Sticks and stones may break my bones
But words shall never hurt me.

The rhyme is used as a defense against name-calling and verbal bullying, intended to increase resiliency, avoid physical retaliation and to remain calm.
~~[Wikipedia]

Whatever we may say, unkind words or even words that were not meant unkindly, can often hurt us.

Belonging, approval, and being part of a group or tribe is important to us because it enhances our survival (it is an evolutionary drive). Therefore, we feel good when we get approval from others and feel bad when we get their disapproval. Because of survival, our minds also have a negative bias.

The negative bias is our tendency not only to register negative stimuli more readily but also to dwell on these events. … In almost any interaction, we are more likely to notice negative things and later remember them more vividly.
~~[VeryWellMind]

To quote Julia Roberts in Pretty Woman, “the bad stuff is easier to believe.”

The Bad Stuff Is Easier to Believe

When we hear speech, our mind processes it and categorizes it. From this comes our own perception of what is said. Our perception of what is said is colored by our past memories, learned habits, our current mood, and more. Based on this perception, one or more emotions may arise. We may feel happy at a compliment from a respected friend, or insulted by a perceived cruel remark from a foe.

My mother once told me this – “Your father does not love you and would abandon you to get what he wants.”

Obviously, this affected me greatly and caused me great emotional pain. It caused me great pain and sorrow then, and the memory of it continues to cause me pain, even though my mother has since passed away. Why is that and is there a way to release that continued pain and suffering?

As described previously, there are many causes and conditions that contribute to the arising of an emotion. Once an emotion arises, we have an opportunity to decide on our response. We can let that emotion control our subsequent action, or we can override the prescribed action of that emotion. Our natural state is to be in automatic mode, which is to say that we keep our messy emotions suppressed so that it doesn’t rise to consciousness. In this way, we unconsciously act according to our emotions. This can lead to unwanted consequences like the continuous pain and suffering from the memory of my mother.

A careless or inaccurate statement, if left unchallenged mentally, leads to inaccurate thoughts that cause difficult emotions to arise. This further leads to more inaccurate thoughts, which later become beliefs, that then lead to more difficult emotions and so on, until it snowballs into a lifetime of hurt as well as suffering.

“Your father does not love you and would abandon you to get what he wants,” leads to –

1. Belief that my father does not love me. ➞ Fear of being unloved and emotional pain.
2. Belief that my father could abandon me at any time. ➞ Fear of abandonment and emotional pain.
3. Why does my mother say these things? She must really dislike me. ➞ Belief that I must be a bad daughter or unworthy of her love. ➞ Belief that I am generally not worthy ➞ Fear of failure, being unloved, and emotional pain.
4. Why does my father not love me? ➞ Belief that I am not worthy of love. ➞ Fear of being unloved and emotional pain.
5. My mother is a terrible person for causing me all this pain. ➞ Fear of my mother.
6. What did I ever do to get such bad parents? ➞ Belief that I am not worthy ➞ Fear of failure and emotional pain.

Each thought generates more fear and pain, which generates more negative thoughts and so on. Soon, these thoughts harden into deep beliefs, which corrodes self-esteem and self-love. The process becomes habit and as more and more afflictive emotions arise, it affects our mood and we become hypersensitive to all things that others say. This makes us mistrust people in general, because people say hurtful words, cause painful emotions, and are therefore threats. We reject and withdraw from people, thereby actualizing our fears of being unloved and abandoned.

We feel isolated and very alone. However, no man is an island and we need others to survive. So fear now compels us to seek out support and company. This can sometimes lead to extreme people pleasing or approval seeking behavior.

In this way, our competing fears make us run around in circles. When we are with people, we feel pain and suffering from perceived verbal wounds and other fears that their words activate. To avoid this pain, we isolate ourselves from people and their words. When this occurs, we feel lonely and in need of support. The pain of isolation and abandonment ultimately leads us to seek out company and the cycle continues.

I Don’t Give A F*ck Coping Mechanism

Faced with this seemingly neverending cycle of fear, many of us resort to the “I Don’t Give A F*ck” coping mechanism, which is also known as blame and denial. In short, we blame others for making us feel bad, get angry with them, and then try to convince ourselves that we do not care what people say; but of course we still *do* care because that is how our minds work.

Our mind is designed to care because that is how it learns, by absorbing information. The learning capability of our mind is a superpower because it makes us highly adaptable to changing situations. However, it also makes us highly suggestive to learning the wrong things and thus falling prey to afflictive emotions that arise from distorted beliefs of reality.

Of course I care what my mother says. She is my mother and I depended on her for survival for much of my childhood. My evolutionary drive for survival compels me to care about what my mother says, what my boss says, and what others’ say. Denying that I care does not make it so, and more importantly, it does not address the root of the pain and fear.

However, just because my mother says it does not mean it is true. Just because my own mind thinks it in the moment, does not mean it is true either. Many of the things that people say are inaccurate and driven by their own fears, pains, and past. When my mother said my father did not love me and would abandon me, she was projecting her own pain of my father leaving her and not loving her anymore. She was likely also projecting pain from her own difficult childhood and losing her mother at a young age. It had very little to do with me. Yet, my mind created all these thoughts and stories around it.

My mistake was not that I cared what my mother said, but rather that I believed what she said at the surface level. If I had looked deeper, I would have seen what my mother was truly saying, and then I would feel compassion for her, instead of fear, pain, and suffering for my own false perception of unworthiness and abandonment. Now that I see it, I can deal with my own fears of unworthiness and abandonment, so that they have less control over me the next time someone says something that triggers it. This builds emotional resiliency and self-love.

Learning to Listen Deeply

Blame and anger are very tempting tools to use, especially in the midst of fear, because blame abdicates us from responsibility of failure (it is my mother’s fault, not mine) and anger gives us a semblance of control (to avoid suffering, all I need do is avoid my mother). However, blame and anger are maladaptive coping mechanisms because they lead us to avoid the pain and fear rather than face them head-on. By blaming my mother, I avoid facing my own fear of unworthiness and abandonment. By replacing fear with anger I take the wrong action, avoiding my mother, instead of facing my original fears. In this way, my old fears grow and I create new ones – fear of my mother and more generally, fear of verbal harm from everyone around me.

Overusing blame and anger will cause our fears to multiply.

The next time that someone says something hurtful to you, remind yourself that blame and anger are pointless and will only grow our fears. Instead, try to listen below the surface into the heart of the matter. Before believing a thought or an utterance, follow it back to its causes and conditions to see if it is true. You will quickly see that in most cases, hurtful utterances have more to do with the speaker than with you. Once you see this, the utterance and all the thoughts as well as emotions that come from it will lose their power over you.

Soothing Fear with Love

There was a period of almost 10 years where fear seemed to recede in my life. It started when I met my furry soul-mate Shania and ended soon after her death. Looking back, I now see that Shania was so special to me because somehow, without even knowing it, she answered my every fear with love.

The most effective antidote to fear (aversion or withdrawal) is love (engagement). This is why phobias (extreme fears) are effectively addressed with exposure (purposeful decision to engage with that which we fear).

When we learn to understand and love that which we fear, we will no longer fear it.

That happened with my mother. When I faced my fear of my mother, and learned to understand her and her motivations, I developed compassion for her, and for the first time, learned to forgive her. This helped to release a lot of the pain from childhood that has haunted me my whole life. Note that the compassion and forgiveness helped me deal with my issues and were not done for my mother, who had sadly passed away by then.

We truly love the poor, old, sick, and dying, only when we have dealt with our own core existential fears of poverty, aging, illness, and death. When we have faced these fears, then we will be truly free to love ourselves and others unconditionally.

Recently, I went through a very painful and dark period, after my furry soulmate Shania passed away. Suddenly I was buffeted by such strong emotional winds that I felt I could not cope. At first, I did my best to pretend that everything was perfectly fine. However, it was not long before everything crumbled and I felt tired all the time, was physically ill, had no appetite, and couldn’t muster the strength to get out of bed.

It was during this time that I read The Tao of Fully Feeling and from there I started to explore the interesting field of Buddhism. Unlike a lot of Western psychology which emphasizes only the positive, Buddhism starts off by looking at suffering, the causes of suffering, the cessation of suffering, and how to achieve it through the 8-fold path. That Path is the path to enlightenment.

Buddhism, Enlightenment, and Suffering

Enlightenment –
A concept in spirituality, philosophy and psychology related to achieving clarity of perception, reason and knowledge.
Being advanced and having gained necessary information or knowledge, especially spiritual knowledge.
(buddhism & hinduism) A state in which the individual transcends desire and suffering and attains nirvana.
~~[Your Dictionary]

The wonderful thing about Buddhism is that it approaches emotions and suffering from the deep perspective of understanding and wisdom. In this way, all the definitions above apply. Enlightenment is achieved not through some arcane ritual that we take on faith, but through deep self-examination, self-experience, and reflection on the three characteristics of all phenomenon –

1. Impermanence – Everything rises and ceases. Because everything is transient, we will face loss; the loss of belongings, the loss of loved ones, the loss of happiness, aging, illness, and death.
2. Dissatisfaction – It is in the nature of our mind to continuously categorize all things as good, bad, or neutral. As a result of this we form attachments to the good and aversions to the bad. Because all things are impermanent, we get dissatisfied and suffer when conditions change from what we perceive as good, to what we perceive as bad.
3. Emptiness and No-Self – All three of these characteristics are quite deep and nuanced, however, this last one was the most difficult to understand and accept. Emptiness refers to how all things are empty of inherent existence. In the Dalai Lama’s book on Buddhism he captures this concept well by explaining how a melody is not contained within a flute. Rather, it is brought forth by the combination of musician, flute, and air vibrations. I.e. the melody is not intrinsic to the instrument but arises dependent on various causes and conditions.
    
   Similarly, our emotions are not intrinsic to us, but arise dependent on causes and conditions. Remove any one of those causes and conditions, and the emotion ceases to arise. Our brain’s categorization of all things into good, bad, and neutral are also empty of inherent existence. They arise based on conditions such as our emotions at the moment, physical sensations, mood, habits, beliefs, memories, and more. Change any one of those things and we get a different result.
    
