We find the power to deal with feared experience when we turn and face it.

Alternative Responses

Much like Donald Meichenbaum said many years ago in articulating his method of stress inoculation, we find the power to deal with feared experience when we turn and face it. That is what the aspect of awareness Daniel Siegel calls mindsight allows us to do. If we can turn and face our fear, we are, in fact, almost home, because the native wisdom we already possess will creatively discover alternative responses when it is not submerged by the efforts we make to distract ourselves from becoming aware of and touching troubling emotions and thoughts.

The suggestion is that if we find the moment of the intolerable feeling, stabilize that moment, and look into it more directly, we will be able to find the powerful, irrational, primitive level of belief that gives rise to the intensity of our feelings. It is crucial to this process that we experience the full horror of what we fear, for only then can we make sense of our deepest experiences and be kind towards our seemingly “crazy” ways of feeling and acting. When we are connected to the reality of our primitive mind, we see that what we do, think, and feel makes sense. If we are not in touch with this primitive mind, and therefore not in touch with the motivating force that underlies our sequences of behavior, we are at risk for harshly and inappropriately judging ourselves .

However, this is not to suggest that we must continue to function exactly as we have been, that there is no choice. As we stay inside that which we reflexly pushed away, we not only experience the freedom that comes from not being compelled to push away, but we are able to look directly at what we are holding in place and ask – “Is this true? This fear, does it describe all of who I am? Am I fundamentally weak, or ugly, for example?” Just listen, look – wait and let the answers arise in their own time. Let the truth emerge, not out of analysis, but out of direct experience.

Because the nature of the human is complete and worthy as we are, if we plumb our experience to its depths we will find empathy and kindness towards ourselves, along with respect and affection for who we are. At our most basic nature, which is what this practice is intended to contact, we are not broken or insufficient. We are creative, and have everything we need.

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