Go Into Fear to Come Out More Free

“It is crucial not to make a problem out of our resistance to facing our fear. There is enormous energy bound up in resistance, energy that can be freed up for more life-giving purposes if we will but approach our resistance with clarity and compassion, moving at a pace that neither rushes us nor proceeds too slowly.”

– Robert Augustus Masters, PhD

So what is fear?

Fear is a primary emotion — one of the oldest, most pervasive and persistent feelings experienced across living beings.

It’s deeply wired into the nervous system and has roots in the most primitive parts of the brain and body that are oriented toward survival and protection.

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Fear is a feeling in the body that arises as the nervous system detects something as threatening. It happens nearly simultaneously, often without our conscious awareness. Living organisms developed this so there could be an automatic, immediate response to danger.

You can imagine even single-celled organisms having the capacity to contract and move away when needed. How else would we have evolved?

It is so necessary, but in modern times, fear has become something to get rid of. Because of this, it gets pushed into the shadows—smoldering like a coal fire beneath the surface, quietly acting as a major influence on our lives.

I would also add that fear is dominant in many socially acceptable and normalized forms, such as worry, anxiety, paranoia, fright, angst, dread, and doubt.

These are often expressions of a deeper root that is commonly treated with medication, or not addressed at all—contributing to imbalance and, at times, disease. It can look like a failure of the body, when in many cases it is a disconnection from, or avoidance of, fear.

The body, the fear, the nervous system is working perfectly.

My process with fear

I recently left town to “get away from it all” out in the open skies of Central Oregon. I went deep into the wilderness, where there was little access by cars or people—complete solitude, and loads of silence.

I also decided to do a full 24-hour fast for this detox. Part of the fast was not taking in any outside information besides the rawness of nature, which meant no books. That was really hard, because the books I read are freaking awesome.

I arrived with many intentions, but the meta-intention was to counterbalance the overexertion of energy I have been putting into productivity—into Moon Mountain Healing, particularly. There has been so much stress around building this healing practice, and I am commonly thinking about things I can be doing.

From a Taoist perspective, if one is constantly going, then in order to balance the system, the prescription is sitting still. I went to be still, silent, and simple. There was a lot of resistance in my system to this.

So I thought my work was going to be solely with resistance, but after softening into what I was experiencing in my body, I found something much deeper.

What I found was a familiar, persistent feeling of fear. I have met this fear before, but this time I was able to relate the feeling in my stomach—this fear—to the constant stress, worry, dread, doubt, and anxiety I’ve been experiencing this last year.

I have been living with so much fear.

Working with the fear

I touched the fear that evening, but I didn’t work with it until the next day. The energy wasn’t there yet.

The next day, I found a lovely spot next to a creek after breaking my 24-hour fast with oatmeal and some protein-packed snacks. My energy was revived. I was ready to work with the fear.

This means meeting the fear head-on, understanding it, learning from it, and allowing myself to fully enter into it. From there, something begins to open—revealing even more. And eventually, emerging out of the fear, I can begin to integrate it into the wisdom of my Heart and the broader perspective of my consciousness.

I’ll unpack what this means exactly.

I use sentence stems as a way to work with the information that comes through the mind-body connection. I get into a mindful, settled state, and start diving within.

Meeting it — I intentionally bring fear into my awareness, starting with the stem:

“What memories or thoughts arise when I think about being afraid is…”

and then I go from there.

It is brought into my awareness for me to meet. I use stems that help me describe and define the feelings and sensations of fear clearly. This builds connection to it, rather than what normally happens, which is to avoid or run away.

Understanding it — This is where I start using stems to connect the sensations and feelings with my past.

“When I am afraid, I usually do…”

“I’ve been doing this since…”

This takes me into memories that live deeper within my personal psyche. Going further into the body’s experience, I use the stem:

“I felt most afraid as a child when…”

Learning from it — In this part of the process, I am interacting with my inner child. I can see memories of certain events or dynamics that made me very afraid.