   Good, bad, evil, loser, and other traits that we commonly attribute to self or other are also not intrinsic. What we consider to be the self of this moment, is different from the self of the previous moment, and that of the next moment. We may judge an act to be cruel, but like the melody, the act is not intrinsic to self or other. Just like everything else, it arises dependent on causes and conditions. Blame in this context becomes pointless.

Repeated reflection on the three characteristics, together with the application of appropriate antidotes can be very helpful for emotion regulation and in stopping entanglement with problematic emotions.

Our minds are infinitely malleable. It can learn, change, and grow in a fairly short period of time. This makes us highly adaptable, which is a great advantage to our survival and evolution. Whatever unhealthy habits and incorrect beliefs we have formed in childhood and later can be unlearned, retrained, changed. However, this also means that our minds are susceptible to unhealthy suggestions, misunderstandings, and pervasive conditioning. This is why we employ mindfulness, introspective awareness, the 3 characteristics, and various antidotes, to prevent such disturbances.

The Problem with Enlightenment

The problem with enlightenment or the promise of an end to suffering, is that we quickly cling to attainment of that ideal. In so doing, we give in to our fear of suffering and end up pushing enlightenment farther away. This is similar to how the direct pursuit of happiness makes us more unhappy.

As always, the answer lies not in the goal, but rather in the journey itself. The Buddhist Path gives us the tools to lessen our suffering each and every day, if we choose to travel upon it. The Path or journey is its own reward, just as life is its own reward. Neither needs a meaning or an end-goal. Grasping for an end to suffering will only create greater dissatisfaction for us in the present, and prolong our current suffering.

I recently read an article on the enlightenment experiences of several Buddhist teachers. Described within it are a series of personal accounts of spontaneous enlightenment, achieved after having met Poonja-ji. Even more interesting is a follow-up article with a series of responses from teachers and luminaries in the field. Here are excerpts from some of the responses –

Perhaps your issue has done the community a favor in displaying the very prejudice and pride that, hidden behind the cloak of “liberation spirituality,” is ripping the planet apart. Our vulnerability to such spiritual narcissism tends to weaken faith and confidence in the very practices that are intended to liberate.
~~[Michele McDonald-Smith and Steven Smith, Insight Meditation Society and Vipassana Hawaii]

I think this pointing-out instruction is particularly relevant to us in America, where we seem to have a penchant for the “quick fix,” even in spiritual practice. Intimations of freedom are not liberation. They can either inspire us further or lull us into complacency. It is up to us.
~~[Joseph Goldstein, Insight Meditation Society]

Given that this debate is one that has bedeviled the Buddhist community for centuries (cf. gradual versus sudden enlightenment in Zen), we would have hoped for a more balanced approach, … Exposure to other perspectives and teachers can certainly be helpful in gaining fresh insights that make our previous understanding seem incomplete, even naïve. This need not indicate a deficiency in that first tradition, merely an immaturity and impatience in oneself.
~~[Fred von Allmen, Damma Gruppe, Stephen Batchelor, Gaia House]

I am fairly new to Buddhist teachings but here are my thoughts on the two articles. The first article increased my doubts on the truth of enlightenment. While spontaneous enlightenment may make memorable stories, they lack in methodology and do nothing to help increase my understanding of emotions, self, life, or anything else. Furthermore, these stories were told by teachers who have not had success with years of following rigorous practice and techniques, only to go searching for something better. This does not exactly instill confidence in the teachings.

The second article pulled no punches and was definitely a burn. Perhaps we should only be happy for our fellow sentient beings who have achieved a temporary peace. However, a rebuttal may be necessary due to the doubts and misunderstandings left by the first article.

Is Anyone Truly Enlightened?

All this left me to wonder if anyone is truly enlightened. These are all people who have practiced the Path for a long time and yet they seemed not too different from the rest of us; still beset with emotional warts and afflictions. Then it struck me that this comparison is self-defeating and a product of getting entangled in doubt and fear. In actuality, I learned many things from both articles and they inspired me to write this piece.

Enlightenment is not an all or nothing event. For me, enlightenment is a process of understanding. It is the mind trying to understand itself. This increased understanding has helped in my day-to-day emotional health. I still get entangled in afflictive emotions, but less so today than yesterday.

The articles made me realize that I was still grasping for the end-goal of some special enlightened state. Instead, a daily focus on practicing mindfulness, introspective awareness, as well as contemplating the 3 characteristics was already bringing good results and would likely serve me well for the future. Ultimately, I do not know if true enlightenment or a total end to suffering is possible. What I *do* know is that grasping for a total end to suffering will only bring us more suffering.

The many teachings of Buddhism have made a big difference in my life. I do not agree with all of the doctrine, but the spirit of questioning lies at the heart Buddhism. This adherence to mind exploration and freedom are what I love most about Buddhism.

It is said that the famous ninth-century Chinese Buddhist monk Linji Yixuan told his disciples, “If you meet the Buddha on the road, kill him.” The statement deliberately confounds people and is meant to jolt them from complacent ways of thinking. However, beyond this purpose there is another. One should seek the inner Buddha nature that resides within, not an external Buddha for liberation.
~~[Oxford University Press]

If you meet the Buddha, kill the Buddha. In other words, if you encounter a “Buddha” separate from yourself, you are deluded.
~~[Learn Religions]

Unfortunately, such fear motivated desires rarely lead to fulfillment. These desires are extreme, outcome based, uncompromising, intolerant, and not in-step with reality. As soon as we succeed, fear compels us to race toward the next goal, the next one after, and on and on it goes. Nothing is ever good enough and only constant perfection will do. Since our world is imperfect and ever changing, we will forever be racing about, always one step in front of fear, trying to achieve the impossible.

What Is Wasting Time?

The time you enjoy wasting is not wasted time.
~~[Bertrand Russell]

What is wasting time? To answer this question we need to set up some kind of value system for our time. In essence, this would be a value system for our life and for ourselves. If we spend our time achieving our meaning of life goals, then we are not wasting time, and we are worthy.

Our current society’s value system is based on money (material possessions), power (influence over others), and fame (admiration from others). Of course history and experience has shown us that the rich, powerful, and famous, do not live more meaningful, happy, or peaceful lives than anybody else. In fact, research shows that those who prioritize such extrinsic goals are least likely to be happy.

Thoreau, Bertrand Russell, and others may perhaps argue that enjoyment is the true currency of life. Enjoying beauty (nature, literature, song) and enjoying the process of creation are often cited as two of the key reasons for living. Therefore, to not waste time we should try to experience as much beauty as we can and create as much as we can. However, when life turns and presents us with pain and suffering, do we lose our reasons for living? When we no longer enjoy or cannot enjoy anything, for example when deep in grief or chronic depression, how do we cope? As Frankl discussed in Man’s Search for Meaning, enjoyment alone is insufficient as a meaning of life.

So then what qualifies as a worthy enough purpose for our time and for our life?

Fear of Wasting Time

Our fear of wasting time comes from our love of life. Because we love life, we naturally fear death and fear not utilizing our limited time to the fullest. Feelings of fear are normal and will arise whenever we love. If we love, we will fear the loss of that which we love.

Many of us see fear as a terrible enemy that must be eradicated from our lives. However, fear only becomes a problem when we do not tend to it and try to suppress or reject it instead. By trying to eradicate fear, we feed it and make it stronger.

When we analyze our fear of wasting time, we will realize that it more accurately comes from a fear of unhappiness or feeling bad. We only have a limited amount of time so we do not want to waste it feeling bad, unhappy, or discontented. We may reason that money, fame, and power will make us happy and so consider the pursuit of these happiness substitutes to be *not* wasting time. Similarly we may reason that enjoyment brings us happiness and pursue that instead.

The problem with these direct pursuits is that they originate from fear. Fear motivated pursuits often become hyper-desires, which are unhealthy, unrealistic, outcome based, and extreme. Fear narrows our perspective so that avoiding a negative outcome takes on an outsized importance. This results in a hyper-desire to achieve a positive outcome no matter what. In this case, we are so afraid of wasting time or feeling bad that we develop a hyper-desire to feel good all of the time. Any time we feel a little bit bad, fear comes and we frantically go searching for something else, something special, that will make us feel good again. When we cannot match the happiness of previous experiences, we become discontented and then fearful. When we see someone else being more happy, we become discontented and then fearful. Anything short of perfect happiness becomes a waste of time.

Ultimately, fear causes us to withdraw from life because nothing in life is good enough. We start to ask ourselves, “is this all there is to life?”

Is This All There Is to Life?

Life is not perfect. Whenever we use perfection as our yardstick for success, we will surely fail. That failure will cause us more pain and suffering, which will lead to more self-doubt and self-pity, resulting in more suffering and so on. In this way, we may fall into chronic anxiety and depression.

The key to happiness is to recognize that engagement in life or a love of life is its own reward. We do not need to search for reasons to love life because engagement with life will bring its own special joy and happiness. In contrast, indulging in fear and withdrawing from life will bring unnecessary pain and suffering.

One of my most problematic core beliefs is that I am in control of my own life. I had a very unstable childhood with divorced and messed-up parents. When I was growing up, I found this belief of control to be extremely empowering and soothing. I told myself that as soon as I am able, I will leave home, make my own decisions, and take control of my own life. This worked for a while.

Unfortunately, this is not how life works. In reality, there are many things in life that I do not control. Most of the time, I am *NOT* in control of my thoughts, emotions, body sensations, external situation, the people around me, and life in general. I will get ill, I will get old, and I will die. This fact of very limited control smacked me in the face when I lost my furry soul-mate Shania.

Life is ever changing and full of dualities. There is love, but from love comes fear of loss. There is happiness and sadness, pleasure and pain, success and failure, fame and disrepute, victory and defeat, gain and loss. In life, we will experience all of these states and often a mix of them. We cannot only choose to experience one side of the duality and not the other. When we face pain, loss, failure, and defeat, our instinct will be to recoil or withdraw from life. It is in these moments of suffering that we must embrace ourselves the most and remind ourselves to stay engaged with life.

