First of all thank you for providing this information to so many and I am grateful to have stumbled upon as I walk the path of healing. I totally know and get the fear, anxiety and felt different things in my body but was never truly aware of the affects, deep inner affects. Another opportunity to tune into mindfulness. However, I am totally stuck on the “real but not true”, if it is real how can it be not true? This is so confusing to me and I am having a hard time processing this through my mind.
Then the question, “who would you be if you didn’t believe something was wrong with me”……big big breath here….trying to breath into this but I find myself looking to others, outwardly, seeking an answer. How can this be possible, could it be possible for me, could I really dig in and answer this for myself. I have always given myself away to my husband and daughters to the point of losing who I truly am. My mother and fathers voice, my sister, has played in my head that “I will never be good enough to do”, whatever I was trying to accomplish. Lasting for 64 years. Tons of history but we all have history, sometimes good – sometimes not so good.
Mary Dean, DMin, LMFT, Marriage/Family Therapy, Sandy Springs, GA, USAsays
I love the turning around and facing the fear, so to speak. Everything Tara says in all three videos is so helpful and grounding, both for clients and therapists. She is great! Authentic, personal, and sharing expertise. I am an older therapist (79) and sad to step back, but I hope that what I have been blessed to experience with clients will allow me to share and give to all those I greet.
Mary Dean
6890 Peachtree Dunwoody Rd., #104
Sandy Springs, GA 30328
Getting an image I can step into. The more visceral the better. An image of the fear itself, of what it feels like. It may feel like I’m falling. I may feel like I’m swirling around. It’s almost always an image of helplessness, of being out of control and powerless and just about to cease being me (my ego).
I have a weird sensation of only seeing around the edges of the question, “what helps me face fear?”
One thing that seems to help is self-compassion. It makes it easier to allow the fear to be.
Another thing is to try and suspend the belief or the feeling that the fear will be all-consuming and bottomless. To not take it quite so seriously. Easier said than done.
Another is just to name it. Fear. Fear is present.
Another is, as you mention in the video, to sense the body and where in the body does the fear present itself? And to allow that sensation to be there without turning away from it or trying to change it.
I started this little exercise feeling like I didnt have much of a handle on it at all, and I have surprised myself by coming up with a few real answers to the question.
I almost have to push myself and hype myself up to do things once I have done that, I have to pause my thoughts until I am actually in the moment then I have overcome that fear and can enjoy it.
This may be either preforming or talking. Once complete it is a great feeling of achievement.
I’d be more present and have more access to my brain, rather than a big chunk of it being preoccupied with planning for what if scenarios. I would be more joyful and navigating challenges with ease.
I find if I can say “a pattern” or a neutral sound like “doh-di for example” in a simple 8 count….. do, do, doh-di, do.
and keep looping it, and changing the pitch or the rhythm so slightly. That’s what helps me. It always has and I notice an immediate change in my breathing and my brain.
I neglect to remember to do this when I’m doing something that is frustrating such as study- or feeling afraid, or anxious.
Working on knowing all emotions and thoughts come and go and they aren’t forever. This helps, along with slowing and pausing to focus on breath, etc., to know it’s temporary.
Thank you for this training. Understanding the difference between fear and anxiety is key and knowing how to effectively address the overwhelm is empowering
Dear Tara,
I always find your teachings on fear and anxiety to be extraordinarily helpful for me and my clients. Thank you very much for this offering.
May I respectfully add that I find the background music distracting and unnecessary.
But most of all, thank you very much.
Rob Zucker
First Thankyou Tara for this for this free video. I so appreciate this ! I’m going thru a stressful time right now, finally deciding to take care of me ,what Julie wants for the first time in my life. I’m a retired RN / caregiver. I’m sure you understand that behavior. I’ve had therapy a few times but coming from dysfunction growing up, I’ve learned a lot however, I got married for the first time at age 48, wrong choice, now I realize that after retiring late and noticing many things We are very different human beings. He comes from dysfunction ,never had or wants therapy. “ stick your head in the sand kind of guy”. Anyway haven’t said anything but I want a divorce at age 76 but am a healthy young at heart female . Sorry to respond with this complicated story but I feel very empowered and less fearful after your video and plan to watch #3 also! Thankyou dear inspiring friend and “sister of heart”!!!
