It is fear that I am most afraid of.

People are afraid to pursue their most important dreams, because they feel that they don’t deserve them, or that they’ll be unable to achieve them. We, their hearts, become fearful just thinking of loved ones who go away forever, or of moments that could have been good but weren’t, or of treasures that might have been found but were forever hidden in the sands. Because, when these things happen, we suffer terribly.

We fear discovering that we are more than we think we are. More than our parents/children/teachers think we are. We fear that we actually possess the talent that our still, small voice tells us. That we actually have the guts, the perseverance, the capacity. We fear that we truly can steer our ship, plant our flag, reach our Promised Land. We fear this because, if it’s true, then we become estranged from all we know. We pass through a membrane. We become monsters and monstrous.

The thing I fear most is fear.

In the end, what we fear will not go away, for it indicates what we must go through in order to awaken, become more genuine, and live more fully. The problem is that we tend to be most afraid of what our own souls require of us. Often our deepest fear is that we might become who we are intended to be, who we already are at our core. For becoming who we truly are requires the greatest amount of change.

What people are afraid of isn’t failure. It’s blame. Criticism.

though I was afraid of many things, the thing I feared most mortally was being afraid. I

You are only afraid if you are not in harmony with yourself. People are afraid because they have never owned up to themselves. A whole society composed of men afraid of the unknown within them!

I'm frightened. Of us.

We spend so much time being afraid of failure, afraid of rejection. But regret is the thing we should fear most. Failure is an answer. Rejection is an answer. Regret is an eternal question you will never have the answer to.

You're afraid of the pain, you're afraid of the grief. You're afraid of the vulnerability that loving entails.

I am, to be sure, afraid that if you knew me that you wouldn’t love me. But this must be faced…I fear it in any relationship. Thus I am perhaps afraid to reveal facts about things…or to say too much for fear if I make too much noise you’ll drift away, pull down the shade of your ivory tower…and after that. Afraid, I guess, that I’ll loose you…I keep losing people.

Fear, lest, by forgetting what you are by nature, you also forget the need that you have of continual pardon, support, and supplies from the Spirit of grace, and so grow proud of your own abilities, or of what you have received from God.

I am full of fears, for if I fail there, I am an outcast in the world forever.