Fear Doesn’t Help: Talk with Rick Hanson on 11/23/22

I offer these every week, along with a guided meditation. Just click the subscribe link below to be notified through YouTube when I post the latest recording. Or, if you'd like to join us live, which would be great, just go into the description section below and follow the link along to be able to sign up for free. So, a little comment before I dive into... I'm searching for a word besides meat, for the essence, the substance, there we go, of my talk. Let's see, if you did not join us early on before we began formally at 6 p.m. Pacific Time, that's just fine. During that period, I was talking about the very important question of how to really live with the uncertainty, the danger, the tragedies of this life, including an awareness of what might befall others, or does befall others, and could befall you. To that end, first, I pointed out that there's been a really deep misunderstanding in the translation of the First Noble Truth in Buddhism as so-called suffering, when in fact it's not at all. The Buddha's radical, liberating, and hopeful teaching is that we can be with the conditions of life that are challenging without suffering them. Second, with that as a context, I was offering four suggestions about how to live with uncertainty and the inevitability of some crap, and the certainty, certainly in the world, of crap, crud. And I offered four things. First was the Buddha's teachings about recognizing things clearly, no replacement for seeing clearly. Second, I also underlined his point in the Second and Third Noble Truths that as we are aware of things like mass shootings or other really wrong, challenging things, to be careful about craving. What's our relationship to things as they are? What's our relationship to them? Can we be with things as they are, seeing clearly, with normal human emotions about them that may well include outrage, despair, anger, sorrow, grief, anxiety, motivation to do what you can? We can be with these experiences without tipping into contraction and craving about them. Third, we can be aware of the underlying ground of all and take refuge in the underlying nature of everything and the inherent oneness of reality altogether. That may start out by being a kind of cosmic idea, like in a fortune cookie, say, or some kind of New Age saying with a candle, and, hey, that's good. That's a good place to start. But over time, you really can deepen in your practice in which there's a growing sense of oneness in reality resting in what is unconditioned, mysteriously so. And then last, love, of course, love, community with others, common cause with others, taking political action with others as best we can, and also just resting in an arisingness of love that's inherent in your own being and perhaps mysteriously inherent in the arising wellspring of reality altogether, love. So those are the four things I suggested. So here we are, and we are in America and some other parts of the world entering into a holiday period in November and December with Thanksgiving as an American holiday starting tomorrow and then moving into the December period. And this is a time for many people of happiness and gratitude, appropriately. It's also a time of some anxiety, ranging from, me, tomorrow, will I be able to make my apple crisp correctly the very first time so that our two adult children will approve, I don't know, to other kinds of anxiety, as well as certainly anxiety about the world. So I'd like to explore this topic with you in a somewhat provocative way. So first, I would like to invite you to consider the first question, which is, for you, how has fear helped you in your past or in the present? How has fear helped you? By fear, I mean the whole range, from very subtle apprehensiveness or uneasiness through significant bodily anxiety, acute fear, even all the way to panic and terror. How has fear helped you? And you might even think about some current situations, maybe ones that you're going to be facing soon or are already in the middle of with key relationships with family members or extended family members, perhaps neighbors, perhaps friends. How is fear useful for you? A little personal story that happened when I was very, just starting to go rock climbing with the friends, friends, it was maybe 22, 23, roughly, it was a while ago. And, well, what happened is that as I returned to my sleeping bag in our campground at the end of a day of climbing, and I was just starting to fall asleep, suddenly I would have a vivid image of tumbling through space to crash and die and splatter on a bunch of rocks down below, and I would pull out of that, whoa. Then I would start getting drowsy again, start falling asleep, and the same thing would happen, spinning through space, falling straight down to splatter on a bunch of granite slabs at the base of the cliff, whoa, I pulled myself out again. This happened multiple times one night. And finally, I just decided to give up and go with