Dr. Gail Brenner

Sacred Space for Awakened Living

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What I Wish You Knew About Fear

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“Being present to what is is the prelude to its disappearance.”
~Claudette Vidal

If you look into the heart of fear, what do you find? Nothing.

Fear: it’s a word, a set of letters that we agree has a certain meaning. It’s a label for physical agitation in your body and a way of thinking that distorts things to look negative, pessimistic, and hopeless.

But what is it really? Nothing more than a belief, something we take to be true, an unquestioned emotion that dampens our enthusiasm.

Here’s what I wish you knew about fear: that it is absolutely possible to live in this world without being driven by it. How do I know? I’ve experienced a lot of fear, and I’ve seen through to the truth of it.

Not Driven by Fear

Notice I didn’t say we could live without fear. Fear may arise—it’s a normal experience in the human body, but it doesn’t have to be a problem. You get to the point where you’re not driven by it, you’re not interested in it, and it doesn’t touch your wisdom and clarity.

If you see it clearly for what it actually is, shining the laser light of conscious awareness directly on it, it falls apart and stops affecting you.

Whenever I think I might be afraid of something (which hardly happens anymore), I question what I’m experiencing, and the fear slips away, like sand through my fingers. I don’t attach any meaning to it, so it completely loses its power.

The Power of Fear

Fear creates all kinds of chaos when we buy into it. We’re afraid to be alone, afraid of not having enough money, afraid of getting too close to people, afraid of failing (or succeeding), afraid the truth about ourselves will be exposed, afraid of stepping outside of our comfort zone, afraid of death.

It’s at the root of procrastination, addiction, compulsive behavior, neediness, clinging, inadequacy, guilt, and envy. Not to mention prejudice, hate, wars, and violence of all kinds.

Fear divides, separates, and alienates. It conceals love, which is the essential fabric of everything. It makes us feel like we’re half-alive, hitting walls everywhere as we bumble through life. We miss out on the juice of actually living.

When we live in fear, we’re caught in tunnel vision. And we overlook the actual reality of who we are. Who you are is not this fearful, limited being cowering in the face of life, although you may be a master at playing that role.

When you see what fear is and it falls away, this becomes clear: you are luminous, already fulfilled, naturally loving, effortlessly grateful. This is you in this very moment!

Questioning Fear

I invite you to not take fear for granted. Don’t be resigned to a life ruled by fear—it’s optional, it’s a choice, and it doesn’t have to be your reality.

How to see through fear? Rather than run from it, question it. Take a moment when you are experiencing fear, and be willing to investigate it to see what is actually happening.

Don’t assume that what I’m offering here is true. Follow through on your own with these inquiry processes about thoughts and feelings. Then you will directly see through the fallacy of fear in your own experience. You will know it to be false.

Inquire: What thoughts are present?

Notice that the content of fearful thoughts is negative and limiting. They are pure imagination: imagining that an undesired outcome will happen in the future, imagining that you are perceiving a person or situation correctly, when you’re not. They close you down to the truth.

What is the truth? You don’t know what will happen. Whatever the thoughts say is one of an infinite number of possibilities. Isn’t it just as likely that something amazing could happen? Or something mildly pleasant, or neutral? Isn’t it possible that your view of the person or situation is just plain wrong?

The Medicine

Fearful thoughts expect the worst. Realize that this is fear-fueled, distorted mind and not true reality. To say it simply: don’t believe them. Instead, say, “I don’t know what will happen.” Or “What is really going on here?” Don’t listen to your mind. Be so incredibly open to every possibility.

When fearful thoughts arise, take a breath. Say, “Wait a minute.” Be still for a moment. Stop going headlong into this familiar way of being. Then shine the light of presence on your experience to see what is true. Abandon the false ideas of fear. They don’t accurately describe you, others, or the future.

Embrace what you actually know to be true—your present moment experience right now. You don’t have to be attached to what you think will happen in the future and run your whole life around it. It’s just not logical. Because you can’t know it anyway.

If you are awake to your life as it unfolds, you can trust that you will know exactly what you need to know. It is revealed in the moment. This is a fact.

