"The only thing we have to fear is fear itself."
Franklin D. Roosevelt

Fears are like tunnels. When faced with one, we have a choice of whether to move through it or not. No one really wants to go into a dark and spooky tunnel. Anything could be in there. There could be spiders, cob webs, bugs, snakes, thieves, or something really scary like...nothing but the other side, the light, unexpected peace, all the things that make you question everything you've ever believed in, trusted to be true or known to be false. When we choose to avoid the tunnel, it is only because of our fear of fear, and an attempt to keep our lives, our experiences, from changing. Broken down it's like this: We don't know what's in the tunnel or where it will take us; we're afraid of the unknown; the unknown is scary; scariness is fear; we're afraid of being afraid; the fear of fear.
When we realize that we're not really afraid of anything in particular, just the feeling of fear, it helps us to isolate it, which then gives us an opportunity to move beyond it. When we move beyond fear, we move gracefully through the tunnel of the unknown and find that it wasn't as bad as we thought it would be, and now we're stronger and possibly wiser for the experience. The tunnel gives us an opportunity for transformation. By transcending our fears, we meet a grander version of ourselves. Thus does Mackey the caterpillar transform into an immaculate butterfly...