Fear holding me back

[mikcatta]

Hi All

I have followed the 8 week mindfulness 'finding peace in a frantic world' to help with my anxiety. While I feel that it has helped, I still feel stuck and unable to move on with my life as I have this constant fear that seems to hang over me.

My fear seem to come down to these two areas :
fear of failure (mainly in my job) i.e. not being able to resolve a problem.
fear that some unexpected big bill will leave me penniless and poor.

While I know that the fears are largely unrealistic, it seems to be clouding my everyday.

Having gone through the 8 weeks of meditation, I am now feeling a bit disillusioned and confused as to whether I was trying to solve the wrong problem or use the wrong tool to help.

I am not sure there is a question in there, but I thought if I put it in a post, that might help and someone can offer some direction.

Regards
Mike

[JonW]

Hi Mike,
Most of our fears are unrealistic. Ending up penniless is a very common one.
How did you get on during the "turning towards difficulty" week of the course? That's when we start learning to turn towards troublesome thoughts or feelings. But we begin gently, by bringing up fairly everyday bothers and turning towards those, being curious about the thought manifests itself in our bodies. Over time we can apply the same curiosity to bigger fears like the ones you mentioned.
It might be worth you returning to that week of the course and sticking with it for a few weeks by practicing turning towards difficulty.
I'd be interested to hear how you get along.
All best,
Jon, Hove

[mikcatta]

Hi Jon

Thank-you for taking the time to reply.

I found in the "cosy" world of a meditation it was hard to bring the difficulties to mind, but I will give that practise another go for a week or two as suggested and report back.

Regards
Mike

[JonW]

My pleasure, Mike.
You say, "I found in the 'cosy' world of a meditation it was hard to bring the difficulties to mind." That's actually a very profound point.
We can so easily drift into the idea of mindfulness as a way of enjoying blissful meditations and heightening our appreciation of nature etc. But it also teaches how to respond when life deals the wrong card or when, simply, we're trying to deal with negative thought patterns.
As Jon Kabat-Zinn says, mindfulness is about facing the full catastrophe, all of life.
It takes practice and it takes patient. Self-compassion is absolutely crucial and that needs to be learned too.
It's a wonderful adventure.
And here, on the forum, we're always happy to help or advise in whatever way we can.
All good things,
Jon, Hove