By replacing fear of the unknown with curiosity, we open ourselves to an infinite stream of possibility. We can let fear rule our lives or we can become childlike with curiosity, pushing our boundaries, leaping out of our comfort zones, and accepting what life puts before us

—Alan Watts

Fear can be a very debilitating and limiting force in your life. It can keep you trapped in unhealthy habitual patterns that do not serve you but rather impair your consciousness and your life. When you interact with the world through a psychological framework of fear, you are limiting your experiences, your connections to others, and your understanding of reality. 

Fear based living is entwined with a survival mindset which does not provide the support necessary to live a fully engaged, actualized life. Instead your experiences will be greatly limited by a set of artificial constructs designed to keep you safe from whatever ways you were wounded in the past. 

In order to release this fear based psychological framework, you should lean into your fears, understanding and acknowledging them so that they may transform. One way of doing this is observing fear whenever it arises and engaging it, noticing thoughts, feelings, and sensations in your body, and recognizing them. When you feel fear, ask yourself what you are truly afraid of. You may find a profoundly deep answer.

The answer may come to you as a wise knowing, a story from your past, or sensations in your body. No matter what form it takes, learn about it to free yourself from its influence on your life. For example, fear tends to be felt in the stomach, heart and throat. If you experience fear sensations in these places, try to form a relationship with them. What do they feel like? What do they look like? What color are they? What messages do they have for you? By meeting these sensations with loving compassion and learning about them, you will be able to see how they are influencing your life and take corrective measures to free yourself from their effects. 

If it is a fear story about some past wound potentially repeating itself, you can engage in many healing techniques for this past story to leach the emotion from it and arrive at a clarity based on your present reality. 

One method for dealing with such stories is EMDR, or Eye Movement Desensitization Reprocessing. This technique requires an EMDR certified technician but is revolutionary in its ability to free you from past events.

Other methods involve things like analyzing why that story caused fear and repositioning it in terms of your present reality as a means of mitigating its effects. 

However, if your present reality is unsafe, take the necessary steps to remove yourself from your unsafe situation and then begin the process of healing from fear. This may sound simpler than it is but make a solid step by step plan and slowly implement it with full awareness of your environment until you have stepped out of that situation and created a safe place to heal. If you are in danger, contact the authorities, possibly legal counsel, and mental health professionals. Do not try to navigate the situation on your own. Always call 911 if you are in peril.

Fear can be healthy and keep you safe in physically and emotionally dangerous situations, so have a healthy respect for it and its role in preserving a safe reality. It is only when fear based mentalities are based on past events unduly influencing the present that amelioration is necessary.

Know yourself and master your relationship with this essential emotion so you have a healthy rapport with it and are free to use it only as present reality dictates free from the specters of the past.

• Self Alchemy Seeker