Facing our fears with courage

Many people do not reach their potential because they are paralyzed by fear of failure. The solution to this is to exercise the quality of courage.  Courage is not necessarily an absence of fear; an individual can feel great trepidation and still be courageous.  The valorous person is one who does not succumb to his fears, but rather makes up his mind to confront and conquer them.

We may be afraid of something without even knowing why, perhaps because of some forgotten traumatic experience in this life or in a previous incarnation.  But if we look objectively at our insecurities, we usually find they are unfounded. “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.”* [Franklin D. Roosevelt. ]  There is much truth in that statement.  Often the major threats to our sense of well-being lie not in the outer conditions we encounter, but in the fact that we haven’t learned to face those conditions with the strength and faith that are native to the soul.