Healthy Fear

We have been talking a lot about fear that is not helpful.  But if we all experience fear, then there has to be some fear that is helpful, right?  This is what David Richo talks about in this section.

David Richo suggests that there are some basic characteristics of healthy and appropriate fear.  One is that if it is an appropriate fear, a solution or alternative is always possible.  You are not stuck.  David Richo says an alternative could be standing up for yourself (rather than simply staying scared inside and trying to tolerate/minimize/deny what is happening), holding your ground or finding a creative solution to a problem that will work for everyone involved.  Notice how these options require having contact with the fear in the first place.  Even finding a creative solution or a road around the fear, requires knowing the fear so you can navigate.

The other basic features of healthy fear David Richo identifies are the following:  1. It acts as a messenger to let you know something is happening that requires a response.  2. It is a guide to show you the location of the threat.  3.  It is an ally as its energy can be integrated to help us have the resources to respond to the threat.

Again, to be able to leverage the wisdom of healthy fear, we have to allow ourselves to be present to it, to listen to it.  If we are always protecting ourselves from uncomfortable emotions, we can block healthy programs we have for managing human life like grief and appropriate fear.  If we have the courage to be open to what comes up, we can go with our nature rather than work against it.  It does require us to tolerate a little discomfort and have some curiosity during that discomfort.  I bet we could all breathe and tolerate a little bit of distress in the interest of life being easier and getting what we want.

Ok, let’s look at a real life example.  Let’s say that you get a gut feeling about a person or a place that says you don’t want be involved with this person or be in this place (this is assuming you don’t feel this discomfort about every person or place).  Usually those feelings come up for a reason and if we pay attention, we can find an alternative to being with that person or place.  Or, let’s say that you are helping someone out, but they begin to ask too much.  Maybe not in a malicious way, they just happened to need a lot.  You start to feel uncomfortable because it is too much for you.  If you listen to your response (maybe fear that you can’t get it all done or that you are starting to feel resentful), you will see that something needs to be done.  An unhealthy response would be to deny or minimize your discomfort and not say anything about what is happening.  Realize that this usually leads to a blow up or shutting someone out.   A healthy response would be: “I really would like to help you because I care about you.  And this is too much for me right now.  Could we talk about a way that I could help that works for both of us?”  Or something along those lines.  That way, you can take care of yourself and the relationship you have with this person. 

Of course, there are extreme examples when there is abuse or violence and there really isn’t a collaborative approach and you just need to leave or delineate or uphold boundaries.  Either way, the bottom line is listening to the signals that your internal world is sending.

*This post is written in response to a section in David Richo's book "When Love Meets Fear: Becoming Defense-Less and Resource-Full".  

Practice Being a Witness

A couple of weeks ago, we were talking about the difference between the ego and the Self (refer to the post Evolution of the Ego).  Today’s section develops how we live this from day to day.

David Richo says “it is my ego that has a story, my soul is a silence” (p. 38).  The idea is that the ego loves drama.  It creates stories that are complex and that include pretty intense and uncomfortable states such as fear, desire, judgment, shame, blame, expectation and attachment to outcome.  All of those feelings are pretty powerful and can easily distract us from what is really important: love, peace and being present or connected to ourselves and others.  Also, these uncomfortable feelings require a fair amount of energy and time, don’t you think?

Being in silence, in the way David Richo is proposing, means allowing things to be as they are right in front of us.  It is being a witness to the story of the ego, but not being drawn away in the undercurrent of it.  David Richo says:  “this is what is meant by being centered, not to have no story, but not to be overwhelmed by it” (p. 38).

If we can practice observing what is happening, we react less, are able to have more clarity and are able to let the feelings we have about what is occurring more easily pass by like wind through the trees.  That stillness might also give us a chance to accurately understand what the feeling experience might want to tell us, if anything.  Of course, it is easier to be a witness to more pleasant states: contentment, joy, love, excitement.  So that’s a good place to start the practice.  If you feel good, notice that you do.  “I feel happy right now”.  And then see what happens.  Do you notice that you might try to capture this feeling because you don’t want it to go away?  Do you discount it?  Do you then start to think about what is making you unhappy?  What if we could focus on just really enjoying that easy and pleasurable state of being when it is with us?  Then, as it passes by, space opens up for another experience that might be even more beautiful or might be lovely in a different way.  Start to notice what happens in your mind when you experience a feeling and try to see if you can just let it be.

Once you have the practice of witnessing a couple of times, see if you can try it with more difficult emotions to experience.  Maybe you are sad, notice it.  If you are tearful, it will be even easier to know you are sad.  Take a moment: what is the uncomplicated, ten second truth?  I’m sad because X.  Accept that.  It is the truth of this moment.  Give up trying to move past it or trying to fix it for a minute.  Once you give it an audience, you can see if there is anything it needs you to learn, to do or to say.  If you are dealing with an old story, David Richo recommends looking into your feelings to check for fear, sadness and anger and giving each an audience.  By being a witness to them, they don’t have keep coming back because they did their job of delivering their message.

