to what is.

Sure you can suffer, if that’s your choice. But if you’d like to know another way, consciously align your experience with what’s true. You’ll make the amazing discover that the end of suffering is so close, less than a nanosecond away.

Try out these experiments in your own experience. What is it like for you? I’d love to hear… And if you’re reading this by email, please click here to visit GailBrenner.com and to comment.

Always in love,
Gail

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How to Discover the Sacred Moments in Everyday Life

“If the only prayer you ever say in your entire life is thank you, it will be enough.”
~Meister Eckhart

Happy New Year to you! May this be a lovely time of celebration and renewal. My wish for you is to open to the boundless peace and happiness that is absolutely possible for you, right now. I’m so grateful for you and for your interest in the deepest truth.

I’ve created a Youtube channel that you can find by clicking here and will be posting videos now and then. Please let me know if you have any topics or questions you’d like me to address.

We all get contracted in our fears and conditioning and lose sight of the potential for joy, ease, and the knowing that everything is okay. This video invites you to move beyond your suffering and discover the sacred moments in everyday life. Please enjoy.

If you’re having trouble viewing the video, or if you’d like to comment, please click here to go to GailBrenner.com.

Always in love,

Gail

Do This to Bring Harmony to Your Relationships

Note: My website at GailBrenner.com is completely redesigned. It’s fresh, new, and packed with information just for you. Please click on over and take a look.

“Clouds come floating into my life, no longer to carry rain or usher storm, but to add color to my sunset sky.”
~Rabindranath Tagore

I can see now that I missed a crucial insight when it came to relationships. Thinking I was doing it right, I thought I had to communicate every feeling and concern, continually have “the talk” about what’s going on, and endlessly process what happened when an interaction became difficult.

I was trying to be a good communicator and keep everything out in the open.

Now, an honest, open relationship is a beautiful thing, and I wouldn’t accept anything less. But it doesn’t all hinge on good communication. Because here’s what I’ve learned.

When we don’t own our emotional reactions, we bring tension, conflict, and separation to our relationships.

Own Your Emotions

Instead of taking a breath and meeting our own experience when we feel frustrated or hurt, we blame, criticize, fight, manipulate, and spend our precious time rationalizing our opinions to ourselves and everyone around us.

We’ve moved away from the solo activity of being present with our experience. The effects? We’re driven to engage when we’re emotionally charged, not calm. (Not a good plan.) And our minds spin in judgment and confusion, trying to make sense of it all.

Is this what you really want? Do you want to foster friction and divisiveness—or do you want to meet the people in your life with an open, loving heart and mind?

Turning Toward Your Inner Experience

The beginning of a bold and courageous way of being is to turn your attention away from the other person and directly into yourself. You stop seeing others through the veil of your own pain.

What happens? Compassion naturally arises—for others and for yourself.

Your reactions to other people are a beautiful invitation for your awakening. They reflect back to you areas of unexplored emotion and show you how you hide from yourself.

Here’s what’s possible: Being triggered by others becomes a time of celebration. You get to see where you’re stuck so you can be free. Then you show up open and kind in your interactions. When you start reflecting on your own inner experience, you make some amazing discoveries.

If you lash out at your partner in anger, you might realize you’re actually afraid.
If you judge and constrict your children, maybe you feel helpless as a parent or scared about what might happen to them.
If you’re waiting for affection, you may be missing the opportunity to know yourself as already whole and complete.

Take any relationship that causes you stress or discomfort, and like a trail of breadcrumbs, follow your reaction back into yourself to its source. I can guarantee you your discovery will be illuminating.

Meeting Your Reactions for Harmony in Your Relationships

Often, the strong feelings that arise in our interactions echo an unresolved relationship from our past. If you were criticized by an overly demanding parent, it won’t take much for a boss correcting your work to seem like a tyrant in your eyes. If you were abandoned in your youth, a friend calling to cancel plans at the last minute may cause you to feel like you’re five again.

Any reaction that seems too intense for the situation at hand has undoubtedly triggered some old, undigested feelings.

What to do when these emotions are revealed? Acknowledge them. Experience how they feel in your body. Own them so they don’t complicate your interactions.

Learn how to be with your experience. It’s absolutely the most loving thing you can do for yourself and everyone else. For more on feelings, check out these in-depth posts here and here.

When you meet your emotions within yourself, you bring harmony to your relationships. You’re no longer sensitive and reactive. And you’re available to the deepest intimacy with all that is.

