Fear can be a wonderful feeling in our lives, protecting us from dangerous situations and keeping us safe. But fear can also limit our lives significantly. While it may not be conscious, fear may make us think we are unacceptable or that what we have to offer isn't valuable. Fear may make us feel that we are not safe being ourselves. To avoid feeling fear, we may limit our lives greatly, living in tiny boxes. Living this way gives us the illusion  of safety but leaves us with an unfulfilling life of no passion. If we shine a light on many of our fears, we see they have a very limited view of what is "safe" and how to "protect" us. Many of our fears are concerned only with protecting us from humiliation  and failure. While these fears are doing their jobs incredibly well, they are doing so with faulty and outdated programming. Many fears we have as adults are trying to protect us as they protected us when we were children. Indeed, many of our current, automatic reactions to fear were actually formed when we were children. Even so, it's important not to judge ourselves for feeling these types of fears. If we judge ourselves, we will bury our fears or disguise them. By denying our fears, however, we also deny our energy, creativity and passion. So what do we do with fear? We recognize the fear for what it is--- a feeling we've experienced many times in the past and a feeling we will experience many times in the future. We become very familiar with our own particular brand of fears and how we allow them to control our lives. It is especially beneficial for each of us to become aware of the particular behavior patterns we've adopted when we feel fear, so we can look at our reactions with a sense of humor and compassion. Then, if we wish, we can choose a different response, which can be a scary yet very exciting experience. It can be inferred from the passage that the author  _  .
thinks it difficult to control our fear believes fears protect us negatively thinks it's good to criticize ourselves values the advantages of feeling fear