Working with Worry Fear

Remember, last time we were talking about worries and came up to the fears that lie beneath them. When we shed the stories which cloak our fears, we get behind the worries. We get to the bedrock. Sound easy? It takes practice. We are so addicted to our stories. We often have to keep asking, What am I really afraid of it? What’s really scaring me?

With practice, we get there. Fear. Now what? How do we work with the fear? A few years ago, I found a way. I picked up a Tibetan meditation practice, tonglen, from Pema Chodron. I doubt that I’m doing it the way she intended, but it works for me, a strange, counterintuitive practice, a way of using breath to work with difficult feelings. You’d think, if you want to get rid of a bad feeling, the logical thing to do is to exhale it. But, no, the tonglen instruction is to breath it in.

I breathe in fear, but what do I breathe out? Sometimes, it takes several tries before I settle into it: breathing out “peace,” breathing out “joy,” breathing out “love.” Last week, I hit it on the first try. Breathing in fear, breathing out gratitude. Breathing out gratitude. That was it.

I’m breathing in my fear and not just my fear but all fear, the fears of the people I love, my acquaintances, strangers, all the fear in the world, even the fears of the evil people. That sounds crazy, but Pema eased me into this. I’ve done tonglen with lots of feelings, often anger, sadness. Breathing in the suffering of world is daunting. “I can’t imagine breathing in Hitler’s pain,” I protest.

Breathing in Hitler’s pain is advanced practice. Start small. Start with your own pain; expand your circle of inclusion slowly. Include the ones you love, maybe then the folks you only like and then your acquaintances. Only then do you begin to include all the strangers, all the people you’ve never met. Eventually, you’ll be able to include the people you don’t like much. I’m smiling. When you actually do it, it’s not as hard as you thought it would be. Keep practicing. Eventually, you may breathe in the suffering of the “evil people.” So start with the people closest. Expand your circle of compassion slowly.

The moment of tonglen last week was a special moment, breathing in fear, breathing out gratitude. It was love. What an aha. This is love, the experience of fear and gratitude at the same time, the fear of the hole that an absence will leave and, in the same moment, the gratitude for the presence, what a gift, the Yin and Yang of love.

In that moment, I experienced the Oneness of Life beyond words. What a surprise. I hadn’t expected it.  Let’s talk about that some next time, if I can find a way to say something about an experience beyond words.