Thank you for the information and examples. I run small groups (3 to 6) of children in an elementary school. The concern remains that anxiety issues, as well as medications, are on the increase with our very young population.
Writing my book during the past 15 years has helped me face [my] [fear].
In my book I have been challenged with exploring my journey of living with an insidious form of fear (PTSD-complex,…a form of anxiety) that has impacted every area of my life.
Howard Lovely, Jr.
(Ret. Sgt. USAF non-combat / Survivor of child abuse and domestic violence)
This was so great. Thank you Tara! I am stuck in a pattern of always worrying thoughts and resentment thoughts. These thoughts I know are an attemp to keep me safe from getting hurt again but they exhaust me and I want them to stop. I try to meditate and to break free but they come in quickly and even more stronger. I feel I just need to retreat from the thoughts. I feel peace in my body but when I try to stop the thoughts or get frustrated with the thoughts or pay attention to the thoughts I get discomfort in many forms. I look forward to the next session with you. Thank you for your sharing.
To be present in the now and breath and allow yourself to be tru and present in your body.
Thank you for your clear and helpful heartful meaningful lecture.
Ann-Marie
I try to focus on the strengths and abilities I have that may help me face and overcome my fears. I also have a great support system through family and colleagues that encourages me. Mindfulness is fascinating. I look forward to learning more about it and how to effectively use it. I have worked with the Tennessee Department of Children’s Services for over 25 years. Currently, I train staff, both new hires and experienced staff. I plan to go into counseling in few years when I retire.
I agree that calming the breath and bringing the anxiety/fear level down is very useful. Identifying the fear, emotion is also helpful in reducing the fear. Love your books and enjoy all that you offer. Thank you!
Dear Tara,
First of all, let me thank you deeply for sharing your thoughts on how best to deal with fear. I am a fan of yours – you don’t realise it but you help me to sleep!! I listen to your talks on Youtube and before I know it, I am lulled into sleep only to waken up annoyed that I didn’t hear the end of your talk!! Thank you for all you have done for mindfulness and for having given so freely of yourself. Blessings!
My fear is a lifelong habit brought on by being a pleaser by nature and from having had a very strong Victorian father who struck physically in order to deal with anything he didn’t like. I know he too was a victim of hard parenting but I never had a dad I could look up to or love or just chat to and I miss that and realise that I have missed that in all my dealings with men. It explains my failed relationships as I have MY expectations of partners without taking on board theirs. So fear is the basis of all my driving emotions and I find that meditation has helped me to take myself gently and to be more compassionate towards myself and not always judge critically. It will take another lifetime as I have spent the first lifetime based on fear. BUT, there is hope and there are people like Tara Brach, Kristin Neff, Jon Kabat-Zinn who bring love and kindness to the world and above all, practical help! I look forward to the next talk!! Thank you again! Gráinne
Learning to identify anxious feelings and emotions in general is a work in progress. This video will help me to identify fear. I’ve had some success in identifying some physical feelings emotions create in my body. I’ve never believed I feared much of anything, until now. I know now, that I certainly do have fear of personal relationships, particularly family relationships. Fear of rejection and so on. Thank you so much!
Thank you for this video.
I’m watching for myself, not for a client.
Unfortunately, I’ve had to use xanax and most recently inderal for my anxiety. I’m 64 and a performer and the fear, anxiety seems to be getting worse. I know (hope) that my skills will carry me through each performance, but dealing with pre performance is such a drag and i’m in constant worry. Any nugget of information is always a help. It seems that I have to deal with my protectors!
I’m at the beginning of this journey and being hospitalized three times, has lead me to this path of mindfulness. Having learned that I am bipolar type 2 (didn’t know before that there were 2 types) I know now that the act of mindfulness is necessary and vital. I have a great deal of fear facing my fear 😉
good question- I suspect that I spend more time in the flight response– and less often focusing on the desirable outcome, catching myself in it, and then reminding myself that I have a very strong negativity bias, on rare occasions knowing that it is a temporary-
Empathy. When I feel there is room for and acceptance of fear , the fear becomes less strong. All I need sometimes is an authentic understanding hug, whether given to me by someone who accepts me for who I am, or given to me by me in the form of self-compassion. When fear is allowed and safe space is created for it, something opens up.