it. So the image came to me again, very visceral, which I'm falling through space to crash and splatter on a rocky slab, and just before I hit the slab, and I was letting go so I could hit the slab, I realized that what was coming up for me was all the fear I had pushed down over the course of the day as I was climbing things, risking a fall, doing things fairly precarious, and I came to realize that I needed to find a middle way in which I wasn't entirely shoving down my fear as I climbed up a cliff, but on the other hand, I did not want to let myself be overwhelmed by the fear. There was a middle place. So that would be an example for me of being served by fear, helping me to see clearly and be motivated. Those are the two useful functions of fear. That's why our nervous system and body has evolved so much capability for fear, because it's informative and it's motivating when it's useful, okay? And you might even consider in some current situations, maybe some current relationships, ways in which perhaps you ought to be more anxious than you are. Sometimes we can be too anxious. Other times we can be not anxious enough about maybe a relationship that gradually becoming distant and cold, or anxious about someone we love moving into territory that's really not good for them that maybe we could do something about, or maybe not anxious enough about the long-term prospects of our own retirement fund, or personal health, or fitness. Sometimes we should be more anxious, okay? That's the first question. How has fear helped you? Second question, how has fear harmed you? How has it brought you needless suffering way beyond its value as informative and motivating? And how maybe has fear made you play small, or how has fear led you to lash out against others or be over-controlling, critical, nagging of other people? How has fear harmed you? It's helpful to just take a hard look. We can develop the habit of fear because it's what's normal, and we can think that we need to rest in fear way beyond what's informative about it to stay on our toes. We can also generalize to our present life from situations we were in when we were young, whether as a child or younger, last year. In other words, for myself, for example, I had good reason to be fearful of certain groups at school when I was young, very young, going through school, who would sort of reject me, or shun me, or just laugh at me, or be critical. And now today, when I'm in groups in which there's zero likelihood of that happening, still that old fear in the belly and the bones can come creeping in, right, in ways that are harmful to me, certainly create excess suffering. So how has fear harmed you, or does harm you today? You might hear a car alarm, by the way, on the street outside my home, and much fear is like a car alarm. It's not informative. It's just an unpleasant experience. So here's a third question for you then. In your current situation, current relationships, maybe the current events you're moving into, Thanksgiving dinner tomorrow, perhaps, or being aware of events in your country that are concerning, even alarming, perhaps events in the world. How can you get the value of fear as informative? In other words, highlighting a potential threat, a risk, a potential loss, being informative and motivating. How can you get the value of fear as being informative and motivating in current situations or relationships without paying the price of needless anxiety, needless emotion that's painful and pleasant, of worry? How can you prevent rumination and worry from invading you while also capturing the benefits of fear in terms of the ways it can be informative and motivating? Really key question. Just because there's a threat does not mean you have to be fearful. And that recognition was revelatory for me, has been revelatory for me. We can deal with challenges. We can mobilize. We can be vigilant. We can gather resources as best we can to deal with the threat, including the threat of losing something good. We can deal with all that without getting worried sick about it, without panicking, without freezing, without suffering the discomfort, the yuck of anxiety. Think about some tasks that you have in front of you that you might be worrying about, or you might have a sense of dread or uneasiness about them. And ask yourself, first, what's the value in the fear? What is it telling me that's useful? Find whatever is useful in the fear. Scour the fear. Penetrate into it. Invite it to talk to you. What's useful in the fear in terms of what it's informing you about? And how can the fear be motivating? Move you to act, or move you to prevent certain things, or reach out in certain ways, or avoid certain topics with other people. And then, really, can you let go of the rest of it? This is really profound. Arguably, fear is the original emotion to arise in evolution, because it's so central. And fear's cousin, disgust, the two together. To move through life without any needless fear, while gaining