Empathy and Mindfulness with Inner Conversations of Fear and Anxiety

I am wondering how you are doing with the impacts of the Coronavirus? How intense is the fear and anxiety for you? Are you scared about protecting and providing for yourself and those you love? As we humans deal with the intensity of this challenge that Nature is bringing to us, it is so easy and natural to be caught in the grip of deep fear and even panic.

Our brain and nervous system is built for this, the body responding with the primal surge in the chest and belly of fight-flight-freeze for survival. I think of this experience as a conversation happening in the mind and body, in the unconscious and conscious aspects of ourselves. With practice I have found it is possible to be able to shift from being completely absorbed and identified with the inner conversations of thoughts and feelings to being the space of awareness of these conversations.

Connecting with awareness and being aware, we can connect with the universal, expanding our sense of self beyond (and including) the purely individual and separate. There is universal language that goes with this, a way to talk to ourselves in a language of human needs, such as safety, security, support, abundance, empathy, care. Tapping into universal awareness and language we can feel ourselves part of a larger whole.

I find great comfort in this. It opens me to seeing new possibilities. If you would like to practice with me, start with observing your breath. As you do this observe your mind generating thoughts. Then drop attention into allowing yourself to feel the sensations of your body, particularly the difficult sensations. Now, connect with the underlying energy of need and ask your unconscious mind for universal need words related to what you are currently perceiving, thinking and feeling. I call this the Self-Connection Practice — breath, body, need.