Beyond Fear

    Most of us like to have some control over our lives - some freedom. To actually exercise this freedom, we need courage. Fear can block all of this. Fear can keep us stuck as if in quicksand - for lengthy periods, even for life. 

    Caution is entirely reasonable. Climbing into a shopping cart on a city street, on top of a steep hill, then riding it down to see what happens is guaranteed to result in severe injury, pain or death.
    Extreme sports are far less ridiculous, yet offer transcendence: Maria Coffey. “Explorers of the Infinite. The Secret Spiritual Lives of Extreme Athletes – and What They Reveal About Near-Death Experiences, Psychic Communications, and Touching the Beyond.” 2008. My blogs quoting this SUPERB book: http://www.johnlovas.com/search?q=Coffey

    Mercifully, deep spiritual practices eg deep meditation, are the safest, most tried-and-true paths by which seekers have, for thousands of years, attained transcendence - gone beyond ordinary limitations. ... a spiritual or religious state or condition of moving beyond physical needs & realities.
    The height of spiritual transcendence is described as a state of continuous, unshakable peace, joy, love & oneness that is independent of external circumstances - BEYOND FEAR!
    Again mercifully, regular meditation practice gradually brings about progressive felt improvements in our life reassuring us that we are indeed making progress along this well-trodden path.

    “The voice of the intelligence is drowned out by the roar of fear. It is ignored by the voice of desire. It is contradicted by the voice of shame. It is biased by hate and extinguished by anger. Most of all it is silenced by ignorance. Karl A. Menninger MD, psychiatrist

    The advice to 'be curious,' and instead of avoiding, to 'lean into challenges' cannot be overemphasized.
    The process of facing fears is called exposure. Exposure therapy involves gradually & repeatedly exposing patients to feared situations until they feel less anxious. After a while, anxiety naturally lessens.
    Meditation is a form of exposure therapy. Our basic fear is honestly meeting & being intimate with ‘the other’ - our Self, people, animals, environment, life itself. We use gentle mindfulness practices to slowly ease ourselves back into intimacy with ourselves & others. 

    “Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. The fearful are caught as often as the bold.” Helen Keller

    All of life is exposure therapy - if we allow it. It is well-known that people who suffer from anxiety are most anxious about being anxious; those who suffer from depression, are depressed about being depressed. Can we be less afraid of our fear? Can we take all of our neuroses far less seriously, less personally?

     “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.” Franklin D. Roosevelt

    “Fear keeps us focused on the past or worried about the future. If we can acknowledge our fear, we can realize that right now we are okay. Right now, today, we are still alive, and our bodies are working marvelously. Our eyes can still see the beautiful sky. Our ears can still hear the voices of our loved ones.” Thich Nhat Hanh

    “Thinking will not overcome fear but action will.” W. Clement Stone

    “I’m not afraid of storms, for I’m learning how to sail my ship.” Louisa May Alcott

    With loving awareness we do what is appropriate, which is always nurturing whoever & whatever is around us, so that we may all flourish. We must FIRST learn to let go of fearfully obsessing over 'me, myself & I.'
    This is a far more profound step than can be accomplished by a guilt-tripping sermon to stop being so selfish & self-centered. It requires a qualitative shift in consciousness: Dr. Jeffery A. Martin. “The Finders.” Integration Press, 2019. My blog on this PROFOUND book : http://www.johnlovas.com/2024/01/seriously.html .

    “What is fear of living? It’s being preeminently afraid of dying. It is not doing what you came here to do, out of timidity & spinelessness. The antidote is to take full responsibility for yourself – for the time you take up and the space you occupy. If you don’t know what you’re here to do, then just do some good.” Maya Angelou

“See how we are called to not run from the discomfort,
and not run from the grief or the feelings of outrage
or even fear.
If we can be fearless to be with our pain, it turns.
It doesn’t stay.
It only doesn’t change if we refuse to look at it.
When we look at it, when we take it in our hands,
when we can just be with it,
when we keep breathing, then it turns.
It turns to reveal its other face.
And the other face of our pain for the world
is our love for the world.
Our absolutely inseparable connectedness
with all life.”
Joanna Macy 

    “Love cures people – both the ones who give it and the ones who receive it.” Karl A. Menninger MD, psychiatrist

    “… one of the experiences people have on (meditation) retreats is a very intimate experience with the breath, with the body, with emotions, because there’s no separation. That’s kind of the essence of intimacy: nonseparation. It’s just oneself getting out of the way. The Chinese poet Li Po ended a poem with these words: ‘We live together, the mountain and me, until only the mountain remains.’ So that’s kind of meditative. When we take ourselves out of the picture, then all that’s left is everything. To me, that is the definition of intimacy.” Joseph Goldstein

