Sometimes I find that when I'm afraid of something - sharing music, expressing vulnerability, hiking a tall mountain, whatever it may be - sometimes the fear is our inability to look that obstacle in the eyes. 

We feel this looming presence, we feel the emotion of something that causes us uncertainty or anxiety, but we don't give ourselves permission to befriend it. 

Anytime I've allowed myself to sit down and become friends with my fear, to invite it to tea, to all of a sudden look at the flaring nostrils and scales and scariness of it all, I see it's just textures, colors, shapes and maybe I don't need to be so afraid anymore, maybe I can befriend it and in a way comfort it. 

I learned this powerful meditation a few years ago (I'm not if from a teacher, a book, a video or a higher being), but the essence of the meditation is to sit with your fear. To really give yourself permission to imagine and see all of the aspects of that scenario, person, situation, thing that make you fearful of it. Sit with it as long as you need to until in that situation, you can find peace. 

If you can find inner peace in the face of fear, you can find peace for the rest of your life. 

This mediation is not meant to be an inner chamber of self-torture, experience it once, make your peace with it, and then move on. There is no need to revisit this over and over again. 

Journal Prompt

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