CHAPTER TWO

Fear and Faith

A writer once asked me to help her explore some unpleasant emotions that were recurring in her life. I started by asking her to write a short story about her childhood. When she presented it to me the following week, I was struck by the first line: “This is the story of how I learned to be fearful and what I learned to be fearful of.”

The story of her childhood was a story about fear. As a child of an alcoholic who later became an alcoholic herself, fear was a constant theme in her life. “1 am afraid to let anyone know me, or see me, or be close to me,” she wrote.

Just as with pain, fear is something we all experience. As human beings, we naturally fear hunger, want, illness, and injury. On an emotional level we are frightened of abandonment, criticism, intimacy, and pain. We also fear economic hardship, social disrepute, and we are all afraid of the time when sickness or death will come to us or to our loved ones.

When fear arises, we often harden our bodies and hearts, closing inward to protect ourselves. Sometimes we feel tense, paralyzed, unable to move; at other times we may race around faster, trying to make ourselves into a moving target, something harder to hit. We build up walls and barriers, call up armies, and pay insurance companies, doctors, and governments to protect us from danger as we try to minimize the risks of being human.

When we live in fear of everything that may bring us harm, we effectively insulate ourselves from life itself—because pain, sorrow, illness, and death are unavoidable ingredients in life. Despite our fearful preparations, many things that frighten us will inevitably touch us at some moment in some way.

In addition to the generic fears that accompany being human, we also experience other fears, terrifying fears that we inherit from our childhood, those painful memories that refuse to fade away. The writer’s story continued: “The thing I was most fearful of was what my mother’s moods might be on any given day. I was afraid of being punished for things... I was afraid to be caught... at almost anything, depending on the day or time of day.”

The betrayal, the lies, the abuse, the fighting, the desertion—we remember each moment in vivid detail. The tender heart of the small child is like a page on which each transgression is indelibly stamped. For the child who has been hurt, fear is not simply a vague concern about the possibility of harm; it becomes a reflexive response to the certainty of danger.

When Zenia was young, her father would come home late after the bars were closed, bellowing and cursing through the house in the dark of the night, until he eventually made it to bed sometime later. From the moment her father walked in the door, she would lie awake, gripping the sides of her bed, staring at the door, paralyzed with fear that he would burst into her room. Only after he finally collapsed would she relax enough to be able to sleep. As an adult, when Zenia goes to bed she still feels the familiar anxiety she felt as a child. This woman, now in her forties, carries this old fear born in childhood smallness, relentless and unceasing, that continues to disturb both her sleep and her waking.

Children raised in family confusion or uncertainty come to experience deep and lasting fears that lodge in the body and heart. There is a perpetual sense of imminent danger that saturates every moment. No single instant is truly fearless—even the most loving or playful setting seems to hold some unseen promise of danger.

Fear can have many faces. Nancy, sexually abused by an uncle who eventually committed suicide, remembered driving in a car with him when she was small. Terrified he would make a move toward her, she kept her hand on the handle of the passenger door, ready to jump out. She said she still feels as if she has her hand on the escape lever for most of her life.

Richard, who was molested by his mother, told me that when women try to get close to him, he feels paralyzed with terror. This fear, he said, had ruined his marriage.

Carla’s mother, a manic-depressive, would have terrible personality shifts. One minute she was a kind and loving mother, and in the next instant she would be yelling, screaming, and pulling out her daughter’s hair. With no warning, what was safe and warm became frightening and dangerous. As an adult, Carla carried enormous tension in her body, constantly protecting herself from the inevitable onslaughts that would come from an unpredictable world.

As we grow older, why do we still hold so tightly to what terrified us as children? Because the wounds were deep and powerful, and came when we were tender and vulnerable. When we were small, we had to rely on powers greater than ourselves for our every need—for our food, clothing, shelter, warmth, and safety. Our very lives were absolutely dependent upon these larger beings for all of our care. So when Mom ran out of the house, or Dad passed out, or someone was beat up, or someone got divorced, or died, or went away and never came back, it felt as if our very lives were in danger. We were literally frightened for our survival.

Our childhood fears were compounded because the people who claimed to be the guardians of our safety were inevitably the same people who caused us hurt. The father who said he would always be there for us was the same father who went away and left us. The mother who said she would never let anyone or anything hurt us was the same mom who yelled and screamed at us. So just as we learned to be afraid, we also came to believe that no one could be trusted to give us shelter.

Some of us attempted to minimize the danger by trying to take total control of our environment. Perhaps if we could stop our parents from fighting or drinking, or help them get along better, or make sure the dinner was ready on time, the napkins were folded, and the toast didn’t burn, then things would be all right, then we could ward off any potential flare-ups. Once we got all the ducks in a row, once we were firmly in control of all the things that could possibly go wrong in our family, then we would be safe. Exhausted, but safe.

