Exploring Fear & Hatred In the World

And the first thing that we always come to is what's happening in our system.

What's going on in this space that your body is in,

Your body's occupying.

And if you want to lie down for this,

That's fine.

If you want to sit up,

However you want to get yourself comfortable.

And if you want to stand up and shake it out for a minute too,

That's fine,

Whatever,

Whatever would work.

And notice your breath.

The breath can be such an anchor and a support.

So just notice if you're holding your breath,

If you could let that release a bit.

Notice your system.

And when we're considering and talking about the kinds of things that disconnect us from ourselves,

We're talking about trauma.

Gavar Maté speaks about the definition of trauma as being not the event,

But the experience of isolation,

Disconnection,

Of feeling powerless,

Of feeling not seen.

There's some kind of fear and threat involved.

And each in our own ways,

We've all been experiencing that and speaking about that.

And that has a great effect on our body,

Our nervous system,

Our mind.

We get impulsive at times.

We go into catastrophic thinking.

Definitely our shoulders might tighten up.

We've got a clenched gut.

It's hard to breathe.

So before we even go into noticing what the thoughts are and what the memories are,

It can be helpful to take that step back.

Notice your body.

Take a few deeper breaths.

Do something to kind of land back in your body if you're not in it right now.

Acknowledge that that's a perfectly normal response.

When things get really intense,

We kind of hunker down.

And then just for a minute or two,

We can give ourselves this space to relax our shoulders,

Take a few deeper breaths.

So it's very helpful to remember that we're doing a mindfulness practice.

We're doing it with the intention to support ourselves and be present with ourselves.

And that it's easy when things get intense for us to just go off into something and get kind of carried away.

So remember the tools and remember that this is a witnessing and observing.

It's not from the distance.

It's from right inside.

One of the tools is tapping.

Things get kind of intense verbally or image-wise.

Tap on your forehead.

Take your attention away from the image or words and just into the sound,

The sensation.

It helps kind of break the spell.

You can open your eyes.

Look at images on the wall across from you.

You can stop altogether.

You can stand up and throw the energy into the floor.

All of these ways that we can do.

So we want to be engaged in this.

We are also not wanting to just be overwhelmed.

With that as our intention.

See if you can smooth out your breath so that you're breathing a little bit more deeply maybe and that there's no big gaps or pauses in your breath.

And one way to do that is to relax the muscles in your stomach area.

Let your breath move deeper into the belly.

And notice the energy in your body.

When we're dealing with this kind of intensity,

We're dealing with fear,

Then that can feel like a whole body experience.

There could also be an intensity in a certain part of the body.

Notice the energy and sensation in your body right now.

And we don't ever have to put pressure on ourselves to welcome it.

It's also okay just to be willing to notice it for a bit.

It's been a big week and I feel whatever it is.

And often we're feeling some kind of resistance.

We really truly do not want the world to be the way it is.

We don't want to see the kind of harm that's happening.

There's something fundamentally very disturbing about seeing the way other people are treating other people.

And it is out of our control.

We can engage and we can move into action with people.

And that does.

.

.

It helps in a lot of ways.

It helps in the world.

It helps ourselves to feel that sense of agency instead of absolute powerlessness.

It's still a very scary time right now and nobody really knows what's going to happen.

So notice all of that in our bodies.

That really is felt in our body.

The love and care we have for people might be individuals,

Groups,

And humanity as a whole.

And see if you could narrow in on that for a moment.

Not just the love and care that you feel about the situation,

The commitment that you have to being present,

Doing what you can.

All of the people who are doing that.

All of the people who've gotten engaged in big ways and small ways,

Including being kinder within.

Doing our own trauma healing work is an important part of this.

You can just stay with what's happening in your body,

If there's energy or sensation.

We can sit with that or allow it to be here.

We can also notice that it's spacious around that.

Even something very tight in the body eventually loosens up and dissipates.

There's always space where that's not there,

Where that energy is not there.

Maybe you can feel it a foot or two in front of your chest,

But not past that.

Maybe it's a punching in your jaw,

But you can feel that your arms and legs could soften a bit more easily.

Notice the mind is going to want to fix it or figure it out or focus on fearful images.

That's okay.

That's part of what the mind does.

Right now,

We're expanding our focus so that we're aware of our body,

Our breath,

The energy and sensation.

You might acknowledge the level of fear that you have.

Let's work directly with the fear for a moment.

Notice what images come up,

What words come in when we say that to ourselves.

