How do I overcome fear when it comes to connecting with others and myself? How do I face my past, instead of dwelling in it?
You can’t overcome anything until you actually look at what it is. You can’t overcome your fear until you know what it is you’re afraid of, or why you’re afraid.
What most of us are scared of, at the deepest level, is death, extinction. This is pure Darwinism. Our core instinct is to survive. This is true for a mosquito, an earthworm, a human being. With most of the things we are afraid of, let us picture them taking place and ask ourselves, ‘Then what?’ Invariably, our answer is, ‘I will die.’
It may not always be about death of the physical body. We’re also afraid of things such as humiliation. If we introspect about why we are so afraid of being embarrassed, we learn that being deeply humiliated actually feels like we have ceased to exist. Not on a physical level, of course, but on a deep emotional level.
This is because we have developed identities based on what other people say and think about us. It begins when we’re in our mother’s arms—babies look at their mothers, the mothers look back, make eye contact, smile, love, and these babies grow up feeling good about themselves. But when a child looks into the mother’s eyes and she’s upset, stressed and not making eye contact, such a child grows up feeling less than worthy.
On a psychological, spiritual level, we are constantly judging ourselves based on how people respond. If I tell a joke and nobody laughs, something inside me is going to plummet. If we run into someone and they greet us with joy, we experience ourselves differently. We think, ‘Wow, I must be wonderful. Look how excited that person is to see me.’ Alternatively, if we see or speak with someone who turns their head the other way or gives us a weird look, we are crestfallen. We may not even know that person, or understand why they are upset or in a bad mood, but it doesn’t matter. We are constantly readjusting our sense of self based on how people look at us. Think of the last time you went to a party, all dressed up, but no one noticed you or complimented you on your clothes or hairstyle. Did you come back feeling something was wrong, did you keep looking in the mirror to find out what must have been the problem? There’s something deep within us that is constantly getting cues of who we are from other people.
It all comes back to the fact that our deepest fear is that we will cease to exist—physically and emotionally. This leads to a lifetime of being afraid to do things, caught in the fear of, ‘Oh my God, what if I fail?’ If you actually imagine that failure in your mind, and ask yourself what would happen next, you’ll most likely come up with, ‘Then people will know I’m a failure.’ OK, so people know you are a failure, then what? ‘Then they won’t love me.’ OK, they won’t love you, then what? Slowly, you realize that the ultimate eventuality we are afraid of, through fear of failure or humiliation, is: ‘I will dissolve.’ On a very deep level we believe that if people don’t love us and acknowledge us, we don’t exist.
Think about the new-age selfie obsession. Psychologically, it is fascinating. We don’t just take pictures and keep them. No. We go ahead and post them on social media.
It’s not really a picture of the Grand Canyon or the Eiffel Tower; it’s a picture of our face and some rocks or steel or concrete wall behind us.
Once we post it online, we keep checking how many people have liked it, commented on it. We think, ‘Oh my God, nobody commented, nobody liked it, what happened? What’s going on?’ We post pictures of ourselves in indistinguishable random places and then wait to see what others think and say about it. My enjoyment of my holiday has become significantly impacted by the responses, or lack thereof, that I get for the selfies I’ve taken during my trip.
If nobody likes or comments on the picture, in our heart of hearts, we feel as if we don’t exist. We keep posting to remind people, ‘Hey, I exist.’ The more responses I get, the more I exist; the fewer I get, the less I exist.
This is the root of a lot that ails us. When we talk about overcoming fear, we have to first break this myth. Making a fool of ourselves does not obliterate our existence.
We have to develop courage to take risks because our awareness of our existence is no longer dependent on how people look at us or respond to us. If my well-being is contingent upon you, I’m always going to live a life of fear, playing it safe, saying exactly what I think you want me to say. I’ll constantly doubt, ‘What if I didn’t do it right?’ I have to ground my awareness in my Self. I have to know who I am, so that regardless of whether you think I’m the biggest fool who has ever walked the face of the earth or whether you think I’m the greatest person you have ever met, it doesn’t change how I feel about myself. That’s the only way to overcome the fear.
The other side to it is to recognize that the greatest tragedy is not failing, but never stepping up to grab the opportunities in your life. The greatest tragedy is looking back on your life and knowing you were afraid you were going to fail and people would laugh at you. That’s the tragedy, that’s something to be afraid of. We have this incredible gift, this incredible life, all these moments brimming with potential, and it is tragic if we don’t use them.
