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Encountering Fear - Diana Clark

The following talk was given by Diana Clark at Insight Meditation Center in Redwood City, CA on November 21, 2023. Please visit the website www.audiodharma.org for more information.

Encountering Fear

Good evening, welcome. As I was sitting, it bubbled up like, "Oh yeah, maybe this topic... Here I am, I'm going to do more on fear." I've been doing quite a few things on fear. It turns out it's such a rich topic. There are so many elements to it, and so many ways to consider it, work with it, and look at it. If you're sick of fear, I promise this will be the last one. To justify it, I'll say that I'll be teaching a class in July called "The Path of Fearlessness." It's a six- or seven-month program, and we'll be looking at fear, all the different ways it shows up in our lives, and different ways to work with it. That's partly why I've been really poking around in this topic of fear. It turns out to be very—I don't know, I feel touched by it, like I'm learning about practice in some ways, and just what it means to be a human. It turns out fear is pretty common.

I'm going to lump together quite a few different ideas about fear. There's this fear of imminent danger—something's going to happen. We have fear about that: the saber-toothed tiger or the bus while we're crossing the street. There's also this less pressing fear: fear of public speaking, fear of going to a place where you don't know anybody, something like this. And then there's also anxiety. There's this way in which this anxiety is maybe a more generalized discomfort about something that's happening in the future; maybe we can't quite put our finger on what it is. Fear and anxiety, of course, are both concerned about things in the future, so we might consider them the same. I'm lumping them together, but to be sure, I could give another Dharma talk on why they're all different. There's value in that as well, but for the purpose of this talk, I'm going to lump them together.

Actually, can I make this just a little bit louder? I keep trying to move this closer, but I'm afraid that I'll lose my voice at the end. Okay, maybe this is better. Yeah, thank you, Martha. You don't want to hear me running out of my voice at the end.

Part of the theme I want to talk about is: why bother? Why bother talking about fear, looking at fear, working with fear? Last week, I talked about the way to fearlessness. I talked about how the path of practice that we do to find freedom is the same path of practice that can really help with fear. And the week before that, I offered the acronym FEAR as a way to practice with fear: befriend it, explore or examine it, allow it, and release it. Maybe in general, we can say that working with fear is similar to working with other strong, uncomfortable experiences. So whatever we learn about fear, part of the value is that it can help us with anger, sadness, and other uncomfortable experiences that humans have.

I'd like to start with a poem by Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer¹. She's a wonderful poet. I just appreciate how she's able to express things with a little bit of whimsy and a lot of wisdom. Here's her poem, Hello, Fear:

There I was, making tea in my kitchen when fear hit me like a school bus. I didn’t need a scientist or a therapist to tell me it hurt. I screamed, Ah! I shouted, No! But after smashing into me, fear just opened the folding glass door of the bus, yanked me on, then plopped me into a green vinyl seat. I’m scared, I said. Yeah, fear said. 'Cause I’m scary. Yeah, I squealed as the bus careened through the couch, through my bedroom, through the splintering dining room table. What if I lose everything? I said to fear. Yeah, said fear. What if you do? And who will I be when everything changes? Yeah, said fear. Who will you be? Then he opened the door and shoved me off the bus. And I was standing again beside the familiar green counter, teacup in hand, not a drop spilled. Who will you be? he shouted from the half-open window. I took a deep breath, not knowing how to answer. Good, fear said, as if uncertainty were a gift. And who, fear said, as the bus peeled away, who are you now? Who are you really?

I don't know, I'm smiling while I read this because of its playfulness. Sometimes we have this expression about getting carried away, or "I got hit by a bus," as a way to describe getting overwhelmed. Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer works with this, and I'd like to use this poem as a way to unpack and talk about what she is pointing to, at least in my interpretation.

It begins:

There I was, making tea in my kitchen when fear hit me like a school bus. I didn’t need a scientist or a therapist to tell me it hurt. I screamed, Ah! I shouted, No! But after smashing into me, fear just opened the folding glass door of the bus, yanked me on, then plopped me into a green vinyl seat.