With the great power of mindfulness, we can become fully present to the unbearable beauty and the inevitable tragedy that makes up human life. We can honorably and fully experience this one and only life that we have been given, with all its ups and downs. In my own life, I try to remember the words many of us have heard from the Ojibway Indians: “Sometimes I go about pitying myself when all the while I’m being carried by great winds across the sky.”
~~[Jack Kornfield]

Engaging with Life

When going through the dark night of my soul, I established a very simple rule – to always face my fear. I believe that a love of life and therefore engagement in life is a natural state of being, and fear (aversion) is the main emotion that causes me to withdraw from life. Therefore, by facing fear I can overcome most unhealthy tendencies toward withdrawal.

Our worries about wasting time is an excuse that fear uses to get us to avoid our difficult feelings. We avoid burdensome internal growth by focusing on external goals such as money, fame, and power. We try to change the external world rather than trying to change ourselves. By avoiding personal change and growth, we may get some short-term comfort, but we will ultimately endure a lot more unnecessary suffering.

Wanting to reform the world without discovering one’s true self is like trying to cover the world with leather to avoid the pain of walking on stones and thorns. It is much simpler to wear shoes.
~~[Ramana Maharshi]

To face my fear of wasting time, I use mindfulness techniques to calm my mind, feel the emotions, and analyze them. The more I face the unhappy feelings, the more tolerance I build. The more I understand the source of these emotions, the better I can update any incorrect beliefs that lead to them.

Every time fear arises, it is a reminder to embrace her and to continue to stay engaged with life. Every time I face my fear, I am choosing engagement over withdrawal. When I am engaged in life (loving life), I am not wasting time. In this way, fear is a great ally for getting me not to waste time.

He who is not everyday conquering some fear has not learned the secret of life.
~~[Ralph Waldo Emerson]

Why is happiness so hard to find? When we find happiness, why is it so hard to keep? When we so assiduously search for happiness, why do we find ourselves mired in anxiety and depression instead?

Life and Happiness

It is not too difficult to figure out that we get happiness by engaging with self and life. We become happy when we engage in or appreciate the beauty that is all around us, a glorious sunset, a poignant song, a majestic building, a kind neighbor, a playful puppy, a beautiful butterfly. We also get happiness through the process of creation and expression, writing a story, dancing to music, making art, interacting with loved ones, helping others. Happiness comes with embracing life through more passive enjoyment (appreciating) or more active participation (doing).

Each of us is different so the experiences that bring life happiness will also be different. The things we enjoy may change as we grow and mature, but that is also part of the beauty of life. As long as we are engaged, I believe that happiness comes naturally, almost effortlessly.

So why then is happiness so elusive? Why do we expend so much effort trying to find it and keep it, only to come up empty handed?

Happily Ever After

Ironically, the problem with happiness comes as a result of our love for it. When we love, we also fear losing or never attaining that which we love. Our love of happiness causes us to fear not finding or keeping it. If we do not tend to this very natural fear, it will grow and drive us to grasp at and possess happiness permanently. We will want the fairytale ending of living happily ever after, being in love and happy every single moment of our lives for eternity.

This hyper-intention of happiness or fairytale ending is unrealistic and can never be reached. In striving for the unattainable, we fail, become discontented, and miss the realistic moments of true happiness in our lives.

When I was young I went about achieving my fairytale ending by following the well-travelled path of school, college and successful career. I had a plan, I was going to execute it, give it my all, and then some. This is what society teaches us is the path to happiness. If we execute this path well when we are young, we will be all set and live happily ever after. Sadly, this is a load of horse pucky. Of course I was not happy. The world is littered with many rich, successful, talented, and famous people who are deeply unhappy even at the pinnacle of their success.

Happiness is not about money, fame, or anything else in the external world. We all know this at some level, studies show this, and yet we insist on disbelieving it and continue treading that same path over and over again. Note that money and fame are not inherently bad or unhealthy. The key here is the motivation for our striving, whether it comes from a place of fear or a place of love.

A fear driven intention for happiness is extreme, outcome based, uncompromising, intolerant, and not in-step with reality. A love driven intention for happiness is tolerant, process based, and engaged in understanding or deep listening.

Love-based –
When happiness comes, we welcome it and bow to it. When it goes, we say thank you in gratitude and let it go. We learn to welcome and enjoy the next emotion(s) that comes along.

Fear-based –
When happiness comes, we grasp at it and try to possess it for all time. When it goes, we panic and frantically try to hold-on to it. When we fail, we pretend, deny, become discontented, angry, depressed, and even more afraid that we will not be able to find happiness again. We blame others, reject our other emotions, and ultimately reject ourselves for failing to permanently hold onto happiness.

Happiness and Fear

When we cling to happiness because we fear being unhappy, we end up pushing happiness further and further away. Fear based desires continue to feed our fears and cause us to withdraw from life. In this case, our fear of being unhappy causes us to reject most of our other emotions because they are “not happiness”.

Since we are not in direct control of our emotions, rejecting large swathes of our feelings will cause us to be discontented most of the time. As soon as we are not happy we blame ourselves, project our blame onto those around us, blame Fate, blame God, or blame Life. We run around madly trying to recapture the happiness of past experiences or trying to copy the perceived happy experiences of others. If we are not as happy as before, we get discontented. If we are not as happy as others, we get discontented.

It is difficult to be happy when we are constantly driven by the fear of being unhappy.

Our discontentment and failure to achieve perfect happiness causes us more suffering, which feeds our fear of being unhappy, leading to more mad running around trying to find ever elusive happiness. When we do things to take our mind away from our unhappiness, there is little enjoyment in doing them because there is no love involved, only fear. Fear breeds more fear and so on until we fall into the chronic blahs, including boredom, discontentment, anxiety, and depression.

We start asking, is this all there is to life? The answer is no, because life need not be controlled by our fears.

How to Be Happy

I have found that there are three main ingredients to happiness –

1. Awareness

The first step to happiness is through awareness and mindfulness. To be happy, we first need to be aware of all our emotions, which is to say we want them to rise up to consciousness so that we may identify them and process them in a mindful and healthy manner.

Our conditioning or habit is to avoid our fears and other uncomfortable emotions through the use of automatic defense mechanisms (e.g. repression, denial, displacement). However, doing so leads to fear, envy, anger, or some other strong emotion controlling our decisions and behaviors.

With mindfulness training, we reinsert our consciousness back into the decision making process so that we may respond to difficult feelings from a calm center. In this way, we prevent ourselves from getting caught by our thoughts and emotions. With mental discipline we can self-soothe or regulate our responses and behaviors, as well as weaken the grip of fear and other problematic thoughts and feelings.

2. Engagement

As we have discussed previously, the secret to happiness is engagement with life. However, our fears cause us to withdraw from life. Therefore, every time fear tells us to withdraw, we carefully reflect on the situation using our new found mindfulness and awareness skills. If there is no real danger involved, then we override and choose to engage instead. By doing what fear tells us not to, we face our fears and slowly weaken the hold that fear has over us. This process is also known as exposure or paradoxical intention in psychological circles. Note that for exposure to “work” it has to be a deliberate decision from us, not a forced decision or action.

For example, when I first started meditation exercises, I developed a fear for meditation. Sitting silently caused many uncomfortable repressed thoughts and emotions to rise to consciousness (awareness) and this scared the daylights out of me. To face my fear of feeling bad, I deliberately decided to continue with meditation through the feelings of fear. Each time I faced this fear, the pattern weakened slightly, then a bit more, and so on until meditation became easier, more comfortable. Through repetition, I built a greater tolerance for fear and a greater understanding of the source of that fear.

From there, I started facing more and more of my fears and in the process I learned more and more about myself. I faced the fears of my childhood, including the fear of fear (hypersensitivity to the physical symptoms of fear) and the fear of abandonment, which resulted in hyper-approval seeking behavior. I faced my internal fears including fear of emotions, fear of self-worth, fear of failure, fear of shifting self-identity. I faced my existential fears including the fear of not having control, fear of duality, fear of illness, aging, and death.

Note that fear is a natural human emotion and it is an intrinsic part of us. As such, it cannot be eradicated or fully trained away. When we mindfully tend to our fears and repeatedly face them, fear will still arise but it will have a lessening effect on us.

Only to the extent that a person exposes themselves over and over again to annihilation and loss can that which is indestructible be found within them. In this daring lie dignity and the spirit of true awakening.
~~[Jack Kornfield]

3. Wisdom

Our life is made up of a series of dualities – gain and loss, success and failure, victory and defeat, happiness and sorrow, pleasure and pain, incredible beauty and deep suffering. It is not possible to have one without the other. Both sides of the duality contribute to the infinite richness of life.

Whether in success or failure, every experience is a learning experience, or an opportunity to gain wisdom. Every experience is a step forward in our journey and the seed for taking the next step. A success today may lead to a failure tomorrow. Similarly, learning from a failure today may lead to successes down the road. If we are mindful and stay engaged with life, we cannot truly fail. It is only when we stop learning or stop trying (withdraw from life) that we get into trouble. However, we can always get back onto the path by simply taking a step in the right direction.

The path to happiness is not a direct or easy one, but it is one that leads to freedom, love, and joy of life.

• She would be angry about something that someone did to her.
• She would be envious about something that someone else had.
• She would be depressed about her current state of affairs.
• She would be fearful about something she was about to lose.
• She would be afraid of failing in some task.

And so the endless list goes on.

One big takeaway from growing up as her child is that I never ever wanted to be like her. Over time, this developed into a gigantic fear and in a twist of great irony, all my striving to run away from my mother made me be more and more like her.

My Mother

Because I feared being like my mother, I developed a fear for tiredness, a fear of rejection, a fear of loss, a fear of failing, and more. I didn’t realize it at the time but my fear of her and what I saw as her “weaknesses” was exactly the thing that was making me into a copy of her. Fear and anger kept me away from truly understanding my mother, so I never understood myself.

After losing my two beloved dogs and falling into a very dark hole, I realized that the best way to deal with fear is to face her, and so I did. For the first time, I started looking at my mother more deeply.

My mother was full of fear. She herself had a difficult childhood having lost her mother at a very young age. Whatever mothering she got, she got from her eldest sister. She had many siblings and from what I could see, her father was mostly absent, being busy with his business. Based on family gatherings, I did not detect much real love (unconditional love) in their midst. There was a lot of gossiping and comparisons of relative success. One was admired based on career success and wealth.

