When I meditate, sometimes I feel a lot of fear . . . how do I deal with that?

When we turn our attention inward we all experience a vast range of emotions—some quite pleasant and others quite challenging. You can bring the two wings of mindfulness—sincere interest and kind attention—to fear; recognize and name it “fear, fear” and experiment with allowing rather than judging or pushing it away. Soon you will notice that there are thoughts about the circumstances related to the fear (i.e., storyline often from the past or the imagined future) plus the immediate presence of physical sensations related to feeling the fear in the present time. At this point you can shift attention to the sensations (e.g., tension in the belly or shoulders, heat in the face, heart pounding) including them with embodied presence.

You can experiment with breathing with the sensations; relaxing around the tension; placing your hand on your heart and whispering a message of care, “This is hard and I am right here,” “May I feel at ease,” “May I remember love right now,” or whatever words or gestures are a compassionate expression of keeping yourself company. You can also bring to mind a person or pet or place that brings you comfort and/or evokes the felt-sense of loving presence—like calling on an ally to sit with you as you hold the fear together.

You will come to see that strong emotion is like a weather system that swoops in, stays for a while, and eventually dissipates. Embodied presence cultivates a wise and compassionate relationship with the emotion rather than judging, rejections, or drowning in the experience.

There are times when the emotion can feel like drowning and you don’t feel grounded or resourced enough to be with it. Then it is very skillful and compassionate to step back and to shift the attention away from the story line and sensations related to the fear. You might open the eyes, take several full deep breaths, and sense what is needed now to settle and calm the mind and body. It may be to reach out to a friend, to take a walk, have a cup of tea. Trust that you will find your own way to dance with fear.