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." Defenses can be used to keep our emotions from othersas well as from ourselves." Feelings can also be defensive when they are used tocover up our true emotional experience." Practicing emotional mindfulness can increase yourability to recognize your own defensive responses." Being aware of your defenses is essential to freeingyourself up emotionally and connecting more deeplywith others. 5CHAPTER 5Step TwoTaming the FearDo the thing we fear, and death of fear is certain. Ralph Waldo EmersonOn one very gray fall day, I sat in the dimly lit office of mytherapist, heart racing, hands tingling, struggling to describewhat had been going on for me.She listened closely to me asI laid out my fears in great detail.The more I talked, the moremy anxiety increased as I described my doubts about the relation-ship I was in, my worries about my future, questioning how I felt,what I should do, where I should go.I m sure I could have goneon and on, but at some point, keenly sensing that the real matterwas something else entirely, she leaned forward and stopped me. I m having two reactions to what you re saying, she said. The first is that I can feel your anxiety.It s very intense, agoniz-ing, torturous really.But it also feels like a wall that, in some way,keeps me from getting to know you.I mean, really know you.If youcould put that anxiety aside for a moment or two, what s there? Her unexpected question took me aback.I shifted in my chairand tried to steady myself.The room, once alive with my nervoustalk, fell silent.I could hear the ticking of a clock, getting slower87 88 Living Like You Mean Itand slower as time seemed to come to a grinding halt.Her intensegaze closed in on me like a camera zooming in for a tight shot.My eyes darted away from her face to the bookcase next toher as if trying to get away, and then I closed them.I cautiouslyfocused my attention inward, surveying the vista of my innerworld to see what might be there besides what I had assumed wasthere.But it seemed as though there was nothing, just darkness,emptiness and fear.I shook my head in answer to her question and then triedagain.Shoring up all the courage I could muster, I planted myfeet firmly on the floor, directed my attention inward, and lis-tened hard for what might be hiding beneath my anxiety.DAY OF RECKONINGAnd so I started, in that quiet but pivotal moment, the work oftaming my fear and making room to see what was really insideme emotionally.I didn t know it at the time, but I was aboutto embark on an experience that would change the course ofmy life.It was fall 1994, a few months after graduating from mydoctoral program, and it seems like a lifetime ago.I was a dif-ferent person.In fact, as I look back, it s hard even to recognizemyself, hard to remember ever feeling that anxious.But I did.From a very young age, I had learned to doubt my true feelingsand to fear the consequences of trusting my feelings and revealingmy true self.Although I had managed to move forward and accom-plish a great deal, internally I was struggling.On a deep level, I stillexpected that something bad would happen if I really opened upand completely embraced the fullness of my emotional experience.The old wiring of my brain kept giving off warning signals, effec-tively reining me in and keeping my truest self from fully emerging.Without my knowing it, I had developed a million differ-ent ways to avoid my true feelings and the fear that they engen-dered.For quite a while my defenses staying busy, distractingmyself, questioning and rationalizing away my feelings, dismiss-ing or denying them had worked to keep my anxiety at bay.Butsomething inside me wouldn t let up.The voice of my deepestself was aching to be heard and kept searching for a chink in mydefensive armor. Taming the Fear 89It found a way out on graduation day.In the subsequentmonths, without the business of my academic pursuits to dis-tract me, the surface had continued to crack.The feelings I hadbeen running from were finally breaking through.I realized that the time had come to stop running, to slowdown, quiet the chatter in my head, and make space for what wasgoing on inside me.If I was going to have the life I really wanted,I had to start to try to be aware of my feelings.Fortunately, Ifound my way to a wonderful therapist, who was able to help me.It wasn t easy at first, because I had become quite the master ofavoidance.In fact, the more I paid attention to what was goingon inside me, the more I discovered all the clever little diversion-ary tactics I had developed over the years.I had had no idea justhow skilled I had become at avoiding my feelings.But I needed to become skilled at something very different.I needed to learn how to loosen the grip that anxiety had over myemotional experience.I needed to learn how to tame my fear.And now I m going to teach you what I learned.BEYOND YOUR DEFENSESAs we become aware of our own defenses, and work to stay pres-ent with our feelings, it s inevitable that we ll begin to encounteruncomfortable feelings like anxiety and fear.Maybe this has hap-pened for you already.Perhaps you ve become aware of having asense of unease, or maybe you ve experienced something morelike dread.Maybe you ve become aware of tension in your body,constriction in your chest, rapid heartbeat, or feelings of rest-lessness.These are all manifestations of fear, the very thing thatcaused your defenses to develop in the first place.As we stop doing a defensive dance with our feelings, we getmore in touch with the fear we were trying to avoid.Althoughdistress of this kind is not pleasant, it s actually a helpful sign thatwe re getting closer to our emotions.In a way, it s telling usthat we re right on track, that we re beginning to approach ourfeelings and learn how to deal with them.That we re on our wayto a better, richer life.But first, at this crucial point in the growth process, weneed to find a way to decrease our anxiety.If we don t, we may 90 Living Like You Mean Itcontinue to avoid the fullness of our emotional experience and,in doing so, compromise our happiness.That s why it s essentialto develop more effective strategies to deal with our distress thatput us solidly back in control.Let s start by taking a closer look at what exactly is happeningwhen we become anxious and afraid.BACK TO THE BRAINIn Chapter Two we looked at how our early emotion-based expe-riences become part of our neural circuitry and, as such, sig-nificantly impact how we experience ourselves, others, and theworld
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