Unfortunately, the existence of pain and sorrow in our family was totally beyond our control. Our parents’ suffering, confusion, anger, or grief was deeply woven into our common family story, and there was little or nothing we could have done to prevent its taking shape in our lives. Their pain could erupt in clumsiness, anger, or desertion at any time. And regardless of how many ducks we managed to coax into a neat, protective row, there would always be that one we missed, and the drama would begin again. There was nothing that any child could do to stop it.

Christy, troubled by a pervasive insecurity for most of her life, asked me to help her discover some sense of safety, some experience of sanctuary. We began by exploring a few of the childhood fears that arose in her very troubled family, and then I suggested we do a guided meditation. After helping her relax into a meditative state, I invited her to allow an image of safety to emerge, an image of a place where she felt absolutely, completely safe, and then to rest for a few moments in the comfort of that image. When the meditation was finished, I asked Christy to describe her image of safety. “It was wonderful,” she said. “I was dead, and in outer space.” We both laughed at how far she had to go to feel any sense of security. This powerful sense of danger had permeated the cells of her body so deeply that she could only imagine herself safe when she was dead in outer space! Clearly, fear had become one of the strongest voices in the chorus of her psyche.

The Costs of Fear

Our fears made us feel powerless and vulnerable, and so we desperately constructed any strategies we could to protect ourselves: If we thought that our true feelings would be disruptive, we learned to conceal them; if someone seemed angry or displeased with us, we would instantly disown ourselves and pretend to be whatever they wanted us to be; we could even pretend to love, when loving was required. Out of fear and desperation, we learned to cultivate an emotional and spiritual dishonesty to protect ourselves from harm. Fear became a primary motivator for much of our behavior. For some of us, it became our most familiar and reliable feeling.

But this kind of fear gradually and unquestionably corrodes our lives. Dr. Herbert Benson, professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School and author of The Relaxation Response, explored the “fight or flight” response that exists in humans as well as in animals. When we experience fear, our body produces specific changes in pulse, respiration, and secretion of certain hormones. Our body prepares to defend itself or to flee. This can prove to be a useful biological response to real danger—as when we are physically attacked or must act quickly to save a drowning child.

But Benson notes that many of us regularly maintain inordinately high levels of fear and stress in our lives, even when we are in no real danger at all. Our chronic psychological fears that linger from childhood produce tremendous levels of stress that invite all manner of illness and disease into our bodies. When we live our lives in fear, regardless of whether those fears are real or imagined, we lower our resistance to disease and actually help bring about those illnesses we fear the most.

In addition, our culture effectively replicates our childhood worries about fear and safety. We live in a dangerous society that places a tremendous premium on protecting ourselves from harm. In one year, Americans spend more than $50 billion on security equipment to protect their homes and property. As a nation, we spend more than $300 billion a year on nuclear weapons, tanks, guns, and soldiers to protect ourselves from everyone else on the planet. We spend countless billions on health and life insurance to shield us from the costs of illness and death. And with all of these expenditures, thousands of dollars for every man, woman, and child in the United States, hardly anyone feels truly safe. We still listen for the things that go bump in the night.

“Where there is fear,” said Mohandas Gandhi, “we lose the way of our spirit.” When we are in fear, we focus all our attention on the point of danger and lose our capacity to find any courage, security, or peace within ourselves. We become so obsessed with what threatens us that the inner strengths of the heart become inaudible. Perhaps this is why, in the Christian New Testament, the phrase “be not afraid” is found more than three hundred times. When we are afraid, we lose our ability to feel our own inner strength, and things precious and vital within us are smothered by our anxieties. When we spend all our days worried about how things will turn out, planning for whether we will have enough food, clothing, money, or love, then what kind of life have we protected? In spite of our plans and strategies, we never feel at peace.

The Perpetuation of Danger

In the 1950s, some Japanese soldiers were found on remote islands in the Pacific, still fighting the Second World War, which had actually ended years before. It was very hard to convince these poor hangers-on that the war was really over and it was safe to go home.

How do we know when the war is over? How do we know when to protect ourselves from danger, and when to allow ourselves to feel safe? Children raised in troubled families are uncertain which fears are justified—like the fear of rape, or of nuclear war—and which are simply habitual ghosts from our childhood, phantom fears without any real substance. The fears of childhood cast such long shadows across the psyche that after a time, almost anything can generate a fearful response. We even learn to wait for trouble to arrive—the fight, the angry word, the slamming door; it is almost a relief when it comes, so certain is its coming. All of our intuitive wisdom and emotional sensitivity is designed to predict when the ax will fall, so that we may do what we do best: try to protect ourselves from hurt.

The problem is this: Skills learned in danger require the presence of danger to be effective. If our greatest skill is getting ourselves out of trouble, then we are at our best when we have discovered some trouble to get out of. In a strange way we feel safer in fear and danger than we do in tranquility, because we know how to survive danger. We have no idea how to manage peace.

For many of the young men who fought in Vietnam, the truest thing that ever happened to them was war, booby traps, and death in the night. Those that made it back had learned to survive situations of tremendous danger and great terror. When they returned home, many of these young men found it difficult to adjust themselves to “normal” American life; their skills were applicable only in the murderous jungles of Southeast Asia. Many gradually came to recreate for themselves lives of reckless danger, seeking familiar ground on which to battle the enemies they knew best. Others carried deep within them many debilitating fears that terrorized their inner lives.

