Fear is a big one to work with.
SO complicated to get your head around.
It is a 3D / lower vibration thing and, despite seeming to need glands to drive the drama, I think (as you said) that includes the lower astral.
Which is where you likely will find all those interesting characters who never quite left, along with the gazillions of emotion-laced thought forms created by us lovely humans over the millennia.
And any of them can be drawn to latch onto a physical human whose emotional state they resonate with - in order to physically experience those emotions again and to indulge in the various behaviours and addictions you need a body to enjoy.
Personal fears are a bit different, in my experience anyway.
They fall into 2 categories, and both need glands and a physical body to get the full force of the experience.
First one is purely instinctual/physical and part of the fight or flight thing = not driven by conscious thought, but by instant physical response to a perceived danger to yourself or a loved one, and can include phobias.
The other one is the mind/emotional one and that is the one we need to learn to transcend until we can stare it in the face without flinching, in total trust that we will ultimately be OK, which is our natural state when not in human form.
I realised that all my hoping and striving for love and connection was ultimately about recreating something I had never known here -
that of unconditional love, and real connection with people.
A situation where we would truly ‘see’ and understand each other = open hearts, real communication, no judgement, hate, anger -
you get the drift.
That search can send you down a lot of difficult paths, until you realise that what you are searching to give and receive here is not achievable, all you can really do is find that place in yourself and share it with others, as best you can.
Getting to that place of fearless peace is normally a journey and a half- as life carts you through all the stuff you don’t want to have to deal with, until you let go the need and desire to control the outcome.
Losing people we love often starts us on that journey.
It did for me.
My husband’s passing was not unexpected, but I feared it massively - and, when it happened, it was eviscerating - and the most devastating loss I have experienced.
After going through that, nothing else held the same level of heart-stopping fear.
Because nothing else could ever cause me that much pain.
That was, however, only step 1!
The journey went through healing all the emotions of abandonment and other old emotional wounds that fed into the fears - and then the personal and financial security issues - even a stint of homelessness in my late 50s, struggling to find work at that age and somewhere I could afford to live - and almost no money coming in.
And the more I panicked, the worse it got.
Until I stopped myself and realised there was literally nothing I could physically do - except what was in front of me to be done, each day -
and worry was only going to make everything worse - including my health.
So, I let go of it all.
They used to say, ‘let go and let God’ - these days ‘let go and trust’.
And that is what I had to do - because I had no other choice.
You do what you can and trust for the rest and trust yourself that you will deal with whatever comes - when (if) it comes.
Worry and fear act like a magnet, drawing more reasons to worry and be afraid.
That quiet confidence is also a magnet, and it draws solutions.
I will never forget that time because I literally felt I as if I was standing in the middle of the biggest storm life had thrown at me - and I realized I had to stand in that storm, face it calmly and without fear - letting it rage around me.
And know that I would still be there after it passed.
And I stopped freaking out, made myself focus on the small things that made me smile, and the small things I COULD do, and let the rest go. It worked.
Still does.
Love and fear are the two major emotions here in human life - and I believe we truly have to understand both of them from the inside out - and that is something only life can teach you, if you are open to it.
Turns out love is not an exchange between people, or a romantic gesture - it is a gift you give, with no expectation of return or even acknowledgement - and a way of being in the world.


*******
Now, after receiving that, she sent the following follow-up which is her true story of how she met the love of her life and what happened after.
*******

Sydney Morning Herald - ‘Meeting Place’:

Mr. (N): I’m looking for a woman.
I’m sick to death of going to my local pick-up joint or meat market only to find it full of nature loving, artistic women
who have good senses of humour and are proud of being vivacious conversationalists,
which of course means they never shut up.
Where are all the honest women who are willing to admit they need a man and are willing to put up with one?
I’m admittedly an overweight, rather sullen slob who wants a woman who’ll listen to me talking about myself.
But I’m honest.
What you see is what you get and I’m willing to pay for it with the house and kids routine.
So, girls, if you think you fit the bill,
I’ll foot it.