I write about brain-fear not real fears like if you have to save your self from a burning house or something like that =>
First being aware of that I can step aside and “watch” may fear instead of being one with the fear.
When I have reached this step I try to be aware of my thoughts and tell my self it is just your brain, your cells and your hormons in your body that makes you feel like this.
Then I try to concentrate on my breathing, be aware of that I have a body and feel where the pain is. I think and say to myself “now it is like this and I will try to stay here not try to change anything” just breathe and be quiet, by my own (even if there is a lot of people around me).
Sometimes I get sad and feel alone and think that I’m not living a full life, I am really stupid and unworthy, then I have to tell my self that it is as it is and I ask myself questions like, “how is this moment exactly now?”, “Do you have any ache or illness in your physical body?” -the answer is 99% no I don´t have any ache in my physical body, “Does it feel good to feel the air coming into your lungs?”, “Does it feel god to feel the air around you”, “Can you see the beautiful light” and the answer is yes to all questions that is connected to what is around me.
I also ask also my self if I can feel that I can be thankful just to be alive, the answer is yes, and if I can feel I am glad that my suffer has giving me a richer life because going through many experiences and difficulties my life has become more meaningful and has helped me to be a more whole person and that I can see and feel much more compared to if I have had a life where I only had laughed the whole day.
Remember, I say to my self, it is a myth that life only can be god and that you are happy all the time. It gives so much strength to have experienced difficulties you only get more and more calm and grounded and wiser (and even more beautiful), but it takes time and let it take the time it need, you can just sit here and be with the pain and try to be the mother you never had, taking care of the fear. (But it is difficult to be a friend of the pain, sometimes I get so angry or sad and just want to fight and struggle or fly, escape away)
Facing the avoidance! Got off facebook, at least temp. (There are good groups for information specific to eco-interests, shamanism, etc. ) Also gardening shifts the perspective back to the body, and being outside really helps.
All about perspective!
Thank you, Tara??
In 12 step programs, we hear the acronym for fear as False Evidence Appearing Real – and Face the fear an do it anyway. These two phrases have helped me take the time to dig deeper an explore the basis of the fear. Also, being present in this moment – coming back to the reality of the moment is helpful – since fear seems to be thoughts of the future. Thank you, Diane
The belief that I am stronger than this combined with the knowledge that I am experiencing a natural reaction- fight, flight, freeze and determining whether or not it is relevant to the situation moving on from it. Easier said than done sometimes.
What helps me face fear. Being aware of the emotion within my body and the physical reaction – sitting and really focusing on the feeling within – the energy moving throughout my body – the sensations – more so in particular parts of my body – feeling the discomfort – allowing it to move through me. In the past, I would try and resist it – took me many years to realise the more I resisted the more it persisted! Love your work – thank you Tara Oh and it’s so freeing when I observe the emotion within!
What helps me face my fears is wanting to live a life and not be scared , I breath slow and and push past the thoughts in my head that tell me I can’t do something. It gives me a feeling of freedom and empowerment
Breathing and believing in my courageous heart that I can and will find my way out of the fear that shows itself as anxiety. I have supports in place and I am open and willing to do my part in healing.
Unless it’s real ,like fear of jumping off the building,Knowledge that fear is masking the door to another level of freedom.Knowledge that, fear is usually the keeper of something important for my expansion,freedom.
– recognizing the fear, allowing the fear with selfcompassion: yes this here now.
-when fear is too overwelming, balancing the fear by looking for activitis who connect to joy, relaxation; working in the garden, bodymovement, cleaning etc.
What helps me is to take action in doing what is important. Instead of thinking how I should act that ends up not acting at all. Not acting creates a lot of anxiety, and of course anxiety freezes me and I am not acting, …etc. What helps me most is doing meditation on self-compassion. It makes me feel more confident. I recognize a lot of myself of in what your describing. (Sorry for my English)
Understanding how fear limits us, and that to get or to do what we want – to grow – often involves facing and moving through the fear barrier. ‘Feel the fear and do it anyway.’ I encourage spending time with the inner child, soothing, allowing and normalizing the child’s fear, encouraging, and holding the child by the hand as we do the scary thing.
