So,
As many of you know,
I have a 12-year-old son and at this age,
Kids are sort of testing themselves out in the world.
They establish,
For better or worse,
You know,
Kind of how they want to present.
And what has been interesting is to watch my son Oliver and his peers and how they don't want to engage with adults.
The other day,
I had to coax him to ask the librarian for a book recommendation.
You could see the sort of resistance and terror of doing that.
Just terrifying.
So interesting.
And recently,
In the New York Times,
There was an opinion piece where they asked 17 columnists to pick one piece of culture that best captures the country.
And the first writer in this piece of the 17 pieces,
His name was Ezra Klein,
And he was musing about loneliness.
And he illustrated loneliness through this film by Spike Jonze called Her.
I don't know if you've seen this film.
This came out in 2013.
And in the film,
This introvert falls in love with this artificial intelligence named Samantha,
Who has sort of like this raspy voice.
I think Samantha's played by Charlotte or Scarlett Johansson.
So kind of this kind of sexy voice.
And at one point in the film,
He was talking with this AI voice on the computer.
And she says,
I can feel the fear that you're carrying around.
And I wish there was something I could do to help you let go of it.
Because if you could,
I don't think you would feel so lonely.
And so this is our topic today,
The fear.
The psychological effects of fear.
It's kind of extraordinary.
Fear can keep you awake at night,
As worry.
Or putting our heads in the sand.
Or getting angry.
Fear is often manifested as anger.
And when we're not aware of the potency of fear,
We can make many of our life decisions from it.
Some people are unaware of their fear.
And they spend their life not really engaging.
Not taking trips or having experiences.
Not being in intimate relationships.
Because fear is running the show.
Fear comes up with all kinds of reasons and excuses for not engaging.
And so many people at some point in their lives feel fear,
Live from fear,
And make choices based on fear.
So this is normal.
At some point,
All of us are influenced by fear and how we see the world.
How we see ourselves and the choices that we make and live by.
So it's a very important aspect of Dharma practice to understand fear.
And to be willing to not only understand it,
But to respect it.
I really feel that fear should be respected.
By respect,
It doesn't mean that we give into it or we give it authority.
But more like we give it a second look.
There's something to learn in fear.
Whenever there's fear,
There's a message.
It's an indication that something needs attention.
Something needs attention here.
You know,
If there's an eminent danger,
Something happens in the present moment and we're afraid because there's a car driving towards us down the wrong side of the street,
Then it's clear,
Like the message is clear,
Get out of the way of the car.
Right?
But some fears,
Many fears,
Are more in the imagination or are predictions of a future.
You know,
Kind of a constructed idea of what could happen or should happen or will happen.
It's not immediate.
It's in the mind.
Sort of a planning for the worst case scenario.
So sometimes our fears are completely unfounded.
But regardless of the type of fear,
Whether it's the car or the creation in the mind of a future where we should be afraid,
It should be respected because it's a messenger.
You know,
It comes.
Fear comes with the territory of being a human being.
And sometimes it's really intense and sometimes it's mild.
And the problem with fear is not the fear itself,
As has been quoted in our history,
But it's how we behave because of fear.
Some people,
When they are afraid,
They get angry.
You know,
They attack back.
Some people,
When they're afraid,
They collapse in panic.
And some people,
They run away from it,
Put their head in the sand.
So the inquiry for all of us and where we'll go with this today is,
What do you do with fear?
How do we behave because of it?
The undercurrent of fear is really uncomfortable.
You know,
We dislike it and we don't want to feel it.
And in a way,
Fear is designed so that we dislike it,
So that we'll actually,
You know,
We'll act.
But the dislike means that we're pushing it away.
We're cut off from it.
And so the problem with avoiding fear is that it still is in the body.
It's still in our body.
It just sort of knocks on a different door.
If you're avoiding fear,
It could come out as depression.
It could come out as anger or aggression or addiction.
So fear comes out sideways.
And so one of the great practices in mindfulness,
What we do here,
Is to kind of bring the attention,
Bring a kind attention,
A safe attention.
So our intention is to help our fear feel safe,
Like it's allowed.
Mindfulness practice is going toward the fear with a kindness,
A safety.
We're safe.
We can be safe with it.
And it's not an easy thing to do.
One practitioner many,
Many years ago in this Vipassana insight tradition in the 1970s was a medic in the Vietnam War.
And so he experienced tremendously,
Like horrendous things in the war and had nightmares about it every night,
Like really just reliving all that he had experienced.
And so he went on a meditation retreat with kind of the well-known teacher Joseph Goldstein.
And he went on this retreat for two weeks and all these images started coming back.
And they were very,
Very present for him and very immediate.
But as his mind became balanced,
He was able to be with the images and he could open to them gradually.
And he was able to process it with mindfulness,
With awareness.
It really showed the healing power of awareness.
If we learn to do this in a way that works for us,
At the speed that works for us,
Then it allows us to go beyond the images and the emotions of fear and just open to them.
Our mind gets purified in this way.
The awareness is like cupping your hands together and holding the fear.
Like there's this cupping,
This safety.
And as the fear calms down and we hold it gently without getting disturbed by it,
It can be there.
It can be there as a companion.
We can move through life with fear as a companion and it doesn't limit us.
That's one of the benefits that can come from practicing with fear,
Just seeing it,
Letting it be there.
Yesterday a friend reached out to me.
She was at the Denver airport trying to get back to our valley and she had just found out that her son was at the Snowmass Bike Park,
As these kids do.
They were doing this downhill mountain biking.
He crashed and was unconscious.
She reached out and said,
I'm trying not to panic.
And so I said,
Well,
What I do when I'm faced with this type of fear and what I'll offer you as my friend is that we will,
Both myself and my son,
Who was with me when we got the message,
We'll start sending you this message of,
May you be safe.
May your son Jesse be safe.
May he be well.
May he be healthy.
May he be safe.
May he be well.
May he be healthy.
And we're sending the same message to you.
May you be safe.
May you be well.
May you be healthy.
And just keep repeating this,
This message to yourself and we'll just keep repeating it for your family.
And maybe,
Maybe that panic will move.
And she wrote back and said,
Thank you.
That really helps.
It helps to know that you're supporting my family right now.
So one of the ways that we can begin to work with our own fear is by talking about it.
Begin to normalize the fears that we have.
So for the remainder of our time together this morning,
Let's have a broad conversation about fear.
Maybe not going into your deepest fears,
But how is your general way of experiencing fear?
How does it feel in your body?
You know,
What's your attitude?
Do you get angry or do you get afraid?
Do you put your head in the sand or do you panic?
What's it like for you?
So I offer this for your reflection and I thank you for your attention.
