Table Of ContentThe Dance
of Fear
Rising Above Anxiety, Fear, and Shame
to Be Your Best and Bravest Self
Harriet Lerner, Ph.D.
In memory of my mother,
Rose Goldhor
Contents
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS v
CHAPTER 1 Why Can’t a Person Be More Like a Cat? 1
CHAPTER 2 The Fear of Rejection: A One-Day Cure 14
CHAPTER 3 Terrified? You Have to Keep Showing Up! 27
CHAPTER 4 In Praise of Anxiety: How Fear and
Trembling Keep You Safe 39
CHAPTER 5 The Trouble with Anxiety:
How It Wreaks Havoc on
Your Brain and Self-Esteem 53
CHAPTER 6 Why We Fear Change 73
CHAPTER 7 Your Anxious Workplace:
Staying Calm and Clearheaded
in a Crazy Environment 92
CHAPTER 8 The Secret Power of Shame 117
iv Contents
CHAPTER 9 The Fear of the Mirror:
Anxiety and Shame About Your Looks—
and Being Looked At 141
CHAPTER 10 When Things Fall Apart:
Facing Illness and Suffering 171
CHAPTER 11 Courage in the Face of Fear 196
EPILOGUE: Everyone Freaks Out 221
NOTES 225
INDEX 231
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
PRAISE FOR
BY THE AUTHOR
CREDITS
COVER
COPYRIGHT
ABOUT THE PUPBLISHER
Acknowledgments
For careful editing, invaluable conversation, hand-holding, com-
miseration, encouragement, and generosity of spirit during the
writing of this book, I thank my dear friends Jeffrey Ann Goudie,
Marcia Cebulska, Emily Kofron, Joanie Shoemaker, Stephanie von
Hirschberg, Marianne Ault-Riché, Tom Averill, and Stephanie
Bryson.
For these same gifts, my boundless love and gratitude go to my
husband Steve Lerner, my sons, Matt Lerner and Ben Lerner, and
my niece Amy Hofer. Members of our wonderful, ever-expanding
family have been described by Matt as being at once “the greatest
intellects and the silliest clowns.” No slouches here in the writ-
ing/editing department, either, I might add.
My manager, agent, and close friend Jo-Lynne Worley brought
her unwavering competence, intelligence, and commitment to this
project, as she does to all that she undertakes. For over a decade, she
has facilitated my work beyond words. New on board is Marian
Sandmaier, whom I discovered through The Psychotherapy Networker,
vi Acknowledgments
and who proved to be a superb, creative editor and long-distance
support. For assorted help, thanks to Hazel Browne, Ellen Safier,
Jen Hofer, Yarrow Dunham, and Mary Fulton. I am also grateful to
Mary Ann Clifft, who contributed to this book by meticulously
compiling the index.
Thanks (yet again) to the people at HarperCollins who have
published my books for almost two decades. It’s a rare author who
happily chooses to stay for so long with one publisher. I’m particu-
larly indebted to Gail Winston, for spare and splendid editing, and
to Christine Walsh, Cathy D. Hemming, Susan Weinberg, and the
many other people at Harper whose labors have kept me in print.
Thanks also go to Will Staehle for his inventiveness in the book
jacket department.
Thanks to my enthusiastic readers, to therapy clients who have
shared conversations with me since the start of my career, and to the
countless unnamed individuals to whom I owe intellectual and
emotional debts. And big hugs to Alice Lieberman and Susan Kraus
for their spirited, energetic friendship and for welcoming me so
generously to my new home in Lawrence, Kansas, while this book
was in progress. Boundless love and appreciation also go to the re-
markable Vonda Lohness, who has kept me organized and afloat for
ten years before heading off to a new life in Clearwater, Florida,
thankfully, after the completion of this book.
My mother, Rose Goldhor, died in Cambridge, Massachusetts,
during the writing of this book. Rose was the most loving and in-
trepid of mothers to me and my sister, Susan, and a warm, open-
hearted, generous grandmother to Matt and Ben. She is always with
me. This book is dedicated to her.
CHAPTER 1
Why Can’t a Person
Be More Like a Cat?
“Fear stops me from doing so many things,” a neighbor confided
when I mentioned the subject of this book. Then, without further
ado, she launched into a description of her coworker Carmen, a
woman who exuded such a deep sense of calm, joy, and peaceful-
ness that everyone wanted to be around her. “Carmen never feels
fear or other negative emotions. She’s always in the flow of the pres-
ent moment. She really lives each day to the fullest.” My neighbor
paused to catch her breath, then exclaimed: “I would do anything to
be like Carmen!”
She spoke so earnestly, her voice ringing with italics, that I re-
strained myself from suggesting that maybe Carmen had multiple
personalities and that one of her alters might be sitting mute in
some corner having wall-to-wall panic attacks. But I did tell her
this: The only being I have ever known who was entirely free of
fear and always “in the flow” was my cat, Felix. When Felix was
2 The Dance of Fear
alive, I aspired to be like him, much as my neighbor aspired to be
like Carmen. I could relate.
FELIX, MY ROLE MODEL
Felix was my little Buddhist, my role model for mindful living. He
demonstrated a healthy fight-or-flight response when threatened,
but he only felt fear when fear was due. He became anxious and ag-
itated when forced into a carrying cage, because he knew very well
it meant a car ride to the vet. But he didn’t let fear, worry, and ru-
mination spoil an otherwise perfectly good day.
By contrast, I recall my own human experience anticipating my
first allergy shot as a child. For a good week before the actual ap-
pointment, I freaked myself out with fearful imaginings, all of them
having to do with long needles and terrible pain. My mother, who
had certain Key Phrases to Live By, informed me that “a coward
dies a thousand deaths; a brave man dies but once.” She learned this
aphorism from her younger brother when he went off to fight in
World War II.
I personally found no comfort in her words. What sense did
they make to a nine-year-old? I wasn’t brave, I wasn’t a man, and
why was my mother bringing death into the conversation? When I
was older and had developed the capacity for abstract thinking, I
understood the lesson she was trying to convey. In essence, my
mother was encouraging me to be more like Felix.
Felix lived in the moment. When he played, he played. When he
ate, he ate. When he had sex, he had sex, utterly unencumbered by
fear, shame, or guilt. Once “fixed” (the downside of being a pet), he
settled immediately into a perfect acceptance of his situation. “Wher-
ever you go, there you are,” was the motto I believe he lived by.
This capacity to inhabit the moment granted Felix a kind of
profound self-acceptance. When he licked his fur, he didn’t worry