Once you are able to notice the feeling, witness it and accept it (doesn’t mean you have to like it)… realize it is just pain.  That’s it.  It is discomfort that you can handle and that will pass if you just allow it.

If the pain is intense and about an old story (something that happened a long time ago), David Richo talks about asking the question: How has this helped me come closer to who I am really meant to become?  You can only reflect on this question once the intensity of the feeling has passed, so ask when you are ready. 

More times than not, there is a reason that reveals itself.  It might not be obvious at first or it might take a little while.  But try to stay open for the answer so you receive it when it arrives.

When I work with my clients, I use the metaphor of the difference between swimming in a pool and standing on the side of the pool watching yourself swim.  Those two positions have very different perspectives.  If there is part of you outside the water, you don’t have to be fully carried away with what is happening.  There is perspective.  That means less drama and more of chance to use what is occurring in your human life as a source of growth rather than simply a source of senseless, recurrent pain.  Our feelings and experiences will constantly be unfolding as long as we are alive.  Our ego will always be present, even if the Self has been able to take a seat in the queen’s throne.  Practicing this silence means using the functional ego in service of the Self.  That is the ultimate way of being able to make good use of our human life and exist with meaning.   And, in the long run, that leads to a more satisfying experience of your life. 

To get this message from a different perspective, check out a post by Mastin Kipp on The Daily Love called Transcend Your Circumstances with a Daily Spiritual Practice.  My favorite quote in his post:  The great spiritual teacher Jiddu Krishnamurti was once asked the key to his happiness, to which he said, “I don’t mind how it goes.”

*To learn more about this blog and the author, please visit the About section of this website.

 *This post based on the section "Story and Silence" (pp. 38-40). 

The Solution is a Paradox

You know what?  I think this section of the book is awesome.  Ok, I think most sections are amazing.  But I really like this one because David Richo talks about relationship as a vehicle for growth.  Relationships point us to areas where we are experiencing fear or pain that need our love and attention.  He says that our fear can be identified in what we are seeking through our relationships.  He says “what I compulsively seek and cannot hold signals what I need to grieve” (p. 35).  So, let’s say you didn’t get enough affection or I love yous in your early life, so you (without knowing) look for someone who can meet that need now.  Well, no one is perfect.  Since it has been painful in the past that the need for closeness and affection wasn’t met, you will be especially aware of times where that need isn’t met.  Here’s the strange part:  it will actually be hard to appreciate and take in the experience of affection needs being met when your partner does do that.  What?!  Yes.  What you really, really want might be right in front of you and you might even be pushing it away. 

Here’s the paradox:  the solution is that what you didn’t get early on in life needs to be grieved.  “Only that which can be grieved and let go of can be fulfilled in adult life” (p. 35) is what David Richo says.  Think about this.  If you can get present to the pain of what you didn’t get, accept it and then grieve it, that pain doesn’t have to shape your relationship.  Refer to my post on the Human Program for Handling Loss to find out more about how you do the work of grieving.  In my estimation, this is not to say that there isn’t room for the importance of getting now what you didn’t have before (i.e. a corrective experience such as someone really being there in your adult life when you have experienced abandonment in your early life).  It just means that doing the work of grieving what you didn’t have will actually open you to the possibility of receiving and integrating that corrective experience. 

This is one of the reasons I love working with couples:  being in relationship brings up parts of ourselves that we might not otherwise get to access with such clarity.  The trick of it is that it feels like the issue coming up is about something that our partner is doing.  They are simply touching on something that already exists within us.  You want to know a secret?  You picked them because they were going to activate parts of you that need healing.  As human beings,  we have a natural tendency toward wholeness and health.  So, we are always setting up opportunities for that to happen (mostly without our awareness!).  David Richo says:  “Can this be the ultimate and most terrifying and most liberating synchronicity of all:  everything happening to me is aimed at exposing and healing my core fears?” (p. 35).  I get SO excited when I see a clearing for this realization to occur in my practice.  I can barely contain myself.

If we just focus on our partner and insist that they change, then the real issue doesn’t get addressed.  Doesn’t that seem so two dimensional after reading what this could really be about?!  Plus, we are then trying to control them (never works) and making them smaller and less self expressed.  Do we want that?  For the person we love?  I don’t think so. 

So, can we look at our relationships as a way to see where we need to work instead of getting really focused on our partners as flawed humans that need to change?  People spend weeks/months in therapy trying to prove these two things to each other and their therapist, so let me help you out with a little short cut: you’re right, they are flawed...because they are human!  And, do they need to make changes?  Maybe.   But, more importantly, can we have the humility and courage to look inside ourselves and take care of our own pain for our own well-being, but also for the success of our relationships?  Can we make a commitment to learn and grow instead of insisting they do that?    