Inquire: What feelings are present?

We call fear an emotion. What exactly is the experience of feeling afraid?

Move your attention away from it to observe. And when you do, you notice how much the experience of fear is physical. When you name your experience as fear, there are lots of sensations in the body—vibration, fluttery feelings, tightening, contraction, nausea. These sensations can be very uncomfortable and difficult to tolerate.

What else is present? Thoughts about fear—and all of them are distorted. Like we saw above, they are really like a horror show, making you think negatively, and incorrectly, about yourself, others, and the world.

If you lose interest in these thoughts, what remains? Physical sensations. They may be strong, but do they have any inherent meaning? No. Just the experience of sensations coming and going through you.

The Medicine

It’s so simple: welcome these sensations as they are. Don’t create stories about them or make them into something they’re not. They are only physical sensations.

When you realize they are present and you stop ignoring them, you are simply here with your experience. Where’s the problem now?

Good for you…you have untangled fear! You can see it for what it actually is: physical sensations and distorted thoughts. Now that all of this is conscious to you, can you see any reason to let fear rule?

The Takeaway

If fear has been your companion for a long time, you may by now define yourself by it. But it is not who you are.

Without the identity of fear, who are you? What do you do? How do you function?

By focusing on fear, you overlook so much. Once released from seeing through the limiting eyes of fear, everything is fresh and new. How your body feels, the choices you make, how you relate to others—the possibilities are infinite.

Without fear, the feeling of separation from yourself and the world falls away. You are open, available to what life offers, primed to say “Yes!” rather than that old familiar “no.” You are released from the bondage of fear. Blinders off, you are peaceful and calm. Anything is possible.

What About You?

So now you know what I wish you knew about fear. And I hand the baton to you. Will you apply this knowledge to your own experience? Are you struggling? Have you seen through to the truth of fear? Please feel free to share in the comments. I’d love to hear…

Note: Please check out my recent post on MindBodyGreen.com about healing the pain of the past and an interview about the power of presence on Manifested Happiness.

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5 Surprising Ways to Express Love

surprising_ways“Socrates showed us that thinking the truth is not enough. Truth demands to be lived.”

~Americ Azevedo

Real love is the essence of everything. In truth, everything and every moment is infused with it endlessly, if we’re open to seeing it.

Love has so many beautiful faces as it’s commonly expressed in the world: kindness, generosity, compassion, celebration, sharing joy…the list goes on. When our hearts are open and undefended, we taste the true heart that sees everything as one, the same, the infinite source of all.

From this perspective, everywhere we look we see ourselves. We are love itself.

But love isn’t always soft and sentimental. Grounding ourselves in true love where nothing is separate, we are fearless and whole.

Our actions aren’t based on any ideas about how we think we should act. Rather, they emerge from clarity as fresh responses that are perfectly appropriate to the moment.

They are aren’t thought out and habitual; they are free and spontaneous. And often surprising.

Consider these five less common, but enormously powerful ways to express love. Love may be more a part of your experience than you ever thought.

Saying No

The end of suffering comes when we say a continual Yes! to life, to things as they are. And that includes your inner knowing about situations that arise in your life. Yes doesn’t mean you always do, give, and support. It means that you see the big picture as well as all the details in it. Then the most loving action happens.

Maybe you aren’t comfortable around a friend who gossips. Or you don’t like how someone treats you. Maybe you don’t want to do what someone is asking of you. Or you feel taken advantage of.

Saying yes is opening to all aspects of what happens, including your own reactions. And from this openness, a wise “no” may be the clearest and most loving response.

Pleasing others is not always loving. If it comes from a generous heart, and others are happy, then you are freely giving what you already know to be true. There is nothing for you to get.

But when fear, need, guilt, or obligation are the drivers, tell the truth about these reactions until you see them with clarity. Then, fearlessly and kindly, just say “no.”

Silence

Our minds are often filled with endless chatter that affects how we show up in our daily lives. Do you fully pay attention? Do you babble on to fill up space? Are you afraid to just be quiet?

