Fear copyright 1987 by Tracy Marks Often when I am afraid, fear grows within me like a wall, solid and impregnable, I stop, blocked, emotionally inaccessible to to others and unable to take that one risk, that one leap which would land me on the other side. Sometimes I am able to breathe deeply and expand the spaces within my being until I am large enough to reach over that wall and embrace the person or challenge in front of me, the wall preventing full contact but not blocking all contact. Sometimes I want the safety of that wall. But there are other times when I breathe even more deeply, and the feelings buried beneath the fear bubble to the surface, and like water, slowly, subtly dissolve that wall within me. It is then that the fear is fluid; it flows through me, and blends its grey and heavy harmonies with the music of my other feelings, like a bass in an orchestra, underlining each movement, enriching each moment of reaching out or making love or touching hearts or thrusting myself forward into some new and previously impossible behavior or action.

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