Free Yourself From Psychological Fear

Fear is necessary for physical safety—but it's grown like weeds, taking over our lives. Most of our fear isn't about physical danger at all. It's about protecting an image of ourselves in our minds.

This meditation breaks down fear to reveal your freedom. You'll discover why we're terrified of public speaking, being seen without makeup, or sharing vulnerably—none of which threaten physical safety.

The root cause: we've mistaken ourselves for thoughts and images in our mind rather than the awareness witnessing them. As long as we identify with this fragile mental image, psychological fear is inevitable.

The practice: endure the sensations without losing yourself in the mind's fear-amplifying narrative. Like a spider sensing every movement on its web, become vividly present to sensations—letting them pass through you.

You are not your thoughts. You are the witness. As awareness, you cannot be hurt, diminished, or broken. This is your freedom.

Transcript

Fear is a good thing.

Fear is a necessary thing.

But unfortunately what is good,

What is necessary has grown like weeds in the garden of our life and is taking over the way we live,

The way we experience.

So what I want to do today is break down fear.

Understand fear.

And in that understanding of fear lies our freedom from it.

There is no rush today.

Allow your mind to slow down.

Slow down enough so that you can see fear.

Understand fear.

And recognize the freedom in the process.

Simply put,

Fear is felt in our body as a configuration of sensations.

Depending on the amplitude of fear we can either feel a discomfort in our stomach,

A ball in our stomach,

A heaviness in our stomach and chest,

Extreme restlessness,

A feeling of running away or being frozen.

Frozen.

In the body.

And fear is very visceral.

Fear comes first.

Fear belongs to the animal in us.

It has existed way before the human in us came along.

So we have to respect it.

The arrogance of the mind that it can overcome fear needs to be relaxed.

It's obvious to you probably that you can't outthink your fear.

You can either distract yourself,

Bury fear,

Escape fear in substances,

Activities,

But you can't get rid of it.

There is no pill to get rid of fear.

And fear appears.

You can't summon fear,

You can't create fear within you.

It appears when the safety is at stake.

And that's the piece I want to get into without this becoming a psychological exploration.

This exploration is for you.

The awareness,

The presence and the recognition of your freedom.

So fear appears when safety is at stake.

Physical safety is what fear is programmed for.

So let's get into that first.

Can you imagine if there was no fear?

We wouldn't have survived as a species.

As an animal of flesh and blood,

Our body is very fragile.

You can easily twist your ankle,

Have a paper cut,

Bump into something,

Break something in your body,

Cut something.

Anything and everything can essentially hurt you.

Not just animals,

Rocks,

Metal,

Everything out there can hurt our body.

So understanding the fragility of this body is important and in that fear plays an important role.

However,

This fear can be tested.

Because if we were to respect and honour fear,

As a child we wouldn't learn how to swim.

We wouldn't drive a car.

And each person's initial tolerance of fear is different.

But we can expand it if we wanted to.

Whether it is fear of roller coasters,

Fear of heights,

Fear of jumping from a plane,

Fear of dogs.

All this can be respected and if we wanted to,

We could test it.

We could expand our capacity for putting our body at risk,

Knowing that there is a very good chance you will not get hurt.

And there is no end to this.

There is no restriction for it either.

Although we do limit ourselves,

If we don't stretch out our capacity of physical fear,

We would lead a very shielded life,

Very constricted,

Limited options of living,

Based on the fear you have.

If you have a fear of flying in an airplane,

You are only restricted to driving.

I know when I had the fear of dogs,

I couldn't go to most places in America.

Even my friends had dogs.

So I had to expand my capacity of being around a dog.

And we don't need to be stupid about it,

We can be very smart and do it safely,

Do it under professional help,

Whatever fear that we want to overcome physically.

There is a desire in us to expand physically.

That's why we love sportsmen,

Sportswomen,

Extreme sportspeople,

Who do crazy things.

There is that desire to test what is possible.

And as kids we were all very fearless.

So yes,

One effect of living a life of physical safety concern,

Physical fear,

Keeps us restricted.

And everyone's tolerance is different,

So I am not going to be telling you to just do it.

We have to respect fear.

But we will surprise ourselves if we decide to do small bits of it.

Until we realize we are capable physically of way more than we think.

And as such,

Your body relaxes some checks and balances once we start conquering some of our fears.

Those become reference points for us to catapult even more.

Whether it is going solo on trips,

Doing something crazy like running a marathon,

Training for it,

Camping in a jungle,

Picking up rock climbing,

Anything and everything is on the table.

As long as we take baby steps towards it.

But I want you to pay attention to how many instances in your life are actually physical safety issues.

As our society has become more and more civilized,

More and more organized,

Well designed,

Physical safety is becoming more and more common.

Not for all,

Unfortunately,

But most of us.

If there was a tiger in front of you,

Yes,

You are in danger physically.

Fear is doing its job.

So we need to be very mindful,

Very attentive anytime fear shows up in our body,

To pause and ask is this the physical fear?

Is my physical safety at risk here?

Sometimes fear could also come up if you are deciding to try something big like leave your job,

Leave a marriage,

Get married,

Move to another country,

To another state.

That is still the uncertainty of our physical safety.

And we can of course use internet,

Prepare for ourselves and do a lot more things,

But we need to be very mindful about the actual physical concern and the possible physical concern of our safety,

Of our food,

Of our family.

But then you might find that a very small portion of your life extremely small portion of your life is about the fear of physical safety.

Majority of the times we are on a leash by fear and we don't even know it.

Fear is the master running our life,

Masquerading as the fear of physical safety whereas that safety is not about physical at all.