How can we be sure that our fears and terrors are not telling us the truth, that we should not be on our guard at every turn? And how can we know when it is safe enough to allow some of our fears to fall away and risk the vulnerability of being human?

Fear Without Danger

When we are raised in family distress, we learn to fear many things: We fear that things will change, or go wrong; we worry about what others will think of us; and we fear the hurt that comes from verbal or physical abuse. We fear abandonment and rejection. We even worry about ourselves, afraid that what we have inside may not be enough, may not measure up to the task of living. We fear that our gifts, our intuition, even our spirits are tragically deficient.

Consequently, as we grow older, whenever we feel afraid, we naturally presume that we are afraid of something. We assume that there is some person, circumstance, defect, or event that genuinely threatens our wellbeing. As soon as we feel frightened, we usually try to identify a particular danger to justify our fear. If no threat is immediately apparent, we may even manufacture one to give our fears credibility. Those of us who experienced fear as children habitually tie our fears to some memory of the past; when fear arises, we instantly seek a childhood explanation: “I am afraid because my father used to beat me up,” or, “I am frightened because my mother never protected me.” In our rush to calm our fear, we frequently look first to our childhood to explain and justify our anxiety.

But now we are no longer small and vulnerable, and when we feel afraid it does not necessarily indicate that we are, in fact, in real danger. It may simply be a response to a misperception of danger. There may be no danger at all; our anxiety may simply be a signal that something in this moment is in need of attention. Something in our body, our emotions, or our environment may be somehow disrupted or off balance, and needs our care.

Perhaps, in these moments, our fear is merely asking us to pay attention, indicating a need to watch for something happening that we are not watching closely enough.

Fear may arise for any number of reasons: Perhaps we are simply tired or feeling fragile that day, or maybe we are preoccupied, or require loving care, or need to attend to some feeling we have been pushing away. There may be no real, external danger at all, just a sensation of anxiety arising within us. Jack Kornfield says the presence of fear may even be a sign of growth, a moment in which we are “about to open to something bigger than the world we usually experience.”

As children, we fear what can harm us, but as adults, fear may often arise when we unexpectedly encounter those things that would heal us. The story is told that when Jesus was born in a small country town, there were shepherds nearby keeping watch over their flocks. In the dark of the night, “an angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were filled with fear. And the angel said to them, ‘Be not afraid.’ ” When the shepherds met with something they had never seen before—even though it was a miraculous moment filled with light, announcing the birth of the Christ-child—still they were afraid. But just because they were afraid, it did not mean they were in danger. They were terrified merely because they encountered something outside their experience: They had inadvertently bumped into God.

If fear, then, is not always an indicator of danger, what can we do when fear arises? How, in the face of our anxiety, fear, and terror, do we cultivate a sense of safety, a sense of faith that all will be well, a place of sanctuary in which we may rest?

Fear and Faith

Since we are rarely in mortal danger, we may discover that most of our fears are generated by the mind. Most of us are fortunate to have enough to eat, enough clothes to keep us warm, and a place to sleep at night. Even though we are reasonably safe and cared for, we still go about our lives with fear and trembling. Why? Not because we fear the present but because we fear the future. We almost always seem to handle what we are given in this moment; but we expect that some day we will be given more than we can handle, and we are terrified that it will be more than we can bear.

We have seen how the pain of our past can give birth to bitterness, anger, and grief. Just as grief arises in response to pain in the past, fear is our response to pain in the future. Thus, if we are to understand our fears and learn to heal what frightens us, we must first explore how we react to the anticipation of pain.

Fear arises when we believe we will not be strong enough to handle the pain we will be given. As children in troubled families, we were given so much hurt, and we felt so small and fragile; we learned powerful lessons about the kinds of deep pain that could tear at the heart and body. We felt how much it could hurt when we were rejected by our own parents, when we were yelled at, or hit, or simply forgotten. There were times we weren’t sure we could take any more pain, and that if it ever got worse, we might just give up. We didn’t know if we could trust ourselves to survive the emotional and physical batterings that came from being a child, from being a member of our family.

As adults, we still carry much of that uncertainty within ourselves. We are not yet convinced we can withstand all the discomforts, losses, and torments in store for us in this lifetime. At times we don’t feel strong enough to be human, to be big, to be a grown-up. Even now, we still feel little, we don’t trust ourselves or have faith in our ability to hold our own against the sufferings and sorrows the world can bring.

When we are uncertain and tentative about our ability to handle the pain of being human, we become worried and afraid. When we feel fragile or weak, when we are convinced that the next loss, rejection, or failure will be the one that will somehow do us in or break us apart, then we will approach each day of our lives with tremendous anxiety.

