What to do when you’re afraid of something (or everything)

I haven’t been on an intentional quest to conquer my fears, but I’m finding that I have a tremendous number of interlocking fears and nagging anxieties that drag me down and muddy my spirit. While realizing that I’ve spent years unnecessarily (and unconsciously) carrying around a heavy sack of fear is a little disheartening, I’m buoyed by the fact that I’m unearthing and breaking through my fears one by one. One of my longest and most pervasive fears is my fear of high-intensity gym classes. You know which ones I’m talking about: the classes full of swan-necked, flat-tummied, glistening Lululemon women that never seem to smile enough or make eye contact. The classes that have terrifying names like Extreme Body Burn 3000. (3000 what?!) I tried one of those classes out during the first week of college. It had the innocent name Beginners & Intermediate Aerobics. I spent a terrified hour fumbling around in the back of the room next to Carla, a similarly bewildered Chicana (who later became my roommate in Cuba and is now one of my besties), as our instructor screeched at all of us over what I can only describe as 80s dance music on crack. That was my first and ...