Cultivating the Opposite of Fear

The void of uncertainty strikes again—this time, we’ve got a remedy.

I’ve been ramping up my meditation practices lately; mostly because I’ve been facing the void of uncertainty, again. The void of uncertainty—an open space in my life, a big “I don’t know yet”. How scary and exciting. I’ve written about the void before, linked here. To quote my past self:

Any new beginning is an opportunity to clear out what you don’t want and invite in what you do. In the interim is the void — the space between what is coming and what you left behind. You must learn to live in and go through the void so that it can take you somewhere different. This isn’t necessarily because what you left behind was ‘bad’, but because there are things you are meant to experience that require change and letting go.

The void brings uncertainty, and often, fear. It’s distressing to see a huge hole in your life where something used to be — and maybe that last thing was really great, so why did you have to let go of it? Can’t you go back to that good thing? What if the next thing is worse? It’s easy to be driven by fear when faced with a void, hence the common tendency to scramble to fill the space to escape the emptiness.

I wrote the above almost three years ago, and have learned a few things from working my way through voids of uncertainty since then. Namely, that they don’t have to be something to fear—a stretch of uncertainty can simply be an opportunity to collaborate with life and wait and see what happens. However, fear of the future still commonly crops up, and thus, my main strategy during these periods is to turn to the teachings which I know stand the test of time: Old, tried and true wisdom. Ram Dass is one of my go-to’s; if you’ve been around here longer than a month, you have been subject to many of his teachings via this newsletter.

Over this last weekend, I listened a dozen times to this 4-minute video of a Ram Dass talk called “The Antidote to Fear”. This is what’s getting me through the void, this time.

In it, Ram Dass speaks about fear, generally, as well as any sort of uncomfortable feeling, like anger or anxiety. He defines fear as a symptom of feeling separate; more specifically, as a symptom of identifying with your separateness. “There will be fear if there is separateness.” The separateness he is referring to, as I understand it, is about feeling separate from humanity, or life itself. This feeling of separateness feeds our fears—of loss, of aloneness, of the future, of uncertainty, of death.

The antidote, as Ram Dass tells us, is this:“instead of responding to each fear specifically, you work on the other part of you, the feeling of your connectedness to all things.”

This, to me, is the most profound way of dealing with fear or anxiety: not to give it more attention or try to “figure it out”, but to switch your focus to something else—such as your sense of connectedness to life.

Ram Dass advises us to simply “let the fear manifest as it manifests,” and to “cultivate an ability to just notice [the fear], without judging it…” As he goes on to say,“The answer is not to push away the fear, but to cultivate the other part of yourself, [the part] that is connected to all things. Because that part of you is not fear.”

In other words, to deal with our fears—of the future, of uncertainty, or whatever else dominates our psyches—let them be exactly as they are.

His advice reminds me of working with frustrated children: when a child is having tantrums, the answer is not to give it too much attention, nor is it to try and stamp it out immediately. Instead, the best strategy is often to simply accept what is happening. Allow the tantrum to exist—because it does—and shift the focus toward cultivating connection with the child. Further, working to create more positive interactions with the child when a tantrum is not occurring will do wonders for when a crisis does arise.

When your mind has tantrums, or is afraid of something, or wants answers before they are available, try the same tactics: don’t give your fear too much attention, and don’t ignore it. Allow it to be there, don’t act on it, and instead attend to your sense of connectedness.

Sometimes, wisdom like that of Ram Dass’ can feel esoteric or vague; advice like “cultivate your sense of connectedness” may indeed sound that way. Still, I’d bet that every one of us knows essentially what this means, and that we each have slightly different ways of doing this already. It may look like connecting with another person, or going outside and looking up at the sky, or sitting quietly and observing your breath. Reminding ourselves that we are intrinsically connected to all of life, to others, to this world, can come in many different forms. When we feel connected, fear quiets down and takes the backseat, all on its own.

In the midst of a void of uncertainty—is anyone else here too, by the way?—let us try not attending or responding to the fears that come up about the future. Let us try allowing all of the fear, or anxiety, or anger, to be there, exactly as they are.

If Ram Dass is right that fear is a manifestation of our feeling of separateness; let us experiment, then, with leaning into our inherent connectedness.

Maggie