Faith and Fear, Part 2: Awareness and Acceptance
What exactly are you afraid of? Can you "sit with pain, mine or your own, without moving to hide it or fade it or fix it"?
I remember stealing a cup of coffee from the local gas station a few days before my wedding. Minutes earlier I had left my house in the midst of an argument with my then fiancée, now wife. I walked into the gas station, filled up a paper cup, and stirred in some cream. I wasn’t intending to steal the coffee but, as one friend described it to me recently, my head and my feet weren’t in the same place. My head was arguing with my wife: “You’re overreacting!” “I don’t deserve to be spoken to like that!” My feet were walking out the door with a cup of coffee I hadn’t paid for.
How do you reconnect your head and your feet when afflictive emotions - fear, anger, shame - carry you away? You can find dozens (hundreds?) of answers to this question in the spirituality and self-help sections of any book store, but what practices actually have communities of instruction, practice, and support behind them? What practices don’t just live in books or therapist’s offices?
There are two such practices that I’ve found helpful. The first practice is the ”Turnaround”.1 It turns an issue “out there” (e.g. my wife is overreacting) into an issue “in you” (e.g. I’m afraid that I’m a doormat and unable to stand up for myself). It comes out of the world of 12-step fellowships. There are lots of variations across the different programs. You can practice it in writing or you can say it aloud to another person. It has the humbling and freeing effect of validating important spiritual truisms: “You’re not responsible for what happens to you, but you are responsible for how you respond”; “You can’t control situations or people, but you can control your behaviors, expectations, and attitudes.” The practice is humbling because it returns the focus of any difficult situation to the troubled waters of your own heart and mind. The practice is freeing because those are the only waters which you can calm.
The turnaround is a series of seven questions that you can walk through in writing, in your head, and/or in conversation. Here’s the turnaround I should have done before stealing the coffee (written here with my wife’s permission):
1. What is the cause of the anger or fear?
I’m angry that my wife lost her temper.
2. What is affected? (security/survival/affection/esteem/power/control)
Emotional security. Affection. Self-esteem. Control.
3. How am I being selfish? What do I want in the situation?
I want her to be different, to be more level-headed. I want her to work through conflict like I do. I want to be able to keep my own cool when she loses hers.
4. How am I being dishonest? What’s the lie I’m telling myself or the truth I am leaving out?
I’m expecting her to work through conflict like I do. I think my process is better even though my way of handling conflict often leaves me awake at 3 am ruminating. The truth I’m leaving out is that it’s stressful planning a wedding; it’s normal for people to lose their cool under stress. The truth is that my emotional serenity comes from doing God’s will, not having other people’s understanding or approval. It’s also true that it’s normal to lose one’s cool when another person does. Give myself a break.
5. How was I self-seeking? What did I do to get what I wanted or to feel better?
I ruminated. I criticized her in my head. I catastrophized. I compared myself favorably. I felt sorry for myself. I beat myself up for not reacting more assertively.
6. What was I afraid of?
Not being able to care for myself. Taking things personally. Not being able to differentiate other people’s “stuff” from my own. Not having a way to work through conflict creatively with my wife. Repressing my own anger.
7. Ask God to remove your fear and direct your attention to what God would have you be?
God, please remove my fear. Direct my attention to what you would have me be - open, direct, vulnerable, forgiving of myself and others, willing to ask for help to learn healthier communications skills and how to set internal boundaries.
I love the turnaround for helping me to see my part - my expectations and behaviors - in a situation. It also helps me to name all the emotions stirring the waters. For example, when I feel angry, fear is usually just below the surface, more subtle but just as strong.
What I’ve also found is that the turnaround has limitations. For someone like myself prone to intellectualization – analyzing feelings without actually feeling with them – the turnaround can help me see more clearly without helping me to feel or release my feelings so that I act in a constructive way. I can go to bed with an honest and succinct turnaround in my notebook and still wake up at 3 am rehashing a conversation.
That brings me to the second practice, the Welcoming Prayer. It belongs to the set of practices developed and popularized by Trappist monk Fr. Thomas Keating and his followers. You can read more about the history of the prayer at the Contemplative Outreach website.2 You can also listen to a 10-minute introduction to the practice by Fr. Bill Sheehan at Apple or Spotify or below:
Almost twenty years ago, as I was beginning adulthood and confronting for the first time the traffic jams, dead-ends, and roundabouts-with-no-exits of my own thinking, a beloved aunt sent me a classic poem in the world of self-development.3 One line resonated with me for years. The narrator of the poem says, “I want to know/ if you can sit with pain/ mine or your own/ without moving to hide it/ or fade it/ or fix it.” I sensed that I needed to learn exactly that and I didn’t know how.
The theory behind the Welcoming Prayer confirmed my sense and it offered explicit directions for how to sit with the pain. The directions in brief are this: “1) Feel and sink into what you are experiencing this moment in your body. 2) ‘Welcome’ what you are experiencing this moment in your body as an opportunity to consent to the Divine Indwelling. 3) Let go by saying ‘I let go of my desire for security, affection, control and embrace this moment as it is.’”
Sometimes I have trouble walking myself through the Welcoming Prayer in the midst of emotional turmoil. Here is a guided meditation of the practice led by Fr. Bill Sheehan, longtime teacher and practitioner of the prayer. You can listen to the guided meditation at Spotify, Apple or below:
Once you’ve named, felt, and let go of your fear, what’s next? What do you do when you find yourself standing outside your car with a stolen cup of coffee? That’ll be the topic for next week.
There are lots of adaptations of the “Turnaround” across 12-step fellowships. They all have their roots in the AA Big Book’s directions which can be found here: https://www.aa.org/sites/default/files/2021-11/en_bigbook_chapt5.pdf
I particularly appreciate Cynthia Bourgeault’s introduction to the Welcoming Prayer in chapter 13 of her book Centering Prayer and Inner Awakening. That chapter contains a diagram called “The False Self in Action” which depicts how triggering events lead to afflictive emotions, internal dialogue, and risk reinforcing the emotional programs for happiness. That diagram can also be found here
“The Invitation” by Oriah Mountain Dreamer, http://www.oriahmountaindreamer.com/