What helps me and my clients the most is first acknowledging its existence without trying to change it. Then working with fearful parts through connecting with them in the body, acknowledging and valuing them for the job they are trying to do .and sending them love and compassion
Merci pour cet enseignement. Il m’apprend que d’admettre et de comorendre nos peurs nous permet de les dépasser, de ne plus leur laisser tout le pouvoir. La peur peut être présente mais pas dominante. Cela donne espoir qu’on puisse la juguler.
Bevi Ingram, Teacher, Charlottesville , VA, USAsays
Thank you so much for this series. It helps me to hear a loved one relate to my feelings of fear. This step helps me realize my fear is not so huge, or not normal, and I am not alone, as a matter of fact, I am perfectly normal and share this with every being out there, even those who are causing my fear. next I go to my body and feel where the fear sits, and I be talk to it from a higher or more mature being place. I breathe. I go into nature and connect with the life and wisdom there. 💕
Awareness and positive self talk. I know most of my worrying is habitual. When I take time to verbalize my fears and maybe even write them down I become more conscious of ways to handle problems.
Rhona Arenstein, Another Field, Henrico, VA, USAsays
I have struggled with fear and anxiety throughout my childhood and adulthood…. Never knew what it was. I now have hope I can overcome them with continued work like this!
Thank you so much for making this available to me snd so many others!
Rhona
Andrea Trank, Health Education, Fort Myers, FL, USAsays
Practice with Heart brain coherence tools on issues that have less emotional charge. I’m s big Tara Brach fan so I use many of her tools including RAIN
Katherine Pearce, Another Field, Charleston , SC, USAsays
As a Chinese medicine practitioner I always tell people the antidote to fear is not bravado .. “ I don’t care or I’m not afraid “ but it is the courage to be with our fear … to acknowledge it and keep moving forward ..
I am grateful for your teaching and expanding on how to be with our fear more intimately thank you
I feel that this will be one of the most practical and useful series ever made. In coaching and training clients in mindfulness, I’ve come to know that it is fear the root to judgment and mindlessness. I am looking forward to the rest of the series. Thank you for making it available.
first step: recognise, second step: see, embrace, allow, even welcome it. Where do I locate it in my body. Be with it and breath into it. Feel how the fear may still be there but looses it’s grip, becomes something ‘that is’. And then: what do I need right now? Can be simple. Just allowing that question can be enough, or the answer comes verbaly or non verbaly.
My therapist recently helped me to face fear that I didn’t even know I was holding. It was about childhood experiences, where I had repressed the feelings of fear so deeply I didn’t know they existed. During this encounter with hose feelings, a strong, older part of me appeared and protected me. I’ve been aware of that strong part for many years, but I didn’t know why it existed or where it came from. This was the first time I had consciously felt this very deep fear and I was shocked at how terrifying it actually was. I can now understand why I have been making choices to avoid relationships, of course I would, but now I can support myself to remember that it’s not happening now, that this person I’m meeting in the present is a different person, and that I am an adult and I can protect myself now.
So the thing that was truly helpful for me was to be supported within a trusted, therapeutic realtionship to explore something that I certainly could not have done before.
I have listened to and been helped by Tara Brach teachings for several years now. Her work truly resonates with me. And I am in a place of life right now where fears I have not looked at before are present for me. Hard work………Fears coming from various directions; aging, a struggling grandchild, such worry for our planet, the natural world.
I appreciate the free videos, gleaned some help from them already. They helped me see my current struggles in a somewhat different perspective.
Clients are helped when they understand their fear better as a part of the universal human condition, and the myriad psychological experiences that form part of this condition. it’s not wrong, or bad, or weak, or shameful. By creating a safe space where judgement is put aside. compassion can be invited to enter, and make it possible to not only acknowledge fear, but speak to it in a new way.
