Triggers

by David Richo

  The Buddha is the great trickster who has to say whatever it takes to save us from the house of our body-minds, on fire with triggers and reactions. The Dharma he offers is not as flashy as the toys we expected, but it provides freedom from fear and craving—far more valuable than escape and comfort. The Dharma is shapeless, but it grounds us on the bedrock of reality, far more precious than any alluring fantasy our minds can conjure.

  What will it take for each of us

  To vacate all the tempting blaze

  Of wily ghosts and mindmade dreams

  That have so long enthralled our gaze

  Not at what is but at what seems?

  APPENDIX: AFFIRMATIONS TO FREE OURSELVES FROM THE GRIP OF FEAR

  Use one or more of the following affirmations each day, repeating them often, feeling them bodily, and picturing yourself putting them into practice. Choose the ones that seem most appropriate for you. It also helps to read the ones you have chosen, or the whole list, onto your device and then listen to them each day. You then hear yourself sounding brave. Each affirmation becomes an exultant rap on the tambourine of freedom from fear.

  I trust my true fears to give me signals of real danger.

  I notice that I have unreal fears and worries.

  More and more I recognize the difference between real and imagined fears.

  I feel compassion toward myself for all the years I have been afraid.

  I forgive those who hypnotized me into unreal fears.

  I trust that I have as much fearlessness in me as fear.

  I trust the strength that opens in me when I have to face something.

  I believe in myself as able to handle whatever comes my way today.

  I create a pause between a trigger and my response.

  I have the inner resources to handle any fear or trigger.

  I find support inside and outside myself.

  I have an enormous capacity for rebuilding, restoring, and recovering from fear.

  I am more and more sure of my abilities.

  I am more and more aware of how I hold fear in my body.

  I relax the part of my body that holds my fear.

  I am freeing my body from the grip of fear.

  I open my body to joy and serenity.

  I let go of the stress and tension that come from fear.

  I let go of my fears of sickness, accidents, old age, and death.

  I let go of my fear of the future.

  I let go of regretful ties to the past.

  I let go of any tie I may still have to judgments my parents had of me.

  I let go of my fear of the unknown.

  I cease being afraid of knowing, having, or showing my feelings.

  I am less and less scared by what happens, by what has happened, by what will happen.

  I let go of my fear of what might happen.

  I let go of my obsessive thoughts about how the worst will happen.

  I let go of fear-based thoughts.

  I trust myself always to find a solution.

  I catch myself when I engage in paranoid fantasies and I let them go.

  My trust in myself is releasing me from fear and fearsome fantasies.

  I let go of regretting my mistakes; I find the path to going on.

  I let go of basing my decisions on fear.

  I let go of finding something to fear in everything.

  I let go of believing that everything is dangerous and headed for disaster.

  I see the humor in my exaggerated reactions to unreal dangers.

  I find a humorous response to every irrational fear.

  I smile at my scared ego and shrug off its relationship fears.

  I let go of my fear of aloneness or of time on my hands.

  I let go of my fear of abandonment.

  I let go of my fear of closeness.

  I let go of my fear of commitment.

  I let go of my fear of being vulnerable.

  I let go of my fear of giving or receiving.

  I let go of my fear of loving or being loved.

  I let go of believing I have to measure up to what others want me to be.

  I give up having to be perfect.

  I let go of my performance fears.

  I let go of my sexual fears.

  I advocate for myself and notice my courage widening and deepening.

  I am confident in my ability to deal with people or situations that scare me.

  I let go of my fear of any person.

  I let go of my fear of saying no to others.

  I let go of my fear of saying yes.

  I cease being intimidated by others’ anger.

  I give up trying to appease those who intimidate me.

  Attempts to bully me now fall flat.

  I let go of being on the defensive.

  I protect myself while always being committed to nonviolence.

  I stick to my guns and I hold my fire.

  I let go of feeling obliged to do things his (or her, or their) way.

  I let go of the need to meet others’ expectations.

  I state and protect my personal boundaries.

  I let go of my fear of what might happen if people dislike me.

  I let go of my terror about disapproval, ridicule, exclusion, or rejection.

