Hi Doug,
Yes, welcome to the forum!
Still have LOTS to learn. Lots to do.
I wanted to add a biological tidbit:
So sometimes fear is the reason for coming to meditation and sometimes fear comes up in meditation.
You may know this, but when we trigger fear through either hypervigilance (constantly anticipating a threat) or through an actual hazard, the the brain is said to shut down to the brain stem and some amygdala function. And we know this is happening by three things. We find ourselves:
a) in a fight (physically or emotionally)
b) in a flight (same: retreating physically or emotionally) and/or
c) in a freeze-- we become immobile.
The brainstem and amygdala are small "learners" relative to the rest of the brain. So if there's threat/fear arising, then one can take up long, slow deep breathing to help recover the use of the WHOLE brain and get out of the limited brainstem.
And another really common fear that arises in a community setting is making a mistake in front of people. Boo! So I want to welcome you by sharing two mistakes and helping to ensure that DhO is a safe place for learning and, naturally, making mistakes, which are a great sign that curiousity and learning are happening. So, one, I made a mistake this morning and didn't see irritation arising, so I communicated a little testily. And, two, I got very into long sits a year ago and didn't walk enough: now I do a lot of yoga for piriformis tenderness. So I keep my whole brain available to learning by saying, "Okay, one mistake was fear-driven: I sort of fought. And the other mistake was just a natural learning mistake: my body had a limited to sitting last fall so now I put meditation everywhere I can and sit fewer long sessions."
Welcome