useful information from it, and being helpfully motivated by it. Can you imagine this? Can you imagine yourself informed by your fears, and motivated by them, without suffering them one bit? Now, many of us would answer, as Deb Z has, at two minutes past the hour, no. It's hard. We can get very stuck in the habit of fear. We can be afraid of not being afraid, because we don't have models for dealing effectively with threats without being really anxious about it. And we can be afraid that we will lower our guard if we're no longer afraid. What's really helpful is to ask yourself, okay, what's useful in this fear? What can I learn from it? And really, really engage that question. Second, ask yourself, what actions should I take based on this fear? Which might include a new perspective in your mind, or some carefulness with your speech, or some action or restraint of action in your body. What action should you take related to the fear? And often, when we do those two things, what's useful in the fear, and what should I do based on the fear? When we really do those two things, then very often we can actually step aside from fear, if only for a moment or two, and then with practice for longer and longer periods of time. Really useful. It's also really helpful to recognize, just kind of radically, that most of the time, fear does not help. It just doesn't help. It's added to the suchness of things. Things are what they are. Some of them can be changed. Some of them cannot. Some of them are unpleasant. Some of them are neutral. Some of them are pleasant. They are what they are. Usually, fear does not help. And it does not help past what's informative about it or motivating about it. And to really recognize that, to really make kind of a decision, you can make a similar decision, by the way, about anger and shame. When you look at those and you go, you know, they don't help, really. And so you kind of get on your own side and you separate from something like fear. You're not against it. It's a normal human emotion. You know, it evolved biologically to help us, fine. But to kind of generally get, you know, fear doesn't help. You can be clear about what's happening and you can be motivated toward effective action without adding fear to it. Fear doesn't help. Wow. It's true about anger, often, you know. Anger has a function. It's also informative. It's also motivating. In certain situations, staying in touch with anger can really be energizing. And protecting you, dealing with injustice, or people coming at you. Okay. But a lot of anger, a lot of daily irritation, exasperation. I speak from personal experience here. Well, some are, you know, remorse. Much of that is just crud that we add that we don't need. It doesn't help. Anger doesn't help much of the time. Getting irritated with people doesn't help much of the time. We can be strong. We can be clear with other people without getting irritated at them, which usually doesn't help. You've probably noticed. So in addition to this insight that is freeing, that, wow, fear doesn't help most of the time. It certainly doesn't help past being informative and motivating. In addition to that insight, it's also really helpful to take care of yourself in general. Because the more that you do what you can to take care of yourself, the more you build up a sense of basic okayness, which pulls fuel, pulls logs away from the fires of anxiety. If on the other hand, you're kind of desperate, you're rattled, you're unhealthy, things are falling apart in your life. Understandably, anxiety is going to arise. So we do what we can out of kindness toward ourselves to shore up our own lives, to find rhythms in our life, for example, that are not too stressful or demanding. We just do what we can, you know? Can you get enough protein in your diet? Can you have friends? Can you rest your awareness in something peaceful and happy, at least for a few minutes every day? Do what you can to take care of yourself. Then it will be easier to step away from habitual fear. Another, of course, really important is to reassure yourself as you go through your days. This has become an extremely valuable practice for me personally. Reassurance and comfort as you move through your day, independent of whatever practice you have with fear. Just again, reminding the little scared monkey of the body, right? The frail, vulnerable, little animal of the body, breath after breath, water after water, step after step, oh, we're still okay. Oh, we're still okay. A practice of regular reassurance and internalizing reassurance. Do not underestimate really the power of clocking 60 seconds a day, two to 10 seconds at a time, usually, of a practice of reassurance. One minute total a day of genuinely felt and internalized experiences of reassurance can have an incredible benefit. It really, in particular, helps us reduce the craving that's involved in aversion or fighting, fleeing, or freezing to just internalize authentic reassurance again and