  I dare to stop auditioning for people’s approval or love.

  I give up the need to correct people’s impressions of me.

  I give up my poses, pretenses, and posturings; I dare to be myself.

  I dare to show my hand, to show my passions, to show my enthusiasms, to show my real feelings, longings, and needs.

  I want my every word, feeling, and deed to reveal me as I truly am.

  I give up being afraid of what I want.

  I ask for what I want.

  I love being found out, caught in the act of being my authentic self.

  I dare to live the life that truly reflects my deepest needs and wishes.

  I let go of my fear of spending, saving, sharing money.

  I let go of the fear that I will lose, lose face, lose freedom, lose friends, lose family members, lose respect, lose status, lose my job, lose out.

  I let go of my fear of having to grieve.

  I let go of fears about my adequacy as a parent or child, partner or friend.

  I let go of my fear of the fearsome givens of life: impermanence, change, suffering, unfairness, failed plans, losses, and betrayals.

  I am flexible enough to accept life as it is.

  I am forgiving enough to accept how I have lived my life so far.

  I trust my present predicament as a path.

  I let go of control; I let the chips fall where they may.

  I let go of more than any fate can take away from me.

  I cease being afraid of my own power.

  I cease being afraid of the power of others.

  I let go of my fear of authority.

  I speak truth to power.

  I dare to take a stand for the oppressed and the marginalized.

  I join with the most vulnerable in our society.

  I dare to devote my life to co-creating a world of justice, peace, and love
.

  As I show courage for social justice, I notice I am letting go of fear in all areas of my life.

  I have pluck and wit.

  I meet danger face-to-face.

  I stand up to a fight.

  I speak up for myself.

  I speak up for others.

  I trust ever-renewing sources of bravery within me.

  I let go of having any fear stop or drive me.

  Nothing forces me; nothing holds me back.

  I am a hero: I live through pain and am transformed by it.

  I show grace under pressure.

  I stop running; I stop hiding.

  I let go of hesitation and self-doubt.

  I notice primitive dreads in me—for example, that if I love something I will lose it or have it taken away from me; that if something is good it won’t last; that if something is bad it will get worse. I recognize these beliefs as superstitions and let go of the fears that support them.

  I take risks and yet I act with responsibility and caring.

  I keep finding alternatives behind the apparent dead-end of fear.

  I let go of scanning my life to find a reason to be afraid.

  I give up my need to find something to fear.

  More and more my fear is becoming healthy excitement.

  I let fear go and let joy in.

  I let fear go and let love in.

  I am grateful for the love that awaits me everywhere.

  I know I am deeply loved by many people near and far.

  I feel lovingly held by a higher power (God, Universe, Buddha, etc.).

  As I devote myself more and more to a higher power than myself I feel it alive through, with, and in me.

  I believe that I have an important destiny and that I am living in accord with it.

  I am more and more aware of others’ fears, more and more sensitive to them, more and more compassionate toward them.

  I enlarge my circle of love to include every living being.

  I keep finding ways to show my love.

  I am great-hearted and bold-spirited.

  I let go of ill will toward those who have hurt me.

  I do good to those who hate me, bless those who curse me, pray or wish enlightenment for those who have mistreated me.

  I can say “Ouch!” and open a dialogue rather than retaliate.

  I dare to give of myself unconditionally and I dare to be unconditionally committed to maintaining my own boundaries.

  I honor and evoke my animal powers, my human powers, my divine powers.

  I set free my love, until now imprisoned by fear.

  I set free my joy, until now inhibited by fear.

  I let true love cast out fear.

  May I always choose the path of gentle love, the best antidote to fear.

  I say yes to all that happens to me today as an opportunity to love more and fear less.

  I keep letting go and I keep going on.

  I feel an enduring fearlessness awakening in me.

  I keep affirming my freedom from fear.

  I am thankful for the grace of finding freedom from fear.

  May all beings find freedom from fear.

  The certainty that nothing can happen to us that does not belong to us in our innermost being is the foundation of…fearlessness…Then life has lost its horrors and suffering its sting.