Artist: Molly Hahn buddhadoodles.com/new-gallery/

Having Lost a Lot, We Grieve

     Covid 19 has shocked many of us out of our comfortable, trance-like, self-absorbed complacency. We hoped that we could float through life comfortably, without being overly bothered by the ridiculously miserable life circumstances of so many in the world, the escalating extinction of species & meltdown of our environment. But now suddenly, we're (almost) in the same boat as our fellow human beings around the globe. Almost, because we are able to comfortably remain in our homes to minimize exposure. Almost, because even if we do become infected, we're rested & well nourished to better fight the infection & have ready access to proper health care. Not so for the millions trapped in sprawling refugee camps and slums around the world.
     Nevertheless, we are now grieving for our lost innocence (naivete), our lost illusion of safety, our lost illusion of control over life. 
     It's very useful & beneficial to deeply understand our grieving process:


     “The five stages of grief are: 

Denial: shock and disbelief that the loss has occurred
Anger: that someone we love is no longer here
Bargaining: all the what-ifs and regrets
Depression: sadness from the loss
Acceptance: acknowledging the reality of the loss

     (These) describe only a general process. Each person grieves in his or her own unique way. …
     The fifth of Kubler-Ross’s five stages is acceptance. At this stage, we acknowledge the reality of loss. We take some time to stop and breathe into the undeniable fact that our loved ones [or other important relationships or possessions etc] are gone. There’s nothing easy about this stage. It can be extremely painful, and acceptance doesn’t mean that we are okay with the loss, or that the grieving process is now officially over. However, there’s been an assumed finality about this fifth stage that Elizabeth and I never intended. Over the years I came to realize that there’s a crucial sixth stage to the healing process: meaning. This isn’t some arbitrary or mandatory step, but one that many people intuitively know to take and others will find helpful.
     In this sixth stage we acknowledge that although for most of us grief will lessen in intensity over time, it will never end. But if we allow ourselves to move fully into this crucial and profound sixth stage – meaning – it will allow us to transform grief into something else, something rich and fulfilling.
     Through meaning, we can find more than pain. When a loved one dies, or when we experience any kind of serious loss – the end of a marriage, the closing of the company where we work, the destruction of our home in a natural disaster – we want more than the hard fact of that loss. We want to find meaning. Loss can wound and paralyze. It can hang over us for years. But finding meaning in loss empowers us to find a path forward. Meaning helps us make sense of grief …
     What does meaning look like? It can take many shapes, such as finding gratitude for the time they had with loved ones, or finding ways to commemorate and honor loved ones, or realizing the brevity and value of life and making that the springboard into some kind of major shift or change.
     Those who are able to find meaning tend to have a much easier time grieving that those who don’t. They’re less likely to remain stuck in one of the five stages. For those who do get stuck, this can manifest in many different ways, including sudden weight gain (or loss), drug or alcohol addiction, unresolved anger, or an inability to form or commit to a new relationship out of fear of experiencing yet another loss. If they remain stuck in loss, then they may become consumed by it, making it the focus of their life to the point where they lose all other sense of purpose and direction. Although you can’t pin all of your troubles or vices on getting stuck after a loss, there is almost always a connection.
     Grief is extremely powerful. It’s easy to get stuck in your pain and remain bitter, angry, or depressed. Grief grabs your heart and doesn’t seem to let go.
     But if you can manage to find meaning in even the most senseless loss, you can do more than get unstuck. When circumstances are at their worst, you can find your best. You can keep growing and finding ways to live a good and someday even a joyous life, one enriched by the lessons and love of the person who died [or memory of other serious loss].” 

      David Kessler. “Finding Meaning: The Sixth Stage of Grief.” Scribner, 2019.

      David Kessler's recent (15min) television interview: http://www.pbs.org/wnet/amanpour-and-company/video/grief-expert-we-are-grieving-world-we-have-now-lost-hpbtkk/
      A recent magazine interview: https://hbr.org/2020/03/that-discomfort-youre-feeling-is-grief?fbclid=IwAR1QHDM0Q8ROEgqFdvv7lNl9p1NDxReunkDjYjceMQ98MJi6-AOBXdKfzls

www.etsy.com/ca/listing/265479760/what-if-i-fall-quote-print-erin-hansons?ref=related-2

Allowing Elephants to Pass Through

     Blockage or stagnation of energy (qi) is the fundamental cause of illness according to Chinese & Japanese traditional medicine. Energy which is normally "fluid", becomes pathologically "reified" & stuck.
     Western psychology & psychiatry has similar metaphors of "being stuck" re mental illness: wallowing, catastrophization, circular thinking etc.
     A common dysfunctional & ineffective way of (not) dealing with difficult issues is pretending that they don't exist - avoidance. It may be a major problem that's quite obvious to everyone except those who refuse to see, accept & skillfully let go of "the elephant in the room."

     In meditation, we learn to become increasingly porous.
 
    "When you sit,
     you leave the front door open,
     you leave the back door open,
     and you don't serve tea."                   Shunryu Suzuki 

      Zen talk by Koun Franz: "Beyond Words – December 19, 2013": http://zennovascotia.com/dharma-talks/