DEAR FRIENDS -- Fear is a feeling that confronts every one of us. Individually, our fears cause us to shrink back from the challenges that would unleash our joy and lead us to our greatness. The collective fear of the masses generates the blindness and the hate which lead to so much unnecessary suffering. Working to transform our fear is the greatest act of compassion we can bestow upon ourselves -- and the world.
Our lives need all the love in our hearts. Facing and releasing our fear is an essential step in opening our hearts and letting our love shine forth! Recently I wrote to a friend who is awakening to the role of fear in his life. This is what I shared with him. May these words help you to face your fears and set your joy free!
"Dear ___-- You're waking up to the fact that you're ‘afraid of working with your fear’. While that's a painful state to be in, you are also in a good position because you are AWARE OF IT. Most people in this world are habitually afraid, and on top of that they shrink back from feeling and acknowledging it. They hide from their fear, pretending it isn't there. As a result it all gets buried deep in the body and mind where it saps their strength and joy and robs them of the full experience of life. There would be so much more joy in our lives, and much less strife in the world, if people would acknowledge and work with their fears! Having grown up in a violent family, and having struggled with a life-threatening disease in my early 20's, deep fear has been both my greatest burden and my greatest spiritual challenge.
A while ago I reached a turning point where I decided that I was sick of being poisoned by my fear. I wanted to throw off the burden once and for all. Like Frodo, the hero of "The Lord of the Rings", I committed my soul to casting the ring of my fear into the fire. Without a guide -- only my faith in myself that somehow I would find the path -- I began my struggle.
The more deeply I looked within, the more the way was revealed. I spent two years meditating on the presence and feeling of my fear -- in my thoughts and in my body. With great love and determination I stopped running from it, allowing myself to turn within and completely embrace it. What I discovered by doing this is that fear is not an inevitable or necessary part of life. Rather, it is a deeply ingrained habit that, with complete commitment, can be transformed.
Like any wound my fear needed me to touch it, feel it, be kind and gentle with it, breathe easy with it. By taking on this relationship with my fear I stopped being a slave or a victim to it -- I became its healer. My ‘fearless approach to fear’ worked to transform my reflexes at the deepest level, substituting a relaxed body and an open heart for tension and reactivity.
 At the start of the journey my fear was an automatic bodily reaction to my various "triggers" . We all have them! I wasn't ‘choosing’ to be afraid any more than I would choose to sneeze or blink from a speck of dust.  I recognized that I had lived by  suppressing my fear -- that is , acting in spite of it or forcing it back below my awareness. And that suppression of my fear wasn't truly releasing it!
But as I brought more and more love and awareness to meet my fear, the ability to truly and permanently release it developed. I remember the day when I first experienced fear  as something I was DOING -- like squeezing my hand into a fist or clenching my jaw. No longer did it look like something that was happening TO me.  I saw the truth that fear is simply a habit of tensing up that can be transformed into faith and trust!
Following my instinct for freedom, I developed a simple and powerful practice to release the habit of fear. I used this practice daily for many months.
First, I would turn my attention inwards to become aware of the fearful sensations in my body, and the thoughts and worries that accompanied them. I would observe all of it, and let the pain of it register , with no resistance and complete clarity.
Next, I would drop the thoughts and center my attention completely on the bodily feelings of fear. I would relax and ‘be with’ those sensations, allowing myself to experience them fully. This takes much courage and compassion. Finally, having ‘owned’ and ‘let down into’ the painful sensations, I gently would relax further and let the fear and tension go. The basic principle is that you can't let go of something unless you completely have it!
Crying sometimes accompanied the physical release, as my heart opened and my body shed the burden it had held for so long. Crying is an essential spiritual practice and the body's fundamental way of releasing stress. Bit by bit and day by day my fear dissolved into a growing peace. After many months of this practice I felt that the chains around my heart -- the chains of being afraid -- were gone. Now I feel the peace and the trust -- in myself and in life -- that arise naturally when fearful tensions aren't choking the heart. When you fully realize that fear is nothing more than a bodily tension --- a habit ingrained very early in life that entangles with natural survival responses -- you are empowered to engage it with love, courage and awareness and ultimately let it go. Now I know that it is possible to reach the promised land beyond fear. It exists! Paradise is the love in our heart, shining forth like the sun when the long night of fear is gone." IN FEARLESS LOVE -- BRYAN EDEN