In the Christian scriptures there is a story about Jesus and his disciples as they were crossing the Sea of Galilee in a small boat. Suddenly, without warning, a great storm rose up, the winds tossed the boat to and fro, and the boat began to fill with water. The disciples were overcome with fear; yet Jesus, in the stern of the boat, remained asleep. The disciples, terrified for their lives, woke Jesus and screamed, “Master, don’t you care if we perish?” Jesus turned to the ones who were with him and said, “Why are you afraid? Have you no faith?”

In the middle of great danger, Jesus was at peace. The disciples could not rest until the danger had been extinguished, while Jesus’ sense of safety rested in a deep faith that all would be well—even in the midst of a life-threatening storm.

What do we mean when we use the word faith? For many of us the word can be awkward. It may be uncomfortable to hear or understand, even more difficult to use, because for centuries it has been interpreted by certain religious traditions as a litmus test for spiritual worthiness. A specific quantity of “faith,” in these traditions, has been used as an entrance requirement for the kingdom of God. If you have “enough” faith, then you get into heaven, you become a child of God, and you will be granted whatever you desire. If you pray hard enough, if you have faith in God and the doctrines of the church, if you affirm your “faith” in those teachings, then you will be worthy, you will be cared for, and God will look favorably on your life.

This antiquated definition of faith taught that if we “had” enough of it, we could change the world around us to make it more to our liking. With enough faith, we could conquer our fears simply by making those things that frightened us miraculously disappear. If we were poor, faith could bring us more money; if we were sick, faith would make us well; if we were alone, faith would give us company; and if we were feeling inadequate, our faith could bring us a successful career. An adequate supply of faith would assure us that all would turn out the way we hoped.

All too often, however, the zealous application of this religious maxim has been used to drive a wedge between the “faithful” and the “unfaithful,” as a way to tell the “good” people from the “bad” ones. Many people have been deeply hurt by those who felt a moral obligation to judge the spiritual worthiness of others by taking a measure of their “faith.” This has been especially abusive when applied to people who are poor, hungry, culturally or sexually “different,” or terminally ill with cancer or AIDS. Too often the religious assertion is made that if these “unfortunate” people only had enough “faith,” then God would feed them, clothe them, and heal them of their deviance, their cancer, or their AIDS. If the AIDS or cancer didn’t go away, then the fault must be with the victim; they must surely be lacking in faith. Thus, many of us have felt “faith” used as a weapon against us, as we have been judged relentlessly and without mercy—an experience not unlike the pain we felt in our childhood families.

How can we reclaim the word faith so that we may use it for our own healing? We may begin by noting that in most ancient scriptural texts, the word faith is not a noun, it is a verb. Faith is not something that one person “has” and another “doesn’t”; faith is not a thing, and so cannot be measured or possessed. Faith is a way of being. It is a spiritual practice, a way of discovering what is reliable and true, a way of expanding trust in our inner wisdom. It is a place inside where we are in a compassionate relationship with what is strong and whole within ourselves, where we listen to the still, small voices of our heart and soul. When we are practicing a path of faith, we are in intimate conversation with what is deepest in our mind, heart, and spirit.

For the Hebrews, faith involved a deep trust in the watchful love of God for all God’s children. According to the prophet Isaiah, even in the midst of the most terrible circumstances, those whose hearts are centered in the faithful care of God “shall renew their strength, they shall mount up on wings like eagles, they shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint.”

The Buddhist word for faith, sraddha, also suggests much more than a belief in theological doctrine. Sraddha implies a sense of trust, clarity, and confidence—it literally means “to put one’s heart on.” It is etymologically akin to the Latin cor, from which we derive the words heart and courage. Thus, the practice of faith is clearly the practice of a strong and courageous heart. “If you set your heart aright,” says the Book of Job, “you will lie down, and none will make you afraid.”

Another Buddhist teaching about faith is found in the concept of equanimity. Equanimity is the ability to experience the changes in our lives, circumstances, and feelings and still remain calm, centered, and unmoved. The image most often used to illustrate the quality of equanimity is that of a mountain. The mountain sits there as the sun shines on it, the rain drenches it, it is covered with snow, and struck by lightning. Through it all, through all the changing conditions, the mountain remains unwavering. As we cultivate equanimity within ourselves, we learn to be more like the mountain, finding that place of strength and courage within ourselves that enables us to withstand the slings and arrows of being human without feeling overwhelmed by fear.

As we explore the practices of faith, sraddha, and equanimity, one thing becomes clear: Genuine faith is born of the ability to trust in what is most fundamentally true within ourselves. Circumstances will change, and all manner of things pleasant and unpleasant will arise and fall away; sometimes our lives will be touched with joy, and at other times we will be given tremendous pain and sorrow. Many times we will be afraid. But the object of faith is not to eliminate difficult circumstances, nor is faith about trusting in a God who will rescue us from hurt, or who—if only we believe strongly enough—will make everything better. The real question of faith is when pain and loss inevitably come our way, do we withdraw in fear that we will be destroyed, or do we deepen our trust in our innate capacity to endure them? Can we find a strong and courageous heart, a place of clarity and wholeness within ourselves in which we can place our ultimate trust, gently allowing both the fear and the pain to simply move through us?

