Fear and the mind

"Two-fold question ~ What scares you? What are you afraid of?"

Glad you made the distinction my friend, in my case they are two very different things. Being scared is something that happens when you have a foreknowledge of what the possible consequences are. Ex: I fell off a 40 ft. cliff once so that scared me then and the thought of falling off a cliff and bouncing down rocks to the bottom still scares me. But I'm not afraid of that because I still love to climb and stand right on the edge of cliffs. A contradiction? Possibly, but I'm not sure I care all that much about making sense.

What I'm afraid of is my imagination informing me about something I have never felt or experienced and preventing me from doing it. Ex: As a wee lad in the snowy north an older friend asked me if I wanted to drive his snowmobile through the woods but I declined because of what I imagined would happen. Instead I opted to be dragged around a field hanging onto a rope that was tied to the back of the snowmobile, when it suddenly turned a sharp corner my head was nearly run over and my hair got singed by the exhaust manifold.

Summing up: I'm scared of things I know are gonna hurt because I've felt them before. I'm afraid of things I have no experience with but most afraid of having that stop me from trying. Great Question Deborah! Thanks for posting.