How To Manage Fear When Meditating On The Body

In this session we discus how to manage fear when mindfully meditating. One approach is to simply notice it, label it as a distraction, and then return to your anchor. This is perfectly acceptable, but if you are looking for insight, you could choose to use the feeling of fear itself as a point of mindful focus. This session will guide you down the second path, giving you an advanced mindfulness practice to explore.

Transcript

I notice that when I focus on my inner body, I find myself worrying that something is wrong, Like my heart is beating too fast. This is an interesting question, And it's a… I wouldn't say it's a common one, But it's definitely not uncommon. If we pay attention deeply to anything, It gets a little bit absurd. What I mean by that is, Have you ever repeated a word to yourself over and over and over again, Or the spelling of a word, And it no longer makes sense? Like the word notice, N-o-t-i-c-e, If I say that again and again, It's going to start to get a little bit twisted in our mind, N-o-t-i-c-e, N-o-t-i-c-e, Notice. Notice the impact of repeating the word notice. In a similar way, If we turn our attention to our inner space, Right, And we don't do this often, We're noticing, See the pun there, We're noticing more, We're focusing more, And we're paying attention to things that we don't usually pay attention to, The heartbeat, The digestion, The internal sensations, And now look, If you feel that something's wrong, And it's concerning, See a doctor, Right, However, I would suggest that what's most likely happening is that you're paying attention to something deeply, Specifically for the first time, Pay attention to the breath for a moment, Really focus in on the breath, It's changing, It's moving, But we're a little bit more used to that than the heartbeat or digestion. So I wouldn't be too worried, Unless that worry sticks around, But I would more use that worry, The worry that something is wrong, Itself as a point of focus, So we introspect upon the body, We get curious about it, We're like ooh, The heartbeat, And then we get that feeling of worry, Of anxiety, Of ooh, Something's wrong here, So then we use that feeling itself as the meditation object, As the anchor, So we go breath to heart to the worry, Now I'm looking at the worry, Where is it feeling, Where is it located, Why is it popping up, How is it presenting, I'm getting really curious, And this is like a deep, Deep practice, As to the nature of that worry, Are memories triggering, Ooh, Did something happen when I was young related to this, Did someone say something that made me feel this way, Is this like an attachment issue, Or a sort of innate nervous system response, I'm just throwing out questions, But in that way, You can get curious about the things that are arising, Remember with mindfulness, The typical response is to focus on the breath, Mind wanders bring it back, Mind wanders bring it back, That's the base anchor, But if our mind wanders off, We can get curious, This is a bit more of an advanced practice, About the things it's wandering to, It's like why did my mind wander over here, So in this practice, In interior reception, Focusing on the heartbeat, Focusing on the heartbeat, Your mind wanders into worry, You get curious about the worry, And that curiosity will provide insight, Or you'll notice that as you pay attention to that feeling of worry about the heartbeat, It just disappears, Stay curious, You might find a chain of thought, Logic, Reasoning, It'll be deeply insightful, Or it'll disappear, And you return back to the sensations of the heartbeat. So then the question becomes, How to dig into where those thoughts come from, So we've focused on an anchor, A mind's gotten lost in a thought, For example, Worry about the sensations in the body, How do we dig into where those thoughts come from, There's a few ways how, But the base way is to just turn your attention to it. Now a question might pop up in your mind, Of like, Okay I need to focus on this sensation, And you could focus on it, Or rather you've got the anxiety, You've got the overwhelm, You've got something popping up, And you think to yourself, Okay, This has popped up, I'm going to pay attention to it, Just by turning your attention to it, Or having the intention to turn your attention to it, You're putting it in the forefront, And you can consider it on a cognitive level, What thoughts are arising, An embodied level, What feelings are present, Or a more sort of internal conceptual level, Like a visualization, Or sort of other mental phenomena level, And you just hold that whole concept, The fear, The worry, The extra thought that pops up, You hold that as your anchor, Your mind wanders, You bring it back, Your mind wanders, You bring it back, But you're just getting curious, What is the nature of this thought, What does it feel like, What does it look like, What does it sound like, Where is it located in the body, And you're just getting curious with these questions, It's almost like you're approaching it like a scientist that's seeing a new object for the first time, You're like, Huh, What is this, And you're trying to do so without judgment or filter, You will find that every thought has component parts, Every everything has component parts, It's a gestalt, It's a combination of things all coming together that we label as something, And sort of builds it up to an understanding of it, So a feeling of anxiety or worry about the heartbeat, For example, Being funny, It's like, Okay, What's the component parts of this thing, The heart is beating, Okay, So I'm feeling that physically, Okay, Something's triggering my mind, Anxiety, Anxiety feels like tension in my body in other places, You're really just trying to track all the different component parts, And as you're doing that, You might go, Oh, There's a memory popping up of, You know, Maybe something happened in the past, Maybe a family member had some heart issues, Maybe, Who knows, Who knows what sort of memories are popping up, Maybe you saw a tv show years ago, Things are going to pop up, And you just try to almost get a bit of a mind map and go, Okay, I went from breath to heart to anxiety, What's in this, You're really getting curious about it, Once again, This is a practice, This is an approach, This is a thing that we can work with over time, And it's quite an advanced practice, So, For example, Base mindfulness, The anchor is focusing on the breath, That's quote-unquote easy, It's not easy, But it's an easier skill to do than focusing on the interior section of the heartbeat, And when a thought pops up, And you're trying to hold thought as the anchor, That's even a bit more challenging, Because it's more ethereal, More transient, Less sort of grounded in physical reality, There is physical components of thoughts and of feelings that you can pick up, But it's even more subtle, So we practice, And then you might find that you lose that thread of that thought, Because a lot of times worry, Anxieties, Or feelings come in a wave, And you feel them when you're up here, And then they dissipate, So then you return back to the heart space, The heartbeat, Whatever it is you're focusing on mindfully, And then another thought might come up, And it might be almost a slightly different flavor, Like, Oh, That anxiety came back, But is it the same anxiety, Or is it new, Is it slightly different, So now you're comparing, And in that way, We are just developing awareness, That's all that we're going for here, We're trying to do so without judgment, And I guess the final, Final thing is, Let's say you go from breath to heart to anxiety, And you're struggling to focus on that anxiety, And you're judging yourself for the struggling to focus on the anxiety, You know what you do, You turn your attention to the judgment of the fact that you're struggling to focus on the anxiety, Why am I judging myself for this, Where's that coming from, Where is that located, Oh, That's a feeling in the gut, Do you see how we can sort of, We're not really trying to get anything other than awareness, This is the nature of the moment, Mindfulness is the awareness that arises from paying non-judgmental attention to the present moment, You can focus on the breath, You might want to bring it back, But you can also use it as a curious exploration of what is arising, Breath to heartbeat, To anxiety, To judgment of the fact that you can't deal or see or really understand the anxiety, To a relief or an understanding of going, Oh, That's all okay, Back to the heartbeat, And so on and so forth, And we just continue that process for the duration of the session.