Using sentence stems, such as “If I could speak to this child, I would say…” or “If the fear could speak, it would say…,” I’m able to extract simple terms from these memories that capture what made the child so chronically scared—words like “unpredictability.”

Fully entering the fear — I am skipping stems here, but I eventually come back to my body’s sensations. I allow myself to return to the fear that is living in my body.

I use stems and my imagination to move closer and closer to what I have identified as a spikey, black, rubber ball in my abdomen.

I move closer and closer until I am fully inside of this ball.

Inside the ball, I see that I am in a meadow field—the sun shining, the temperature perfect—almost like a sensory deprivation tank. On the edge, however, there is a metal wall that is sealed and locked. I notice I’m claustrophobic here.

Within the fear — This is a rich place to be. Being in the safety and protection of the fear wasn’t challenging. I had already taken the time to get to know it and understand it. The emotional context had been worked through.

Now this was my opportunity to innocently explore fear and what it’s like to be consciously, fully in it—whereas at other times, I am in it, but not by choice.

I use stems such as, “I would now describe my fear as…” or “If my fear could now speak, it would say…”

Now I’m in a state where I can have a clear, open, and informative conversation with fear. I learn so much here.

Emerging out — I gathered the information I needed. I see clearly the function of my fear—why it developed, what its positive intentions are for me, how it wants to keep me safe and protect me, how it Loves me.

I feel deep gratitude for my fear and how it helped me survive.

But as I know, this fear was helpful for a child, not for the adult man that I am now. I feel less resistance to it. I am more intimately connected with it. This relationship is strengthened.

I can emerge out and know I am safe enough to keep Loving forward, integrating this experience into my Heart.

Final thoughts

What I realized while submerged in the fear—inside the rubber ball—was that this is where my younger self went when he was so afraid. The environment was unpredictable, he had no control, he wasn’t safe, he was powerless.

It was ingenious, because it worked. It helped him in countless ways.

A simple example was in social contexts—he learned to be quiet and cause little ripples in his movements, almost like a ghost, in order to prevent ridicule from saying or doing something “stupid.”

This hasn’t been appropriate for a long time.

In the ball, in the meadow biodome, I was safe—but cut off from energy flowing in or out. Disconnected. Frozen in numbness.

In relationships, in business, in community, in various life activities, I experience fear. Life is scary, and we are never completely safe. But sometimes—often—the fear my system is experiencing is incongruent with what is actually happening in my immediate reality.

When that happens, I don’t show up in the world the way I intend to, which is to operate from my big, warm, Loving heart. What fear does in the modern age is disconnect—especially in the relational domain.

I have felt frustrated with the way fear shows up in my close relationships and in my healing practice. This doesn’t mean getting rid of it. It means continuing to do the process I outlined above, as many times as needed, until my system can relate to my fear rather than from it—bringing it into my conscious, connected present moment.

Maybe even transmuting the fear into energy that is life-generating—ultimately creating more Love and connection.

An Invitation

If you feel called, you might explore this in your own way.

Notice where fear shows up in your body.

And gently try a sentence stem:

“If this fear could speak, it would say…”

“What made this so scary was…”

“If I could speak to the younger part of me, I would say…”

Let it be simple.

See if a word or phrase emerges—like “unpredictability,” “not safe,” “I have no control.”

And just notice what happens when it becomes that clear.

Not something to fix.

Just something to be with.

If You’d Like Support in This Work

If this resonates with you, you don’t have to do it alone.

I offer 1:1 shadow work sessions and breathwork experiences where we slow down together and meet what’s present—at a pace that honors your nervous system.

This work isn’t about getting rid of fear.

It’s about building a relationship with it, so you can stay connected to yourself, your Heart, and the people in your life—even when fear is present.

If you feel the call, you can reach out to me directly,

or explore more at moonmountainhealing.com

I’d be honored to walk with you in it.