Most of the time,

Most of us are terrorized by fear of our psychological safety and I am not talking about where you will be hurt psychologically but about the safety of an image of us in our mind.

Because we have forgotten,

We have ignored who we really are and because we live most of our life,

Most of our day in our minds,

In the world of thoughts,

In the world of images,

In the world of this virtual reality that we mistake ourselves as the image in our mind that can be hurt easily that can be diminished that can be insulted and because our body doesn't understand real safety issue or virtual safety issue,

The response is the same fear there is nothing harmful about getting on stage and speaking in front of 500 people technically nobody is going to pounce and hurt you yet,

A mere thought of that can terrorize all of us if not most of us we are afraid that our friends might see us without makeup we are afraid that our friends might see us not knowing how to do some things like managing finances,

Doing household chores cooking we are afraid of being vulnerable and sharing the real stuff on social media what will people think?

This is not fear for physical safety this is fear for an image safety if we recognized ourselves as the presence that we are,

As the awareness that we are managing this mind,

Managing this body we will know for sure deeply that I can't be hurt raising my hand is not going to hurt me speaking up is not going to hurt me dancing in public is not going to hurt me following my dreams is not going to hurt me so there are a lot of techniques that are available where once the fear shows up there are remedies or relief techniques to distract,

Diffuse bury fear to create some mental framework to blunt the bite of fear but it never addresses the root cause of fear the root cause of fear is that we believe ourselves to be that which we are not so if we want to be truly free from fear not free from the necessary fear the only way to be free from necessary fear is to be dead but in order to live a free,

Fulfilling daily life where we can express ourselves where we know that we are emotionally,

Psychologically safe because no matter what happens I,

Awareness,

Can't be hurt yes,

There might be sensations,

Yes,

There might be some emotions but I can't bleed I can't be diminished I am full,

I am complete somebody's words somebody's opinions can't touch me not as a thought,

Not as a concept but as an experience as long as we identify ourselves with the mind with the thoughts about ourselves in the mind a reflection of us in the mind,

Of our body of our accumulations,

Of our skills till that time psychological,

Emotional fear is inevitable because we are fragile although I said the body is fragile,

It is very resilient it can heal itself,

But this fragility that I am talking about the emotional,

Psychological fragility is unhealable because it is imaginary you are not your thoughts you are the one witnessing your thoughts and I know that you understand this in this moment,

You can probably see it that you are not the words because you can see the words you are not the imagery that is coming up because of my words,

Because you are seeing those images,

Just like that the thoughts that are appearing to you can't be you and fear has this unique quality of gripping us taking over completely all logic all senses is completely clouded it doesn't have to be that way though as long as we are who we are fear is just what fear is as long as we are the presence,

Fear is just sensations when we become the image fear is a storm,

Tsunami taking over and all we need to do when fear does show up is to become present more vividly present and to endure those sensations we have endured tooth pain we have endured headaches,

Migraines we have endured flu,

Twisted ankle,

Paper cuts may be surgeries,

May be childbirth we can endure these sensations without losing ourselves in the narrative that the mind has created our mind is weaving in thoughts and images because our mind is like social media the more we are leaning into something,

The more it sends us that it feeds us that,

And given our proclivity for fear and anger,

It feeds us more fear and anger so when you are in fear you will get thoughts that increase fear and you can't do much about it,

You can't change the nature of the mind you can't change the nature of when fear shows up what we can do is to be the presence knowingly be the presence that we are and let this unfold without interfering,

Without negotiating without listening to what your mind is saying and just endure you can endure it sitting down and you can endure it by going for a walk,

For a run if you know that it will be difficult to endure this episode of fear wear your shoes and go out the non-practice if you may,

Or practice whichever way you want to look at it,

Of not losing ourselves in thoughts not misidentifying ourselves as that which we are not as the thoughts,

The images can be done when there is absolutely nothing wrong,

No fear,

No anger just daily life,

Ordinary daily life we can practice it that time every time you are here you are reminded of who you really are the more you are reminded of,

The more these reminders go off on their own you will suddenly find yourself peaceful because you suddenly remembered yourself the more we come back to ourselves the more we disentangle ourselves from our prior momentum habits of being the mind,

Being the thoughts being the image,

Being a person being fragile the more we disentangle the easier it becomes when loud situations come up fear is one such loud situation and this fear survives right below the threshold of being recognized on a daily basis all you need to do is slow down and you will see fear show up it might initially show up as boredom,

Restlessness,

Irritation if you endure that then the reveal will happen of the fear so there is substantial fear in all of us on a daily basis that goes completely completely unnoticed,

Which gets revealed in a retreat,

In a meditation session when you are alone quiet still even this fear is merely sensations that we can endure we have the freedom to endure we just need to have courage to endure and the patience the end goal of this exploration of peace is to become like a spider and our life and our body and our mind is like the web that we have woven as the presence,

As the spider any movement of your web,

You should know what that movement is whether to do something about it or not and that movement is all the sensations that happen in our body as quote-unquote positive sensations,

Positive feelings or negative sensations,

Negative feelings or neutral sensations so when I am telling you to endure in a way I am asking you to be transparent,

Let those sensations pass through you and in the process of allowing those sensations to pass through you you are getting to know them,

You are seeing them as harmful or harmless sensations some sensations will appear and you will lean in and do something about it but none of it will be under the misunderstanding of being the mind or being the thoughts it will be out of your freedom I remember in one of the verses of Buddha's teachings,

He says how he has explored the entire spectrum of bodily sensations and feelings and he has come out victorious that's what I am suggesting here that we explore our bodily sensations,

Our feelings and let them unfold,

Nothing will happen to you,

You are not the body you are not those sensations and you are not the thoughts you are the witness,

You are the presence you are awareness thank you