Teachings of the Buddhist Path and Contemporary Psychotherapy
The problem with fear is that we tend to bury it, run from it, ignore it, or sink into it. While these strategies may work for a while to keep the anxiety at bay, it eventually catches up with us. Most of these mechanisms are learned behaviors and designed to ensure that fear does not expose the underlying vulnerability. To complicate matters, the judgment of fear often adds even more layers of complexity. As psychologist and Buddhist teacher Tara Brach notes, “Reacting to pain as something wrong initiates the trance of unworthiness.”
Unexplored fear can isolate and separate us from life and support
There are typically two standard mechanisms that people use to manage anxiety. At one end of the spectrum is the avoidant strategy. Here fear is pushed away, hidden, ignored and suppressed. In our Western culture we have become so accustomed to a lot of numbing behaviors. These are designed to avoid any discomfort, especially the intensity of fear and pain. Drugs, alcohol, work, excessive busyness, social media and sex are the usual suspects here. On the other end of the spectrum, there is a collapse and spiral into the deep pit of fear, allowing it to consume us and carry us through its dark and stormy seas. In other words, we overidentify with fear and merge with it, instead of seeing it as an emotion that is difficult to pass.
Both scenarios withhold exactly what fear needs. It seems that what fear requires most is acceptance and empathy. Acceptance offers us the freedom we ultimately seek. The first noble truth in Buddhist teaching is that life is suffering. If we accept this, the struggle will diminish.
So how do we break these painful cycles of fear, shame and unworthiness?
Recognizing our own suffering and cultivating empathy for ourselves is the antidote to our pain, according to psychologist Tara Brach. Buddhist teacher Pema Chödrön goes one step further and encourages us to adopt a strategy that embraces the warrior within. This paradoxical approach asks us to step into the center of the pain with an attitude of courage and compassion toward our suffering selves. She notes that “Practicing compassion is daring. It’s about learning to relax and allow ourselves to move gently towards what scares us.” It is a method that involves the courage to face what fears us, while at the same time holding ourselves to deep and genuine loving-kindness and compassion. “Discovering fearlessness comes from working with the gentleness of the human heart,” advises Chögyam Trungpa, the Tibetan Buddhist master.
Ancient wisdom traditions provide us with the skills to move toward what we often avoid
The ancient Buddhist wisdom tradition teaches that it is not our emotions that are the problem, but that it is our relationship with our emotions that makes them problematic and exacerbates our suffering. (This view is reflected in many contemporary psychotherapeutic approaches such as Gestalt and Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT)). In this approach, a middle ground is offered as a more useful means of dealing with our feelings of anxiety. On this path, the emphasis is on finding balance within the extremes of avoidance and over-identification. Pema Chödrön calls this “holding our seat” at the heart of the difficulty.
Healing is “focusing on what is wounded,” according to Buddhist teacher and writer Jack Kornfield. “The invitation to healing is to feel this great energy of recovery and life and let it flow through us,” he adds.
What is essential in such an approach is to get closer to the core of ourselves: our vulnerability. Contemporary poet David White writes extensively about the power of embracing our vulnerability to overcome our deepest suffering. “Vulnerability,” he argues, “is the underlying, ever-present, and enduring undercurrent of our natural state. Fleeing vulnerability means fleeing the essence of our nature.”
Psychotherapy is a powerful addition to Buddhist wisdom
As in Buddhist teachings, invoking the spirit of courage and self-compassion serves as a powerful tool in the tender work of healing our wounds. Furthermore, psychotherapy uses the power of the therapeutic relationship to generate what is often called an “emotionally corrective experience” in therapy. Through ‘Therapeutic Presence’, clients experience the healing shift of being truly witnessed and held with compassion as they courageously face their own fears and shadows.
Helping clients to deal with their inner emotional world more skillfully and with compassion is at the core of the procurement work that I offer in my practice. This involves deconstructing and relearning what can be a lifetime of internalized ‘unhelpful messages’ from parents, caregivers, teachers and society about fear. Men in particular are often socialized to experience being excluded, shunned and dismissed because they experience fear. A common coping mechanism is to adapt by burying fear or turning it into anger. The collateral damage here is that feelings of shame often arise along with fear and vulnerability. It’s a shame, after all it is a powerful inhibitor.
Your conditioning can be reversed and rewired in the safety of the therapeutic relationship
Here the therapist can ‘hold space’ for the difficult feelings of fear and shame in a compassionate and non-judgmental way. An essential exchange takes place when a healthcare provider or therapist can do this. Called “being with” in attachment theory, it is a critical interpersonal communication that rewires the brain toward self-care and self-acceptance.
An additional strategy to calm or regulate anxiety is to identify and name the feeling. ‘Name it to tame it’, as psychiatrist Dan Siegel notes, reduces the intensity of feelings through a clever system in our brain circuits that switches off the stress brain. Dan Siegel also emphasizes the importance of storytelling as a way to sort through and understand our feelings. Psychotherapy offers another useful strategy in which clients write a healing story for themselves using a creative process such as the use of symbols.
In this process, the image (the current experience) as it currently appears is created by clients. It offers the opportunity to witness and observe what is often an internal and hidden process. The client is then encouraged to create a healing image connected to support. In this process, customers are enabled to find their own creative solutions. Pathways (both literal and neurological) to resources are created where order and structure replace chaos and fragmentation.
A case in point: Jessica’s story
The client Jessica, who participated in this process, chose a rock that represented fear and a bag that represented shame to hide the fear. The dolls were a potential support for the fear, but were unaware of the need for support as it was hidden. The dominant experience was shame, suffering, isolation and disconnection. In the healing image, the stone was placed on the bag that now formed a nest and although he felt exposed and vulnerable, he could be seen and heard.
TThe support could now access fear in its raw form and draw closer for contact, comfort and reassurance. In this way, Jessica was able to create the ‘nest of safety’ that she came to therapy for. The insights that emerged from this process were powerful for her as she began to understand the need to connect with her own vulnerability in a kind and non-judgmental attitude. Only then can external support be accessed without shame. This realization gave Jessica a deep and embodied sense of safety, liberation and freedom.
Written by Sabine Schroeder
Original article @
Empatherapies
Sabine is a counselor, psychotherapist and founder of Empatherapies. Her therapeutic style is based on her studies in psychology, various psychotherapy training and Eastern wellness traditions such as Buddhism and yoga. Sabine believes this path has chosen her and being a psychotherapist is her life’s work. “It is an honor to assist clients in their healing journey.” – learn more and book
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