Being able to call the bodily sensations and lack of peaceful mind as fear. Being able to identify what the fear is from or about. And knowing, having faith, that God will get me through any fear- real or imagined.
Loved everything Tara did before this and told as many people as I could. I did not like this Tara it sounds like a lecture and I turned off.warmly Linda
Dear Tara,
Thank you so much for sharing your wisdom, I always deeply appreciate how you communicate wisdom & compassion. I’m interested at the moment how the ‘fight’ mode can make us feel empowered in a situation which induces anxiety to arise. Would our path be to also turn towards and loving acceptance, or is a different approach advisable? Gratitude 🙂
When fear, with chronic anxiety and hyper-arousal form from trauma, I find it highly advisable for one to also be under psychiatric care. I say this in lieu of research conducted in neuroscience, whereby trauma’s impact upon one’s brain chemistry demonstrates diffuse neurochemical malfunction.
I use ‘trauma’ as a specifier because it can cause significant neurochemical distortions. These diffuse distortions’ and malfunctions are similar to those documented in neuroscience research of patients with mild to moderate TBI (brain injury).
Trauma vs generalized anxieties presenting with or without phobias, moderate anxiety/panic attacks, and chronic worrying; can often heal without pharmaceutical aid.
Neuro-biofeedback and HeartMath trainings are both excellent tools for self-monitoring and actively engaging in creating corrections in brain & heart frequency, through deliberate conscience thoughts and feelings. EMDR and EFT (“Tapping”) are also quite effective. Both of which stimulate cross firing of the brain’s hemispheres and work directly with the body’s nervous system.
Since everything is essentially energy … I prefer to utilize methods which target and work most directly with the body’s neurochemical and physiological energy systems.
Welcoming fear as a doorway to a deeper understanding rather than rejecting fear, allowing it to be and being loving and understanding toward it as a roadmap to essence.
Start noticing the things around me… pause look around start taking interest in things other than yourself. It can begin with an awareness of a tree, a chair, someone else’s smile and so on.
Sharing with my most trusted friends. Having their understanding and kindness. Hearing others speak of their fears and how they overcame them. Knowing I’m not alone and I am loved.
After the unexpected tragic death of my adult son I lived with unrelenting fears and anxieties about everything! I was frozen in place. I didn’t realize I was consistently holding my breath until a loved one mentioned it. The most powerful tool I use now is awareness meditation. Through a consistent practice I now view FEAR as more of a teacher with important information to show me about my current emotions. I consciously breathe to calm down any physical manifestations using imagery of my heart opening to guide understanding. This practice has been crucial for me in creating sacred space for the crucial inner work of living a beautiful and honorable life.
First identifying that it is there, then, feeling it in the body. The breathing through it, and making room for it. I repeat to myself: it is ok, I see you. I am here, I am not going anywhere. Unfold, stay, or leave, it is ok. Then I stay with it for a while. The fear might leave or not, so I stay with it for as long as I can. When I cannot any longer, I tell it it can stay. I give myself a tight hug and kiss my arm and say “it is ok, I am here”.
But this all should sound familiar to you, because I follow your work closely and share it with others 🙂 “Tara this, Tara that, Tara says…”. Thank you Tara 🙂
Asking for support
Practicing a lovingkindness meditation helps me change my mind state. Thank you for this video series.
Thank you for the information and examples. I run small groups (3 to 6) of children in an elementary school. The concern remains that anxiety issues, as well as medications, are on the increase with our very young population.
Writing my book during the past 15 years has helped me face [my] [fear].
In my book I have been challenged with exploring my journey of living with an insidious form of fear (PTSD-complex,…a form of anxiety) that has impacted every area of my life.
Howard Lovely, Jr.
