Afraid of Being Afraid

To release this terror, we must stop pretending to be unafraid, and confront the terror from within. We need to first unmask the fear; we need to let go of pretending we have no fear. In my own experience, once I understood that it was okay to be afraid, the healing began. The wisdom in my bones came alive and I became aware in the midst of fear and anxiety that the mind and body were begging to purge the terror within. With this awareness, the waters of my mind stopped whirling and I could at last begin to see my reflection.

~Zenju Earthlyn Manuel, from Ten Percent Happier

It started with tingling hands. From the tips of my fingers to my arms to a flood throughout my body, I would be engulfed by it. Fear. Terror. What I was afraid of wasn't always clear to me. Just...an uncertain future. Just...a misunderstood past.

The fear fed on itself. I became afraid of being afraid. I carried around a bottle of anti-anxiety pills that I was afraid to take. I felt debilitated. Unfocused.

What Zenju Earthlyn Manuel learned, and what she tries to teach us, is that trying to outrun the fear only exacerbates it. Refusing to acknowledge it only increases its power over us. As most of us should have learned by now, only by looking the monster in its face can we overcome it.

Manuel learned to do this through meditation. "To release this terror, we must stop pretending to be unafraid, and confront the terror from within. We need to first unmask the fear; we need to let go of pretending we have no fear. "

We can't eliminate it all at once, she says. I'm reminded of the Wicked Witch in Wizard of Oz. She melts rather than vanishes. When gripped by fear, Manuel tells herself, "I am in the past." We might try the same. It's sometimes as accurate to say, "I am in the future." Where we are not is in the present. And that's where refuge, counter-intuitively, is found. In the now. "Right now, I am fine."

That became my mantra. "Right now, I am fine." Fine was open to interpretation. It didn't necessarily mean that my husband wasn't again cheating. It didn't necessarily mean that my marriage was okay. What it meant was small and simple and profound: Right now, I am fine. Alive. Breathing.

Perhaps you're afraid too. Betrayal is frightening because it reminds us that we control so much less than we thought we did.

What's more, at this moment in history, so much is frightening. Our vulnerability is laid bare, our need to take care of each other has likely never been so important in our lifetimes. I've been feeling that familiar fear begin to creep back. I notice it. I acknowledge it. And then I remind myself that fear catapults me back in time or forward. But right now, I am fine.