For a long time I blamed my mother for screwing me up. When I was young I tried everything to gain my mother’s love. I bought her presents on Mother’s Day with whatever little money I had. I strived to be a perfect A-student in school and won many prizes. I tried to follow all her rules and not incur her wrath. But whatever I did was never enough.

My presents were dismissed with disdain. She was never interested in my scholastic achievements and never attended any of my prize giving ceremonies. When I did not achieve perfection, she would make sure to point out how her friends’ children did better. Her rules kept changing so there was no way to follow them or to avoid her rage. I developed anxiety issues even then and suffered a lot of digestive distress. In the end, I just tried to stay away from her as much as possible. Many children see being sent to their rooms as a punishment; for me, my room was my sanctuary.

When I was around 9 years old my parents got divorced, and that made my mother even worse. Both my parents had terrible tempers and there were many scary, shouting arguments throughout my childhood. These arguments intensified during the divorce period and for a while, conditions were very grim. Eventually, things settled down some and my mother redirected her attention to getting revenge by manipulating my brother and I to torment my stepbrother.

My mother was no Saint and she acted quite cruelly at times, especially towards my stepbrother who was very young and totally innocent. However, her actions were not deliberately malicious, rather she was driven by her own demons of fear. Everyone was trying to trick her, didn’t love her enough, and would likely reject her, so she rejected them first. She feared failing so she didn’t try anything, preferring to blame her circumstance on Luck, Fate, and the people around her. She was too afraid to examine her own self and her own life so she just kept giving in to her fears, making bad decisions, and ended up not living at all.

Nobody would consciously choose this path – alone, trapped by fear, and full of suffering. However, changing directions is very difficult, especially after a lifetime of running. I know this because I too have been running from fear and suffering all my life. I also ended up trapped by fear and full of suffering, but luckily for me, I have a very supportive spouse and I just had two experiences of deep unconditional love. Even with all this, it took me many months before I uncovered the true source of my suffering, which is fear – fear of fear (i.e. the symptoms of fear) and fear of suffering.

Fear and Suffering

My mother caused me a lot of emotional pain and trauma. I always took this very personally and blamed her for much of my unhappiness and anxiety. However, she inherited much of her pain and trauma from her own parents and so on, generation after generation of inherited suffering. None of them knew how to properly tend to their own fears and pain, so how could they teach their children any differently?

My mother rejected me over and over again because she repeatedly rejected herself. She projected her own fears onto me, so she criticized and belittled me as she was criticizing and belittling herself. Emotions are contagious so she was like a black cloud of doom, leaking negative energy to everyone around her. Eventually, she ended up abandoned and alone, with only her suffering to keep her company.

For a very long time I made my mother into the archvillain of my story. Even thinking and writing about her now brings up a deep fear within me. I fear her rages, I fear being around her, I fear being hurt by her again, and most of all, I fear being like her. If I did not blame my mother for my deep anxieties then who should I blame? Surely my child self was not responsible.

It is only after experiencing my own dark night of the soul that I finally realized that no one is to blame for our fear and suffering. Fear and suffering are an intrinsic part of life. We are all wired to love and from love comes fear. If we love someone or something, then the fear of loss naturally arises. Chronic anxiety arises when we keep running away from our fears and in so doing, they combine, grow, and take over our lives. My mother may have intensified my anxieties and helped them grow more quickly, but the patterns of fear, conflict, and suffering were there all along. Those patterns are part of being human and they are in all of us.

As such, at a basic level, fear and suffering are not personal. My mother acted badly because she was driven by her fears and maladaptive coping mechanisms to do so. Much of what she did had very little to do with me and much more to do with her own pain. In fact, she was suffering so much she did not have the time or energy for anyone or anything else, other than the thought of escaping from her own suffering. Unfortunately, she did not know how. All the things she did made things worse for herself and everyone around her. They were the same things I did at the worst of my chronic anxiety, the same coping mechanisms shared by us all to protect our fragile egos.

We take rejection so personally, when most of the time it is due to the suffering of the person dishing it out.

Forgiving My Mother

Many grief books and self-help gurus advise forgiveness. Forgiveness of self and others can help to ease our grief and emotional pain. I was so sick of my chronic anxiety and suffering that I tried really hard to forgive my mother, but I was never able to authentically do so.

I was never able to forgive my mother because I never truly understood her. There was too much fear and pain in the way. Now I see that forgiveness is only possible after we start working through our own fears and pain. Once I started doing that, life-long grudges, bitterness, and resentments started to weaken and fade away. Forgiveness cannot come from a place of fear, as a means of trying to escape suffering. Forgiveness only comes from a place of love, a love that develops from deep understanding.

Behind acts of hate, cruelty, and anger, is often a wellspring of suffering. Those who suffer spread their suffering not because they want to do evil but because they are compelled by their own demons of fear. Fear keeps us from knowing and lack of knowing keeps us from understanding and positive change. In this way we become stuck in our cycle of suffering and self-destructive behaviors. All of us go through this.

My mother had the same fears that many of us have. She feared being unloved, alone, and abandoned. She feared failing. She feared suffering. Like almost everyone else, she was never taught to tend to her anxieties so she repressed them, or projected her fears and blamed others. She was too afraid to learn and too afraid to change. She never helped me because she was too afraid to help herself.

For me, my mother embodied the soul of suffering. I feared her profoundly because I feared suffering profoundly. I escaped to the opposite side of the world so that I could be as far away from her as possible. But however hard I tried, I could not escape suffering because it is an intrinsic part of life. Trying to run away from suffering only made it larger and stronger.

I never really knew my mother. She passed away before I embarked on my journey of pain and self-awareness. When I was young I remember my mother singing “The Cherry Tree Carol” and ABBA’s “I Have a Dream”. I would have liked to know the woman who believed in those songs.

I believe that all of us are born with a limitless store of unconditional love. We start with unconditional love of self or of life (our survival instinct) and unconditional love of our parents. As we go through life, we come in contact with many other souls and may give unconditional love to fellow travelers along the way.

Why Is Unconditional Love So Hard to Achieve?

Given that we all desire to be loved unconditionally and have an endless store of love to give, why then is unconditional love so hard to do? Why is it so rare? Why do many of us madly search for it and never find it?

While unconditional love may sound perfect on first blush, it has its own challenges.

1. To open ourselves to receiving unconditional love we must also open ourselves to giving unconditional love.
2. To give unconditional love, we must first deal with our fears. If we do not face our fears, they will form fear-motivated desires or love with conditions.
3. To give unconditional love, we must also reconcile love with our rational mind. Our rational mind tells us to act based on reason. When we need to make important decisions we consider the pros and cons of the situation and pick the choice that will give us the best long-term fulfillment. Rational choice is by definition in conflict with unconditional love, which is love without reason.

Conditional Love and Fear

It is natural for us to love and we start with an unconditional love of life or of self. Because life is precious to us, we fear death. Fear, therefore, arises out of love and is part of the human experience. However, if we fear death then we fear getting hurt, getting ill, and aging. These fears, if unaddressed, can make it difficult for us to love life.

Unfortunately, we are taught that fear is bad, is a weakness, is an illness, is the work of the devil. As a result, we suppress our fears and our automatic coping mechanisms kick in to soothe our fragile ego from daunting reality, thereby warping it. We avoid our fear of death by pretending it does not exist, we get Botox injections to hold back aging, and illness is something we only discuss with our doctors in a cold and clinical fashion. God forbid if any one of us should show our emotions or expose our fears. In this way, we deny aging, illness, and death.

When we run away from our fears, they grow and our beliefs keep getting distorted by our automatic soothing system. Instead of accepting fear as a normal human emotion, we deny feeling any fear at all and ironically become controlled by it.

Fear causes us to only love ourselves when we are healthy and young, when we are useful, wealthy, successful, or whatever else. Fear places conditions on love and when fear grows, conditional fear or conditional desires crowd out unconditional love.

On the other hand, if we face our fears, deeply listen to their messages, and understand their true source, then we will see that they are simply a part of life, and something that we can accept and adapt to. We can give up our false belief in having complete control over our lives, our unrealistic goals and wishes, our hubris, and simply let ourselves experience life as it unfolds. When we do this, we actually gain more control of our lives and make better decisions.

We like to think of ourselves as the leaders in the dance of life. However, that is not reality. In reality, life is the leader who graciously lets us twirl, bend, and caper about. But when she decides to lead, we must respect her power and move with her. It is when we forget this fact and struggle that we create unnecessary suffering.

Unconditional Love and Rationality

I am very proud of my rational mind, which has helped me overcome many challenges. It has also gotten me into a thousand kinds of trouble.

We are born with an unconditional love of life and love of self. However, our rational minds balk at this fact, because we are taught that we must have reasons for everything, including love. Because of this, we run around madly searching for the reasons we should love life (meaning of life), as well as the reasons we should love our very own selves. We should love life because life brings us happiness and beauty. This may seem noble, but under this belief, when life brings us anything less than happiness and beauty, for example when it brings us loss, sorrow, and suffering, we get disappointed, we reject life, we reject parts of ourselves, and we suffer even more. This belief in conditional love or love based on reason creates unresolvable conflict within ourselves, and causes unnecessary anxiety and suffering.

There is nothing wrong with having a rational mind. In fact, I am a big proponent of rationality. It is when our rational minds are working off of incorrect facts that our troubles arise and grow. Here are some truths that I am retraining my rational mind to accept –

1. You are not in control of everything and that is ok.
2. You are not in control of many aspects of life and that is ok.
3. You are not in control of emotions and that is ok.
4. You are not in control of love and that is ok.
5. Unconditional love by definition is not based on reason. There is no need to look for any, just stop and relax.

Let yourself love without reason, let yourself love unconditionally. In this daring, you will find unconditional love in return.

Love, Trust, Relationships

Remember though, that feeling unconditional love towards someone is different from the decision of having a relationship with them. Sometimes, we may love a person but decide not to enter into an unhealthy connection. For example, I love my parents unconditionally, but I have only had very limited contact with them in my adult life.

Both my parents have had difficult childhoods themselves and as a result, they are not capable of giving unconditional love or maintaining healthy bonds. My mother is very afraid of love and thus is afraid of life. Because of fear she rejects everyone before they can reject her, she rejects learning, exploring, experiencing, and living. I love her even though I have spent countless years trying to convince myself that I ought not to. However, it is not possible to establish a relationship with one who rejects you with her every breath.