(Ret. Sgt. USAF non-combat / Survivor of child abuse and domestic violence)
This was so great. Thank you Tara! I am stuck in a pattern of always worrying thoughts and resentment thoughts. These thoughts I know are an attemp to keep me safe from getting hurt again but they exhaust me and I want them to stop. I try to meditate and to break free but they come in quickly and even more stronger. I feel I just need to retreat from the thoughts. I feel peace in my body but when I try to stop the thoughts or get frustrated with the thoughts or pay attention to the thoughts I get discomfort in many forms. I look forward to the next session with you. Thank you for your sharing.
To be present in the now and breath and allow yourself to be tru and present in your body.
Thank you for your clear and helpful heartful meaningful lecture.
Ann-Marie
I try to focus on the strengths and abilities I have that may help me face and overcome my fears. I also have a great support system through family and colleagues that encourages me. Mindfulness is fascinating. I look forward to learning more about it and how to effectively use it. I have worked with the Tennessee Department of Children’s Services for over 25 years. Currently, I train staff, both new hires and experienced staff. I plan to go into counseling in few years when I retire.
Aknolaging that there is fear present.
I agree that calming the breath and bringing the anxiety/fear level down is very useful. Identifying the fear, emotion is also helpful in reducing the fear. Love your books and enjoy all that you offer. Thank you!
Dear Tara,
First of all, let me thank you deeply for sharing your thoughts on how best to deal with fear. I am a fan of yours – you don’t realise it but you help me to sleep!! I listen to your talks on Youtube and before I know it, I am lulled into sleep only to waken up annoyed that I didn’t hear the end of your talk!! Thank you for all you have done for mindfulness and for having given so freely of yourself. Blessings!
My fear is a lifelong habit brought on by being a pleaser by nature and from having had a very strong Victorian father who struck physically in order to deal with anything he didn’t like. I know he too was a victim of hard parenting but I never had a dad I could look up to or love or just chat to and I miss that and realise that I have missed that in all my dealings with men. It explains my failed relationships as I have MY expectations of partners without taking on board theirs. So fear is the basis of all my driving emotions and I find that meditation has helped me to take myself gently and to be more compassionate towards myself and not always judge critically. It will take another lifetime as I have spent the first lifetime based on fear. BUT, there is hope and there are people like Tara Brach, Kristin Neff, Jon Kabat-Zinn who bring love and kindness to the world and above all, practical help! I look forward to the next talk!! Thank you again! Gráinne
Learning to identify anxious feelings and emotions in general is a work in progress. This video will help me to identify fear. I’ve had some success in identifying some physical feelings emotions create in my body. I’ve never believed I feared much of anything, until now. I know now, that I certainly do have fear of personal relationships, particularly family relationships. Fear of rejection and so on. Thank you so much!
Thank you for this video.
I’m watching for myself, not for a client.
Unfortunately, I’ve had to use xanax and most recently inderal for my anxiety. I’m 64 and a performer and the fear, anxiety seems to be getting worse. I know (hope) that my skills will carry me through each performance, but dealing with pre performance is such a drag and i’m in constant worry. Any nugget of information is always a help. It seems that I have to deal with my protectors!
I’m at the beginning of this journey and being hospitalized three times, has lead me to this path of mindfulness. Having learned that I am bipolar type 2 (didn’t know before that there were 2 types) I know now that the act of mindfulness is necessary and vital. I have a great deal of fear facing my fear 😉
So, I don’t know what will help me face my fear.
Just to tep up and do what is fearful
Right now I am going through my own trauma that I’m needing to release
good question- I suspect that I spend more time in the flight response– and less often focusing on the desirable outcome, catching myself in it, and then reminding myself that I have a very strong negativity bias, on rare occasions knowing that it is a temporary-
Empathy. When I feel there is room for and acceptance of fear , the fear becomes less strong. All I need sometimes is an authentic understanding hug, whether given to me by someone who accepts me for who I am, or given to me by me in the form of self-compassion. When fear is allowed and safe space is created for it, something opens up.
I write about brain-fear not real fears like if you have to save your self from a burning house or something like that =>
First being aware of that I can step aside and “watch” may fear instead of being one with the fear.
