Radical Acceptance: Awakening the Love that Heals Fear and Shame by Brach Tara

Author:Brach, Tara [Brach, Tara]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Ebury Publishing
Published: 2012-08-30T12:00:00+00:00

CAUGHT IN THE TRANCE OF FEAR

We are caught in the trance of fear when the emotion of fear becomes the core of our identity and constricts our capacity to live fully. The trance of fear usually begins in childhood when we experience fear in relating to our significant others. Perhaps as an infant our crying late at night may have frustrated our exhausted mother. When we saw her frowning face and heard her shrill tone, suddenly we felt unsafe with the person we most counted on for safety. Our arms and fists tightened, our throat contracted, our heartbeat raced. This physical reaction of fear in response to disapproval may have happened repeatedly through our early years. We might have tried out something new—putting on our clothes all by ourselves and getting them backwards. We might have poured a cup of grape juice—but spilled it on the living room carpet. When we took a family trip to Grandma’s, we may have wet the bed on the first night. Each time our mother’s disapproving look and tone of frustration were directed at us, we felt the same chain reaction of fear in our body.

While the bodies of young children are usually relaxed and flexible, if experiences of fear are continuous over the years, chronic tightening happens. Our shoulders may become permanently knotted and raised, our head thrust forward, our back hunched, our chest sunken. Rather than a temporary reaction to danger, we develop a permanent suit of armor. We become, as Chogyam Trungpa puts it, “a bundle of tense muscles defending our existence.” We often don’t even recognize this armor because it feels like such a familiar part of who we are. But we can see it in others. And when we are meditating, we can feel it in ourselves—the tightness, the areas where we feel nothing.

The trance of fear not only creates habitual contraction in our body. Our mind too becomes trapped in rigid patterns. The one-pointedness that served us in responding to real threats becomes obsession. Our mind, making associations with past experiences, produces endless stories reminding us of what bad things might happen and strategizing how to avoid them. Through I-ing and my-ing, the self takes center stage in these stories: Something terrible is about to happen to me; I am powerless; I am alone; I need to do something to save myself. Our mind urgently seeks to control the situation by finding the cause of the problem. We point the finger either at others or at ourselves. As Barbara experienced, the fear of her father’s rage was compounded by feeling that her own badness made him so mean to her. We might tell ourselves that inevitably we’ll always ruin things for ourselves or others, or, trapped in the powerlessness of victimhood, that others will always ruin things for us. Either way, our stories tell us we are broken and need to be on guard.

Feelings and stories of unworthiness and shame are perhaps the most binding element in the trance of fear.

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