Working with Fears

Heard this podcast on working with fears. A saying mentioned therein which I thought worthy of deeper understanding is "as long as you imagine yourself to be something tangible and solid, a thing amongst things, you seem short lived and vulnerable and you will be anxious to survive. But when you know yourself to be beyond space and time you will be afraid no longer".

Though I may not fully comprehend, what holds true for me is the feeling that the tighter one holds onto a solid self, the more fears one has to overcome. This is becauses there will be much to protect and uphold and much fears of losing.

Having said that it is precisely this primal survival instinct that kept humans alive for generations. Without the fight or flight instincts the human species would long have been wiped out. In today's world however the majority of people are rarely in physical danger; yet people all over are plagued by fear and anxieties. This arises largely from how one views oneself amongst others, basically there is a lot of judging.

The talk then suggested ways to work with fears which include:

1. Trying to feel into something larger or sensing the truth of our belonging or that oceaness. 
There are several ways to do this, direct ways to calm our nerves. One is through sensing the connection with the earth like feeling the weight of our feet on the ground or the sense of gravity. Another way is through our breadth; where with each slow in breadth we feel our body and with each out breadth we feel our way into something larger. We can also touch our nervous heart or belly spreading warmth over the nervous body.

2. Remembering Love
Recall and remember the loving energy of someone or visualise any source of loving connection. This can be your mother or grandma, a deity or spiritual figure or even nature. It is important to show gestures of kindness to oneself through say a simple warm touch of the hand or heart or words of kindness for oneself.

3. Having sensed that oceaness or largeness, contact the waves
After feeling the space and the connectedness into something larger we then meet the fear. With a more stable and collected self, feel the fear in our body. Take notice of the part in our body that hurts or is constricted. Take deep breadths as we watch the fear. In the largeness of things and the loving sense of belonging even though the fear is still present it does not seem so intimidating and is more manageable. A simile given is like putting dye in a lake instead of dye in a basin of water.

I think these are good suggestions to be put into practice and acquire as habits.
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