When I have reached this step I try to be aware of my thoughts and tell my self it is just your brain, your cells and your hormons in your body that makes you feel like this.
Then I try to concentrate on my breathing, be aware of that I have a body and feel where the pain is. I think and say to myself “now it is like this and I will try to stay here not try to change anything” just breathe and be quiet, by my own (even if there is a lot of people around me).
Sometimes I get sad and feel alone and think that I’m not living a full life, I am really stupid and unworthy, then I have to tell my self that it is as it is and I ask myself questions like, “how is this moment exactly now?”, “Do you have any ache or illness in your physical body?” -the answer is 99% no I don´t have any ache in my physical body, “Does it feel good to feel the air coming into your lungs?”, “Does it feel god to feel the air around you”, “Can you see the beautiful light” and the answer is yes to all questions that is connected to what is around me.
I also ask also my self if I can feel that I can be thankful just to be alive, the answer is yes, and if I can feel I am glad that my suffer has giving me a richer life because going through many experiences and difficulties my life has become more meaningful and has helped me to be a more whole person and that I can see and feel much more compared to if I have had a life where I only had laughed the whole day.
Remember, I say to my self, it is a myth that life only can be god and that you are happy all the time. It gives so much strength to have experienced difficulties you only get more and more calm and grounded and wiser (and even more beautiful), but it takes time and let it take the time it need, you can just sit here and be with the pain and try to be the mother you never had, taking care of the fear. (But it is difficult to be a friend of the pain, sometimes I get so angry or sad and just want to fight and struggle or fly, escape away)
My faith in God. When I’m spiritually connected I am courageous and at peace
Facing the avoidance! Got off facebook, at least temp. (There are good groups for information specific to eco-interests, shamanism, etc. ) Also gardening shifts the perspective back to the body, and being outside really helps.
All about perspective!
Thank you, Tara??
Breathing
In 12 step programs, we hear the acronym for fear as False Evidence Appearing Real – and Face the fear an do it anyway. These two phrases have helped me take the time to dig deeper an explore the basis of the fear. Also, being present in this moment – coming back to the reality of the moment is helpful – since fear seems to be thoughts of the future. Thank you, Diane
The belief that I am stronger than this combined with the knowledge that I am experiencing a natural reaction- fight, flight, freeze and determining whether or not it is relevant to the situation moving on from it. Easier said than done sometimes.
Breathing deeply, meditation and being able to share my thoughts.
What helps me face fear. Being aware of the emotion within my body and the physical reaction – sitting and really focusing on the feeling within – the energy moving throughout my body – the sensations – more so in particular parts of my body – feeling the discomfort – allowing it to move through me. In the past, I would try and resist it – took me many years to realise the more I resisted the more it persisted! Love your work – thank you Tara Oh and it’s so freeing when I observe the emotion within!
Someone to share my feelings with and/or doing the thing I’m afraid of. Talks by Tara and other teachers help a lot.
What helps me face my fears is wanting to live a life and not be scared , I breath slow and and push past the thoughts in my head that tell me I can’t do something. It gives me a feeling of freedom and empowerment
Breathing and believing in my courageous heart that I can and will find my way out of the fear that shows itself as anxiety. I have supports in place and I am open and willing to do my part in healing.
You help me face fear, it has been overwhelming for so many years, listening to your talks is gold to me, thank you so much,Tara! Namaste.
Unless it’s real ,like fear of jumping off the building,Knowledge that fear is masking the door to another level of freedom.Knowledge that, fear is usually the keeper of something important for my expansion,freedom.
– recognizing the fear, allowing the fear with selfcompassion: yes this here now.
-when fear is too overwelming, balancing the fear by looking for activitis who connect to joy, relaxation; working in the garden, bodymovement, cleaning etc.
Meditation
What helps me is to take action in doing what is important. Instead of thinking how I should act that ends up not acting at all. Not acting creates a lot of anxiety, and of course anxiety freezes me and I am not acting, …etc. What helps me most is doing meditation on self-compassion. It makes me feel more confident. I recognize a lot of myself of in what your describing. (Sorry for my English)
Thanks
I breathe into it. I try to approach it with curiosity. And question is it real, and what the cause is.
