Going Into the Feeling of Fear
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A student asks for further clarification on the practice of turning toward the feeling of fear.
Going Into the Feeling of Fear
A student asks for further clarification on the practice of turning toward the feeling of fear.
Can you say more about going into that feeling of fear?
Yes.
The invitation is always to go into the feeling itself, not the story about the feeling. Fear, when it arises, almost always comes wrapped in narrative: what might happen, what could go wrong, what it means about you. But the feeling itself, the raw sensation of fear in the body, is just energy. It has a texture, a location, a quality.
When I say "go into it," I mean turn your attention toward that felt quality directly. Not to analyze it, not to figure out why it's there, but simply to meet it as it is. You stay with the sensation, the tightness, the vibration, the heat, whatever form it takes. And you may find that when you do this, the fear begins to change on its own. It doesn't need you to fix it. It needs you to be present with it.
This is a very different orientation than what we usually do. Usually, we either run from fear or get swept up in its story. Going into it is a third option: meeting it directly, with openness, without resistance.