Finally, I really take comfort in the last part of this section.  David Richo talks about the fact that we can work on our fear (and pain) consciously, do what is in our power and capacity now to breathe through and integrate our fears.  At the same time, there are forces at work out there (whatever you believe in…some kind of organizing force or higher power) that helps us to carry the load when it is too much.  Our ego cannot do it all.  This other force is one that “has the power to bring things back to life when everything feels done for” (p. 38).  We have all experienced this: a saving grace.  So, if you agree to work on yourself, your partner does some work and then the assisting forces do their work…that is a lot of support that can come out of your commitment to use your relationship as a space to grow and become more whole as a human being.

I love what Ally Hamilton says in her blog, www.blog.yogisanonymous.com, about this exact topic:  “If you want to love, you’re going to have to be a bada$$”.  Check out her post:  Love Doesn’t Hurt You

*To learn more about this blog and the author, please visit the About section of this website.

 *This post based on the section "What is Neurotic Fear" (pp. 34-38). 

Distinguishing Types of Fear

Why do we even care about different kinds of fear?  Well, being human, we all experience fear.  Some of it is helpful and appropriate.  Some of it is unhelpful and insidious.  The way I see it, being able to discover unhelpful fears gives us the power of choice.  We can choose to allow that fear to be present and be impacted by it (no judgment here, fear can be daunting and can seem insurmountable).  At least by knowing about it, you can try to work around it and not be surprised every time it is controlling you.    Or, once we know it is there, we can choose to work on it and resolve it, giving us the opportunity to live with more freedom and love.   

David Richo defines fear as “a subjective body/mind response to a real or imagined danger” (p. 29).  Right there, you can see that there is plenty of room for there to be fears that are not actually about things in reality.  I find that most people are pretty accurate in identifying fear that is about something real: it is of something specific and they usually know where it comes from.

Anxiety is often something that is unclear to people.  Usually, they know they don’t feel good, sometimes they might even label it as anxiety, however, frequently, the source is a mystery.  David Richo defines anxiety as “a subjective response to a danger that is imagined or unclear” (p. 30).  Well, that makes sense.  He makes the point that usually people respond to appropriate fear (or fear of something that is threatening in actuality) effectively.  When there is anxiety or neurotic fear (fear of something imagined), our skills for dealing with fear are ineffective because the source is either unclear or not real (can’t fight it, can’t flee from it).  So in neurotic fear, actually, what is frightening is the powerlessness we experience in dealing with it. 

I love the illustration he provides:

“Neurotic fear is like a cat’s dread of water:  there is really nothing to be afraid of but he still acts as if it were seriously dangerous and cannot get over his fear”.

I can’t read this without getting that visual.  I am that cat sometimes!  We all are.  I was that cat this morning.  The funny part is the cat is taking things really seriously and has no idea he is being ridiculous.  Once I realized I was being like this cat, I was immediately released from the hold of the fear and love was restored. 

This is why people will sit in my office and tell me that they don’t experience fear:  they don’t know.  That’s why I’m writing this, so you can know your fear.  That way, you can have more power than it.  Imagine if the cat could know there is nothing scary about water.

Alright, so how do we detect the unhelpful fear?

Here are a couple of recommendations from David Richo (with my comments, of course):

1.        Look at your pass times.  Are they covering up a fear of being alone, boredom, of being truly intimate with people in your life?  Look closer:  are you constantly busy?  Always on your phone or focused on people/things that are not in your physical presence?  Do you allow moments still enough to look into someone else’s eyes and let them look into yours?

2.       Are you living in a string of rationalizations?  In order words, are you on the defensive a lot?  Explaining away, justifying your behavior, feelings or thoughts?  Even just inside your own mind?  What if your feelings could just be?  How about a ten second truth?  ‘I’m scared right now’.  ‘I’m hurt right now’.  That’s it.  Take a breath, forget about looking bad or wrong.   Finally, you can be heard/understood by your own self.  We all need to be heard and understood without judgment, why not start inside our own selves?  This is fantastic starting point for moving on and letting go of what is holding you back.

3.       Do you believe that whatever is bothering you will never get better?  Basically, this is the feeling that there is no alternative, which makes us feel stuck and powerless…maybe even hopeless.  This is a good clue that unhelpful fear is underneath whatever is bothering you.

4.       Are you controlled by fear of what might happen?  Yes, it is helpful to look ahead on the road to watch for potential road blocks or disasters.  However, if you are spending all your time in ‘what ifs’, it is paralyzing and you are putting a huge down payment of anxiety, fear and worry about something that might never happen.  That is a waste!

5.       Neurotic (unhelpful) fear is obsessive.  Do you experience re-occurring, intrusive thoughts about whatever is bothering you or do you keep doing the same things without wanting to?  It seems like there is not a whole lot of power or choice when this is happening.  Yup, unhelpful fear is the culprit here. 

Ok, good, now you have some clues about whether you are experiencing unhelpful fears in your life.  That’s an awesome first step.  You really can’t do anything about those guys without knowing they are there. 

Now what?  Don’t try to fix it just yet.  Take some time to notice the different fears that are coming up using these cues.  Notice.  That’s all.  And then…keep reading!

*To learn more about this blog and the author, please visit the About section of this website.

 *This post based on the section "Present Fear: Real and Unreal" (pp. 29-34).