Understanding how fear limits us, and that to get or to do what we want – to grow – often involves facing and moving through the fear barrier. ‘Feel the fear and do it anyway.’ I encourage spending time with the inner child, soothing, allowing and normalizing the child’s fear, encouraging, and holding the child by the hand as we do the scary thing.
Being able to call the bodily sensations and lack of peaceful mind as fear. Being able to identify what the fear is from or about. And knowing, having faith, that God will get me through any fear- real or imagined.
Loved everything Tara did before this and told as many people as I could. I did not like this Tara it sounds like a lecture and I turned off.warmly Linda
Medication….tried so many approaches but keep having relapses. Anxiety feeds from anxiety…
Practicing midnfulness, grounding techniques, journaling
Noting when the fear/anxiety arises-the sensations in the body, using the breath to manage and accepting it’s our brain’s way of keeping us safe.
Dear Tara,
Thank you so much for sharing your wisdom, I always deeply appreciate how you communicate wisdom & compassion. I’m interested at the moment how the ‘fight’ mode can make us feel empowered in a situation which induces anxiety to arise. Would our path be to also turn towards and loving acceptance, or is a different approach advisable? Gratitude 🙂
Breathe in through my nose out through my mouth, living in the moment of now. I definitely feel a lot calmer 🙂
When fear, with chronic anxiety and hyper-arousal form from trauma, I find it highly advisable for one to also be under psychiatric care. I say this in lieu of research conducted in neuroscience, whereby trauma’s impact upon one’s brain chemistry demonstrates diffuse neurochemical malfunction.
I use ‘trauma’ as a specifier because it can cause significant neurochemical distortions. These diffuse distortions’ and malfunctions are similar to those documented in neuroscience research of patients with mild to moderate TBI (brain injury).
Trauma vs generalized anxieties presenting with or without phobias, moderate anxiety/panic attacks, and chronic worrying; can often heal without pharmaceutical aid.
Neuro-biofeedback and HeartMath trainings are both excellent tools for self-monitoring and actively engaging in creating corrections in brain & heart frequency, through deliberate conscience thoughts and feelings. EMDR and EFT (“Tapping”) are also quite effective. Both of which stimulate cross firing of the brain’s hemispheres and work directly with the body’s nervous system.
Since everything is essentially energy … I prefer to utilize methods which target and work most directly with the body’s neurochemical and physiological energy systems.
To keep breathing and moving forward, one step at a time… doing my best to trust something good will unfold from facing this issue.
Welcoming fear as a doorway to a deeper understanding rather than rejecting fear, allowing it to be and being loving and understanding toward it as a roadmap to essence.
Start noticing the things around me… pause look around start taking interest in things other than yourself. It can begin with an awareness of a tree, a chair, someone else’s smile and so on.
Sharing with my most trusted friends. Having their understanding and kindness. Hearing others speak of their fears and how they overcame them. Knowing I’m not alone and I am loved.
After the unexpected tragic death of my adult son I lived with unrelenting fears and anxieties about everything! I was frozen in place. I didn’t realize I was consistently holding my breath until a loved one mentioned it. The most powerful tool I use now is awareness meditation. Through a consistent practice I now view FEAR as more of a teacher with important information to show me about my current emotions. I consciously breathe to calm down any physical manifestations using imagery of my heart opening to guide understanding. This practice has been crucial for me in creating sacred space for the crucial inner work of living a beautiful and honorable life.
First identifying that it is there, then, feeling it in the body. The breathing through it, and making room for it. I repeat to myself: it is ok, I see you. I am here, I am not going anywhere. Unfold, stay, or leave, it is ok. Then I stay with it for a while. The fear might leave or not, so I stay with it for as long as I can. When I cannot any longer, I tell it it can stay. I give myself a tight hug and kiss my arm and say “it is ok, I am here”.
But this all should sound familiar to you, because I follow your work closely and share it with others 🙂 “Tara this, Tara that, Tara says…”. Thank you Tara 🙂