I'm afraid.

We could start with I'm afraid of and make a big collage,

Like a poster board and put a bunch of things up there,

Whatever comes to mind.

I'm afraid of more.

I'm afraid of people getting hurt.

I'm afraid whatever it is.

Let's start to work with those fears as they come up as words and images.

Very good time here to be tapping on them if you want.

You want to have your eyes open,

Put that poster board up on a wall across from you.

Let's let the mind bring it forward.

I'm afraid of.

Let your attention be drawn where it is.

You might have your attention on that whole collection of images or words.

You could put captions up there.

Your attention might get drawn into one of them for a moment.

Stay connected with your body and with your breath.

Notice the warmth of your out breath,

The way our belly softens as we breathe out.

You might notice you're starting to disconnect.

And if that's the case,

That might be what you need to do right now.

Maybe you could bring yourself back.

Feel into what it is that's in your body right now.

Fear makes us want to disappear.

It makes us want to ignore what's going on because it feels so terrible.

So treat this as a no perfect way.

You don't have to be completely present.

You don't have to be calm.

You certainly don't have to have anything in particular going on.

Just giving ourselves time to explore.

And if you're looking at images and hearing words,

Notice if the images themselves feel threatening.

And if they do,

Then tap on your forehead.

As you're looking at the images or open your eyes,

See them like they're across the room.

Notice the space around them all.

We get kind of drawn into images and words almost like we're being held in some kind of a trance.

So it's good to break the trance.

Let's do the tapping.

Trace the outside edges of the space.

Always stay connected with your breath and with your body.

Keep noticing what it feels like in your body.

What are the energies and sensations in your body as we're giving this some space,

Some space?

And then let's move to another element that we've been talking about,

This feeling of otherness.

So it could be that we would work with our own internal reaction to people in terms of I'm not really feeling that they're as human as I am.

How could somebody vote for him?

That kind of they're not safe to be around.

They're not quite human.

That feeling of I need to protect myself.

And one of the ways that we do that is by making them different.

It's very,

Very hard and not necessarily even possible to work with someone who's threatening us and who feels like they could take our life through their votes or through their actions.

Again,

It's not a I should feel love and compassion for somebody.

It's not that at all.

Just as though notice what's my reaction.

These people don't see my fundamental human rights as important enough to not vote for someone like Trump.

And yet they might be our person that we see at the grocery store or somebody in our family,

Longtime friend.

And there's a real threat here,

The action and inaction they take.

And then let's sit with that in our body.

What does that feel like?

What are the words,

If any,

Memories,

Images?

I can't trust other people to see me or to honor my own basic humanity.

Lots of attention on your breath.

If you notice you're holding your breath in particular,

See if you can keep it moving.

We're really just noticing.

We're really just noticing a reality that based on their behavior,

It's pretty clear that not all people value human life.

Maybe they don't value the group that I belong to,

And that's a threat.

It has a real impact in the world.

Even though we can understand why,

We might have some understanding of that it's trauma or something else at the root of it,

It's still a threat.

And our nervous system recognizes it as a threat.

So can we sit with that for a bit?

Notice if there's something you could do to give yourself some comfort.

You can put a hand on your heart,

Hug yourself,

Hold your hands,

Do something like that to just remind yourself that right now you're safe.

And we're really tuning in to what this feels like,

Giving ourselves some time for that.

Notice if you could take some deeper breaths again.

And let go of this part of the inquiry.

We're just going to focus on something else for a few minutes.

Mr.

Rogers said,

Always look for the helpers.

In this context,

I think we could look for other people who believe the same way we do.

What's happening is wrong,

Who care about us and the communities that we belong to,

Who recognize that there's something really wrong here and really dangerous here and who are supporting each other,

Other people in our lives that get this.

We're not the only ones who see it this way.

Let's focus for a moment on that and bring up those faces and those memories.

All of the people who we know personally or who we know about or who we just sense are also in alignment with our understanding of the situation and the basic human goodness and rights.

Notice that.

Stay with your body,

Stay with your breath and really soak in that knowing that we're not the only person who cares.

And if your shoulders are up around your ears,

See if you can move them around a bit,

Let them relax.

Take a couple of deep breaths.

If you want to get up and shake it out,

That's fine too.

Maybe we should do the throwing it down.

So it's just standing up,

Hands at fists and then as you exhale,

Throw that energy down into the earth.

Open your hands as you're breathing out,

Let that energy move.