Fear is such a central player in life and on the spiritual path. On covert and overt levels, fear rules our lives, and really comes into play when we explore the darkness of the nocturnal meditations – especially Bardo Yoga, the teachings around death.
Which is why I did this live webinar, “Everything You Need to Know to Transcend Fear”.
Are You Afraid of the Dark?
Many people are afraid of the dark, where “darkness” is a code word for ignorance, or the unknown. And nothing is darker than death.
The key to transforming this enemy into an ally is an integral approach to fear, understanding its necessary role in biological evolution, and how misunderstanding it leads to spiritual devolution.
If you really want to grow psychologically and spiritually, follow your fear. “Fear” comes from a root that means “fare,” as in “toll.” When properly understood, fear is simply the fare that must be paid if we want to evolve.
This webinar will provide that understanding, and radically alter your relationship to this unavoidable lifetime partner.
Given the proper tools, we can transform the darkness of ignorance into the light of wisdom, and actually use fear to help us wake up.
List of Book Mentions
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Wholesome Fear, by Lama Zopa
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Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind, by Yuval Noah Harrari
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My forth coming book, Dreams of Light: The Profound Daytime Practice of Lucid Dreaming by Andrew Holecek
- The Places That Scare You, by Pema Chodron
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Smile at Fear: Awakening the True Heart of Bravery, by Chogyam Trungpa
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The Power and the Pain: Transforming Spiritual Hardship into Joy, by Andrew Holecek
- In Love With the World, by Mingyur Rinpoche
*Please send a message (nightclub@andrewholecek.com) if you think there is one I missed.
*Pro Tip: Take the Webinar with you! All our Webinars can be downloaded to your smartphone or computer to listen offline and on the go. Click the downward pointing arrow on the Audio track to download (see image below).
Excellent webinar. I like the practice of reverse meditations . . .
(Update) Going over this a second time after the questions webinar has provided additional focus. Most, but not all book mentions are listed above.
(Update 2) Please, page reference for the 2 paragraphs quoted from “Already Free.”
Fear has been my BFF since prior to first memory. “Get out of my head!” re: fear that I’m not worthy to exist. Well that’s a spiritual pickle! It’s implicit, so I can talk about it all day long but it has to be felt. The exercise was good.
Some quotes that say what Andrew said, from a nifty little resource across the pond:
"The fears that stalk us may appear diverse, each one is a little crisis of its own which would require a separate discussion to unpick, but it can at points be useful to generalise our condition under an all-encompassing analysis: we are – above anything else – beset by a sense that something very bad is about to come our way.
Why do we feel like this? The real reason could sound surprising and initially almost random: self-hatred and, closely allied to this, pervasive shame. It isn’t that we are living in an exceptionally dangerous world, it is that we despise ourselves with rare and forensic intensity."
(https://www.theschooloflife.com/thebookoflife/the-true-cause-of-dread-and-anxiety/)
“There is a hugely fascinating sentence on the topic in an essay by the great English psychoanalyst Donald Winnicott: ‘The catastrophe you fear will happen has in fact already happened.’ When we worry, we are naturally fixated on what will occur next: it’s the future, with its boundless possibilities for horror, that is the natural arena for exploration by our panicked thoughts. But in Winnicott’s unexpected thesis, something else is revealed: the disaster that we fear is going to unfold is actually behind us.”
(https://www.theschooloflife.com/thebookoflife/19128-2/)
“To start to dig ourselves out of the quicksand of worry, we – the anxious – need to do something that is likely to feel very artificial and probably rather patronising too. We need to learn – on occasion – to distrust our senses completely.”
(https://www.theschooloflife.com/thebookoflife/19128-2/)
Thumbs up on Bruce Tift, I’ve been through his audio program on SoundsTrue a few times.
Regarding relationships, I’d also like to give a nod to John Welwood.
RE: my stoopid stoopa:
Or if you subscribe to the “Family Systems” subpersonalities model:
Last irony is the divot around my stoopid stoopa is so deep because of this quote:
“Until suddenly one day, much to everyone’s surprise, including our own, we break.
[………]
Breakdowns are hugely inconvenient for everyone and so, unsurprisingly, there is an immediate rush to medicalise the problem and attempt to excise it from the scene, so that business as usual can restart.”
(https://www.theschooloflife.com/thebookoflife/the-importance-of-having-a-breakdown/)
Rather than healing the root, it was just prozac’d in my 20’s. That gave me another 20+ years to work on that divot. The second time around it took no prisoners.
Good webinar.
Slower than your average bear,
Courtney
Dear @Andrew, thank you for your words in that webinar. Makes me feel a bit more courageous to finally, some day, perhaps…turn around and face my monsters. though I have the feeling that always running away is exhausting even more.
taken the fact of my exhaustion it would be better to find that courage.
just a short description of my inner state right now: after having practiced in the vipassanna tradition quite some years and having had elevated moments as well as “touching-ground-zeros” I am hit by some health issues - VERY HARD neck contraction pains with really frightening symptoms around that - so that was enough to kick me off track, I am just running away from sitting down and taking on my meditation practice, I feel I cannot stand silence and darkness.
During night though, in pitch darkness, I cannot run away any more. there is only fear left, no moves left, just fear (…whole spectrum…that this state will never change, fear of being lost in the dark, hopelessness, losing life, wasting life, fear of my own body,…).
feelings of being a complete loser because of being stuck so much.
So with your words … there is only this one door left - to turn towards.
feels like dying.