The root of these behaviors is distraction and unawareness. They suck the life out of life and block your appreciation of the living breathing reality of now.

Stop and ask, “How do I want to be in this moment?” You may find that the simplicity of silence is the most natural and aligned choice you could make.

Fearless Action

Fear-based action cannot possibly be an expression of love. Love is infinite, overflowing with potential, all-encompassing, and fearless. This is far from the picture that fear presents.

I can tell you from my own experience that you can put fear aside and let fearlessness guide you. There came a time when I just wasn’t willing to give fear the authority it was trying to have. I didn’t care what the results were or how others would evaluate me. I just had to stop behaving according to the limits of fear.

The bound up, fearful me was finally put to rest, and what was revealed was life, so fresh and alive, love in motion!

A friend put it another way. When fear visited, she said, “I’m not available to that.” Done. End of story.

So no more complaining about what you could be doing if you weren’t afraid, OK? Take Nike’s advice: just do it.

Moving Toward Pain

It’s a survival instinct of the human form to move away from pain. But if you want to be deeply at peace, you must see how you fight your own experience.

Ignoring painful feelings keeps pesky habits locked into place. And rejecting feelings is rejecting a part of the preciousness that is you.

Open your heart to all of your experience. Every nuance of feeling, every tender contraction in the shadows of your body. Whatever comes, receive it with the deepest acceptance.

Be like the ocean that provides a home to all the life in it. Be a welcoming, loving host for everything that knocks on your door.

Listening

If you stand in the belief that, “I know,” then you will forget to listen. You think you’ve got it all figured out, while you are missing out on the clarity that comes by simply listening.

Truth speaks in a subtle whisper. It has nothing to do with fear and need and everything to do with love. It asks you to not know, to surrender control, and to receive.

In the moments of deep listening, you are empty and available, open to whatever appears. Can you open your heart and listen from the space of love?

* * * * * * *

Love is fierce, soft, tender, sharp, and everything in between. It doesn’t look any given way—it all depends on what arises in the freshness of the moment.

When conditioned beliefs have fallen away, all that remains is love. Live here. Clear your mind, and let yourself be surprised by how love moves.

What About You?

How is love expressed through you? How is it blocked? I’d love to hear…

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How to De-Stress, Unwind, and Come Home to Yourself

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“Where the heart is willing, it will find a thousand ways. Where it is unwilling, it will find a thousand excuses.”
~Arlen Price

I haven’t experienced stress for quite a long time—until recently. All of a sudden, I found myself anxious, pressured, and ruled by my to-do list which contains way too many things to accomplish.

I know how it happened—it’s the way any habit takes hold. In a moment of unconsciousness, a thought seems to be meaningful and important. It feeds a story about things to do and not enough time to do them. It shows up as tension in the body. And a veil of stress descends as pleasure and enjoyment in the doing melt away.

Sure, I can apply some techniques to reduce stress. I can take deep breaths, exercise, and get massages, all of which I do. But these are temporary fixes. I don’t want to live under the shadow of impending stress, hoping I can find some relief.

I want to get to the source of the problem so I can be free of it. I want true, abiding peace. Why? Because it’s possible.

What I know to be absolutely true is that my essential nature is not capable of stress. There has to be a way to return to peace. And there is.

So let’s explore what we call stress because I’m far from the only one on the planet who experiences it. In the spirit of clear seeing, let’s bring out the laser to investigate:

  • What exactly is the direct experience of stress?
  • What does it take to shift from peace to stress?

An Opportunity for Exploration

It’s not wrong to feel stress, or anything for that matter. I know it’s a platitude to say that every experience is your teacher, but it’s true. Every single thing that occurs is either about fear or love.

If it comes from love, there’s nothing to do but enjoy and celebrate. But if it’s about fear, there is an opportunity for an empowering insight that can set you free. So let’s see what stress has to offer.

Stressful Mind

Events and happenings in the world aren’t inherently stressful. They just occur. What makes them stressful is the thoughts you have about them.

Stressful thoughts evaluate, compare, and make the present seem like it’s inadequate. They create a story of urgency. Things have to get done, they’re so important, and something terrible will happen if the list doesn’t get accomplished.