Thank you, what helps my clients is being with them offering a non judgemental presence in the moment, allowing silence so they can reach their own flow of thoughts and emotions. Giving space to the sensations in their body and encouraging them to breath.
closing my eyes, breathing deeply, visualising my ancestors that i know, that has wisdom, and calmness to hold my hand in my minds eye. I can feel them sitting with me, when i have to face a difficult situation or difficult humans. If fear or deep distressing emotions happens in the night. i visualise myself sitting on a huge lotus flower bed, with my child, we safely sleep. this lotus bed id held in the palm of a giant sitting softly smiling buddha sitting on an even giant lotus leaf. gently , ever so gently we float on on a calm river. with starlit sky. it usually works. and i stay away from caffeine drinks, just have a mild green tea. if that is even too much, i have just had coffee replacement like acorn and fig coffee latte or chicory latte, at night, lemon blossom tea. Light clean food. these are lived experience that come to mind. Thank you for this opportunity to learn here. i feel deeply grateful. 🙏🏼
Listening to you and learning to expand my awareness of fear. Knowing it’s there is a realisation in itself. Having you there removed the isolation of fear for me.
So I guess companionship and education is the answer for me
It takes a lot of practice preparing the fearless heart before acting from it to face fear. so many eemotions & thoughts about conflicts & outcomes. it does work , & I’m using it in my daily life to face issues as they arise & for procrastination. I also teach these concepts to other people, 1 on 1. agree what a previous commanator said: if I’d learned this technique 50 years ago, my life would be completely different & the past much more satisfying. Wasted years with therapists after going in to work on fear & anxiety, with no tangible results or technique. Thank you & blessinngs, Tara & NICABM.
I’m so grateful for these wonderful videos. After a lifetime of being trapped in the trance of constant worry, I can finally see a way out. Since I’ve listened to Tara’s advice, my mind has felt a lot clearer and, instead of worrying all night, I’ve been sleeping much better. Thank you so much for making this possible.💗
Mindfulness meditation.
i reach out. use mindfulness. become aware im in fear
Hope to reduce my hesitation to join others. Hopping not to always be judged.
Denial. It is very very difficult for some to admit to fear.
First of all thank you for providing this information to so many and I am grateful to have stumbled upon as I walk the path of healing. I totally know and get the fear, anxiety and felt different things in my body but was never truly aware of the affects, deep inner affects. Another opportunity to tune into mindfulness. However, I am totally stuck on the “real but not true”, if it is real how can it be not true? This is so confusing to me and I am having a hard time processing this through my mind.
Then the question, “who would you be if you didn’t believe something was wrong with me”……big big breath here….trying to breath into this but I find myself looking to others, outwardly, seeking an answer. How can this be possible, could it be possible for me, could I really dig in and answer this for myself. I have always given myself away to my husband and daughters to the point of losing who I truly am. My mother and fathers voice, my sister, has played in my head that “I will never be good enough to do”, whatever I was trying to accomplish. Lasting for 64 years. Tons of history but we all have history, sometimes good – sometimes not so good.
I love the turning around and facing the fear, so to speak. Everything Tara says in all three videos is so helpful and grounding, both for clients and therapists. She is great! Authentic, personal, and sharing expertise. I am an older therapist (79) and sad to step back, but I hope that what I have been blessed to experience with clients will allow me to share and give to all those I greet.
Mary Dean
6890 Peachtree Dunwoody Rd., #104
Sandy Springs, GA 30328
Getting an image I can step into. The more visceral the better. An image of the fear itself, of what it feels like. It may feel like I’m falling. I may feel like I’m swirling around. It’s almost always an image of helplessness, of being out of control and powerless and just about to cease being me (my ego).
Adequate support and understanding how to open to it.
I have a weird sensation of only seeing around the edges of the question, “what helps me face fear?”
One thing that seems to help is self-compassion. It makes it easier to allow the fear to be.
Another thing is to try and suspend the belief or the feeling that the fear will be all-consuming and bottomless. To not take it quite so seriously. Easier said than done.
Another is just to name it. Fear. Fear is present.
Another is, as you mention in the video, to sense the body and where in the body does the fear present itself? And to allow that sensation to be there without turning away from it or trying to change it.
I started this little exercise feeling like I didnt have much of a handle on it at all, and I have surprised myself by coming up with a few real answers to the question.
I’ll be free
I almost have to push myself and hype myself up to do things once I have done that, I have to pause my thoughts until I am actually in the moment then I have overcome that fear and can enjoy it.
This may be either preforming or talking. Once complete it is a great feeling of achievement.
