The Places That Scare You: A Guide to Fearlessness in Difficult Times

Pema Chödrön's profound guide to working with fear and cultivating fearlessness—a compassionate exploration of how to face the places that scare us most, transform fear into courage, and develop genuine compassion for ourselves and others through Buddhist psychology and contemplative practice, creating one of the most essential works on fear, vulnerability, and authentic living.

Pema Chödrön, the beloved American Buddhist nun and bestselling author, published The Places That Scare You in 2001 as a guide to working with fear in difficult times. Drawing on Tibetan Buddhist teachings, particularly the practice of tonglen (sending and receiving) and the cultivation of bodhichitta (awakened heart), Pema offers practical wisdom for facing fear, opening to vulnerability, and developing genuine compassion. Rather than trying to eliminate fear or avoid difficult emotions, she teaches how to work with them directly—transforming the places that scare us into opportunities for awakening and connection.

What you'll discover:

• How to work with fear rather than trying to eliminate or avoid it
• The practice of tonglen—breathing in pain and breathing out relief
• Cultivating bodhichitta—the awakened, compassionate heart
• The four limitless qualities: loving-kindness, compassion, joy, and equanimity
• How vulnerability and openness lead to genuine fearlessness
• Working with difficult emotions as a path to awakening
• Developing compassion for ourselves and others in challenging times
• Practical meditation and contemplative practices

Pema's approach is both deeply Buddhist and universally accessible. She doesn't ask readers to adopt Buddhist beliefs but offers practical tools for working with fear, pain, and difficult emotions that anyone can use. The central teaching is counterintuitive: instead of protecting ourselves from fear and pain, we can learn to open to them, breathe them in, and transform them through compassion. This practice of tonglen—taking in suffering and sending out relief—reverses our usual self-protective instincts and cultivates genuine courage and compassion.

What makes this book essential for your contemplative library is its honest, compassionate approach to fear and vulnerability. Pema doesn't offer easy answers or techniques for eliminating fear but teaches how to be with fear, to recognize it as a natural part of being human, and to use it as a doorway to awakening. She writes from her own experience of fear, loss, and difficulty, making the teachings deeply personal and relatable. The result is a book that feels like a wise friend offering guidance through difficult times.

The book explores the four limitless qualities—loving-kindness, compassion, joy, and equanimity—as antidotes to fear and as practices for cultivating an awakened heart. Pema shows how these qualities aren't abstract ideals but practical responses to life's difficulties. When we meet fear with loving-kindness, pain with compassion, others' happiness with joy, and life's ups and downs with equanimity, we develop genuine fearlessness—not the absence of fear but the courage to be present with whatever arises.

The Places That Scare You has become a beloved classic of contemporary Buddhist psychology and contemplative literature. It speaks to anyone facing fear, uncertainty, or difficult times—offering not escape but a path through, not protection but genuine courage, not isolation but connection through shared vulnerability and compassion.

Perfect for: Readers of Pema Chödrön and Buddhist psychology, those working with fear, anxiety, or difficult emotions, students of compassion practices and tonglen meditation, readers interested in Buddhist teachings presented accessibly, anyone facing difficult times or uncertainty, students of humanistic and transpersonal psychology, contemplative readers seeking practical wisdom on vulnerability and courage, and seekers drawn to compassionate, non-prescriptive approaches to suffering and awakening.

This paperback edition presents Pema Chödrön's beloved guide to fearlessness—a compassionate exploration of how to transform fear into courage and cultivate genuine compassion in difficult times.