On the physical level is the fear of physically dying. There’s a great story about Swami Vivekananda, who was always teaching, ‘Stand up! Be fearless!’ One day, a few of his disciples decided to test him and find out if Swamiji was really so fearless. They dressed up as bandits and came storming into the lecture hall, carrying real-looking fake guns, making a lot of noise. Everybody screamed and hid behind the chairs or ran out. Swamiji kept delivering his talk, unfazed as the fake bullets whizzed by his head.
Finally, humiliated, the fake bandits fell at his feet, took off their masks, apologized and said, ‘But Swamiji, how is it possible? Were you not even a little bit afraid? How did you do that?’
He replied, ‘The bullet which is meant to take my life will take it even if I’m surrounded by a hundred guards. The bullet that is not meant to take my life will not kill me even if you fire at point-blank range.’
If we can really hold that level of faith in our hearts and move forward with it, that’s the best antidote to fear.
I’ll leave you with a true story of Pujya Swamiji. He was on an airplane about thirty years ago, before I knew him. This story was narrated to me by a man named Dr Rao who was on the airplane with Swamiji. Dr Rao was the chief editor of our Encyclopedia of Hinduism . Having just started the Encyclopedia project, Swamiji was flying all over America, raising awareness about Indian culture and religion, and helping people build temples.
There was a horrible storm during their flight. They were flying over Chicago, known for facing such storms. There was lots of thunder and lightning outside, and lots of turbulence. The pilot told the passengers to brace for crash position, warning them that there may be a crash landing. The plane was dipping hundreds of feet at a time. The overhead luggage compartments opened and the bags fell out. The plane kept plummeting and everyone thought it was going to crash. People were screaming, crying, holding on to each other. But Swamiji kept writing calmly on one of his yellow-lined pads. The plane fell another thousand feet, and everybody was shouting aloud to one another, ‘We’re going to die, we’re going to die!’
Finally, Dr Rao couldn’t take it any more and exclaimed, ‘Swamiji, what are you writing?’
Swamiji said, ‘My speech.’
Now first of all, Swamiji never ever prepares a speech in advance, so the idea of writing a speech was something out of the ordinary.
Dr Rao said, ‘Swamiji, there will be no speeches. You are going to die. We’re all going to die, this plane is crashing.’
Swamiji replied, ‘Well, see, here’s the thing. I know I’m not going to die, and since everybody else thinks they are going to die and you’re telling me this plane is going to go down, it means I’m going to be the sole survivor of this plane crash. Then naturally they’re going to want to take my interview, and since my English isn’t so good and you’re still sitting here next to me, I figured that I would use this opportunity to put some thoughts on paper so that if I had to ask you about how to say something in English, I could ask you before the plane crashes.’
This is a true story. This is what fearlessness looks like. Most of us may not actually get there. But to be able to move through the world with faith, the kind of faith that a child has in the mother’s arms, the faith of knowing that it’s not all resting on my shoulders, that there’s knowledge, wisdom, a plan and, therefore, a Planner who is so much bigger, so much wiser than I am, who’s taking care of it all—that is living without fear.
There’s a beautiful line in the prayers that we chant here every morning at Parmarth Niketan that says, ‘Tu akele nahin pyare, Ram tere sath mein ’, meaning, ‘You’re not alone, dear one, God is with you’. If we can live knowing that we’re really in the Mother’s arms, that we’re being carried by God, if we can allow that faith to take over, it will replace the fear in our life.
How do we deal with irrational fear?
First of all, you must realize that the fear you feel is irrational. If you really, deeply, in the cells of your being know that something is irrational, you’re not going to be afraid of it.
In order for there to be fear, there has to be some part of you that believes that it is possible. So when you recognize an irrational fear, the first step is to figure out how you can bring that awareness that it’s irrational into your being. The minute it is affirmed deep within your being, the fear will dissipate.
Step two is faith. Think of the Swami Vivekananda story. That faith and awareness that you are being taken care of is what will give you strength. It doesn’t mean you’re going to get every job you wanted, or that you’re always going to be healthy, or that people you love aren’t going to die or leave you, but it means that at the core foundational level, you’re being taken care of and there is nothing to fear.
Look at children. They may fall, they may be scared, or hurt, or crying, but the minute their mother picks them up and holds them, they may still need a bandage, but the fear is gone.