What About You?

How do you deal with your emotional reactions in your relationships? What happens when you own them? I’d love to hear… If you’re reading this by email, please click here to comment and to visit the new and improved GailBrenner.com.

Always in love,
Gail

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Your World Is a Projection of Your Inner State

“Liberation is not an acquisition, but a matter of courage, the courage to believe that you are free already and to act on it.”
~Nisargadatta Maharaj

How does your world look to you? Is it scary and uninviting? Filled with people who complicate your life? Does it leave you with a sense that something’s missing?

As a formerly unhappy and confused person, now recovered, here’s what I’ve learned: It has nothing to do with the world.

Our worlds are a projection of our inner state. That’s right. There’s no objective world “out there.” Take two people with two different histories and two different perspectives. They’ll see the exact same situation in two completely different ways.

It’s like you’re looking out through a window. If your window is layered with programmed habits that define your experience, your inner state is limited and edgy. If your view is pristine and clear, with nothing in the way, you’re open, expansive, and available to what is.

What is your window onto the world? Is it murky, filled with the smudges of emotions, fears, and distorted beliefs and expectations? Then you’ll find a disappointing world out there where people are driven by their own emotions and situations will fail to meet your needs.

Is your window clear? You’ll engage with open, loving people who aren’t steeped in drama. You’ll find fulfillment and happiness effortlessly.

How It Works: An Example

Say that your intimate relationships just don’t go well. Somehow you end up with someone who creates conflict, who triggers you unendingly, or who doesn’t treat you with love and respect. It’s no mystery as to why these patterns recur for you, and it has nothing to do with the other.

It’s about your own inner experience.

Maybe you believe a sad story that you’re not deserving. Then you’ll choose someone who doesn’t appreciate you.
Maybe you have lots of ideas about what your partner should say and do. There will be no way he or she can possibly satisfy you.
Maybe you’ve been burned by relationships in the past. Your protective walls will prevent you from experiencing true intimacy. Your partner will want more from you than you’re willing to give.

And if you show up with a loving heart, with preferences but not expectations, you’re already fulfilled. You’ll choose wisely and flow like water when difficulties arise.

The Sacred Path to Clarity

I’m going to go out in a limb here and assume that what you want is ease and clarity. You want your window to be clear so you don’t get knotted up by situations that leave you spinning to try to figure them out. You want to feel okay about yourself, others, and the things that happen.

It may be easier than you think to experience this way of being.

There’s a spiritual practice called “neti-neti,” which means “not this, not that.” You take everything that arises in your experience, and you see it as not really you. A thought that you’re not good enough? Not you. A feeling of fear? Not you. A belief that you’ll get rejected if you get too close? Not you, as it’s a projection into the future and not about what’s happening now.

Neti-neti invites you to see what is actually true. And it’s not these distorted experiences that muck up your window.

Underneath all your patterns, your fears and hurt feelings, your rigid expectations is peace. When you see these habits as simply objects that pass through your consciousness, you don’t need to make them your reality, and you’re peaceful. The smudges come, but you don’t grab them so they don’t stick to your clear window. Neti-neti—they’re not you.

Experience this right now, if you can. Take an old familiar thought you’ve been thinking about yourself for decades. Now, imagine it floating though your mind without taking hold of it. There it goes…and here you are, free of it in this moment.

Now, feel a familiar impulse to lash out or pull away. Let it move through, and it doesn’t disturb.

You can inhabit the space of presence, the stable ground of being, where you’re free of these personal complications. Here, your window is clean. There may be shadows that cross it, but they move through without creating trouble.

See past them, and here you are…so crystal clear that your inner light shines brightly, everywhere. Let your life emerge from this clarity. It’s a blessed life in true service to love.

What About You?

How’s your window? Can you find the space of clear seeing? I’d love to hear… And if you’re reading by email, please click here to visit GailBrenner.com and to comment.

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Lovingly Being with Fear—A Video

This series on fear has raised some questions which I’m addressing in this video. How do we meet fear? What is the path through it to peace? I’m happy to hear your comments and questions.

You can find the previous posts for the series here:

And if you’ve received this post by email, or you can’t play the video, please click here to go to GailBrenner.com and to comment.

Always in love,

Gail

What’s Behind Your Mask of Fear?

“Fear is the cheapest room in the house.
I would like to see you living in better conditions.”
~Hafiz

Note: This is the third in the series of posts on fear. Please find the first two here and here.