again. On the basis of which we can be still clear-eyed about seeing what's going on around us. It's another suggestion, internalizing reassurance. And then last, a practice that I think can really help with recognizing that fear doesn't help most of the time and disidentifying from fear, separating from fear, is to deepen your experience as best you can every day that you are a strong, capable coper. Not perfectly, some things overwhelm even the best of us. The most resilient of us get overwhelmed sometimes. Okay, but on the whole, people vastly underestimate their own endurance, their own strength of will, their own fortitude, their own determination. I've seen that again and again and again in my therapeutic practice. I've experienced that again and again, frankly, in my own life. We underestimate ourselves much of the time. So you have opportunities. I have opportunities every day to recognize, hey, I came through that tough situation. I'm someone who comes through tough situations. Hey, I hung in there in that awkward interaction. I'm someone who can hang in there, right? Oh, that was horrible, let's say. That was a horrible day. I can still get to the other side of even a horrible day. I'm a kind of person who can get to the other side of a horrible day, all right? Okay, so insight into the way that fear doesn't help much of the time. A sense of reassurance, internalized again and again. A sense of yourself as a strong and capable person who can deal with challenges in this life without being afraid about them. And then here's where I'd like to really sink into the deep end of the pool without fear, still breathing there, still breathing in the deep end of this pool. In that, I invite you to recognize that underneath the more psychological level that I've been speaking about, as you may have encountered in the meditation, when we be with things simply as they are, as whatever they are, as we be with thoughts and things as whatever they are in their suchness, without moving away from them or toward them or resisting them, we can start to have a growing sense that thoughts and things, including those that we might previously have been afraid of, are simply one surface phenomenon within reality altogether. They simply are what they are. Things are what they are. And as we recognize that we don't have to add fear to them, and we increasingly be with them as they are, what do we find directly in our own experience in a deep way? We can find a kind of stillness in the ground of things as they are, which is unchanging. We can find a kind of stillness in suchness as suchness, which is always suchness. Wow, it's kind of remarkable. As fear falls away and we be with that other person as they are, or we be with the, I think, probably about 10 apples I need to peel and slice and prepare for my apple crisp tomorrow, as we simply be with them as they are, right? As we be with whatever we're feeling in their body as it is, that draws us into a stillness. Our mind becomes quieter, and we recognize the inherent stillness in reality as it is. Phenomena change, but their nature does not change. It is still always their nature, and the ground in which phenomena appear does not change either. It is still always the ground of all. Reality altogether is still always reality altogether, and the feeling of this, which can become really a feeling in your body, is incredibly peaceful in a radical, deeply rooted way. It's such a great resort. It's an exploration to find this. Often we just get glimpses that pass, or we have a momentary sense of it. But with time, you really can have a more rested sense of the stillness inherent in things as they are. And in that stillness, remarkably also, as we found and explored in the meditation, there can be this amazing upwelling of love. That seems like your own and more than your own, beyond your own, upwelling in the stillness of things as they are, without fear complicating and clouding them. This is really pretty remarkable, and I'm glad that you're bearing with me as I go to a deeper level than the psychological level, which is really valuable. That's the first material I explored with you here, how to recognize that fear does not help most of the time, and how to get the value of fear without being afraid. That's the psychological level. I invite you also, because you are a sincere practitioner. You are engaged, as I am, with this material in a deepening way. In a radical way that goes to the roots of things. The meaning of the word radical. We can find this stillness in the simple suchness of things as they are, without adding fear to them. And in that stillness, in that suchness, somehow find love. So this is my talk. I hope it is helpful to you. Titled, Fear Does Not Help, Still Love. So, I've seen many comments coming in through the chat. Some questions too. Mostly comments, which is fine. I see a hand raised. Let me ponder on that for a minute here. And it would help me, by the way, Elaine, and also I see