Marianne Williamson said, "Love is what we were born with, fear is what we learned here." Consider where you learned some of your fears: was it from your family of origin, your religious institutions, or maybe a past trauma? Avoiding fear only perpetuates it, but one thing that can help is to allow fear to arise in a different way. In the "Befriend Your Fear" chapter of The Now Effect I suggest a simple practice: "Breathing in, I feel the fear, breathing out, I hold it with a heart of compassion."