Chris G

Alexandra Vrabie

Hanoi, Ho�n Ki?m, Hanoi, Vietnam

Sit with your fear, investigate its sensations, and offer it the comfort and safety it needs to dissolve.

Science

Health & Happiness

Resilience

English

Why is fear so difficult to sit with? Join me in this trauma-sensitive practice working with a situation that triggers fear in order to cultivate mindfulness and compassion towards the part of you that is afraid. In this original take on RAIN, I guide you to identify the part of you that's holding the fear, where it lives in your mind and body, and to examine and nourish it from a safe distance, eventually releasing any somatic remnants of fear through shaking. 

Meeting Your Fearful Part

 Hi and welcome to today's meditation where we will be cultivating our ability to sit with fear. Perhaps one of the most difficult consequences of trauma is that it creates the body of fear. This is a lack of safety within our own bodies. All the repressed emotions from the past still live within our tissues and they threaten to overwhelm us whenever we open to them. That's why any attempt at trauma healing must be grounded in mindfulness. Slowly opening to our sensations and emotions, resourcing, creating safety, and being aware of our inner experience in order to avoid overwhelm. And it all starts by developing our relationship to fear. It's also important to acknowledge that this work isn't easy. Fear is one of the most difficult emotions to sit with. It tends to be a full-bodied experience of contraction and tightening in the throat, chest and stomach, affecting your breathing and heart rate or even changing your bodily temperature. And as if this wasn't enough, it also has a mental aspect, creating a sense of powerlessness, vulnerability, helplessness, separation, isolation. Evolutionarily speaking, it makes sense that our bodies developed such a powerful alarm to signal danger. A long time ago, our ancestors lived very different lives from ours, where fear was life-saving. They also got to process their fear in ways we don't get to today. When they escaped a predator or fought off an enemy, or played dead because it didn't make sense to get into a fistfight with a tiger, they put their survival energy to good use. This allowed them to integrate the experience and continue living without being traumatized. But since the traumas we face today are mostly emotional and we're lacking the sense of community that our ancestors had for healing, this powerful signaling can turn against us. Being stuck in the body of fear can keep us from growing and expressing ourselves. And because it's a primitive defense aiming to keep us safe, it'll tell us what it told our ancestors when they were facing a deadly predator. That we're about to die. But fear itself cannot kill us. As we begin to open our awareness to it, we realize that fear is also nothing but energy. Tense but ultimately bearable. So this is what we're going to experiment with today. So just start by getting comfortable with a straight long spine, sitting in a dignified posture. And take a few deeper breaths in through the nose and out through the mouth. Letting go of any tension in your shoulders and belly. And also letting go of any expectations or fears you might have around this practice. Sitting in deeply, feeling the waves of the breath rising and falling. Telling yourself to just be here for the next few minutes. To start off, just bring to mind a situation in your life that triggers fear. For the purpose of this practice, please stay away from anything that's too difficult, traumatic or that might overwhelm you today. Use your judgment to choose a situation that is challenging but that you can work with for the next few minutes. It's important that you go into this practice with the intention to sit with discomfort but to also look after yourself. So remember that if things get overwhelming, you can open your eyes anytime to come back to the room, you can shift your posture, take breaks or you can stop the practice at any moment and come back to it when you're feeling more resourced. So for now, just choose a situation that triggers a manageable sense of fear. Pick one. And as you're bringing it to mind, see if you can connect with the sense of that fear. Be in the room with what's happening or see the person that's frightening you. And let it be as real as you can, allowing the sense of fear to arise in your body and mind. And as you begin to sense the presence of fear, recognize it and name it. You may even want to be precise about what you're feeling. So if it's fear, call it fear. If it's anxiety, call it anxiety. Terror or panic. Whatever form it comes in, just name it. Fear. Fear. Fear. Fear. Fear. Fear. Fear. Fear. Fear. Fear. Fear. Fear. Fear. Now see if you can allow the part of you that carries this fear to be here. You can do this by gently nodding yes in your imagination. Greeting the fear like another guest in your house. Or you may want to say the word yes or you belong here. Just allow this fearful part to sit next to you. And if the fear is too strong, you might want to invite it to sit a bit further away. Maybe by the door or just outside your house. Still welcoming it but at a distance so that you can be with it. Just take a moment to experiment and see what distance you need to be able to engage with this part, with your fear. In time with practice you might slowly bring this part closer to you but trust that today a simple hello will do. Really honoring your own safety. And if the fear is still too strong, you can take a moment to resource in any way that feels comforting to you. So you can lengthen the breath, breathing in through the nose and exhaling slowly out the mouth. Doing this 3-5 times or for as long as you need. Or you might want to offer yourself some loving touch. You can wrap your arms around yourself or you can place a hand on your belly and a hand on your heart. But once you feel more comfortable with this fearful part, you can begin to investigate it with a gentle attention. So look for where the sphere might be in your body. If there was a place where the sphere would sit, where would it be? Check the throat, the chest, the belly and maybe place a loving hand on the place where you feel the strongest sensations. Giving a name to what you are feeling. Is it gripping? Tightness? Heaviness? Is it dense or dark? Does it have a temperature? Is there a color associated with this sensation? Just examine it with your kind, compassionate attention, noticing what fear feels like in your body and breathing into all sensations. And you might want to ask yourself, what part of you does this fear belong to? How old is this part? Is this part your age or is it younger? And you can take this gentle investigation even further and ask the part, what do you need from me right now? How can I be with you? And just listen. See what this part needs. Is it to be acknowledged? To be accepted, not pushed away? Does it want to be comforted with words or physical touch? Does it need to feel safe to know that you won't abandon it? Listen to the scared part of you and see if you can offer it what it needs. And again, if it ever becomes too much, you may want to bring to mind another part of yourself that feels strong and fearless to comfort this other part or you might bring to mind a person or pet that makes you feel safe. This could be someone you know or even a fictional character, a superhero, inviting in a stronger part to help you hold the fear. And when you feel more resourced, you can go back and try to be with the fear for a little bit longer, giving it what it needs in this moment. As you're bravely sitting with the fear, investigating it, nourishing it, you might notice that the fear isn't that strong anymore or that you're not identified with it, that in fact you get to choose how close or how far you need this fear to be from you and that actually there might be parts of you that aren't afraid. And as with any other emotion or thought or experience, you can just become space for fear, resting in the vast awareness of your consciousness where fear is just another cloud in the sky that you can watch pass by as it slowly dissolves to reveal the clear blue sky behind it. So now gently let go of the fear and relax back into this open awareness, turning your attention to your breath and you might want to take a big inhale and sigh it out, letting go of this practice, listening to any sounds that are present and tuning into the sense of your body resting on the cushion or the chair, feeling your feet on the floor, checking in with yourself and if there are still remnants of fear around, I invite you to slowly open your eyes, come back to the room and then get up on your feet, shake it all out, giving your body a good shake for a minute or so, vigorously shaking your limbs, your chest, your hips, make it a whole body experience to release the energy of fear from your body and you might want to turn this into a dance or put on some music and continue shaking, just tune in and see what's needed most right now. Thank you for your courage and for making time to practice with fear today and I hope to see you soon.