When I first started meditating 45 years ago the driving motivation was fear. I had reached a point in my life when fear was present all the time. The fear influenced everything I experienced and I was ultimately driven to discover and resolve the cause. As I explored the present moment I was able to discover how the fear was affecting me physically, mentally and emotionally. Once I was able to get in touch with that visceral experience it forged the connection to go deeper and trace the roots. I was able to be present with and explore the things I was fearful of and ultimately traced it all back to the fear of dying which was something I had been aware of since very early childhood. I discovered through that introspection that all my other fears could be traced back to fear of dying. I also noticed that there was a connection to a lot of other physical, emotional and mental issues that fed on the fear. I had stomach issues that I could see were directly related and many other issues such as fear of public speaking that obviously stemmed from the constriction of fear.
As I went deeper into my fear I came across the realization that the fear of dying was an effective way of addressing survival. I looked deeply into the fight or flight response that is hard wired in our autonomic nervous system and concluded that because of my heightened fear I would have an advantage in a survival situation. The problem was that I was always in that heightened fear and deduced that it would be much better if I could call upon it only when I needed it. The more I was able to fully experience the fear in the present moment the more it started to go away. As I faced the fear of dying my nervous system began to change. The fear lessened and all the other “symptoms” of fear lessened too. Over the years I began to have dreams of dying and actually was able to practice dying in my dreams. That combined with my mindfulness practice put an end to my fear of dying and other connected issues and rewired my nervous system so that it wasn’t constantly in fight or flight. I have come to realize the importance of going deeply into the fear of dying. I have concluded that it is the root of all fear and is connected to many, many other issues. Mindfulness practice is a great way to explore this and is a great touchstone as we all embrace our own paths of exploring and resolving fear.