Fear is the last of our negative emotions to go as we deepen our spiritual connection. That’s because fear is at the heart of all negative emotions. Its roots are deep.
Marianne Williamson wrote that “Love is what we are born with. Fear is what we learn. The spiritual journey is the unlearning of fear and prejudices and the acceptance of love back in our hearts.” That’s pretty close to correct. Actually we’re born with one fear – loud noises. That fear, though, may be more of a startle reflex.
Over time, we develop other startle-like reflexes: fear of heights, fear of objects hurling toward us, fear of the dark. These are handy to keep the body intact, and they’re not usually the fears that darken our paths. The insidious and dark fears we learn are shame and the belief that we are not good enough. Those are the fears that need to be relieved so we can grow.
There are thousands of tiny fears that grow from these – fear of speaking in public and fear of standing up against the crowd for what’s right. Gandhi said “The enemy is fear. We think it is hate; but, it is fear.”
The fear of death is nearly a universal fear, but it can be overcome as we deepen spiritually. Anais Nin said, “People living deeply have no fear of death.”
The concern about the corrosive nature of fear goes back a few centuries. Lao Tzu said, “Be careful what you water your dreams with. Water them with worry and fear and you will produce weeds that choke the life from your dream. Water them with optimism and solutions and you will cultivate success.”
My favorite comment on fear comes from the Hindu Scripture Isa Upanishad: “Who sees all beings in his own self, and his own self in all beings, loses all fear.”
Spiritual Awakening 
I agree with most of what you said, but in doing hypnotherapy professionally for a long time, and also after remembering past lives since I was around 3, I believe we ARE born with many fears from past life situations we have experienced. In all the spiritual work I do, along with the mind/body work, I have found many root causes for people in their past lives and even in the past of their parents.
I agree with most of what you’ve said as well (and katelon’s reply too 🙂 ) but would just add that I find we have two root negative emotions. Fear is the negative side of attachment (attached love being the positive side) and Boredom is the negative side of non-attachment (peace, of course, being the positive side). I actually think boredom is after fear in terms of emotions ‘to go’ (although fear can be pesky and come and go in various testing cycles). I’m not talking about ‘run-of-the-mill’ boredom here – but pervasive spiritual boredom… where you’ve been on your path for awhile, you’ve learned lots of things, you’ve gone through some tests – but none of it seems new or exciting anymore. Boredom can be very insidious because it’s a less obvious negative emotion than fear and can cause very self-destructive / life-destructive reckless behaviors. When you’re not attached to things you aren’t so worried about ‘losing’ them. Also, you can be very ‘busy’ in life and still be bored. It’s also not always obvious how to ‘release’ or ‘overcome’ boredom… I went through a boredom slump a few years ago and I’m still recovering from the after-affects :).
Stellar post though – Fear is one of the hardest things for me to release in this lifetime. I struggled with it a lot… and still, as long as I remain even quasi-attached to things… even realizing the many lifetimes we have, our connectedness, and the immortality of the soul, I cannot completely escape fear all the time. It’s much reduced now though 🙂 which is a wonderful feeling.
Fear is a companion of The NOTION “ME”. This “ME” character believes itself to exist and is an independent individual entity with autonomy to live its sweet life.
F- False
E- Entity
A- Appears
R- Real
Fear disappears when the “ME” concept disappears..
“Who sees all beings in his own self, and his own self in all beings, loses all fear.”
LOVE THIS.
“Be careful what you water your dreams with. Water them with worry and fear and you will produce weeds that choke the life from your dream. Water them with optimism and solutions and you will cultivate success.”….thank you for this. Really needed to be reminded today 😉
Enjoyed both quotes. ❤