Get out the pumpkins. Bring on the ghosts. It’s Halloween, and we’re going to investigate the spooky nature of fear.

Boo!

Actually, the fear that you take so seriously in your life is just like a costume you put on. When you’re dressed as a dragon, are you really a dragon? No. You take off the costume, and here you are in your natural brilliance. You know what’s true and what’s not.

Fearful Thoughts Aren’t True

It’s exactly the same with fear. Believing fearful thoughts is like believing you’re a dragon because you’re wearing a dragon costume. Just because a thought appears doesn’t mean it’s true.

Turn your attention away from these thoughts, stop making them your reality, and what do you discover? You’re here—alive and enthusiastic for your life. You realize that you’re not the scaredy-cat you thought you were. You’re here as your natural brilliance.

So many of us live in perpetual fear, and as a recovered fear addict, I can tell you there is another way.

Let the Pain of Fear Inspire You

If you need some inspiration to turn toward fear, consider this. Unexplored emotions cause disease. They transmute your cells so your immune system doesn’t function properly. And they wear out your nervous system because it stays on high alert.

Add to that the effect of anxiety and agitation on your quality of life. It’s utterly exhausting to be afraid all the time.

Fear can be sneaky. It’s the feeling behind the subtle unease you feel, the precursor to a mind spinning in doubt and worry.

If you want to find your way through fear, here’s what’s most important. You need to participate fully.

Applying Guidance to Your Own Experience

Just reading these words right now and feeling hopeful or calm for the moment is not enough. For many people, fear is the underlying driver of their waking life. It may not even lose its grip on you when you’re asleep. And by now, the expression of fear in your body and mind is highly conditioned.

If you don’t bring your heart and soul to this process, fear will continue to reign, guaranteed. It’s not going to magically disappear.

Do you need to hear that again? Fear isn’t going to magically disappear. It requires your attention, your passion for truth, your love, your earnestness, your sincere desire for peace.

Make it a priority, above all else, to investigate, inquire into, and feel the sensations of fear. Commit to being consciously aware of fear until you see there’s nothing to be afraid of. Rinse and repeat a million times because each moment you bring conscious awareness to fear is a moment of freedom.

Then go out there and let your full authentic truth guide you.

My Journey with Fear

When I first realized how much fear had invaded me, I was on fire to be free. I refused to live one more second of my life with that constant anxious agitation I knew so well. Many times each day, whenever I felt an inkling of fear, I sat down on the sofa, closed my eyes, and let my attention rest in the vast field of awareness as the sensations came and went.

Sometimes there were a few sensations. Sometimes they were everywhere and strong. Nothing really happened—I was simply being with what was present in the moment. But it was a completely different way of approaching fear—an approach based on truth.

Eventually, the experience of fear subsided. I stopped worrying about the future because those thoughts got no attention. I no longer doubted myself because I didn’t play into the doubting thoughts. The fears about whether or not I was liked or if I was accomplishing enough were seen as not meaningful.

I realized that without these fear thoughts, everything is just fine. The peace I thought I would never know is my abiding experience.

Now I take none of the content of those thoughts personally. When they arise, they’re barely a whisper in my mind. I take a breath, open to sensations in the body, and melt into infinite being with a heart overflowing with love.

Fear was never who I am, and now I know that for sure.

What About You?

I see who you really are, and I know you’re not really the scared, limited one you think you are. You are whole, complete, lacking nothing. You might believe the mask of fear you wear, but I see right through it.

This truth is here for you to see in any moment. Abandon thoughts and welcome the physical sensations of fear with relaxed openness. Then be that openness. This is where peace lies.

I am happy to hear your insights, questions, reports, and frustrations. Please click here to go to GailBrenner.com to comment.

Always in love,

Gail

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How and Why to Get Familiar with Fear

“Happiness is simply to allow everything to be exactly as it is from moment to moment.”
~Rupert Spira

When we look closely enough, we discover that fear is at the root of our conditioned habits.

Take people pleasing as an example. Why do we need to please others? We’re afraid of rejection, abandonment, or being alone.

And what about an addiction or compulsive behaviors? Behind them is a a fear of meeting deeply-held tender feelings.

If fear remains unexplored, habits will continue to play out in your life, over and over. Turn toward fear with love and care, and these habits will start to lose their power to control you.