Faith is a centering response. The search for faith is a search for our true nature, for the spirit within, the divine strength that lives in our deepest heart. When we were small, we sought safety in trying to control the dangers that populated our daily lives. We kept waiting until everything was okay, until everyone was finally asleep, until the fighting was over. But as we grow older we discover that the hazards and discomforts that threaten us never totally disappear from our lives. We begin to see that true safety is not the absence of danger but rather the presence of something else—the presence of a sense of faith, born in the heart and sustained by a spirit of serenity, trust, and courage. If we seek our safety within ourselves and not in the manipulation of environment and circumstance, then our practice becomes a pilgrimage to uncover a deep and abiding faith in our own gifts, our own strengths, and our own spirit.

Approaching Our Fears

If faith reflects a confidence in our own inner strength, then as we cultivate faith we become more able to accept whatever we are given. Regardless of whether we are given pleasure or pain, sorrow or delight, we gradually come to feel confident that we are strong, resilient, and creative enough to survive and endure the perils of being human. Our first challenge, then, is to learn to approach our fears directly. Often our first response to fear is to feel our own fragility, and so we move away and hide, we make ourselves invisible and inaccessible to whatever might bring us harm, thereby exaggerating the experience of fear. When we run from circumstances that feel dangerous, we generate additional fear and anxiety. Have we run far enough? Can they still see us? Have we thought of everything? Are we secure yet? We still seek to find safety by eliminating external danger rather than relying on our own inner resources for sanctuary and protection. We may discover that we actually feel safer when we move toward those things that frighten us, not when we move away.

Daniel was a man who, as a young boy, was molested by his mother. As an adult, he had always found it difficult to sustain lasting relationships with women. There would inevitably come a moment when it felt to him that they were getting too close, and he would feel afraid. At that point he would feel a need to run away and would often end the relationship.

During a therapy group, Dan announced that he had begun a relationship with a woman he cared for, so he wanted to work on his problem with fear. He said the woman was extremely kind and understanding, and he felt very much loved. At the same time, he was already beginning to feel an impulse to run, to hide, to get out. How could he protect himself and be safe, yet still remain close and open to her?

I asked him to pick a woman from the group to role-play the woman he cared for. Then I placed them several feet apart and asked Dan how he felt. “I feel okay, a little frightened, but basically fine.” I asked him to move closer, about three feet away. How did he feel? “Still okay, but I feel more tightness in my stomach. It’s a little scarier.” I asked him to move two feet from her. “This is much scarier,” he said. “I feel very uncomfortable. I start to go numb, I want to disappear, run away.”

I kept asking him to move closer, until they were face to face, maybe eighteen inches apart. “I feel really bad. I want to just run away, just go away somewhere else. I feel numb, my stomach feels nauseous, I’m frightened.” At this point his body was visibly shaken, and I could see he wished this exercise to be over so he could return to his chair and forget the whole thing. “Move a bit closer,” I asked, and also requested the woman to place her hand on his. At this point their bodies were almost touching, and Dan was ready to bolt. Yet after a moment in this position, something shifted. Slowly, everyone in the group saw him relax, and he seemed much more comfortable, even allowing a half-smile to emerge. “This feels better,” he admitted. “This close, where I can see her eyes, and with her hand on mine, I feel okay. I’m not thinking about her, I’m just being with her. Somehow, this feels safer.”

Daniel had spent his whole life running from what frightened him. Because of his early sexual abuse, the unpredictability of intimacy had caused so much fear to arise in his body that he would always run away. But every time he ran away, he would generate so many worries and anxious fantasies that he would inevitably create even more fear in himself for the next time. It had never occurred to him that moving closer, moving toward her rather than away from her, could bring a sense of safety. As he moved closer, he could see in her eyes something that brought comfort and serenity; he could see her own fear, her deep caring for him, her own uncertainty, and her own willingness to be human and vulnerable. By changing his relationship to what frightened him, he discovered a deeper sense of faith in himself, a sense that he could handle whatever was to come.

When we grow up small and afraid, we come to believe that true sanctuary and serenity can only come when we develop foolproof mechanisms for shutting out danger, for hiding, for running away, for not being open to what could hurt us. Yet as we move closer to our fears, as we accept them, explore them, and examine our response to the anticipation of danger, we may begin to discover that we have within ourselves all that is required to feel protected and safe. When we directly face what frightens us, we often discover our own capacity to survive whatever we have been given. The more we are present with ourselves in fear, without withdrawing, hiding out, or armoring ourselves, the more trust we develop in our own resources, our own creativity, resilience, and wisdom. Slowly we begin to cultivate a much deeper faith that, despite the hurts and disappointments we are given, somehow, within ourselves, all will be well.