My father equates love with material success and a show of wealth. He liked spending money and he borrowed much of it. During childhood I saw very little of my father and all the times we spent together were based on his terms. He had little interest in discussing my thoughts or desires. Still, I hero-worshipped him all the way into mid-adulthood. The first time he asked me for a large sum of money, I gave it to him. The second time I said I could not. This led to many more money calls, lies, and ultimately he threatened me with his love and his health. I realized then that I could no longer have a relationship with him.

Our self-love demands that we set certain boundaries of respect, kindness, and trust with those we interact with. Sometimes, those we love are unable to return that love in kind. I do not believe that my parents enjoy being the way they are, but unfortunately, they are unable to face their own demons and free themselves to love unconditionally. It is a sadness, but one I have come to accept.

A healthy relationship does have conditions, of a sort: your boundaries. If your partner doesn’t respect your boundaries, the relationship isn’t healthy, no matter how deeply you love them. Moving on from it, then, could be an act of unconditional self-love.
~~[Healthline.com]

Meaning of Life

To paraphrase a wonderful quote …

Ask not what life can do for you — ask what you can do for life.

We already have an unconditional love of life. That is our survival instinct. We do not need to look for reasons to love life, we simply do. When we try to look for reasons, we invariably get disappointed because we are not happy enough, not young enough, not rich enough.

Instead of frantically asking life for reasons why we should love her, we can simply accept the truth that we do. Given that we love life, we can express this love by increasing our understanding of her many everyday miracles, and practicing our love across her many dual aspects, including her joys and sorrows, her gains and losses, her happiness and suffering.

Love is not bound by reason. Do not limit yourself by binding your inborn gift of infinite love to a pros and cons list.

Like a fool I strode forth, seeking to conquer Self-Love so that I may make a gift of her to myself … but she was nowhere to be found.

Everyone agrees that self-love is one of the main keys to happiness and a good life. We should all be kinder to ourselves, build self-esteem, and do deep listening of our inner hearts. Yet most of us end up doing the opposite. We berate ourselves for small mistakes, set up impossible to achieve goals, and never give ourselves a moment’s rest because nothing is ever good enough.

Why is that? Why are we so hard on ourselves?

Self-Love

All of us are born with a deep desire to love and to be loved. Because love is so precious to us we fear not having it, not possessing it. If we do not tend to this very natural fear and instead let it control us, then we develop a hyper-intention to possess love permanently, to own it for all time. Hyper-intentions, which are desires that are motivated by fears are extreme, outcome based, uncompromising, intolerant, and not in-step with reality. When we seek to own love, we push it farther away from us.

I believe that we are born with an unconditional love of self. Self-love motivates us to seek a good and happy life. We all try to listen to our inner hearts and to those around us, so that we may make ourselves happy. Unfortunately, due to lack of awareness, we spend more of our time listening to our demons of fear rather than our angels of love.

Fear says, “What makes you think you can defeat me, I have vanquished your parents and foes more worthy than you.”
Fear, I say, “My wish is not to vanquish you, but to pursue you and listen to your deepest dreams.”
Then Fear fell silent.

Am I Worthy?

One question we all ask ourselves is – Am I worthy (to be loved)?

This is a natural question for our rational minds. Indeed we are trained to search for reasons for everything, and so we need reasons to love. We need reasons to love others, and we need reasons to love ourselves.

My mind asks this question quite often. In the past I would run around searching for answers, and embark on self-improvement quests so that I may provide her with more and more satisfying answers. I am worthy because I was an A-student, I am creative, I am focused, I am curious, and so on. I will be even more worthy when I lose 30 pounds, get married, have two successful children, have 1 million followers, 2 million in the bank, get promoted to partner, can afford a big house, appear on television, and so on.

True love, however, is unconditional and not in our direct control. We cannot force someone to love us no matter what our internal or external achievements. Similarly, we cannot force ourselves to love someone based on their internal or external achievements. The good news is that we are all born with a gift of unconditional love for ourselves and our lives. Unfortunately, this gift gets covered up by our many hereditary fears and learned fears, leading us to doubt ourselves and to pursue paths that are motivated by fear rather than by love. It is fear or doubt that places conditions on our love of self and of others.

Self-Doubt – Why We Are So Hard on Ourselves

Self-doubt causes us to be uncertain and not believe in ourselves. Self-doubt is frequently an excuse that our mind creates in order to avoid facing our many fears.

I lost all three of my beloved dogs in the past 4 years. Needless to say, so much loss in such a short time was very traumatic. After I lost Shania, I started to really doubt myself. I did not know whether I was strong enough to handle life without her, I blamed myself for not doing more, not knowing more, I was not sure if I could take care of my other dogs properly, I was not sure if I could handle my grief and other emotions. When JJ passed away from cancer, my self-doubt and fear grew to such profound levels that I could hardly manage to live my life.

All this self-doubt comes from a fear of not being able to handle the tremendous grief and pain from the death of loved ones. Rather than facing this fear and this pain, my mind came up with many excuses for avoiding it. I am not capable of handling my emotions so let me binge watch Netflix instead. I cannot tolerate the emptiness of life so let me exercise until I fall into an exhausted sleep. Unfortunately, filling my days with doing this or that only worked in the very short term. Every time I avoided the pain, my fear grew and my self-doubt along with it.

The way to quiet self-doubts and to clear away the mud that covers our gift of unconditional self-love is to face our fears. I had to face my fear of grief, fear of emotional pain, fear of feeling bad, fear of suffering. To do this, I leaned into the fear instead of running away from it, which meant leaning into the pain. Every time I thought of Shania or JJ, I purposefully brought my awareness back again and again to the associated emotional pain. I did this by training myself on mindfulness and various self-soothing techniques including using the observer position (meta moment), CBT, analysis of self, journaling, and more.

Now whenever I have any self-doubts, I call them out for what they are, which are excuses for not facing fears. I tell myself that whatever excuses my mind comes up with, I will continue to face my fears. Then I analyze each fear, face it, and repeat until the pattern weakens.

Self-Doubt and Childhood

All of us have self-doubts but some of us have more doubt than others. Self-doubt is a coping mechanism for fear and I believe that this became a deep habit for me during childhood mainly because of my mother.

I grew up in an invalidating and often traumatic environment for the first 17 years of my life. My mother had a very difficult childhood herself and was filled with fears and self-doubts. When I was about 9 years old my parents got divorced and my mother’s condition worsened. She did not know how to deal with her difficult emotions and projected much of her own self-doubt, self-loathing, and fears onto me. She taught me that I could not do most things right, and needed her to do them for me. I cannot remember any positive memory with my mother after the divorce, but there are many painful ones.

Growing up in such an environment made me develop many fears including a deep fear of abandonment as well as the incorrect core beliefs that I cannot manage on my own and that I am not worthy. I also became hypersensitive to my emotions, especially to fear. Very likely I started to develop a fear of fear, which is a fear of the physical symptoms of anxiety (e.g. tiredness, insomnia, digestive issues, food sensitivities, and more).

Childhood is an important part of our lives because many of our habits or brain pathways are formed in our early years. We mimic or mirror the actions of adults around us and may also inherit brain wiring from our parents. This too occurred with our parents, so problem behaviors may accumulate and get passed down across multiple generations.

As a result, using self-doubt as an excuse became a deep habit with me, as it did for my mother. With awareness and understanding, however, I now see self-doubt for what it is, an expression of fear. It can therefore be addressed by facing my fears.

Positive Self-Image

For much of my adult life I was quite angry with my mother for her constant guilt trips, invalidation, and verbal abuse. I was also in deep fear of her, and every time she called I would almost have a panic attack. I later realized that all of this came from a fear of my own emotions. In particular, interacting with and thinking about my mother always brings up a lot of emotional pain, sadness, self-doubt, and fear. I feared those feelings and I feared that my childhood had messed me up so badly that I would not be able to cope with life’s stresses (more self-doubt).

Many self-help gurus and websites suggest that we can build a positive self-image by using happy talk or replacing negative emotions with positive ones. “Just believe that you are awesome”, they proclaim. This never worked for me.

To build a positive self-image, I needed to face my fears and look at myself with total honesty.

I needed to look at my past, my pain, my fears, my incorrect beliefs, my correct beliefs, my weaknesses, my strengths, my mistakes, my failures, my successes, everything, from a non-judgmental perspective. I cannot change my past and I cannot change my parents. My parents are not capable of giving me unconditional love because of their own neuroses, and I have to accept that. They are human. I will likely have a greater hypersensitivity to fear and I have to accept that as well.

Reality is flawed and imperfect, so is being human. By facing myself and accepting my perceived “flaws”, I can start to look past them and develop ways to adapt and perhaps even convert them into strengths. By facing my fears, I can start to dismantle negative ways of thinking and start to respond to my emotions in a more healthy and positive manner. By weakening fear patterns I start to clear away the mud that covers my unconditional self-love, so that it shines through again. This unconditional self-love is the root of a positive self-image.

I was only able to get at that unconditional self-love by clearing away the accumulated fears that plagued me. This requires time, practice, repetition, hard-work, mental discipline, and some necessary suffering, but the rewards are deep and plentiful. Facing my fears and my pain allowed me to uncover my inborn gift of unconditional love, reengage with life more fully, be more authentic with myself and others, as well as be free to explore my entire mental landscape.

I looked into my mind and saw myself for the first time,
I shouted in anger, shook in fear, wept in sorrow, and collapsed in pain,
There is no longer any need for self-blame or self-doubt,
For the first time in forever I am in-love, happy, and free.

Most of us romanticize love. Love is joy, happiness, deep affection, kindness, generosity, gratitude, sugar and spice and everything nice. We want to believe that there is a purity to love. It transcends the calamities and suffering of this Earth, and lets us soar into the vastness of the heavens. Love is our reward for suffering.

Similarly, we vilify fear and pain. They are the tools of the devil, to be avoided at all costs for the monstrosities that they are. In purity there is certainty, and in certainty there is a kind of peace.

Unfortunately for us, reality is not pure, neither is love, nor fear or suffering. When we aspire to a love that is pure, we inflict more pain and more hurt on ourselves.

