Mindfulness in the Face of Fear- by Meditation Teacher Training Graduate Jeison Azali

Meditation Teacher Training recent graduate Jeison Azali

Were making our ascent to a cruising altitude of 30,000 feet. I make this trip once or twice a month, and it’s always pleasant. One of my favorite flight activities is to meditate so I settle in and start my breathing. As always, I’m drifting into a lovely state of placidity as I engage in a mindfulness of noise meditation. Then, a knock and the plane shakes. Then another. The plane starts to skip in the sky, and I start to hear the rustling of loose items in the cabin. We are hitting turbulence with a kick and automatically my mind starts to drift into fear of the unknown. This is out of the norm for this trip, so my mind has become unsettled. Right in the middle of my meditation. I start to lose focus and drift into the fear my mind is creating based on things that are not happening.

But in this moment I choose to come back to my mindfulness training, given to me by my mentor Dina Kaplan, owner of The Path and lead teacher for the Meditation Teacher Training course I just graduated. What is called for in this moment? I know it’s not to jump to entertaining fear. The moment calls for me to arrive, present, mindful, and fully participating in life. So, I employ my training. I simply look at the fear without judging or succumbing to it, stay present in the moment, which is telling me I am safe, we’re not going down, and continue my meditation. As Dina says, this is just data coming to me. What do I choose to do with it? How do I choose to react? Do I choose to react?

My decision was to be unmoved, notice the fear, and let it go, and accept the calling to be mindful in a moment of perceived uncertainty. I continued my peaceful meditation, and we ascended right into clear, smooth skies. Due to honing my skills through practice and sangha I was able to process all this in a matter of seconds. The situation arose, and I instinctively knew what to do to keep at peace. I was aware of my mind without having a gut reaction and in tune with my body — I was able to regulate my central nervous system without it getting out of whack. These are the benefits of mind and body that employing mindfulness brings.

Fear is almost always based in the assumption of something happening that hasn’t happened yet. That is not being mindful. That is called future tripping. I have no control over the future. I do, however, have control of myself in the present moment. The here and now. And when I stay in the here and now, no matter what is happening, I have complete autonomy over myself in relation to the situation I am in. That is mindfulness. That is awareness. So, while fear pops up from time to time, I don’t have to live with it. Thanks Dina!