Fear is never invited; it just shows up. And sometimes it's just those times here, where she's describing being in the kitchen with a cup of tea. In my mind, I can imagine maybe she's looking out the window in the kitchen, and there's a moment of relaxation. A cup of tea is a little bit soothing, and it's often when we relax that the things we've been trying to tamp down kind of arrive. It might be during meditation, in fact. It's not uncommon that during meditation, when there's a sense of settledness and ease, fear can show up.

I like this idea of a school bus. The poet chose a school bus maybe because when we have a lot of fear, there might be a way in which we feel like the younger version of ourselves. We don't necessarily feel like the adult that's trying to convince everyone, "Yeah, I've got everything under control. I don't have any fear. I'm not afraid of anything." The school bus not only represents a younger version of ourselves, but the fact that it's a bus also highlights that there are a lot of people on it. Fear turns out to be so common. Even though we don't often talk about it, or notice it, or we give it different language, recognizing that it's showing up on a bus is a way that we can connect with other people and recognize the common humanity of feeling fear.

Humans are vulnerable, of course we are. So of course we have fear because there is danger. It doesn't mean that all the things we consider dangerous are in fact dangerous in the way that we imagine them, but we're not invincible, so of course there is fear. Part of this practice is to help understand those fears that are helpful and those fears that are not helpful.

In the beginning of this poem, she has this line: "I screamed, Ah! I shouted, No!" This is how it is when fear arrives. There's this resistance: "No, I don't want this. Go away." There is this generalized feeling of, "This is not what I wanted." It's fascinating that we can work with this sense of "no." We have fear that just arises uninvited, and then there's this sense of "No, I don't want it." There's a way that this fear and the resistance to the fear are pushing and supporting each other. They're kind of in this little loop. Sometimes to be with the fear is overwhelming, or there might be trauma associated with it; maybe it's not even wise to go right into the fear. But all the ways in which we say "no" could be enormously helpful to pay attention to. Resistance can show up as tightness in the body, blaming others, or blaming ourselves. Just be with that. Let the fear take care of itself, but be with the resistance. Because we have resistance not only to fear but to so many difficult, uncomfortable situations. Being with the resistance is a way that we can help the fear to diminish, allowing it to arise and pass away. Because of course, the fear is going to end; it's not there always.

Something that we often don't talk about is that fear can be a support for practice. I've been talking about how to get rid of it or work with it, but there's a way in which fear has a role in our lives and in our practice. I like an expression from Jack Kornfield². He says that fear is the membrane between the familiar and the unfamiliar. Recognizing that so often the fear is of the unknown or about what's about to happen is part of why it's unfamiliar. But this idea that if you're feeling fear, you're out of your comfort zone—this is also how we grow. This is how we expand our capacity, by pushing this membrane between the familiar and the unfamiliar. How much does the fear of the unknown limit our lives? Limit the ways that we think about what's possible for ourselves, or possible for others, or possible for the world? The unknown—"I don't quite know how that's going to unfold."

We might recognize that the hero's journey includes fear. This journey where the protagonist embarks on an adventure, faces and overcomes challenges, undergoes personal growth and transformation, and then comes back with gift-bestowing hands. Now that they've learned something, they can not only live their life differently, but they can help others in a way that they couldn't before. Meeting obstacles and working with them always involves fear, but this hero's journey is part of how we grow. There's a way in which we come back to where we started, but we've changed. Maybe the external environment hasn't changed, but we've changed. I think all of us have this experience of having some difficulties that we wouldn't wish on anybody, but then recognizing on the other side of that, "Oh yeah, I did learn something really powerful and meaningful and maybe even transformative." Recognizing that fear, even though it's uninvited and uncomfortable, can be a support for our life and for our practice.

I'll come back to the poem. The speaker says:

I’m scared, I said. Yeah, fear said. 'Cause I’m scary. Yeah, I squealed as the bus careened through the couch, through my bedroom, through the splintering dining room table.