Faith In Ourselves

Unfortunately, many of us as children even learned to mistrust ourselves. If our families rarely talked about their feelings, we learned to mistrust the reliability of our own emotions. If our parents were uncomfortable and unable or unwilling to speak the truth, we began to mistrust our own perceptions of what was true. And if we constantly felt we were in danger of being hurt, we learned to mistrust our ability to protect ourselves. Even as we grew older, whenever we felt afraid, we would immediately focus our attention on our weakness and vulnerability, acutely aware of the disparity between the powerful threat of the danger without and the fragile, vulnerable, untrustworthy person within.

However, the truth is that often we are much stronger than we imagine. Curiously, few of us realize how much strength it took simply to grow up in our families. As children, we drew upon tremendous determination, spirit, and courage as we strove to maintain our daily lives, to survive the repeated injuries, and to protect ourselves from danger. We developed a remarkable intuition that could warn us of any imbalances or irregularities within ourselves or others; we became attentive and aware of subtle shifts in loyalty, strategy, or intent in those around us; and we became adept at redefining our survival strategies at a moment’s notice. In addition, in response to the emotional uncertainties of our families, many of us managed to uncover a place of refuge deep within ourselves where we inevitably found some source of strength and comfort, even in the midst of an environment without sufficient nourishment, support, or care.

For many of us, this exceedingly private place of inner fortitude has actually been our closest and most trustworthy ally for much of our lives, yet it is a place to which we go with remarkable infrequency. It is a place that others are rarely privileged to see. Only when we are terribly hurt, frightened, or unsure about our lives do we go deeply inward to that place. It is a place to which we go when all feels lost, when our strategies and manipulations have finally failed, and the world has become unmanageable. Then, in despair, we turn inside, in search of our deepest strength.

Unfortunately, many of us must be devastated by some tragic moment before we will reluctantly place our trust in what is deepest within ourselves. Many of us never imagine the depth of our inner strength until we find ourselves confronting a terminal illness, experiencing a divorce, or suffering the loss of a spouse, a friend, or a child. Face to face with tragedy, illness, or death, many of us actually become less fearful—not because life holds any less danger but because in those moments we are propelled deep into ourselves, reaching to uncover what is strong, reliable, and whole within our own hearts and spirits. Even in the midst of a personal hell, we rediscover within ourselves a heart of courage.

Not long ago, Bob, a recovering alcoholic and a dear friend, telephoned me. He had spent a good deal of his life accomplishing great things, accumulating wealth, and cultivating positions of power. Yet in the midst of it all, he was always afraid he wasn’t quite good enough, and he somehow had to prove his worthiness through his accomplishments. He was always working to calm his inner fears and anxieties and rarely felt strong or peaceful inside.

Bob’s son had died of AIDS just two years before, so both he and his wife had been working with death for some time. Their courageous ability to use their suffering as a teaching for others had helped them become less fearful about their own lives, and they were quite beloved in the community as people to whom everyone could come with their pain and always feel welcome.

One morning Bob called to tell me he had been diagnosed as having terminal cancer, and the doctors said he had only months to live. “All my life,” he told me, “I have prayed for inner strength and serenity. I have gone to workshops, read books, and asked God every day to give me a sense of centeredness and peace. But now I know I might die very soon, I don’t feel afraid at all. It’s strange, but I feel so calm. After living with our son’s death and being so close to my own, something in me finally feels peaceful. I certainly don’t want to die, but I’m ready to go if this is my time. This close to death, I have a strong feeling of faith, that somehow, whatever happens, it will be all right—just what I’ve wanted my whole life.”

Perhaps the greatest fear is the fear of our own death. Yet many of us have witnessed those who, as they suffered the consequences of cancer, heart disease, AIDS, or other life-threatening illnesses, actually became more peaceful and serene as the moment of their death drew closer. The nearer they came to the actual moment of death, the less frightened they became. Somehow, in proximity to their greatest fear, a corresponding awareness of tremendous courage emerged within them.

This seems to be a potent, reliable equation—that as we wholeheartedly approach what frightens us, a parallel reservoir of strength arises to meet it, and we are no longer eclipsed by our fear. It is not fear alone that makes us seek this place so much as a willingness to confront our fears directly, thereby opening up within us the full potential of a courageous heart. Here we go deep within ourselves to rediscover that place of faith, of sraddha, to feel the comfort and power of our own spirit, our true nature that, even in the face of death, emerges as a trustworthy and reliable ally.

How many of us have lost this place of faith? How many of us have misplaced this trust in ourselves, this conviction and confidence in our own inner strength? In reality, we never lose that inner place of strength, but in fear of danger, we desperately place our trust instead in our external strategies to defuse and neutralize the perils of the world. Relying on our complex psychological manipulations, trying to reconstruct a world without pain or peril, we tend to ignore the persistent fact of our own inner strength.

Our childhoods taught us many things about ourselves and compelled us to cultivate a variety of skills in perception, resilience, creativity, endurance, and determination, all of which remain at our disposal if we will only use them. Growing up in our families, many of us learned to understand things that no one else ever spoke about, to notice what no one else claimed to see, to consult with ourselves in solitude, and to nourish and nurture ourselves when we were hurt, forgotten, or ignored. This quiet, intimate place of hidden strength is the place where God lives within us, where what is eternal and trustworthy has been our private ally and companion. When we live our lives by acting out of this deep place of knowing, when we listen to the voices that speak to us from this inner place of sanctuary, then we may truly begin the practice of faith.