Purity of Love

Our search for a pure love or a perfect love comes from a desire to escape the impure and imperfect. Impurity and imperfection are seen as failures, weaknesses, something less than divine. Our fear of failure or of weakness drives us toward a hyper-desire of success, which leads to a need for purity and perfection.

There is nothing wrong with aspiring to success. It is only when this need is fueled by fear, leading to an intolerance of failure that we run into problems.

In reality, love is not pure. When we love, we fear and we suffer. When we love someone or something, they become precious to us and we naturally fear their loss. The deeper the love, the deeper the fear. Since nature is impermanent that loss will one day occur, at which time we will feel pain and suffering. The deeper the love, the deeper the suffering. Those are the rules of life, the way we humans are wired, and the way our reality works.

Love and Addiction

What is addiction and how does it relate to love?

Addiction is “the state of being compulsively committed to a habit or practice or to something that is psychologically or physically habit-forming, as narcotics, to such an extent that its cessation causes severe trauma.”
~~[Dictionary.com]

Addiction can be seen as a condition of loving too much or loving compulsively. Life gurus commonly advise us to “not love too much”, as if love can be measured out in tablespoons, cups, and ounces. We have no more control of whom or what we love than the measure of that love.

But does addiction really originate from love?

I would argue that addiction originates from fear. When we love deeply, we fear loss. Because we fear the pain of loss, we develop an intense desire to permanently hold onto the object of our deep affection. This hyper-desire can become an addiction. We become clingy, quick to jealousy, and cannot let our love out of our sight.

After we suffer a loss, we can also become addicted to drugs, narcotics, or some other substance, person, or activity to numb or redirect our emotions from the fear and pain of loss.

My grandmother was a gambler. She lost much of her money and the family’s money due to her gambling habit. Ultimately, she was only given a fixed allowance because she could not control her addiction. I believe that she was addicted to gambling not because she loved playing cards but because she feared not having money and thus not having any value or love in life. As many of us are taught, she equated money with self-value and self-love.

Such gamblers often lose everything because they fear failing and losing their money so much that they play not based on skill but based on emotion. They make risky big bets and strategy goes out the window because fear is frequently in total control. They do not enjoy playing the game, and experience only brief enjoyment in the winning of a hand. Even the pleasure of winning quickly disappears as fear once again takes the helm and induces the gambler to win the next one and the next. Most of the time she is in terrible agony, anticipating an upcoming loss.

Love and Suffering

When we love deeply, everywhere we see love,
When love dies, everywhere we see loss and pain,
There is no escape, even for our agile consciousness.
We cannot travel to the past,
We cannot stay in the present,
We cannot go to the future,
Everywhere there is suffering.

Suffering is a human condition because love is a human condition. We are born to love and from love comes fear and suffering. When we try to deny this fact of life, we fear and suffer more. This was what happened to me when I lost my two beloved Huskies.

We are naturally wired to avoid or fear pain and suffering. However, if we overly fear suffering, then we develop a deep fear of loss, which can in turn cause us to reject love. Love can be very painful when we lose a loved one and that pain stays with us for as long as we love, which in many cases is for the rest of our lives.

Unfortunately, every time we reject love, we feed our fear of loss. As our fear gets stronger, we reject more and more, thereby leading to a very narrow and isolated life. My mother led such a life and it was not a happy one. In her quest to avoid suffering, she ended up creating a lot more unnecessary suffering for herself. She spent her life rejecting everyone and everything so she ended up alone, depressed, and full of fear.

After my dogs died, I was well on my way down that dangerous path. Luckily, an open minded doctor pointed me in the right general direction and I have since realized that the best way to deal with the fear and pain of loss is to face it head-on.

Facing fear and pain is difficult because I have to override my natural body’s inclination for protection. However, it is a very worthy endeavor because by facing fear we free ourselves to truly live and truly love. I never knew how much I let fear control my life and make decisions for me until I stopped running away from her. When I started really listening to fear, I saw that she permeated every aspect and most moments of my life.

Fear and suffering are often seen as terrible things that must be avoided at all costs. As we go through life, this fear grows. It is no coincidence that Hell is seen as a place of eternal pain and suffering.

However, when we start tending to our fear and pain, we see that they are not as monstrous as our fear and society may lead us believe. In fact, fear can be exciting, which is why many people ride roller coasters or go bungee jumping and sky diving. Fear can also enhance attraction as has been shown in many experiments. This is why scary movie date-nights are popular with the young. Emotional pain or suffering can also evoke deeper feelings of love. James Cameron’s Titanic was particularly moving because the pain of loss added a poignancy to the love.

When I let myself feel the pain of loss fully, I also feel a very deep love. Just as the dark makes the light seem brighter, fear and pain can make love more powerful. Frequently, we feel many different emotions simultaneously. Some may dominate at certain times but there is usually a mix. Love can be achingly beautiful and memories can be bittersweet. This is the reality of being human.

Unconditional Love

After facing my fears I finally understand that many of the things I thought I loved, didn’t come from love at all but from fear. I had to be perfectly successful, beautiful, youthful, happy, and productive in order to be loved. Love came with conditions … conditions set by fear. I feared failure, aging, suffering, pain, and not being useful. Most of all I feared not being loved.

I never received unconditional love from my parents and didn’t really know what it was until I met Shania and JJ. I love Shania and JJ no matter what. I love them through good and bad times, through aging and illness, and also through death. It did not matter whether they loved me in return. Every day with them was a song because I love them.

True love is unconditional love.

Many of us go through life busily looking for unconditional love, but in our mad striving we are never able to find it or even give it to ourselves. In our grasping for love we fail to recognize that true love cannot be directly pursued but ensues from us giving it to others and ourselves. Shania was especially easy to love. Whatever love I gave her she mirrored back to me many times over. Even though she is no longer with me, I will forever be grateful for sharing ten wonderful years with her.

Loving my mother is much harder. She rejected me my whole life so there are few positive memories and many painful ones. Yet, bitterness and anger of her and my difficult childhood has only created additional and prolonged suffering for myself. When we hold onto grudges and reject our natural state of loving-kindness, we hurt ourselves most of all.

In life, we often dole out love in little miserly bits as if it were a scarce resource. Love is highly valued by all, we have limitless amounts to give, and yet we selfishly hold onto it. We have silly rules and silly games that we play with each other because we fear rejection.

We are so hung up with conditions on love that we even made God’s love be conditional. There are God’s rules that must be followed, sins to avoid, karma to be accrued. We cannot enter Heaven’s gates until our ledger is properly balanced in the right way.

How to Find Love?

Since we have boundless love to give, should we give unconditional love to all? Should our love extend to even the vilest figures of history?

I do not think it is possible to give unconditional love to all. We are, after all, limited by time, and like all things we want to grow, love needs tending. Part of life is choosing which loves we wish to nourish.

The tragedy of life is that we frequently spend so much of it running away from fear that we have little time left over to tend to love. Therefore, the first step to finding love is to face our fears. If we tend to our fears, do deep listening, and weaken its hold on us, we will leave a lot of room for love to expand.

By recognizing the nature of fear, we can also start to recognize those who are filled with and controlled by fear. Sadly, both my parents fall into this category. It is important to remember that all of us have fear. It can neither be wished away nor trained into extinction. Fear will always be part of us. The trick is to tend to it properly and not be controlled by it. We can start tending to our fears at any time of our choosing. However, we have no control over the chosen time of another.

Your happiness and suffering depend on your actions and not on my wishes for you.
~~[Jack Kornfield]

It would be marvelous if my parents were able to give unconditional love but they are too beset by inherited and self-made fears to do so. It would be fantastic if they decided to change, but they have thus far chosen not to. Still, my inner child loves them in an unconditional way, and that is ok.

I was in conflict with myself for a long time over loving my parents. My adult self did not want to love people who continued to hurt and reject me, parents or no. But there is nothing wrong and in fact much good in letting a part of myself continue to love them. However, I am not on speaking terms with my father because it is only possible to have a one-sided relationship with him. Him dictating and demanding large sums of money, and everybody else following his dictates and giving him what he wants. If he ever decides to change I will happily accept him with open arms, but in the meantime, I am not holding my breath.

Memories of my childhood will always be painful and I have accepted that. My parents are not capable of giving unconditional love and I have accepted that as well. I am not sure if this is true forgiveness but this is the closest I have ever come to it.

Many life gurus advise us to practice forgiveness as if it were the easiest thing in the world. I believe that real forgiveness can only come after facing our fears and pain, going through them, and reaching a true understanding of those who have harmed us. It is this real forgiveness that is earned through pain, which can ultimately bring us to a place of peace and love.

Meaning of Life

All of us want happiness and to be loved. So we rush this way and that way looking for both. But the urgency and mad grasping comes from fear and not from love. When we realize that and stop running, when we face our suffering and stop feeding it, unconditional love will naturally emerge because it was there all along.

When we give unconditional love, it will come back to us many times over. There is no need to hurry, true love is everywhere and always within us. We only need to open our eyes and see it, through our fear and pain.

No one knows the true meaning of life, if there is one to be known. But not knowing is the essence of freedom, and freedom is a very good thing. With this freedom we can listen to the stories of others, decide for ourselves what is good and honest, and come up with our own stories to warm our hearts and fill our souls with love.

People think that we are unhappiest when we fail, but sometimes, we are unhappiest when we get all the things that we want.

I just had an article featuring my work at Forbes, I was being invited everywhere to give talks, I had glowing reviews at work including from the CEO, I have a wonderful spouse, so everything was looking awesome pawsome. Yet, I was deeply unhappy. It turned out that many of the things that I was striving for most of my life were not what I wanted after all. Or perhaps it would be more accurate to say that they were no longer what I wanted.

When this happened, my brain started to freak-out. I quit my job and escaped into various online virtual worlds. This got old after a while, so I considered going back to work, I moved, got a dog, and various other activities. I did not know it at the time, but I was going through an existential crisis, a crisis of meaning. According to the experts, many of us go through this in our late twenties and thirties.

Then I met Shania. Shania was born with a crooked leg, but she was absolutely perfect. She had this deep joy within her, that made everyone around her happy. With Shania, everything else fell away. Life was bright, meaningful, and I was in-love for almost 10 years.