When stressful thoughts are in control, who’s the victim? You. Your whole reality centers around doing what they require of you in hopes that they will just stop. If only you push yourself to do the impossible, then maybe you will feel a smidgeon of peace. It’s a setup for…more stress.

And where are wisdom, intelligence, and clarity? Hidden behind the fog of thought. In order to access them, you need to look outside of your thoughts.

When you are feeling stressed:

  • Take a moment to become aware of the way you are thinking about the situation.
  • Recognize that these are distorted thoughts that don’t serve peace and happiness.
  • Find those lovely, transcendent qualities of wisdom, intelligence, and clarity, and establish yourself in them.
  • You have returned home. Now go forth from here.

Take away the urgency, and see everything with fresh eyes. Stress is replaced by wise choosing and efficient action.

Stressful Body

You don’t have to be a rocket scientist to know that stress has a physical component. Tightness in the chest and shoulders, a stomach in knots—these are hallmarks of a body in stress. Let these go unchecked, and the body may start trying to get your attention with all sorts of physical problems.

You are unlikely to see through to the truth of what stress actually is without attention to the physical sensations. You can shift your attention away from stressful thoughts, but until you acknowledge the physical sensations, you are primed for more stress. Because unseen physical sensations are the seed for a slew of troublesome habits.

I know these sensations can be very uncomfortable. But running from them leaves the pattern of stress locked into place. So they are asking you to turn your loving attention toward them. It’s very simple.

  • Rest your attention in welcoming presence.
  • Notice whatever is appearing in your body.
  • Let the sensations be. They will do what they will do—change, intensify, decrease, disappear.
  • Be very accepting of whatever happens without any preference.

That’s it. You are so beautifully embracing your experience. You aren’t attached to what happens. You are simply being with what is, effortlessly present.

And remember this: the goal is not to make the sensations go away. This is resistance, and it won’t work anyway. You are not making anything happen; you are simply ignoring the mental noise and being with what is.

You experience the sensations without acting on them.

Freedom

Stressful thoughts and physical sensations come together to create the experience of stress. And both are a doorway to knowing your true nature as free of stress and fundamentally at peace.

Recognize the distorted stressful thoughts and live only in what is true. Welcome physical sensations with full awareness, and they are less likely to trigger stressful thinking. Be honest about what habits originate from stress. Intelligent exploration of thoughts and sensations creates the space for them to unwind.

Then question the one who experiences stress. Let the sense of you as separate from the world fall away, and see yourself as the all. The undivided universe is powered by love.

And stress is no match whatsoever for the power of love.

What About You?

Are you stuck in stress? Can you find your way back to peace? Sharing is most welcome…

Note for Santa Barbara locals: I’m hosting a meeting called Living in Truth. Please go to the Events page for information.

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The Graceful Path of Emotions

graceful_path_emotions“The art of being wise is the art of knowing what to overlook.”
~William James

“If you do not wish to be prone to anger, do not feed the habit; give it nothing which may tend to its increase.”
~Epictetus

If you want to be happy and at ease in your everyday life, you need to be wise about what to do with feelings. Hiding from feelings or having them run wild in you, neither of these will bring you peace.

In the last post, I said, “Don’t follow feelings,” a proposition that resonated for some of you but raised questions for others. So let’s look more closely at the landscape of feelings.

Let These Unfold in You

Be aware. Sometimes you can’t help but be aware of feelings. They stare you in the face or completely consume you. But more often than you might realize, feelings sit below the surface of your conscious awareness.

If you are unhappy, confused, or stuck in frustrating habits, unseen feelings are likely to be the cause. Let yourself open to the feelings that may be present by simply being aware of them.

Be very clear about what a feeling is. Bring a laser-like curiosity to your experience of feelings to discover what they actually are. Just saying, “I feel sad,” or “I feel angry” isn’t the whole picture. When you take an honest look, you will see that what we call a feeling is a set of physical sensations and a story running in your mind. This story is probably very familiar to you, as it has been recycled millions of times. So go deeper and realize that there are physical sensations in your body.