Beautiful soul
I’d be more present and have more access to my brain, rather than a big chunk of it being preoccupied with planning for what if scenarios. I would be more joyful and navigating challenges with ease.
I find if I can say “a pattern” or a neutral sound like “doh-di for example” in a simple 8 count….. do, do, doh-di, do.
and keep looping it, and changing the pitch or the rhythm so slightly. That’s what helps me. It always has and I notice an immediate change in my breathing and my brain.
I neglect to remember to do this when I’m doing something that is frustrating such as study- or feeling afraid, or anxious.
Working on knowing all emotions and thoughts come and go and they aren’t forever. This helps, along with slowing and pausing to focus on breath, etc., to know it’s temporary.
Fallow down. Breathe deeply. Pay attention to where I feel it.
Thank you for this training. Understanding the difference between fear and anxiety is key and knowing how to effectively address the overwhelm is empowering
Reminder of its being temporary/ momentary. I can get through anything if this is only momentary.
Knowing that it is the path to peace.
listening to this talk –being mindful, knowing that I am developing skills and strengths
Dear Tara,
I always find your teachings on fear and anxiety to be extraordinarily helpful for me and my clients. Thank you very much for this offering.
May I respectfully add that I find the background music distracting and unnecessary.
But most of all, thank you very much.
Rob Zucker
First Thankyou Tara for this for this free video. I so appreciate this ! I’m going thru a stressful time right now, finally deciding to take care of me ,what Julie wants for the first time in my life. I’m a retired RN / caregiver. I’m sure you understand that behavior. I’ve had therapy a few times but coming from dysfunction growing up, I’ve learned a lot however, I got married for the first time at age 48, wrong choice, now I realize that after retiring late and noticing many things We are very different human beings. He comes from dysfunction ,never had or wants therapy. “ stick your head in the sand kind of guy”. Anyway haven’t said anything but I want a divorce at age 76 but am a healthy young at heart female . Sorry to respond with this complicated story but I feel very empowered and less fearful after your video and plan to watch #3 also! Thankyou dear inspiring friend and “sister of heart”!!!
What helps me and my clients the most is first acknowledging its existence without trying to change it. Then working with fearful parts through connecting with them in the body, acknowledging and valuing them for the job they are trying to do .and sending them love and compassion
Merci pour cet enseignement. Il m’apprend que d’admettre et de comorendre nos peurs nous permet de les dépasser, de ne plus leur laisser tout le pouvoir. La peur peut être présente mais pas dominante. Cela donne espoir qu’on puisse la juguler.
deep breathing does calm me down and make me more present in the moment to handle the current situation.
Thank you so much for this series. It helps me to hear a loved one relate to my feelings of fear. This step helps me realize my fear is not so huge, or not normal, and I am not alone, as a matter of fact, I am perfectly normal and share this with every being out there, even those who are causing my fear. next I go to my body and feel where the fear sits, and I be talk to it from a higher or more mature being place. I breathe. I go into nature and connect with the life and wisdom there. 💕
Awareness and positive self talk. I know most of my worrying is habitual. When I take time to verbalize my fears and maybe even write them down I become more conscious of ways to handle problems.
Thank you nice suggestions I found the second video with the 3 steps most helpful
I have struggled with fear and anxiety throughout my childhood and adulthood…. Never knew what it was. I now have hope I can overcome them with continued work like this!
Thank you so much for making this available to me snd so many others!
Rhona
Meditation.
Being with friends
Reading good books
Walking
Practice with Heart brain coherence tools on issues that have less emotional charge. I’m s big Tara Brach fan so I use many of her tools including RAIN
As a Chinese medicine practitioner I always tell people the antidote to fear is not bravado .. “ I don’t care or I’m not afraid “ but it is the courage to be with our fear … to acknowledge it and keep moving forward ..
I am grateful for your teaching and expanding on how to be with our fear more intimately thank you
I feel that this will be one of the most practical and useful series ever made. In coaching and training clients in mindfulness, I’ve come to know that it is fear the root to judgment and mindlessness. I am looking forward to the rest of the series. Thank you for making it available.
first step: recognise, second step: see, embrace, allow, even welcome it. Where do I locate it in my body. Be with it and breath into it. Feel how the fear may still be there but looses it’s grip, becomes something ‘that is’. And then: what do I need right now? Can be simple. Just allowing that question can be enough, or the answer comes verbaly or non verbaly.