When I lost Shania and later JJ, everything resurfaced, my anxiety, depression, and existential dread. Now however, I also had to face death and loss. My anxiety ballooned into chronic proportions, I developed a variety of physical ailments, and my depression deepened until I was too tired to even get out of bed.

My Journey

The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation. What is called resignation is confirmed desperation. From the desperate city you go into the desperate country, and have to console yourself with the bravery of minks and muskrats. A stereotyped but unconscious despair is concealed even under what are called the games and amusements of mankind. There is no play in them, for this comes after work. But it is a characteristic of wisdom not to do desperate things.
~~[Henry David Thoreau]

How do we escape from this life of quiet desperation? How do we recover from despair? So began my journey for self-discovery.

The first thing I realized was that I was woefully ill-equipped to handle my emotions. Any bad feeling was suppressed and rejected. As a result, my life became controlled by fears. In the short-term I was totally consumed by my illness and these two fears reigned supreme –

• Fear that I will never get better.
• Fear of relapse.

Both these fears are especially insidious because they form anxiety-loops that keep feeding on my energy and keep growing my fears. “Fear that I will never get better” forms a “bad-emotion” loop.

1. Some activity, thought, or memory triggers a “bad-emotion”.
2. I start to fear that I will never get better.
3. I feel (more) physical symptoms from the fear.
4. Loop to 2 and repeat.

“Fear of relapse” forms a “good-emotion” loop.

1. Some activity, thought, or memory triggers a “good-emotion”.
2. I start to fear that this good feeling will not last. i.e. I start to fear a relapse.
3. I feel physical symptoms from the fear.
4. I start to fear that I will never get better.
5. I feel more physical symptoms from the fear.
6. Loop to 4 and repeat.

Now, any emotion causes an anxiety-loop and suffering stretches out through the limitlessness of time. All I can think of is escape – escape from thoughts, escape from emotions, escape from physical distress, escape from self. All I want is NOT to be this version of myself.

Anxiety-loops cause chronic symptoms such as insomnia, nausea, inflammation, pain, food sensitivities, environmental sensitivities, and more. Many so-called chronic diseases have been developed to label these symptoms, combined with a variety of medications to treat them. Anti-depressants is a common treatment option and was suggested by several of the doctors and specialists I visited with.

Facing My Fears, Facing My Pain

There are many strategies and complex methods suggested for recovering from this condition. Unfortunately, visiting doctors and doing online research on my symptoms made my condition a lot worse. I found out that there were lots of things that could be wrong with me. I could have SIBO, histamine intolerance, MCAS, fibromyalgia, GAD, insomnia, panic disorder, and more. This deepened my anxiety and depression.

After much struggle, I finally found an open-minded MD who pointed me in the right direction. Now better oriented, I did a lot of reading and soul searching, and finally realized that my condition had its roots in a single emotion – fear. In particular, there were two core fears powering my chronic illness, fear of fear (i.e. fear of the physical symptoms of fear) and fear of pain. The solution that finally worked for me is a fairly simple rule.

I will always try to face my fears and face my pain. In other words, I will always try to be present for my suffering.

For this to work, I first need to be aware of my emotions and fears. Mindfulness exercises are crucial for practicing how to shift my awareness so that I can focus on the most salient emotions, identify them, as well as follow them as they change.

Once I can catch my emotions, I can regulate them or calm myself using various self-soothing techniques including emotion labelling, taking the Observer position, using humor, tapping, stroking, and more.

After my mind is calm, I can start to analyze my emotions and identify what specific fear they originate from. Fear may combine with tiredness to create helplessness, which may further develop into hopelessness. Fear may combine with time to create impatience, which then develops into irritation, frustration, anger, and ultimately rage. In the analysis step I keep pushing on an emotion to find the root of the issue.

This can be very challenging because I need to keep returning my consciousness (awareness) to the fear and pain so that I may deepen my understanding of them. I believe that this is what people mean when they talk about going through the fear. Pushing through the fear until we get to the core of understanding. I try to get to the beliefs/thoughts, memories, and desires associated with each fear. For example the “fear that I will never get better” and “fear of relapse” both come from the fear of emotions, or the fear of painful physical symptoms caused by emotions.

Once I get a clearer picture of fear, I can decide whether to follow fear’s advice or to do the opposite (paradoxical-intention). Since most of my fears are not threatening or risky, I keep doing what fear tells me not to do. I deliberately bring up the fear pattern over and over again, and through this process of exposure, I am able to weaken its grip. I also readjust core beliefs that are inaccurate or discard beliefs that no longer serve me. Cognitive behavioral therapy can be useful here.

Being Present for My Suffering

There are two kinds of suffering. There is the suffering you run away from, which follows you everywhere. And there is the suffering you face directly, and so become free.
~~[Ajahn Chah]

This goal is easy to state but difficult to actualize. Facing suffering is a challenging task which is why I have spent my life trying to escape from it. However, sometimes suffering cannot be avoided and must be borne.

In such moments, we will need something to motivate us. This is what Viktor Frankl calls the meaning of suffering. In the past my love for Shania caused the fear and pain to fall away. Now, I use it as my motivation to face suffering. I want to have continued emotional and consciousness access to Shania in the form of memories, visualizations, and dreams. To do that I need to go through the fear and pain.

1. I create a desire to “build tolerance for suffering”.
2. Every time I feel fear, I face it and analyze it using the procedure above.
3. The process of facing it naturally builds tolerance, enhances my emotion regulation skills, and gives me access to my full mental landscape. As I face more fears, the thoughts, patterns, desires, and external stimuli associated with them will weaken, giving me more physical freedom in life as well. As the power of fear-based desires lessen, I have more energy for love-based desires.
4. I try to face the fear pattern for as long as possible or until the fear dissipates. Failure just means that I learn and try again. Every time I try, I build a bit more tolerance and fear weakens.

In this way, the loop that forms is now a positive one that helps to weaken fears. When we face our suffering, we will find love, happiness, limitless inner freedom, and peace on the other side.

Road to Recovery

He who has a why to live can bear almost any how.
~~[Friedrich Nietzsche]

Many years ago, I met a group of Jehovah’s Witnesses who tried to recruit me. They told me about Armageddon and asked me what I wanted after the death of all. I remember proudly and happily telling them that all I wanted was Shania, in this life and after death. Shania was my Heaven and my Earth and there was nothing more I needed or wanted.

Recovering from the loss of Shania is the biggest challenge of my life. Here are some of the key lessons that helped me –

1. I try to use mindfulness as much as possible to be aware of my emotions. Awareness is key so that I can catch fear before I spiral down the anxiety-loop.
2. Developing emotion regulation or self-soothing techniques is a must. Some self-soothing techniques include shifting awareness, taking the Observer position, humor, tapping, and stroking.
3. Facing fear and facing pain is difficult but necessary. Doing so weakens fear patterns as well as the unhealthy hyper-desires and downstream negative emotions associated with them.
4. Suffering is an intrinsic part of life. When suffering is out of our control, a quick acceptance is the surest way to a quick recovery. Acceptance allows us to focus our energy on what we can realistically do next rather than on wishing for impossible outcomes.
5. Once we accept our new normal, we can start to consider how best to adapt – what beliefs, behaviors, and desires need updating. Adapting means challenging ourselves to change so that we may transform pain into growth, a tragedy into a triumph.
6. The most important lesson of all is to try and to continue learning. If we try, we would have learned something today that we didn’t know yesterday. Trying and learning brings wisdom. When we stop trying is when we give in to despair and prolong our suffering. Remember that it is never too late to start trying.

Recovery need not be complicated or expensive. There is only one important step – facing my suffering. To be sure, this is a very difficult step to take but I have finally found a love that is strong enough to make me want to take that step, Shania.

Facing my suffering has opened me up to a greater authenticity and a greater love of self, spouse, and even of my dysfunctional parents. For the first time in my life I feel close to a true forgiveness of my mother and narcissistic father. My life is expanded and best of all, I have found Shania again.

Now, I see Shania in the many places we used to visit together, I see her in all the dogs that I meet, I see her when I play music or watch a movie, I see her in the trees and the wind. She is my guide and when I face fear to follow her into the darkness, I am exactly where I need to be. She is within me, beside me, everywhere around me, and I am less afraid. She is my inspiration to live a full life, in darkness and in light.

It is the greatest blessing to find a love that is so strong that inspires us to be engaged in life, even in the midst of suffering.

However, if we love life, then we naturally fear death. But if we fear death, then we will be filled with worries of illness and aging, making it difficult to love life.

There are many such conflicts that arise in life, in which love and fear create opposing desires (dualities), between which we must navigate and make judgements. When these conflicts start to dominate our lives, we develop anxiety and depression. When we are unable to adequately resolve these conflicts, our brains may get stuck, which can result in emotion loops where our anxiety and depression become chronic. Sometimes, this condition can turn into an existential crisis.

This was what happened to me after facing the death of a loved one.

Love and Fear – Overcoming Our Wiring for Suffering

Love and Fear

Love and fear are two of the strongest human emotions and they seem to work in opposition. Fear motivates us to run away while love motivates us to stay and embrace. It is difficult to love what we fear, and yet fear arises out of love.

From love comes attachment or desire. Attachment is “a feeling that binds one to a person, thing, cause, ideal, or the like (Dictionary.com).” If we already have the object of our attachment, then we will strive to grow or keep it. If we do not, we strive to acquire it. Whenever an attachment is formed, fear arises (i.e. we fear losing the object of our love).

From fear comes aversion or rejection. Fear tells us we can’t or shouldn’t do, are not strong enough to feel, or not calm enough to think. Fear tries to protect us by reminding us of our limits, real or imagined.

We are wired to see fear as something bad, unpleasant, uncomfortable, literally scary. Fear can cause us to go into a “fight-or-flight” response, which causes physiological changes that place stress on our bodies. Continued activation of our fight/flight response can result in inflammation, muscle tension and pain, insomnia, as well as various chronic physiological conditions. Fear is our enemy, the monster in the dark. Fear increases our suffering. As a result, many of us develop a strong attachment to eradicate or remove fear from our lives.