a, what looks like a phone number, 1669 and so forth. If you could put in the chat what your question or comment is about. Typically, I really appreciate questions that are succinct, of general interest, and about what I've been talking about. So, I hope you can put in the chat what that is for you. So I can check it out. Ah, I think Auntie No Name is 17 minutes past the hour in the chat. You can see what you said. And I think that's great. Stoned on happiness. And I appreciate Dula, you know, Auntie No Name, as an elder, someone I respect. Dula is someone like a midwife or protector around a birthing. Yeah, stillness. Still love. Love still. Yeah, I can see people commenting, finding this stillness in the midst of that which is not still, in the midst of that which is changing. Very good. And as with everything, you know, what's so important is, we start with ideas, fine, you hear the words, great. You hear the talk, right? But eventually, we need to embody the walk. And to help open ourselves, open into, drop down into, whatever is real for you, that I'm inviting you into. Much as teachers, my teachers have invited me, going all the way back to the Buddha, and in other traditions as well. You know, I and others can invite you. You can invite others into opening into, or dropping down into, whatever is your growing edge next, in your own awakening. Okay, I think what I'll do is, okay, Elaine, I see your question, 20 minutes past the hour. So I'm going to ask you to unmute, and other people can see your question. In the interest of time, I'm going to read what you wrote, and I appreciate you responding to my request there about that. You would like to share an experience at a retreat with a spiritual teacher who knew I had some real fears. He had some Dobermans, and had them come toward me, and all of a sudden the fear that I had was gone. I don't understand what actually happened, and wanted to ask if you had any comments. I don't know exactly what happened, but I have a guess. My guess is that you were in a retreat setting. So there was, you were being resourced in a variety of ways by that setting. And you were also opening, and you had trust for this teacher. And in that context of feeling resourced, and open, and trusting, a trigger was brought in, the Doberman pinchers. And maybe you had a background of some fear of dogs, perhaps based on some history. That's great, Elaine. And so to me, if you know my material about linking in the framework of the HEAL process, H-E-A-L, the last step being linking, you were basically having a negative, in a sense, this threat signal, perhaps Doberman pinchers coming at you, while being very rested in the positive of being resourced by the retreat in that safe setting with a teacher you trusted. And the combination of the two neutralized the fear. The threat signal landed in a sense of being really resourced, and whoosh, the fear just dissolved. And that speaks to a path that a lot of us can take again, and again, and again, that's so useful. And to do it in a very step-by-step way. Don't jump too far. Step-by-step, where we link, we connect those things that make us anxious, while mainly feeling at the time, resourced, capable, calm, loved, whatever. Other, you know, various positive things, while we bring the potentially scary stimulus into awareness, or we enter into a relationship with it. And as we do that, if we associate big positive with small negative, typically the positive associates with the negative and gradually neutralizes and eases it. And then we, you know, one small step at a time, keep moving outward the invisible bars of our cage, right? That constrain how fully and boldly we can live in this life. It's a really powerful process. So that's my guess, that's my guess. Yeah, I just wanted to say that if, you know, anybody who has fear or anxiety, you feel it, right? You really feel it. And have something like that disappear, like somebody snapping their finger and you don't feel it any longer. And that's not to say that I've never been afraid of dogs again. And recently, you know, unfortunately, a dog did attack me and my little dog. And the horror, I mean, it's not like this horror went away. But at that particular time, I felt as if I was a different person. Like it wasn't the me that I think I am. Because that fear was like totally, totally not there. Yeah. It's just like somebody took something and erased it that was no longer part of me. And it just, it's amazing. It is really. And I've experienced complete releases like that as well. And I bet most, if not everyone here has. And as a neuropsychologist kind of person, I have no idea how that exactly happens in the brain. But it does, clearly. And very often there's, you know, there's a classic line. You probably know it already, Elaine. Gradual cultivation, sudden awakening. Gradual cultivation, yeah. And so very often these breakthrough experiences do happen on top of a lot of prior practice, right? And then, but still, there's