The Buddha taught his followers to “be lamps unto yourselves; be your own confidence; hold to the truth within yourselves.” Are we willing to trust this place within us? Are we willing to place our confidence in the wisdom of our own heart and spirit? What if, every time we felt frightened or confused, we trusted our intuition? Most of us, because we mistrust ourselves, habitually second-guess our feelings and perceptions. But what if we trusted ourselves, our gifts, our inner voice? What if we assumed our feelings were accurate and were telling us something important about ourselves and the world? What if we trusted our hearts, relying on our ability to receive sensitive information from those around us, and acted as if what we felt were true? How much more courageous we would be if we felt that all of the perceptions of our mind, heart, and spirit were intact, fully functional, and working perfectly on our behalf.

The following is an exercise that many people have used with much success. I ask them to try this behavior for a single day: Resolve to go through an entire day assuming that you are trustworthy, that all your feelings are accurate, that all your perceptions and intuitions are reliable. As you approach each person or situation, ask yourself the questions, If I knew that I was absolutely trustworthy, how would I handle this moment? What would I do? What could I say that would be true? What would be the right action to settle this situation with safety and clarity? Once we begin to imagine that we have all we need to answer the questions of life within ourselves, it is amazing how quickly our habitual fears begin to melt away.

Faith, Acceptance, and Serenity

Throughout our lives, our jobs will change, our bodies will grow old, people will come and go, and we will have success and failure, health and disease. Nothing will belong to us, nothing will stay, nothing will remain the same. And yet, in the midst of it all, still we breathe, our hearts beat, our days go from morning until night, and we remain present and alive. With the equanimity of the mountain, the courageous heart feels it all, yet remains faithful and assured that within ourselves, all will be well.

There is a Zen story about a certain general who, during a civil war, led his troops through the countryside, overrunning everything and everyone in his path. The people of one town, having heard the tales of his cruelty, were terrified when they heard he was coming in the direction of their village, and they all fled into the mountains. The general marched into the empty town and sent his troops to search for any who remained. Some of the soldiers came back and reported that only one person remained, a Zen priest. The general strode over to the temple, walked in, pulled his sword, and said, “Don’t you know who I am? I am the one who can run through you without batting an eye.”

The Zen master looked back and calmly responded, “And I, sir, am one who can be run through without batting an eye.” Hearing this, the general bowed and left.

Faith is not a fortress against danger; faith unfolds like a lotus flower, resting deep within us, a quiet place of deep trust. It is not a magic formula that prevents suffering; it is a place of strength where we feel most vitally present in heart and spirit. As children of family pain, we learned to withstand the changing events and circumstances that punctuated our lives. As adults, we may rediscover this same inner strength and use it to cultivate faith in our spirit, our true nature, and our deep, inner wisdom.

As we become more centered in what is deepest in ourselves, we slowly uncover a place of serenity where even the memory of a drunken father or an angry mother cannot disturb the waters of our soul. This is a very difficult place for many of us to find, and even more difficult to sustain. We may cultivate our sense of faith through a daily practice of prayer or meditation, where we consistently revisit that place within us that is strong enough even to hold what frightens us and to endure the sorrows of being human. Thomas Merton, the monk, poet, and spiritual scholar, said that through prayer and meditation we may find sanctuary in those fearful moments when sanctuary seems impossible. In dialogue with these voices of our heart and spirit, we take refuge in the Buddha, in the heart of Jesus, in what we call “the God within us.” And through practice, we learn to place our faith and trust in those inner voices of clarity, strength, and wholeness.

Finally, we may even discover that our sense of humor, our ability to laugh at ourselves and our fears, can help us invoke a playful sense of faith that, despite the slings and arrows of life, somehow all will be well.

Sally came to see me because she had been terribly frightened of many things in her life and wanted to learn how to feel more secure and self-assured. We spent many hours exploring the wounds of her childhood. We explored the afflictions she suffered at the hands of her parents. We did several guided meditations, collages, and journals—in short, everything we could think of to help her feel protected. Yet despite our best efforts, she still felt very much afraid.

Then one day Sally came bouncing into my office with a big grin on her face and bright, raspberry-colored, high-top sneakers on her feet. “I bought these yesterday and put them on, because I thought wearing raspberry sneakers would definitely protect me. From now on, I am going to wear raspberry sneakers every day for safety.” We laughed together, enjoying the freedom that came when she allowed her playfulness and courage to melt away some of the fears that had locked up her heart.

Rumi, the Sufi poet, speaks of the moment when we meet our fears with deep faith, playfulness, and love:

Today, like every other day, we wake up empty
and frightened.

Don’t open the door to the study and begin reading.
Take down the dulcimer.

Let the beauty we love be what we do.
There are hundreds of ways to kneel and kiss the
ground.