  —Lama Anagarika Govinda, Foundations of Tibetan Mysticism

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  David Richo, PhD, MFT, is a psychotherapist and workshop leader who lives in Santa Barbara and San Francisco, California. He combines Jungian, Buddhist, and mythic perspectives in his work. Dave is the author of the following books:

  How to Be an Adult: A Handbook on Psychological and Spiritual Integration (Paulist Press, 1991)

  Happy, mature people have somehow picked up the knack of being generous with their sympathies while still taking care of themselves. We can all evolve from the neurotic ego through a healthy ego to the spiritual Self. We can deal with fear, anger, and guilt. We can be assertive, have boundaries, and build intimacy.

  When Love Meets Fear: How to Become Defense-less and Resource-full (Paulist Press, 1997)

  Our lively energy is inhibited by fear and we are so often needlessly on the defensive. We consider the origins and healings of our fears of closeness, commitment, aloneness, assertiveness, and panic attacks. We can free ourselves from the grip of fear so that it no longer stops or drives us.

  Shadow Dance: Liberating the Power and Creativity of Your Dark Side (Shambhala Publications, 1999)

  The shadow is all that we abhor about ourselves as well as all the dazzling potential that we doubt or deny we have. We project these onto others as dislike or admiration. We can acknowledge our limitations and our gifts. Then both our light and dark sides become sources of creativity and grant us access to our untapped inner wealth.

  How to Be an Adult in Relationships: The Five Keys to Mindful Loving (Shambhala Publications, 2002)

  Love is not so much a feeling as a way of being present. Love is presence with these five As: unconditional attention, acceptance, appreciation, affection, and allowing others to be as they are. Love is presence without the five conditioned overlays of ego: judgment, fear, control, attachment, and illusion.

  The Five Things We Cannot Change and the Happiness We Find by Embracing Them (Shambhala Publications, 2005)

  There are unavoidable “givens” in life and relationships. By our unconditional yes to these conditions of existence we learn to open, accept, even embrace our predicaments without trying to control the outcomes. We begin to trust what happens as gifts of grace that help us grow in character, depth, and compassion.

  The Power of Coincidence: How Life Shows Us What We Need to Know (Shambhala Publications, 2007)

  There are meaningful coincidences of events, dreams, or relationships that happen to us beyond our control. These synchronicities influence the course of our life in mysterious ways. They often reveal assisting forces that are pointing us to our unguessed, unexpected, and unimagined destiny.

  The Sacred Heart of the World: Restoring Mystical Devotion to Our Spiritual Life (Paulist Press, 2007)

  We explore the symbolism of the heart in world religious traditions, and then trace the historical thread of Christian devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus into modern times. We focus on the philosophy and theology of Teilhard de Chardin and Karl Rahner to design a new sense of what devotion can be.

  Making Love Last: How to Sustain Intimacy and Nurture Connection (set of 3 CDs; Shambhala Publications, 2008)

  Recording from a lively workshop given by David Richo at Spirit Rock Buddhist Retreat Center in California on relationship issues. Topics include how love can endure, fears of intimacy and commitment, trust and fidelity, resolving our conflicts, the phases of a relationship, and how our early life affects our adult relationships.

  When the Past Is Present: Healing the Emotional Wounds That Sabotage Our Relationships (Shambhala Publications, 2008)

  Transference is a tendency to see our parents or other significant characters in our life story in others. In this book, we explore how our past impacts our present relationships. We find ways to make transference a valuable opportunity to learn about ourselves, deepen our relationships, and heal our ancient wounds.

  Being True to Life: Poetic Paths to Personal Growth (Shambhala Publications, 2009)

  Poetry may have seemed daunting in school but here is a chance for it to become quite wonderfully personal and spiritually enrichi
ng. This book offers an opportunity to use our hearts and pens to release the full range of our imagination to discover ourselves through reading and writing poetry.

  Daring to Trust: Opening Ourselves to Real Love and Intimacy (Shambhala Publications, 2010)

  We learn how to build trust, how to recognize a trustworthy person, how to work with our fears around trusting, and how to rebuild trust after a breach or infidelity. We find ways to trust others, to trust ourselves, to trust reality and the events that happen to us, and to trust a higher power than ourselves.