My therapist recently helped me to face fear that I didn’t even know I was holding. It was about childhood experiences, where I had repressed the feelings of fear so deeply I didn’t know they existed. During this encounter with hose feelings, a strong, older part of me appeared and protected me. I’ve been aware of that strong part for many years, but I didn’t know why it existed or where it came from. This was the first time I had consciously felt this very deep fear and I was shocked at how terrifying it actually was. I can now understand why I have been making choices to avoid relationships, of course I would, but now I can support myself to remember that it’s not happening now, that this person I’m meeting in the present is a different person, and that I am an adult and I can protect myself now.
So the thing that was truly helpful for me was to be supported within a trusted, therapeutic realtionship to explore something that I certainly could not have done before.
I have listened to and been helped by Tara Brach teachings for several years now. Her work truly resonates with me. And I am in a place of life right now where fears I have not looked at before are present for me. Hard work………Fears coming from various directions; aging, a struggling grandchild, such worry for our planet, the natural world.
I appreciate the free videos, gleaned some help from them already. They helped me see my current struggles in a somewhat different perspective.
Motivation, understanding of how it works. Turning the attention inwards for a little while, feeling the breathing, slowing the breathing down.
Clients are helped when they understand their fear better as a part of the universal human condition, and the myriad psychological experiences that form part of this condition. it’s not wrong, or bad, or weak, or shameful. By creating a safe space where judgement is put aside. compassion can be invited to enter, and make it possible to not only acknowledge fear, but speak to it in a new way.
Thank you, what helps my clients is being with them offering a non judgemental presence in the moment, allowing silence so they can reach their own flow of thoughts and emotions. Giving space to the sensations in their body and encouraging them to breath.
Feeling cradled by God
Thankyou….. very valuable insights in the distructive nature of fest
Thank you Tara. Beautifully and simply expressed. You have put me back in touch with my “wise and fearless heart” .
Diane
Connection- to other people, to beauty, to my body, to love, to what inspires me to try again.
Compassion I guess. Thanks
closing my eyes, breathing deeply, visualising my ancestors that i know, that has wisdom, and calmness to hold my hand in my minds eye. I can feel them sitting with me, when i have to face a difficult situation or difficult humans. If fear or deep distressing emotions happens in the night. i visualise myself sitting on a huge lotus flower bed, with my child, we safely sleep. this lotus bed id held in the palm of a giant sitting softly smiling buddha sitting on an even giant lotus leaf. gently , ever so gently we float on on a calm river. with starlit sky. it usually works. and i stay away from caffeine drinks, just have a mild green tea. if that is even too much, i have just had coffee replacement like acorn and fig coffee latte or chicory latte, at night, lemon blossom tea. Light clean food. these are lived experience that come to mind. Thank you for this opportunity to learn here. i feel deeply grateful. 🙏🏼
Listening to you and learning to expand my awareness of fear. Knowing it’s there is a realisation in itself. Having you there removed the isolation of fear for me.
So I guess companionship and education is the answer for me
Listening to this thanks
It takes a lot of practice preparing the fearless heart before acting from it to face fear. so many eemotions & thoughts about conflicts & outcomes. it does work , & I’m using it in my daily life to face issues as they arise & for procrastination. I also teach these concepts to other people, 1 on 1. agree what a previous commanator said: if I’d learned this technique 50 years ago, my life would be completely different & the past much more satisfying. Wasted years with therapists after going in to work on fear & anxiety, with no tangible results or technique. Thank you & blessinngs, Tara & NICABM.
Thank you Tara and NICABM.
I’m interested in the workshop
I’m so grateful for these wonderful videos. After a lifetime of being trapped in the trance of constant worry, I can finally see a way out. Since I’ve listened to Tara’s advice, my mind has felt a lot clearer and, instead of worrying all night, I’ve been sleeping much better. Thank you so much for making this possible.💗
Thank you so much for these insightful videos. What is the neuron effect for the latest “F” fawn as an addition to fight, flight, or freeze?