Smiling at Fear

"When you are frightened by something, you have to relate with fear, explore why you are frightened, and develop some sense of conviction. You can actually look at fear. Then fear ceases to be the dominant situation that is going to defeat you. Fear can be conquered. You can be free from fear if you realize that fear is not the ogre. You can step on fear, and therefore, you can attain what is known as fearlessness. But that requires that, when you see fear, you smile." -Chogyam Trungpa

How often we have allowed fear to cloud our judgement, create an agenda, prevent us from making the right choices (or ANY choices), or set in motion a series of events for all the wrong reasons. Fear is stressful, uncomfortable, scary and creates instability in our lives. Think about your fears for a moment and then ask yourself "What would I do if I were not afraid"? Take fear, look at it, ask all of the questions you need to ask and realize that it CAN be conquered. We can look at the fear and realize it is not the fear that defeats us, but ourselves. But what does it mean to SMILE AT FEAR? For me, it means to embrace fearlessness and to be honest with a part of myself that is connected to the fear.
Example 1: Fear of not being good enough. "Why do I feel that way?" Explore it. Learn what it means. Grow. Give/Share.
Example 2: Fear of being alone. "What is so wrong with that?" Again, ask, explore the feeling, learn what it means, overcome, grow, peace. This is the moment when you can be completely honest with yourself. This is the moment where you have to keep digging, keep asking "why?" until you've uncovered all of the layers.

For me, this is what 'smiling at fear' means. It means to recognize the fear but smile at the opportunity to conquer, learn, release the fear and grow into the whole, loving, fearless creature that we are to be.