Through our education after we are born we will either turn out to be fearful to a larger or lesser degree in our life. Whether fear is instilled or utilized in our education is up to our parents and educators in the process of life. What is completely clear and proven is that Fear can prove to limit what we are capable of achieving. Fear is an emotion that may keep you from acting and may limit your capacity to act in many scenarios. Fear may also keep us from attempting to better ourselves or to experience new and unknown things in life. Fear can also limit our capacity to meet new people and to learn from their life experience or culture. Further, fear can be present in a person in a conscious and unconscious way. Some of us have no idea how many fears we are currently entertaining and how those fears shape our decisions and our lives. It is of no wonder then that some of our most important western intellectual fathers have opinions about this limiting emotion:

He who is not everyday conquering some fear has not learned the secret of life. -Ralph Waldo Emerson

Mr. Emerson is keen to point out that our development in life is tied to conquering our fears. He understands that in order to grow we must face our fears and conquer them. Fear can be an incredibly important component in our lives and yet we do not see many systems of healing which deal with how to combat fear. Ayurveda takes the challenge of facing fear and includes many practical approaches to combat this limiting emotion. The first step is acknowledging and accepting your fears. Facing them takes away their energy. The repression of these fears is what gives them energy in our unconscious minds. As they are repeatedly repressed they gain energy and are certain to show up in your conscious life. In this step it is very important to bring the unconscious fears into consciousness. Writing down your fears on a piece of paper is a good first step. The second step is to embrace these fears. The embracing goes beyond acceptance. You may practice this embracing by actually acting upon these fears in your practical life. If you are afraid of heights you would go to the topmost floor in a high rise building and do the exercise of facing these fears with an act that would face the fear directly. As you embrace your fear and face it with acts that directly confront that fear you move in the direction of solving that fearful aspect in your life. An embrace is holding something with a degree of love. Here, you accept your fear and you also confront in with your actions, heart and love. Your approach is one of acceptance and integration.

Throughout history man has been struggling with how to approach fear and how to irradicate fear from our lives. Although fear is a natural instinct and does have its place in our survival the appearance of fear throughout different other aspects of our life can be limiting and can prevent development and growth in a person.