There’s a popular saying about how to eliminate fear, I’m sure you’ve heard it: “Choose love, not fear.” This is reassuring; it makes people feel that they always have a choice not to be afraid if they can love instead. It is the principle of replacing what’s considered a negative, fear, with a perceived positive, love. But it doesn’t always work. Sometimes we just feel afraid and there’s nothing we can do to eliminate the fear. We can try, perhaps we can do it for a while, but often the fear just pops back up in another way, just like grief or anger. Maneuvering to get rid of it can have unwanted repercussions and often intensifies the anxiety.

So what do you do when your maneuvering fails? Be as fearful as you need to be. Pause and open to it, feel it in your body, don’t try to get rid of it. Stop viewing it as a problem and approach it as a friend who needs your attention. But also be aware of the thoughts and projections that are feeding the fear. You don’t have to nourish those thoughts. What would happen if you just let your fear live inside your body for a while, just as it is? What if you quit viewing fear as the enemy, something to get rid of? Would it overrun you and eat you up? Not if you cultivate a steady mind and an open heart in the presence of the fear. You’ll slowly see that this present moment awareness is bigger than fear. Take a few deep breaths and step in, readily or slowly, at whatever pace works for you. Through this practice you can reach a still and open dwelling place where wisdom lives. You can steadiness in the midst of fear, and maybe even love.

“Perhaps everything terrible is, in its deepest being, something that needs our love.” -Rilke