When we live with the real awareness that we’re in the Divine’s arms, our fear dissipates. Again, that doesn’t mean everything’s going to be perfect, but it means that we’re being carried by the Divine and things are going to be as they should be.
How do we build confidence?
This is a challenge we all face, but it seems so much more pertinent when we’re young. The real question is—why don’t we have confidence in ourselves ?
There’s no other species I’ve seen or heard of that is unsure of its own ability to be what it is. For example, we never see a bird on a branch starting to move its wings and then backing out in fear of not being able to take flight. When a mother bird kicks out her baby bird for the very first time from the nest, halfway down, the baby realizes it can fly. After that, there’s never a time they don’t remember it.
Only humans have this lack of confidence, and that is because we feel so insecure about who we really are. We have a deep inner sense of who we are, but there is also an external, societal order that tells us what we should and should not be. What we’re trying to do is mould ourselves to be something that we are not.
If a dog had to fly off a building, there’s no way it would even try. You could encourage it as much as you want, but it won’t jump. It understands that it doesn’t have wings, and therefore cannot fly.
The sad thing is that we don’t fully understand who we are, and so we don’t have confidence in ourselves. Who we truly are at our core is not necessarily a student or an employee of a company. Who we are is love, consciousness, divinity. We are one with Creation.
Our confidence needs to come from knowing that we’ve been created by the Divine, who is infinite, who doesn’t make mistakes. None of us is half-baked or half-done. It’s not as if God forgot to put salt or sugar in some of us. Sometimes that’s how it feels, but we have to understand that there’s a perfection in the universe, and when we are a part of that perfection, confidence comes automatically not from what we do, nor from how good we are at something, but simply in who we are and from our ability to experience love, share love, and our ability to connect with that consciousness. That’s what we’re here for. It’s all there, but we just have to turn inward to tune into it.
I feel anxiety in many situations. Is anxiety a bad thing?
First of all, it’s important to remember that nothing we experience is bad. The only bad thing is thinking that what we feel is wrong, because then we end up separating ourselves from ourselves. We want to be good, we want to think and act in good ways, so the minute we label something inside of us as ‘bad’, we’ve cut ourselves off from it.
The whole point of a spiritual practice is integration, union and oneness. Therefore, nothing is bad. Certain things make us feel elevated, help us get in touch with the truth of who we are, the divinity of ourselves, the divinity of the universe. They take us into the realm in which everyone is one. In contrast, some things we feel bring us down.
They take us out of the beautiful spiritual realm, into the flesh. That’s not bad; yet, most of us on a spiritual path would rather be in a place where we experience oneness and union, love and consciousness, rather than this tunnel-visioned experience of greed, lust and anger.
So when we examine anxiety, it is not ‘bad’ per se. However, what does it do? It makes our heart race. When we feel stressed and anxious, our heart rate rushes, our blood pressure goes up, all of our energy literally rushes to the extremities. It’s our fight-or-flight response. We are biologically primed and ready in that moment to either fight or flee.
That response would be very useful if we were living in a cave and had to protect ourselves from tigers or bears or warring tribes, but it’s not very helpful in the world we live in. We need that rush of adrenaline to be able to outrun a threat or to climb a tree. But today, the places and times that most of us feel anxiety in is everywhere and every day—social situations, parties, with our friends, at work, speaking in public, going on a date. Life has become a series of life-or-death, fight-or-flight situations, and that’s where it becomes troublesome. We cannot live in a state of openness and expansion while simultaneously running or fighting. Either the world is something to be afraid of, or the world is something to be one with, but it can’t be both.
Every minute that we feel anxiety, what our body is telling us on a physiological level is that this situation is dangerous. And that’s not a healthy way to live. The question then becomes—how do we stop feeling anxious?
The anxiety that we feel stems from the illusion that we are what we look like, how we perform and what other people think of us. The minute we can go beyond that and truly know that we are divine, we are consciousness, we are infinite, then whether someone laughs at our jokes or smiles at us, or tells us we’re fat or stupid, or asks us out on a second date or not, it doesn’t create anxiety.
Every time you feel anxious, ask yourself: Is this really a situation where I want to separate myself from the world? And if not, then ask yourself how you can expand the way you think of yourself. Ground yourself in your breath. Try to experience a state of oneness with the people around you, rather than a sense of separation, because where there’s oneness, there’s no fear. Where there’s fear, you feel separation. Anxiety takes us away from the truth of who we are. And on a spiritual path, we want to be closer to who we are.
