I read a post where the writer argued that if you weren't feeling fear in your magical practice, you either aren't human, or you are trying hard to stay in your safety zone. I get the point of this post, and to some degree I agree with it. Feeling some fear as you break your boundaries and challenge your identity is a good thing. It means you're doing the hard work. Challenging yourself to move forward when you feel fear is a necessary part of life in general. When I practice magic though, I don't feel fear. I feel empowerment. I feel excited, alive, vibrant. Magic is life, magic is power, magic is turning the impossible into reality. When I feel fear, I feel it in the moments when I do internal work, and I face within myself those weaknesses and issues and hurts and pains. That's when I feel fear. That's why I do my internal work...to reach a place of understanding and resolution with those fears so that when I practice my magical work, there is resolve and knowing that what I do aligns to my identity.
We all approach magical work differently. When I work with the elementals and spirits I approach them as friends, as companions. Other people do not. I think how you approach such beings sets the tone for the type of interaction you'll have with them. Thus to approach them as friends, to approach them with confidence is my own way of knowing them. It works because it's something I feel confident in. It works because I know my place in relationship to their own.
Fear is a funny emotion. It can paralyze a person, motivate a person...it can block and push. I find that knowing where to encounter fear changes your magical practice. Encountering it in my internal work and making it an active part of that work has changed the external work and the need to do the external work, and changed my life...its much quieter now than it was before.