This understanding is key because it pierces through the power that feelings can have. When you get that the story is unsatisfying and doesn’t serve, you can turn your attention away from it. And you can notice physical sensations, which are not a problem at all when seen in isolation as merely sensation with no story attached.

Welcome feelings. Be open and aware so you don’t fight the feeling. It’s very simple. You just turn toward it and say hello. Hello, fear. Hello anger. Then look straight into it to see what the feeling is – a label, a story, and physical sensations. Without feeding the content of the story, let all of it be.

Welcoming feelings takes away their power and offers the space for your natural, vibrant life to be revealed.

Realize that feelings are temporary. What makes feelings get stuck is recycling the associated story in your mind. When you are no longer interested in the story, you see that feelings come and go, if you let them, just like clouds passing overhead. And here you are, the stable presence in which all of it arises.

Let These Fall Away

Avoiding and resisting makes things worse. Avoidance of feelings is at the root of compulsions, addictions, and all matter of troublesome behavior. You can’t choose wisely if you are propelled by unseen emotions. When you are ready to get honest with yourself, acknowledge the feelings and learn how to work with them intelligently.

Want feelings to stay stuck? Feed the story. The story starts with the label of your experience, as in, “I’m furious right now.” And it goes on with a whole melodrama about what should and shouldn’t have happened. This is a kind of resistance to what is as you are rolling unpleasant thoughts around in your head rather than experiencing what is actually present.

Turning away from stories, especially very familiar ones, leaves you available to notice what is actually here. You stop thinking about what is happening and instead experience directly what is happening.

Don’t follow feelings. If your life is not as harmonious as you want it to be, you are most likely letting feelings guide your decisions. You feel an old resentment, so you stew about it or show up at a family gathering ready to take things personally or make impulsive choices so you don’t have to actually deal with your feelings. Maybe you feed fear which makes you limit yourself in so many painful ways.

If feelings are unexplored, they will have control over you. But when you know what feelings are present – and you know that you want peace and sanity in your life – you can make beautiful, wise, conscious choices that support your happiness that are not driven by feelings.

In a Crisis…

Chronic feelings are the ones that feed familiar ongoing habits that leave you dissatisfied and unfulfilled. And these are the ones that are asking for your direct and loving attention.

But acute feelings may require a different approach. In the middle of a life crisis, when you are dealing with tragedy, loss, or grief, your emotions may be so strong, so consuming that you can’t step back and be aware of them.

In these situations, focus instead on your moment-to-moment self-care. Be around supportive people. Eat well and exercise as best you can. Get professional help, if needed. Painful feelings may come in waves, so let them be, and notice the times when the feelings subside.

Eventually, you will know when the time is ripe for you to reflect on what has happened so your heart stays open. But be gentle with yourself, no need to rush it.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Once you realize that feelings don’t have to control you, they start to lose importance. The drama ends, and you realize you are conscious and alive in the moments of your life. That is how it has always been, but you were too caught up in feelings to notice. How amazing to recognize that peace is always possible!

Now go forth and enjoy…

Are feelings a sticking point for you? Have you discovered that you are free? I’d love to hear…

 

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The Treasure at the Heart of Pain

“As long as you make an identity for yourself out of pain, you cannot be free of it.”
~Eckhart Tolle

“The water hollows out the stone, not by force but drop by drop.”
~Lucretius

Yes, I know it hurts. Whether you feel sad, scared, lonely, or regretful, it weighs heavy like a ton of bricks, dragging you down. And it keeps you from realizing the brilliance that you are.

What do you do to escape from emotional pain? Do you drink or eat to excess, keep yourself ridiculously busy, sit around hoping for a better future? It’s human nature to do everything you can to avoid turning around and meeting the feelings that arise in you. Who wants to feel pain?

No Escaping

But here’s the problem. These temporary measures simply don’t work. Addictions, compulsions, incessant mental spinning. They may dull the pain for a short time, but still it remains, barely below the surface, waiting for you to take a break from all your efforts to avoid it so it can tap you on the shoulder once again. “Remember me?” it says.

