Many people have said that fear is the opposite of love and on some level this is probably true. When you are feeling fear it is difficult to experience authentic love, and when you are totally in a space of love, fear is not usually on your radar.

 However, it is natural to be fearful when we are in real physical danger, and this type of fear may even alert us to avoid that danger. But a lot of fears are counterproductive and will prevent us from moving forward in our evolutionary process.

So then, what exactly is fear?  Well, it is an emotional response that releases chemicals in our bodies. When we are fearful, we go into what is called the fight or flight response: usually our heart begins to race, our muscles constrict, and our breathing becomes accelerated or shallow.

 I will not go further into the physiology of it. Suffice it to say that fear is never pleasant. But the good news, as the wise ones teach us, is that we are not our emotions. And if we can realize this on a very deep level and learn how to get into the “witness state” where we can observe our fears rather than identifying with them, we will be on the road to conquering fear!