MEDITATION
Cultivating A Place Of Safety

Find a comfortable sitting position in your place of refuge. Allow yourself a moment to relax, then gently close your eyes. Let your awareness come to your breath, noting the sensations of rising and falling as the air moves in and out of your body. Allow the rhythm of your breathing to bring a sense of calm and quiet to your body and mind.

Take a few moments to scan your body from within. Beginning at the top of your head and very slowly moving downward, note the variety of sensations that are occurring in your body. Feel the top of your skull, your forehead, eyes, mouth, tongue, and teeth. Feel the bones and muscles of the jaw, neck, and shoulders. Take as much time as you need with each section of the body, noticing any tension or relaxation that arises as you focus your awareness on each area.

Allow your awareness to drift downward through the chest, back, arms, wrists, hands, and fingers. Let your attention move through the internal organs of the stomach, the kidneys, the intestines. Feel the lower back, the pelvis, the pressure of your buttocks on the ground. Be aware of the thighs, knees, ankles, feet, and toes. Keep noting any sensations you discover as you make your way through your body.

When you are finished, allow your attention to rest gently back on your breathing for a moment or two. After you have centered yourself fully in the breath, you may try the following meditation.

Ask your mind to allow an image of safety to emerge from deep within you. Allow an image to arise in which you feel absolutely, completely safe. It may be a place, a person, or a time in your life. Simply allow a picture to emerge in your awareness in which you feel totally protected, nurtured, and safe from all harm.

As the image arises, what does it look like? What do you notice about the color, the temperature, and the texture? Are you alone or with someone? What do you feel when you are in that picture? Let the experience surround you like a soft garment, allowing yourself to linger for several moments, letting yourself feel the full comfort of being absolutely safe and protected.

After some time, choose a place in your body where you may anchor the image. Imagine that you are actually placing that image somewhere in your body, somewhere it will remain and stay with you always. It may be in your chest, your heart, your arms, legs, or hands—in short, anywhere you feel it will be most helpful, where you will have access to that image whenever you need it. Anchor it deep and strong in your body, so that it may be a constant companion.

When you feel you have the image planted within you, slowly allow your awareness to return to your breathing, letting the image become a part of you. No longer separate, it lives inside you. With each breath, allow the image to find a permanent home in your body.

After a while, continuing to let your awareness rest on the breath, you may gently open your eyes.

When you are finished, you may want to try drawing the image of safety that arose. With an easy and playful attitude, take a few minutes to visually record your experience of safety with some simple drawing materials like crayons or pastels. Don’t be afraid of not being an accomplished artist-just choose the most potent images and colors, and draw what you saw and felt.

If you like the drawing, you may place it somewhere you can see it often, perhaps in your bedroom. Use it as an additional reminder of the place of safety you hold continuously within yourself.

EXERCISE
Exploring Fear in the Body

The next time you feel afraid, instead of watching for the danger outside yourself, focus instead on your breath for a moment. Using your breath as the center of your attention, first let yourself become aware of the physical sensation of breathing as your abdomen rises and falls, as your lungs expand and contract. As you begin to relax, let the object of fear arise in your heart. Without allowing the fear of it to overcome you, let whatever is causing fear to simply exist as an image in your mind, without judgment and without trying to change or eliminate it. There is no need to protect yourself from this moment. At the same time, keeping your attention centered on the breath, let your breath become the mountain of equanimity, the place within you that remains unmoved.

As the fear arises, we may simply note its coming: “Ah, fear, fear. There it is again.” Then we may explore the feelings that arise: Where is the sensation strongest? In the chest, the muscles, the belly? What additional images arise along with the fear? Watch where the fear stays longest, watch as it begins to recede. Simply investigate this fear, making peace with the sensations that arise. If we resist the urge to protect ourselves and move gently into the experience of fear, what other sensations or impulses arise?

As each impression or sensation arises, silently acknowledge it to yourself: “Fear, fear” or ‘‘tightness, tightness.” You may also make a note of your thoughts: “Despair, despair” or “ruin, ruin.” With each breath, begin to make peace with whatever you have been given, opening your heart to the possibility that this may not be a disaster but simply an unexpected variation in the color or texture of your day. Perhaps there is no danger at all, merely a shift in sensations. Practice this for several minutes, observing how your body and heart respond as you bring mindful awareness to the sensations of fear.

You may end this exercise with a meditation on equanimity. You may want to recite this serenity prayer: “God grant me the serenity to accept those things I cannot change; the courage to change the things I can; and the wisdom to know the difference.”

You may also repeat, silently within yourself the following phrases: “May I be balanced and at peace. May I be undisturbed by the changing events of my life and the world around me. May I have faith in myself. May I have faith in the strength of the spirit within me.”

Acknowledge to yourself that all created things arise and pass away— joys and sorrows, pleasant events, unpleasant events, friends, loved ones— even whole nations will come and go. “May I learn to see the arising and passing away of all things with equanimity and balance. May I have faith in the spirit within me. May I be open, courageous, and peaceful.”