a breakthrough. And even we can have mega breakthroughs of like Kensho or Satori or the Buddha's awakening under the Bodhi tree, wherever it happened, in which there's a dramatic shift in our sense of self, our relationship to the world, dramatic release. Yeah. Thank you. Oh, thank you, Elaine. Me, I'm hopeful for the dramatic release, right? And meanwhile, you know, I think there's a lot to be said for gradual accumulation of practice. Gradual accumulation of practice. Anyway, well, thank you very much, Elaine, okay? So what's your homework this week, right? I'll see you next week too. Look for the opportunity. You know, you start with anxiety, let's say. You notice you're worried about something. I've had a kind of underlying uneasiness about this sort of major undertaking I'm now part of. And, you know, when I really look closely at that uneasiness, I can feel the body sensations of it. As Elaine says, fear is very much in the body. But then step back from it and ask myself, well, what's useful and what the fear is telling me? The fear is telling me this may not work and we need to get certain things done. And it's telling me also that I have limited control over the outcome. All right, need to listen to the message. So in the week ahead, when you do start to worry about something, ask yourself, what's the useful message and fully get it. Then ask yourself, okay, what are the actions? And in my mind, in my example here, there are certain clear actions to take. I've already started taking them, including lightening up about the whole thing and really recognizing how little influence I have over how this all turns out, even though I care deeply about it. And to know that it's okay to care deeply about something that you have little power over or no power at all, including things like how our kids turn out, especially when they're adults. So Gabby, I think we have time, two minutes. I'm going to ask you to unmute and you have to unmute yourself. You may be willing to turn on your camera. I don't know. Yes, thank you. Hi, Rick. Thank you for tonight. Yeah. I thought it was more about embracing it. So I'd be able to confront the focus. For me, that's how I've been treating free fear versus what you mentioned tonight, like not being helpful. So what's your... I'm sorry, I missed the question. I didn't capture it. Sorry. My bad. Oh, what is it? Yeah. What's the question, Gabby? I'm sorry, I missed it. Oh, sorry. Yeah, the question is more about, like, I've been trying to befriend my fear versus telling it that, hey, you're not helpful, go away. But I do try to embrace it. So I don't know if that's the correct way. But I never heard about looking at fear as not, you're not helping me. I think that's great. I'm so glad you brought it up, Gabby. I'm so glad you brought it up. So I think there's a place for fear as your friend, but then really ask yourself, I guess what I'm getting at is we start with fear as our friend, which was implicit in what I said. How does it help me to be afraid? Well, it's informative and it's motivating. Okay, those are the friendly aspects of fear. Beyond that is fear helping you. And I suspect, actually, that beyond whatever is informative and motivating, fear does not help. So, Gabby, what do you think about that? Well, everything I remember is when I was trying to break away from the fear of the dark and I was finding things to help me deal with that again after an incident. And then I ended up confronting my own fear so I can be fearless again. Yeah. So I was trying to find information more so in my body, like the messages in my body, so I can connect to that fearless part of me that used to be there. And then it took me a while to be in the dark again and look at the stars. Yeah. Well, if I follow you and we're finishing up here, okay? So it's all up to you. Whatever helps you, you, Gabby, and you, everybody else who's still here as we finish up. My suggestion is that fear does not help most of the time. And my suggestion is that we can see clearly and we can be motivated properly to take effective action without being afraid. And that's an incredible possibility since for so many people, chronic anxiety is a major mental health problem. And more everyday forms of anxiety lead people to play small, avoid relationships, avoid intimacy, avoid speaking from their hearts, avoid vulnerability, avoid pursuing their dreams, you know, because they're afraid. That's been true for me, certainly. And anyway, that's my suggestion. That's my suggestion. Get the value and befriend your fear and get the value from the fear and let go of the rest. That would be a strong suggestion. And then most deeply, as a brief recap here, when you see if you can let things be what they are in their suchness as they are. And in that letting be, wow, can you find a fundamental underlying stillness which somehow can feel infused with an arising wellspring of love? That's the invitation in your practice, wherever you are on the path.