The only thing we have to fear … is fear itself.
~~[Franklin D. Roosevelt]

However, like love, fear is part of being human. We are born to fear pain, both physical and emotional. Fear and pain are an integral part of our survival system, thus they are an integral part of life. Suffering is therefore also part of life and part of being human. When we try to eradicate fear and suffering, we will inevitably fail, and create even more fear and suffering for ourselves. The best way to lessen our suffering is to embrace both love and fear.

The best way to lessen our suffering is to embrace fear and suffering.

Attachment and Aversion

Attachments are a necessary part of life. We form attachments to people, things, places, activities, beliefs, causes, and more. If we had no attachments, why would life be worth living? If nothing matters, why try to live at all?

However, even though life demands attachments, the nature of life is also one of change and impermanence. The things and people we cling or attach to today may be gone tomorrow. This creates great pain and suffering. To protect us from this pain, we develop fear and fear causes aversion.

For example, I was very attached to success in school and at work because it was my ticket to physical and financial freedom. This attachment caused me to develop a fear of failure. Unfortunately, I did not know how to tend to my fear so I just suppressed or ignored it. As time went on, my fear of failure grew until I developed a strong attachment to never failing (i.e. a strong attachment to perfect success).

This is an unhealthy attachment because unlike my original desire (freedom), it is motivated by fear. It also subsumed my original desire so now when I strived for success, I was feeding this need for perfection, which in turn further fueled my fear of failure. So round and round it went and my fear kept growing. It grew in intensity and it expanded into other areas of my life. Now my meals had to be perfect, my art had to be perfect, my spouse had to be perfect, I had to be perfect in all things. The things at which I could not be perfect, I rejected or avoided. Life quickly became stressful and very unhappy.

This anxiety loop also caused endless striving – as soon as success was achieved I worried about the next hoop I had to jump through, or the next person I had to surpass. When there was no clear next hoop, I worried about not losing my current status or position.

Anxiety loops trap us into always striving for the next goal, and cause us to miss what is right in front of us. We miss being present for life’s journey. We miss the enjoyment of learning and working towards success because we are too worried about running away from failure.

Once you realize that the road is the goal and that you are always on the road – not to reach a goal, but to enjoy its beauty and its wisdom – life ceases to be a task and becomes natural and simple, in itself an ecstasy.
~~[Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj]

All this perfectionism and striving ended up trapping me in an ever narrowing prison, which is exactly the opposite of my original desire, which was to gain more freedom. Note that attachment and striving are not “bad” in and of themselves, they only become unhealthy when they are motivated by strong fear or aversion.

Attachments are a necessary part of life.

Wisdom and Awareness

To avoid forming unhealthy attachments (fear motivated goals) we need awareness and wisdom. Awareness and wisdom tell us what the problem is, where it is coming from, and how we can effectively tend to it.

Wisdom, according to the Oxford dictionary, is “the soundness of an action or decision with regard to the application of experience, knowledge, and good judgment.” To know what knowledge and experience are relevant, as well as how to apply them, we need awareness. However, awareness can also uncover inconvenient truths about ourselves, our family and friends, our life, or our world that we find difficult to digest.

When we form an attachment to awareness, we develop a fear of learning difficult truths. This is why many of us use ignorance and delusion as coping mechanisms to reject awareness. The truth may be too painful or difficult to accept. On the other hand, I have seen firsthand what delusion and keeping up appearances have done to my parents and family. Secrets and lies are a burden to self and to those around us. False images of self and others lead to poor decisions as well as unnecessary anxieties and suffering. Love cannot thrive in an environment that is filled with secrets and lies.

This is not to say that awareness is always better than ignorance. In fact, ignorance and delusion are a natural and necessary part of life. There are many things in life that we do not have the time to learn. In addition, if we spent all of our time trying to be aware of all things, we would have no time left over for the pleasures of life.

There are also many mysteries in life that we do not know and can never explain. Questions about the soul, the meaning of life, the Creator of life and the universe, the uncaused cause. This is necessary ignorance. In fact, all of life could just be a dream or a delusion, as in Total Recall. We cannot know for sure.

I have a curious mind so I am always asking questions. This is particularly true when I am passionate about a topic. I will keep asking and digging because I want to learn and understand. The more I learn though, the more anxieties I have. Knowledge can be scary and painful. But the reward for that pain is an open mind that is able to entertain any point of view, story, or experience.

The reward for the pain of awareness is an open mind that is able to entertain any point of view, story, or experience.

Fear and Acceptance

Fear tells us to protect ourselves by setting up walls and boundaries. We identify possible threats and separate ourselves from them so that we will not get hurt physically or emotionally. We may reject activities, foods, places, relationships, uncomfortable thoughts, and painful memories. If we let fear control us, we eventually become scared, paralyzed, and alone.

As fear grows, it becomes aversion and we develop fear-motivated attachments. Such unhealthy attachments can become anxiety/depression loops and spiral downward quickly. Without careful tending, fear attachments multiply, crowding out healthy love-motivated attachments until only anxiety and depression remain. It is important to remember however, that fear comes from love, so the best way to deal with fear is to return her to love. The solution to this love-fear conflict is acceptance.

There are two kinds of suffering. There is the suffering you run away from, which follows you everywhere. And there is the suffering you face directly, and so become free.
~~[Ajahn Chah]

When we face our fears and learn to accept them, we can let love into our lives again. To face our fears we need to –

1. Be aware when we feel fear.
2. Be calm enough to name fear and embrace her. Naming fear can engage the left or logical side of our brain, which helps to regulate our emotions. Mindful breathing, becoming the Observer, visualization, journaling, talking, and tapping are further tools for self-soothing.
3. Once our minds are calm, we can analyze fear and identify the thoughts, memories, or attachments that power the emotion. What do we fear? Why do we fear it? Are our fears accurate? Cognitive behavioral therapy can be useful here.
4. Based on our analysis, we determine if we want to follow fear’s advice. This is where wisdom comes into play. If we decide that there is nothing to fear, then we lean into fear and do the opposite. We keep doing it or decide on doing it until the fear dissipates. This helps to create tolerance for that particular fear, which helps to weaken it.
5. We may also adjust or correct inaccurate thoughts or attachments that power our fears, which will further weaken the pattern.

By facing and weakening various fear patterns, we also weaken the attachments associated with those fears. Ultimately, those unhealthy attachments will no longer have any strength and we would have let them go. We also have attachments that come from love, which fulfill our heart’s desires. These we want to keep and protect from the misdirection of unfounded fears or aversion.

Only to the extent that a person exposes themselves over and over again to annihilation and loss can that which is indestructible be found within them. In this daring lie dignity and the spirit of true awakening.
~~[Jack Kornfield]

By facing and weakening various fear patterns, we also weaken the attachments associated with those fears.

Conflict and Suffering

Our brains reward certainty, permanence, and awareness, because they help in our survival. The more we know and the more stability we have in our daily lives, communities, and environment, the better our chances for survival. However, Nature is ever-changing, impermanent, and contains many mysteries. Nature also places limits on time, space, matter, and energy.

Whenever we run up against these limits, conflict arises, fear arises, and we feel pain and suffering. Since Nature’s laws are not in our control, these conflicts are difficult to resolve and can sometimes turn into anxiety loops that keep growing our fears. Because Nature imposes limits on us, pain, fear, and suffering are part of human life. They are not an affliction or illness but rather a shared universal human experience.

However, this does not mean that we are totally helpless. While some suffering is necessary, we create a lot of unnecessary suffering because our brains try to optimize for short-term pain avoidance. We end-up feeding many of our fear motivated attachments and growing our fears until we are buried by them. This is why awareness is critical. If we are aware of our fears and their related attachments, then we may tend to them and weaken their influence.

In most cases, it is difficult to tell whether our actions or strivings are motivated by love or fear. Often, it is motivated by both. Fear based attachments tend to be outcome based, so we derive very little pleasure from them. Once an outcome is reached, we quickly get driven forward by fear again. Fear causes us to prove ourselves over and over again. Love based attachments are process based, outcomes are less relevant, and there is more lasting happiness.

Rather than trying to separate out the different classes of attachments, I find it more effective to simply face my fears whenever they arise. By facing my fears I build up a tolerance for fear, and I can gradually weaken and release fear-based attachments. This gives me more freedom to form new love-based attachments and to just enjoy the process of achievement. By facing my deepest fears related to thoughts, emotions, and memories, I free myself to entertain any thought, experience any emotion, and recall any memory. In this way, I gain limitless freedom of consciousness.

Because Nature imposes limits on us, pain, fear, and suffering are part of a shared universal human experience.

Meaning of Life

We are born to want. We are born to want to give pleasure and to receive pleasure. This results in love. We are born to want to avoid pain. This results in fear.

Frequently, our wants may compete or even conflict with one another. When we develop too many fear attachments or prioritize fear attachments over love attachments, then we start to sacrifice pleasure for short-term pain avoidance. This can lead to fear crowding out love and we end-up with little pleasure and a lot of unnecessary pain.

To avoid this very unhappy state of affairs, we want to embrace our fears. When we do this, we will soon realize that beneath all that fear is a lot of emotional pain that we are too afraid to touch. The most core fear of all is the fear of pain. This is the ultimate pattern that we must dispel.

Running from pain will only strengthen our fears and lead to more suffering. Therefore, we must face our pain. This requires us to stay with the pain and experience it. We do this by using the same emotion regulation techniques as we did for fear. The more we dwell with our pain, the more skilled we become at regulating it and the more tolerance we build. When we develop enough mental discipline to dwell comfortably in pain, we truly free ourselves from suffering.

The dance of life is learning to hold both love, fear, and all the dualities they generate in loving-kindness (without judgement) and to move comfortably between them depending on circumstance. This is also known as the Middle Way in Taoism. If we only see things as black and white or good and bad, we will miss what is possible and invite into our hearts unnecessary anxiety, depression, and suffering. When we can maintain peace in the midst of conflict, when we can be comfortable in discomfort, when we can smile at our own suffering, then our consciousness is free to fly wherever it desires, and we have found Heaven on Earth.

To live is to suffer, to survive is to find meaning in the suffering. If there is a purpose in life at all, there must be a purpose in suffering and in dying. But no man can tell another what this purpose is. Each must find out for himself, and must accept the responsibility that his answer prescribes.
~~[Gordon W. Allport]

The dance of life is learning to hold both love, fear, and all the dualities they generate in loving-kindness.