So must you resign yourself to a lifetime of pain? No, because pain, even though it seems so real, is a thin veil that covers the truth of who you are.

Your true nature is peace itself, and what you perceive as pain distracts you from experiencing the endless well of contentment that is eternally available. No matter what stories you hang on to, peace is possible for you because it is already who you are.

What it takes to realize this is the option you have been avoiding your whole life – turning to meet the pain. Not to wallow in it. Not to feed the drama. But to face what you have been running from – the experience of emotional pain that seems to have taken up residence inside of you.

Here is where you will discover the treasure at the heart of pain.

The Source of Pain

Most difficult emotions have their roots in events that happened long ago. You experienced a strong emotional reaction to a challenging situation or relationship, and you didn’t have the skills or support to feel it and let it move through you. Instead, it got stuck, lodged in your mind and body, creating layers of contraction and armoring as the years go by.

Fast forward to now, and here you are, desperately wanting relief so you can be at peace. This is your invitation: to discover the treasure at the heart of pain.

Three Blessed Steps

Honor this process that returns you to yourself – your sane and shining self that is not veiled by the past.

First Step: Recognition

First, pause from all the turmoil and recognize that an emotional reaction consists of two experiences: a story line that goes through your mind and physical holding in your body. Whenever you are caught in an emotion, be curious about your experience, and this is what you will discover.

It’s always the same: thoughts and physical sensations, a repetitive story and physical contractions, consumed in your mind and felt in your body.

Second Step: Turning Away

Now, put the story aside. You don’t have to get rid of it, you only need to see the futility of continuing to think it over and over. I mean, haven’t you gone over the same thoughts millions of times? Have they brought you relief yet? In fact, this is why you feel stuck.

You will never find peace by repeating the story in your mind. Never. And once you feel your way into this truth, you start turning away from thoughts every time they appear. It doesn’t matter how often they arise or how much they try to seduce you into thinking they are true or important. Your job is this: to stop feeding useless stories with your attention, every time.

Once I really got this point, everything started to shift.

Do you want to be happy? Stop acting as if your stories are true. Don’t feed them, and here you are, so fresh and alive!

Third Step: Turning Toward

If you aren’t going to think about what happened, where does your attention go? This part may be tricky, but hang in there with me.

In every moment, you are aware. If you are breathing, you are aware that you are breathing. If you are crying, you are aware that you are crying. You can’t possibly have any experience without also being aware of it. You have been aware of everything that has ever happened to you – that is the constant. How could it be otherwise?

If you bring your attention not to things that you are aware of, like thoughts and feelings, but to the awareness itself, you will make some interesting discoveries.

  • Memories, ideas, feelings, sounds, sensations, sights – all of these appear and, at the same time, you are aware.
  • Awareness is still and spacious. Things just are, no matter what arises in it. It can’t be disturbed.
  • Being aware is infinitely patient and utterly accepting.

Putting It All Together

We already have seen that an emotional reaction consists of a story and physical sensations and that feeding stories will quickly take you down the road to suffering. But what about physical sensations?

Undigested emotions from the past get stuck in the body and appear as physical contraction and holding. We tense up on so many levels to protect ourselves from the world. And this is what needs to be liberated.

Grounding yourself as awareness and turning away from thoughts, notice the sensations in your body, and let them be. Let them surface from the recesses of your cells to be seen in the light of awareness. Simply be aware, with great kindness, but don’t do anything.

As you feel the sensations, give them time to come out of hiding, and you will eventually notice they aren’t solid. As you welcome them, they begin to not even feel real.  Every time you find a sliver of space in a contraction or a tiny hole in the armor, this is awareness shining through.

Over time, simply be aware.  Let sensations be, and they will barely cause a ripple.

How to discover the treasure at the heart of painful emotions? Turn away from the story line, then turn toward yourself – aware, alive, awake, and present. Let the physical contractions release into this space and be the space.

No story…being aware…contractions dissolving…where is the pain?

Have you discovered the treasure at the heart of pain? Questions? I’d love to hear…