This bus is going through different parts of the house. It started in the kitchen, and then we see the couch, the bedroom, and the dining room. These are all the different areas of our lives: our relationships, our leisure, how we take care of ourselves. Fear can touch so many of these different areas of our lives. In the same way, working with fear can take us to many areas of our lives.

For example, exploring or examining fear can reveal a tremendous amount about our inner lives, because what we fear is related to what's precious to us, what is important to us. As we're examining fear, we might discover something about the stories we've created about who we think ourselves to be. As we see in this poem, we might have this idea of, "I'm afraid they won't like me," and then we realize we have this underlying belief that everybody should like us. To be sure, it's not a bad thing to have people like you, but sometimes we are compromising on things that are important to us, or not standing up for what we know is right, just so that people will like us. Exploring fear reveals our inner lives, what we think the purpose of our life is, what we value, and what feels threatened.

When we examine fear, we also reveal the way that these persistent fears are often limiting our freedom. We might not be aware of the role that fear has in our lives until we really look at it and examine it. Fear might show up in general as apprehension, hesitation, dread, or worry, but also maybe more explicitly as not being able to sleep well, feeling moody, being in a heavy mood, or being all over the place. Or it can show up as the opposite: not expressing our emotions. We don't want anybody to see the fear, perhaps, so we are tightened up and clammed up and not sharing. It really has a big role in our emotions, whether we're expressing them or not.

There is a way in which we could say that fear is at the root of conflict. We're afraid that somebody is going to take credit for something that we did at work, or that they won't respect us if we share what's really going on with us, or they will not appreciate our vulnerability because it makes them feel vulnerable, so they'll turn away. It turns out, though, that being vulnerable in a way that feels comfortable—not sharing too much, but not being closed off—is really how people connect. It's really how people form relationships and friendships. There have been lots of studies about this: if somebody seems a little bit vulnerable or is not completely perfect or polished, people are more apt to want to talk to them or include them in what's happening.

Exploring fear also reveals some of our patterns of reactivity—the way that resistance shows up. It can be procrastination, avoidance, anger, blaming, or lashing out. The way that we resist fear so much is also how we resist anger, sadness, or anything else that's uncomfortable.

Looking at fear also reveals the role that desire, expectations, and clinging have in our lives, because fear is so often related to this. We're afraid of losing things, so we're really holding on. There's this vicious circle: fear leads to clinging, clinging leads to identification, and then identification leads back to fear because the things that we're clinging to feel under threat. Often we're clinging to ideas about ourselves, and we want others to see us a particular way. We have expectations; we want to feel a certain way, and we're afraid of being uncomfortable. I expect that this will happen and this won't happen; it'll be the right temperature, and it won't be too loud or too quiet.

Not only does looking at fear help us to learn about ourselves, but it helps us to hone skills like how to be with difficulty, and this recognition that some fear is appropriate and some is not. I had this habit when I was younger, just grade-school age, and sometimes I find it showing up even as an adult. I used to have this idea that when I was walking on the sidewalk, I shouldn't step on a crack, because we had this saying when I was a kid: "Step on a crack, break your mother's back." Sometimes even as an adult, I'm adjusting my feet so that I don't step on a crack. This is silly, right? Things that really don't make sense show up. For us to really pay attention: a fear of harming others could be helpful; fear of stepping on a crack in the sidewalk, not so helpful. It helps us make distinctions about our reactions. Are they appropriate, or maybe not so appropriate? Just asking, "Is this helpful or is this not helpful? Is this healthy or is this not healthy?" Learning to do this with fear, we can also do this with our anger, our sadness, our blaming, or our inner critic.

I also want to say that looking at fear can help us face death with more equanimity. Part of our fear of death is that we tend to never look at it or even think about it. But if we can reflect on death—it's even a practice, maraṇasati³, this death contemplation, just this recognition: "I'm going to die, you're going to die, everybody's going to die"—if the fear gets moved away, or even if it's there, there's a way in which we can look at death in a way that can be sacred. We can work with death in a way that can be liberating. I had a good friend who was a practitioner, and as he was dying, I felt like he showed all of us how to die with beauty and grace. It was such a gift that he gave us. For many years, he knew that he was dying, so he had time to get his affairs in order and to say goodbye. It was a beautiful letting go into the unknown. He had some fear, I'm sure he did, but he didn't hide it. It was a beautiful thing to recognize that the dying process can be a beautiful process. It's going to happen anyways for all of us.

