Overcoming Fear and Anxiety | Eckhart Tolle Teachings

This person asks. After many years of meditation and all the twists and turns of life, I'm now in the grip of intense fear and anxiety. It seems it was always there, only more intense. Now, sitting with it, letting it be there, seems to make it grow. Well, fear, anxiety, which is a form of fear, very common. Some people have it, many have it in the background continuously. And I would say there's some degree of fear, even if you're not conscious of it. If you're totally identified with the egoic mind, you will have fear, if only in the background. And it may come out in other forms. It can come express itself as anger. If you look at anger closely, you usually find hidden underneath the anger is a state of fear. So if there's fear, one important thing is to. Of course, you need to direct your attention to it. You acknowledge that there's fear. The important question that arises is, are there any thought processes connected with the fear? In other words, what are the thoughts that your mind is producing while you're feeling the fear? Is it possible that certain thoughts that you think frequently or habitually produce the fear? Is it possible you project yourself into the next moment, into the future moment, excessively trying to control something that you have no control over? What's going to happen to me? Or project, or creating an imaginary scenario of loss that you might suffer? It's not happening now, but it might happen. And many things that the thought activity, excessive thought activity, often creates scenarios of things going wrong that are not happening now, may never happen, often probably will never happen. And even if they did happen, the actual situation would actually be easier to face than the imaginary situation in your mind, because there's nothing you can do. There's no action you can take to remedy an imaginary situation, except to stop thinking it. But if an actual situation arises, you face it and you give it your attention. And then you take the action that you need to take. But an imaginary situation, you're totally at the mercy of it. So it only exists in your mind. So you need to see whether your mind is creating the fear by thinking fearful thoughts, by projecting itself into the future. And if that is the case, then you can see, oh, so I'm creating those. Because my body cannot tell the difference between an actual event that's happening outside and what my mind is producing. So when I'm thinking thought, my life situation is critical. If this is basically what your thoughts are telling you, then your body believes that this is the actual truth, that you are being threatened at this very moment. The body doesn't know the difference that the tiger isn't in the room. The threatening presence is your thoughts. The body reacts in the same way. Whether there's a threat, an actual threat in the room or your thoughts can create the same. Even palpitations. You can shortness of breath because you're thinking fearful thoughts at night. I had that for years. Awful state. It's insane. It's a disease. But nothing is happening. Absolutely nothing. There's a quiet room, nothing. It's all happening in the mind. So if that's the case, see, okay, then you need to tackle the thoughts because they will cause the fear. And how do you tackle thoughts is by using, by realizing the futility and the destructive nature of these thoughts and choosing to step out. And what do you do to step out? First, you don't believe your mind. That tells you, no, you can't step out. You have to continue thinking. No, you step out and take a conscious breath or put your attention into the inner energy field of the body. A conscious choice to remove attention from thinking. And you may have to be really alert to do it. If you are immersed in a mind stream, it could even be that it's so powerful that you just cannot get out. It has such gravitational pull. It pulls you. But at least you know that this is what's happening. So you. There's a state where you cannot help yourself yet, but at least there is the beginning of a beginning of a disidentification from it when you know that this is what is happening. So there's at least there's a part of you that knows this is not totally real. This is the fear is being produced by my mind or the. In those early stages, you may not yet be able to step out of it. It may be so strong that you're still total in the grip of it, but at least you know that you're in the grip of it. The worst thing is to be in the grip of it and not even knowing it because you're so identified with it. It is absolutely real to you. So even to know that this is happening is already a step forward. And then perhaps after a while, the energy exhausts itself. A little bit of this and then you can begin to say, okay, you will step out of thought those fearful thoughts because they are creating suffering. And you take a conscious breath and another, and another, then begin to feel the inner energy field of the body. Ah, wow. It's like this huge burden is suddenly dropped away. It.