Finally, you’ll have space to live outside of them…in the land of freedom, openness, and infinite possibility…

The Inner Voice of Fear

Fear may not be obvious at first, so you have to look for it. It rarely appears in your face screaming, “I’m afraid!” It has other more indirect ways of showing up.

The voice of fear is all about no. It tells you that you won’t be successful, that you’re going to be rejected—and it points out every negative outcome imaginable.

The intention of the voice of fear is to keep you safe. And it does this by making you terrified of going one millimeter outside your comfort zone. It doesn’t want you to be bold and trust life.

Here is how fear speaks:

*It tells you what you should and shouldn’t do.
*It traps you in doubt, going back and forth in your mind so you can’t make decisions.
*It keeps your mind spinning in an ongoing flood of thoughts.
*It imagines the worst about the future.
*It questions your brilliance and creativity.
*It wants you to stay stuck in familiar ways of being, even if they’re hurtful.

The fear voice is contracted and edgy and relentlessly tells stories about what is wrong and not okay.

What to do with the mind in fear? Lose interest in these thoughts. Don’t believe them. Break up with them. Don’t let them define you and your reality.

Fearful thoughts are all about limiting you and making you believe things about yourself and the world that just aren’t true. Consider that there are endless possibilities to explore regardless of what the fear voice tells you.

Take a conscious breath, wake up to your experience right now in the present moment, and turn your attention away from these thoughts.

Without them, who are you? You’re still here and alive in your full magnificence.

Lean into a vast space inside that is not inhabited by fearful thoughts. Become familiar with not being limited by them. You’re opening to the full, lovely, boundless potential of you.

The Fear Body

Fear also shows up as physical sensations in the body. You might notice contractions, tightness, an energetic sense of unease.

Getting to know the physical expression of fear is essential to being free of it. Ignore these sensations, and fear will be running in the background. Meet them with loving awareness, and the stories of fear can’t take hold.

Sit quietly, then bring your attention away from your mind and into the sensations in your body. Don’t do anything with them—simply notice them and allow them to be present.

Be unattached to what happens. Let the sensations be here as long as they want to, as they change, intensify, disappear…it doesn’t matter. You’re giving them liberating space to be.

The point is not to get rid of these sensations—don’t see them as a problem to solve. The human body is built for survival, and these sensations help you stay vigilant so you can protect yourself.

But know this: meeting them in a field of welcoming awareness derails the pattern of fear from overtaking you.
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Unawareness keeps challenging habits firmly in place. And awareness softens. Get to know the inner voice of fear and the way fear appears in your body.

Every moment you welcome fear with conscious loving care is a moment of grace. You find yourself here…open, expanded, and overflowing with possibility.

Always in love,

Gail

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Are Hidden Fears Suppressing Your Happiness?

“When you say or do anything to please, get, keep, influence, or control anyone or anything, fear is the cause and pain is the result.”
~Byron Katie

If you’re like most people, there is more fear driving your behavior than you could ever imagine. Fear is behind just about every pattern you play out that doesn’t serve you. It’s the reason you get stuck, the subtle agitation you feel that keeps you from experiencing the peace you long for. If you want to be happy, it’s essential to learn how to deal with it.

Unexamined fear is at the root of our personal suffering. And bringing it out into the light of conscious awareness is a huge step toward freedom from it.

You can assume that fear will never go away. So if you’re waiting to be free of fear, you’re going to be waiting for a very long time.

Instead, here’s how to handle it. Get to know fear intimately. Bring it out of the shadows of your mind, heart, and body so you can recognize it.

Then, you can make a choice. You can let yourself be hijacked by fear and respond to its limits. Or you can turn away from it and choose the truth that wants to speak through you.

It’s a matter of limits or infinite possibility. Fear or love. Constriction or true freedom.

Do the work to meet fear lovingly. You’ll discover that the ease you seek is more available than you could ever imagine.

In the next few posts over the next week or two, we’ll look at fear more directly. How does it hide out in your programmed habits? How can you meet it in openness? If fear isn’t the driver, what is?

For now, I offer you this reflection. Sit quietly, and ask yourself:

Am I willing to get to know fear?
How does fear live in me?
How does it drive my behavior?

Feel free to share your discoveries in the comments. And if you’re reading this by email, click here to go to GailBrenner.com and to comment.

You’re about to embark on an exploration for truth and authenticity. Who are you really? Not the fearful self you think you are.

Always in love,

Gail

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