Tropical Forest with Monkeys, Henri Rousseau (1910)
For the past three years, my friend and I, both attempting major changes in our lives, both nervous at different junctures, have traded a mantra back and forth:
Do not feed the fears!
We adopted this wisdom from an Instagram meme, I’m not proud to admit. It became an anchor as our lives swirled around us, some answers always floating just out of frame. We often felt grateful and optimistic, but we still worried a lot.
So when one person saw the other spinning towards anxiety, she threw out a lifeline:
Do
not
feed
the fears!
Like a confident park ranger shouting instructions to a crowd of tourists, it usually helped.
What causes fear? In practice, it’s different for everyone, but by definition, it’s an emotion induced by perceived danger or threat. As the emotion rises, the body responds accordingly.
The amygdala triggers the hypothalamus which triggers the pituitary gland which triggers fear-response hormones. The hormones enter the bloodstream and the sympathetic nervous system launches into action; welcome to flight or fight mode. The body contracts muscles to prepare them for violent action, causing goosebumps. Heart and lung activity increase while digestive activity decreases, causing butterflies.
Hello, butterflies. Hello, goosebumps. Thanks for doing your job.
For my friend and me, and maybe for you, fear is a byproduct of prolonged uncertainty and fundamental questions. Those questions flutter back and forth around purpose and career and stability, among other things. Even though we believe in trusting our vision, it becomes difficult in the day-to-day.
It often creeps in when decisions have to be made: how to work, where to live, when to devote time and attention to one thing versus another.
Do not feed the fears!
Thank god for our phones, which allow us to constantly regurgitate internet inspiration across the miles. To be fair, we also explore a range of spiritual and mystical traditions. We regurgitate those, too. We often forward snippets from Buddhists and resources for learning more about ancient systems like astrology.
Fear is a strong emotion, and Buddhists have strong emotions figured out. I love the Buddhists.
When it comes to fear, anger, sorrow, or any other difficult feeling, Buddhist teaching helps us learn to sit with the emotion rather than react or push it away. We learn to observe it, name it, be still with it. Instead of trying to figure it out, we simply notice it.
By sitting with emotion, we learn to experience it without attaching so much meaning to it, or identifying with it so deeply. Then eventually, after the emotion passes through us, it moves on.
But when we stuff emotion down, or mindlessly distract ourselves, or obsess over strategies for controlling it, we’re preventing ourselves from actually feeling it. So it never moves through us and is more likely to stick around as a driving force.
Yogic philosophy has a lot to say about fear, too. I was reminded of this recently by my teacher after we practiced difficult inversions with an elaborate prop setup. We’d prepared the body carefully, but still, the work was hard.
“We have to overcome fear,” she said after class. “At the physical, emotional, and spiritual levels. It’s the hardest thing to do, and it’s part of our practice. What do the Yoga Sutras say is the hardest fear to overcome?”
“Death,” I responded quietly.
In The Yoga Sutras, the kleshas are the five root causes of all suffering. Primary among them is fear of death.
What my friend and I experience is not fear of death in a literal sense; it’s metaphorical — we’re scared of losing our hopes and dreams, our plans, our ability to function as independent, successful adults. If you haven’t noticed, fear isn’t always reasonable.
In yoga, things like inversions and arm balances invite us to explore how we might face, move through, and overcome fear in real life. Through practice, we begin to understand how we might trust ourselves.
Yes, my arms and core and back will hold me. I can trust my body.
Yes, my vision is valid. I can trust my plans.
We all face little terrors and big ones every single day. We wonder if we’ll sound stupid in the meeting, if our kids will be okay at daycare, if we’ve made the best decisions, if we’ll find the right job. Maybe if self-trust develops, the trickles of fear can reduce.
I find grace in the knowledge that almost nothing is permanent. If we can always change course, why not bet on ourselves and give life our best shot? Our hopes and dreams deserve it.
Do not feed the fears.
Between you and me—
I’m in the midst of exploring questions about life and livelihood in the geographical sense, and as usual, it’s kind of existential. Wish me luck! And may good fortune befall you, too, this week.
love this! I just wrote about fear in my last newsletter too. Trying to practice self-trust moment by moment.
I love this, Lauren. Thank you for being the best park ranger I know!! xo