Smiling At Fear
Smiling At Fear
I began to read a a great deal on Buddhism in my thirties. I was searching for tools such as meditation, compassion, and forgiveness practices to reduce the underlying fear, manifesting most frequently as doubt and anxiety, that seemed to be subtly buzzing beneath my daily interactions. I had been reading Pema Chodren’s books for several years and had found many of her insights and practices useful. So,I was grateful that I had already adopted some of the tools she had written about when my mother was diagnosed with ALS in 2009.
I remember the moment that I realized that my mother’s death was far more immanent than I had ever perceived. That morning I sat there and had this intense feeling of being over whelmed. Death, loss, not having my mother for the rest of my life. I could barely breath, and I began to sweat profusely. I remember telling my mind at that moment “I can not handle this thought right now: I will have to digest this experience bit by bit as it comes: not in one fell swoop”.
Although that moment passed with out too much damage, it made me realize that I really could not handle imagining the entire journey every time I thought about my mother. "Stay present to this moment" would become my motto. And So long as I stayed present to the moment the "NOW" of how my mother was doing at any given time, I could handle it. I found I could be present and experience the situation wether it was sitting outside the terrace with her, watching T.V. silently on the couch together or even when discussing that she was afraid of what she would miss out on when she died. If I did not allow my mind to wander, sometimes sneak all on its own, to the unknown future where my imagination created really scary movies, a miracle took place in that I did not feel that terrible overwhelming feeling within my body of being out of control. This became my practice- to maintain my inner peace within each moment.
The fall before my mother died, I decided to attend a retreat given by Pema Chodron. Its title was "Smiling At Fear" based on a book that she had previously written about dealing with our deep Seated yet often hidden fears. I thought that this experience would hopefully provide me with some beneficial strategies for the journey I was currently traveling on with the impending death of my mother.
One of the exercises of the two day retreat was to turn to your neighbor( hopefully a stranger) and take turns sharing what you each were currently afraid of. I turned to this attractive woman probably in her late thirties to early forties and smiled. She offered that I could go first. So, I shared with her that I was scared that I would be overwhelmed with fear and full of uncontrollable emotions at the time of my mother’s death and therefore I would not be able to be present and meet her needs. I sobbed as I spoke these words out loud and the reality of this impending experience became a foreseen reality.
There was also this shifting within my body as I finished talking a releasing of this stored fear that had been trapped inside me silently haunting me. Allowing myself to experience the feelings and emotions that were present within me at that moment had this loosening effect in that my emotions did not have such a strong hold on me.
Then it was her turn. She shared with me that she had terminal cancer and a twelve year old daughter. Her fear was that her daughter would be left with a stigma of having a mother who died when she was so young and that this stigma would be a difficult identity to overcome for such a young person. I sat quietly as she spoke her fears to me. I knew that there was nothing that I could say to fix the situation and that was not my job anyway. My job was to listen and allow her the same gift of being completely heard as she had done for me.
What I remember so clearly of this experience is the depth of compassion and this feeling of being completely heard by this stranger. The tightness and stress that I experienced within my body as I went into the exercise had subsided and a greater sense of space now surrounded my fear.
Although I was incredibly grateful for this unique exchange, I did not truly appreciate what a magical moment I was experiencing at the time. Little did I understand that a silent healing was taking place between us as we shared our fears to one another and they were seen, experienced and allowed to be known.