And then the last part of this poem:

What if I lose everything? I said to fear. Yeah, said fear. What if you do? And who will I be when everything changes? Yeah, said fear. Who will you be? Then he opened the door and shoved me off the bus. And I was standing again beside the familiar green counter, teacup in hand, not a drop spilled. Who will you be? he shouted from the half-open window. I took a deep breath, not knowing how to answer. Good, fear said, as if uncertainty were a gift. And who, fear said, as the bus peeled away, who are you now? Who are you really?

So much about fear is this fear of the unknown. The truth is, we don't know as much as we think we do. Fear of the unknown is often like, "Well, I'm not quite sure how that's going to unfold." But how many things in your life have turned out just the way you thought they would? This is coming from somebody who has a PhD in biochemistry and is now sitting here as a Dharma teacher. How many times in our lives do we think, "Oh, things are going to go this way," and then they turn out going another way? That's in the big picture, but often we have these fears about what's going to happen if we go to a holiday gathering that we got invited to, for example: "I don't really know anybody, I only know that one person. Oh, it's going to be awful. I'm just going to be standing there, nobody's going to talk to me." Maybe. Maybe not. We want to have confidence in things that we don't really know.

It turns out that uncertainty is kind of the way forward. In order to not feel fear, we're trying to control things, which is limiting. We're limiting what's possible for ourselves and what's possible for others. Having uncertainty, the sense of "I don't know," is so much better than, "Oh my gosh, I have to make sure this doesn't happen, I have to make sure that doesn't happen, therefore I'm going to do this, I'm going to take care of that." Saying, "I'm not sure. That might be awful, but it might not be awful, too," allows things to unfold in a way instead of always trying to shove them a particular way.

I'm not saying to be completely passive, and I am not encouraging terrible, horrible things to just keep going. But I am encouraging us to not assume that we have to corral everything or try to make sure it only goes the way we think it should go. So often things have a natural unfolding that might be better than what we're even thinking about. Sometimes there is a part of us that prefers the difficulties, the stress, and the worry, because it's familiar. We shouldn't underestimate how much we are often trying to get rid of uncertainty, and in order to do that, we're holding on to things that just aren't helpful for us. We have these powerful patterns of familiarity. So there can be some wisdom, but we can also bring some questioning when we recognize some of our patterns of behavior: "I'm usually showing up this way. Well, is part of that just because it's familiar?"

What would it be like to invite more uncertainty into our lives? Just this little bit of fear: "I'm not quite sure how this is going to go, and can that be okay?" As I said, we really don't know as much as we think we do, and we certainly don't control as much as we think we do, even though we try.

The truth is that uncertainty can be a doorway to freedom. This fear, this membrane between what's familiar and what's not familiar, can be a door that's closed. But fear can be a doorway. In uncertainty is the next step, and that can lead to greater freedom, greater ease, something that maybe we haven't even imagined yet.

In this way, working with fear can also be working with our sense of self, which so often we feel has to be protected, bolstered, and made to look good. If we recognize uncertainty and say, "I don't know," it softens that sense of self. When we have a sense of certainty, there's a sense of "I know." And when there's a sense of "I don't know," there can be an opening, less rigidity, and less limits. In this way, working with fear can be a support for greater freedom.

So the next time you're having tea in the kitchen and fear arises—maybe it'll be a school bus, maybe it won't be a school bus—is there a way that you can just allow yourself to see what it has to show you? Allow yourself to feel the experience of fear.

One way to be with fear that is not overwhelming is to be aware of the body. What's happening in the body? The mind is going really fast and making lots of stories, especially when there's fear. But if you can ground down into feeling your feet on the ground, feeling the lump in your throat, or the butterflies in the belly—whatever it might be—that's a great way to hold the fear without this sense that it has to go away. And then maybe you can work with the resistance. As I said before, this sense of "no" often shows up in clenching the jaw, or tightness in the jaw, or sometimes in the shoulders. All of us are different, but these are some generalizations of how to work with this.

