The Quietness of Our Fears

The Quiet Thread of Fear

Fear doesn’t always arrive with noise.

It doesn’t always roar, or strike with urgency.
More often, it is a soft thread — almost invisible —
woven through the everyday.
It lives in the pause before you speak your truth.
In the ache of not knowing.
In the wondering: Will I be okay if this all falls apart?

Fear at its core is not just about danger.
It is about disconnection — from safety, from trust, from ourselves.
It is the whisper that says:
I won’t be able to handle what comes. I won’t be enough. I won’t survive it.
And so we hold our breath.
We overthink.
We grip tightly to control, to perfection, to anything that might soothe the ache of uncertainty.

But what if fear wasn’t a warning sign that something is wrong,
but a signal that something tender is asking to be seen?
What if it’s not about avoiding fear —
but learning how to be with it, gently, lovingly, without shame?

In her iconic book Feel the Fear and Do It Anyway, Susan Jeffers beautifully unpacks fear into three levels — each one peeling back the layers between our thoughts and the tender truth underneath.

Level One: Surface Stories

These are the fears that seem straightforward — the things we name easily.
Fear of losing a job.
Fear of public speaking.
Fear of ending a relationship or starting a new one.
These fears usually involve something happening — external events we dread or try to control.

But these stories are just the surface — the ripple, not the tide.

Level Two: Generalised Fears

Beneath the specific stories lie deeper emotional fears.
The fear of rejection.
Of failure.
Of being judged.
Of being alone.
These are the fears that speak to our sense of identity and worth.
They come from old wounds, protective patterns, the tender places where our ego still aches to belong, to be enough, to be seen.

Level Three: The Core Fear

And beneath it all — beneath the stories and emotions — lives one singular belief:

I won’t be able to handle it.

This is the root fear.
Not that something will happen, but that if it does, we will fall apart.
That we won’t have the tools.
That we won’t find our way through.
That we are not strong enough, wise enough, whole enough to hold ourselves in it.

But this is the invitation.
To soften.
To remember that every fear we carry is not a prophecy, but a portal —
into our own resilience, our own tenderness, our own becoming.

Fear will come. That is human.
But when we choose to meet it, not run from it, we begin to untangle its grip.
We begin to remember that we can handle it.
Because we always have.
And we always will.