How do we redirect ourselves in a situation that is causing us anxiety?
There are two possible situations. One, of course, is a situation from which we can literally remove ourselves, and that would be a good thing to do. Let’s say, I went out with some friends to a dinner, and it turned into a drinking party, but I’m not a drinker. Now everyone at the table is just drunk, they’re starting to get boisterous, and I’m feeling very anxious and uncomfortable. I’m no longer enjoying myself in this moment. They’re talking about leaving and getting into cars and going for thrill rides, so now it’s getting dangerous. The best thing I can do in this moment is physically remove myself from the situation.
However, in many cases, the situation we’re in is one from which we can’t remove ourselves. The last thing we want to do is become so fragile that there are a very limited number of situations in which we can feel comfortable. We frequently try to create cocoons of peace around us, including only that which we need in order to maintain our peace. The problem with this is it keeps much of the world out and limits us drastically. So we start to reason, ‘I can’t see you, I can’t do this, because it ruins my peace.’
We often live in a very shallow state of peace, with a shallow connection to the Divine, a peace and connection that exists only until I visit my parents, or until my boss yells at me, or until I’m stuck in traffic. That’s not an ideal situation. Ideally, what we want is to be able to experience peace in the maximum number of situations. There are some situations, such as the one I described above, where it’s perfectly fine to say, ‘OK, everyone, hope you have a wonderful time the rest of the evening. It’s time for me to go home’, and we excuse ourselves. But mostly, the situations that steal our peace arise in our families and at our workplaces. We don’t need to escape from these situations or run into hiding.
The answer is to change how you identify yourself. Anxiety is caused because you have adopted or internalized what someone else said or did as what it means about you. You made a joke, no one laughed—it means you’re stupid. You said something that was serious, everyone did laugh—it means you’re stupid. See, all they’ve done is laugh or not laugh. I’m the one who’s made up the whole story of being stupid. I’m the one who’s internalized the situation and made it about me.
The way to be in that situation is to just tune back into the Self. It’s very important to remember: people who are just trying to make us feel bad so that they feel better are people who themselves are miserable. This is as true in sixth grade as it is in boardrooms, offices, yoga studios, parties and gyms across the world.
If I’m in a situation where I’m feeling anxiety, I need to check in with myself: ‘Is their truth really my truth? Is what I’m feeling in this environment really who I am? Or is it just that these people or this person is using me to feel better about themselves?’
There’s a great story of a teacher who draws a line on the chalkboard and asks his students, ‘Without using an eraser, can anyone make this line on the board appear shorter?’ Of course, no one can. It seemed like the only way to make the line smaller on the board was to erase part of it. But then the teacher says, ‘No, there’s another way to make the line appear shorter’, and he draws a longer line above it. The lower line hasn’t actually changed, but now in comparison to the longer one, it seems shorter. Sadly, this is exactly what happens to us. We are who we are. Yet, we judge ourselves based on those around us.
This is where meditation is so important, because it gives us the Truth of who we are. Otherwise, I am who you say I am, I am how you look at me, I am identified by your behaviour—whether you laugh at my jokes, or touch my feet, or give me an A or a gold star. That becomes who I am. So whenever we’re in situations that make us feel anxious, we need to reconnect with ourselves. Reconnect with our breath. Deep, low in the abdomen, just grounding ourselves back in our Truth.
The last but crucial component is to see whether we can feel within ourselves compassion for that person in front of us and an awareness that the reason they are making us feel bad, the reason they are trying to make us feel low is because they feel low. This is why bullies in school are usually just miserable children. Parents explain to their kids who are being bullied, ‘Sweetheart, it’s not you, it’s because he’s upset.’
People who bully others—physically, emotionally, mentally, in any way—do it because they themselves feel bad. So check in with who you are, connect with the Divine in yourself and then try to experience some compassion for whoever is making you feel bad.
I’d like to emphasize here that this isn’t the case when we’re talking about a loved one who really cares for us. They may tell us, ‘You know, I think you need to stop drinking’ or ‘I think you’ve got problems with your temper’. This too can cause anxiety in us, because the status quo is very safe. Very few of us want to look at ourselves. So, the first thing that we do, even when it is a loved one, is to lash out at that person. ‘It’s just you, you’re the one with the problem!’ But at such times, it’s really important to look inward and ask ourselves, ‘Is this anxiety because I just don’t want to hear what they’re saying, even if it is true?’ If so, at that point, what we need to do is listen.