With that, I'll end and open it up for some questions or comments. Thank you.

Q&A

(Diana rereads the poem "Hello, Fear" by Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer.)

Questioner 1: Hello. So I'm having some fear right now. First of all, I wanted to say how much I appreciate that reading. I get so much more out of a poem when I hear it spoken, I think. And the voice of fear seems to sort of change, or at least it seems in the end it becomes instructive or an aid. At least that's one way you could look at it, as sort of undermining the identity. On a more personal note, I'm sort of realizing that there's also fear of fear. Within the last year of my life, I've realized just how powerful fear has been in my life from a very early age. I think I was always sort of trying to deny that. It was more of a social fear than physical fear, in terms of risk-taking or things like that. I don't really know where to go with that, except maybe I'll sign up for the class on the path of fearlessness! It seems like a very rich vein to mine and look at.

Diana Clark: Yes, thank you. I appreciate very much that you're saying that fear has some wisdom at the end, kind of undermining identity, and then you said "fear of fear." Yes, I agree! Right even here the poem says, "I’m scared," I said. "Yeah," fear said, "'Cause I’m scary." This fear of fear, how much a big role it has in our lives.

Questioner 1: I think in my case it was trying to deny that I was afraid, and that's this big thing you don't want to look at, and it leads to all sorts of undesirable outcomes. So, yeah.

Questioner 2: I appreciated what you said about the comfort or familiarity of fear and anxiety. I think when I'm feeling anxious about something, every topic that I'm anxious about puts my mind into a certain course. I have the same kind of plans to deal with whatever I'm anxious about. And I guess there is a certain amount of comfort in that. But it's also frustrating that I'm thinking the same thoughts again, and of course, I'm not getting any more out of them this second time, or third time, or tenth time, as I did the first time. It does tend to put my mind in very familiar patterns. There are aspects that feel good and aspects of it that feel bad.

Diana Clark: Yeah, this makes perfect sense. I think all of us do this, right? We have our usual ways, and they work a little bit, or they work sometimes. There's a reason why we do it. But then sometimes there's this recognition of having to do something different. Maybe I'll share for you and for others that I used to, when I noticed fear was coming up, just do a long exhale. The physiology of long exhales just kind of helps calm us down. So I would just do that all the time: "Okay, this works." But the fear would keep on coming back. It wasn't until I said, "You know what, I'm going to stop doing this long exhale and actually just kind of be with this fear," and it turned out not to be so bad. What I was doing was kind of soothing, but to allow the fear to be there, like, "Oh my goodness," and then to kind of go away—I don't know, it felt like something shifted with that. Maybe in the same way that you get into these thought grooves, I was doing this physiological sigh to help it. So there are so many ways in which we get into these habits.

Questioner 3 (Martha): Thank you, Diana. I love the way you read the poem. It was great. For many years—this is in the somewhat distant past—I noticed that as soon as I sat down to meditate, what would happen is what I called the "Three Ps," which was planning, pleasing, and placating. The pleasing and placating I could understand, but the planning wasn't just normal planning. It was planning the same thing again and again, which I recognized after a while was magical thinking. Like, if I planned this thing well enough, then bad things wouldn't happen in my life. And so when I looked at those Three Ps, I thought, "Oh, okay, that's fear." It was really helpful to recognize that. Thank you for your talk.

Diana Clark: Thank you. Thank you, Martha, and thank you for saying this about fear being underneath planning. Absolutely, there's a way in which we're trying to control things or be prepared for whatever is going to happen because we're afraid that somehow we'll be uncomfortable or something untoward will happen. Yeah, thank you, Martha. I like this: placating, pleasing, and planning. The Three Ps.

Thank you all, and I wish you all a good night and safe travels on your way home. Thanksgiving is coming up, so I hope that in whatever way you celebrate, or if you celebrate, you have a wonderful time. Thank you.