*******

I was 39 and still single.
No longer a blushing virgin (I had a grownup daughter) but had never found the right man to settle down with.
I’d had a few serious and not-so-serious boyfriends over the years, but nothing came of them, apart from a couple of friendships.
I never saw the point in hating someone you once loved, but clearly are not meant to be with.
So, if horrible behaviour was not the cause of the break-up, why not stay friends and wish them well?
Then get on with life and go find someone else.
Of course, over all those spinstered years, I’d had a lot of time to think about people and relationships - and I had created The List.
I know, I know.
But a girl needs to get her priorities worked out.
A shopping list, one friend called it.
I preferred to think of it as a wish list.
It is long gone now, but it had criteria such as:
must be a good person;
must be kind;
must have a good sense of humour (= similar to mine, basically..);
must be intelligent, interested in the world around them,
and to be able to talk about things other than sport and TV;
must not have a bunch of close ‘mates’;
nonsmoker; no more than casual drinker;
not into infidelity;
and a bunch of other stuff that was all about creating a caring, mutually-supportive partnership between two people who had similar values and social habits.
It was, basically, a map of where everything had hit the fan in past relationships, because I wanted both partners to be happy and content with each other in any new relationship.
Not just connected by their genitalia while looking for reasons to blame or hate each other for stupid things.
Yeah, well, except that didn’t really make any actual difference.
You can’t check for compatibility if you don’t meet anyone worth getting to know.
Because, I have to say that, with or without the (sad-lonely-girl) list, I still would not have found anyone easily.
Even before the internet, the dating scene was really just a meat market - and this was before the internet.
I was never a meat market kind of girl.
I wanted someone real:
no fakes looking for free sex,
no head games, no drama -
and no married men (don’t ask.).
Just a real and loving relationship with a good person -
and they would get the same in return.
That list might have been a sad, 30-something cry for help, but it was meaningful for me.
Having had two parents who loved and respected each other gave me high aspirations.
I wanted the same.
How hard could it be to find?
Turns out, nigh-on impossible.
All the good ones were married, it seemed - as were some of the very naughty ones, as well. After all that, here I was at 39, still flying solo.
So, I made up my mind to give up the hunt.
And it had been a hunt if I am being honest.
Back then, ‘finding true love’ was The Big Thing.
But now I completely stopped looking.
I was done with it.
I would remain single and focus on other things.
I had my cats (all 5 of them), my own home and a worthwhile job - and I was getting on with my life. At least my cats loved me.
So, a few months later, here I was at work, looking at the Wednesday edition of the Sydney Morning Herald during my lunch break.
It was job adverts day - and also the day of their lonely-hearts column, for its ‘romance’-hunting readers.
I was looking for possible jobs for my clients, since I was a rehabilitation counsellor and, just for fun, I always looked at the lonely-hearts column after the job adverts.
Knowing it was a waste of time, because the letters were always, always dire - but it was good for a laugh.
The only really good letters were the ones written by single women.
The rest were sleazy letters that appeared to have been written by married blokes looking for a Friday Special before they went home to the wife.
All full of ‘I love walks on the beach’, and ‘I dream of intimate dinners and drinking red wine by a blazing fire’, blah blah blah - you know the kind of thing.
Some barely stopped short of ‘your dad should own a brewery and you must have at least a 38DD chest’.
They were so obvious and so creepy.
Unless, of course, you were also looking for a Friday Special, and especially if you had a 38DD chest.
Which I was not and did not.
And then I read THAT one, up the top there.
I am not kidding - I cried with laughter when I read it.
It was so totally out of kilter with ALL the others, you could not help but be grossed-out - or laugh.
Either he was truly a complete Neanderthal, or he had a great sense of humour - my kind of sense of humour.
I had to write back just to return the laugh, but expected no response, as my reply was short, snarky, and just as Neanderthal as the original. Then I forgot about it. Two weeks later the phone rings. 8pm in the evening.
There’s this man on the other end, apologising.
Took me a minute or two to work out what he was going on about.
Turns out it was Mr. Neanderthal!
It seems that a divorced lady he worked with searched those lonely hearts letters every week, in a futile search for romance- and he thought it was hilarious, because the letters were dreadful, and she took them so seriously.
So, he wrote an even more dreadful mickey-take letter to the paper.
The original he sent to them was VERY Neanderthal, and very sexually inappropriate. (Sadly, it is long gone.)
He thought the editor would laugh at it and throw it out. Instead, they cleaned it up and printed what was left.
He got 19 earnest replies, and one silly one. Mine. 
And so, he was working his way through the list, phoning each woman to apologise.
Because he was actually not looking for a relationship at all, and he felt rather guilty at getting all our hopes up.
Bless him.
I laughed and commiserated.
We talked for over 2 hours.
We laughed a lot.
It was a couple of weeks before my 40th birthday party (come dressed as a 4-year-old, play kids’ party games - it was a hoot).
I said I’d like to invite him to come along, just as a friend, but first needed to make sure he wasn’t an axe murderer.
He thought that was funny - and fair enough, too.
He could have been for all I knew.
So, we agreed to meet for coffee.
I don’t drink coffee!
A few days later we met up after work.
I parked my car near the meeting place and saw this big, fluffy bear of a man on the other side of the road, pacing up and down like an expectant father, almost wearing a track in the sidewalk, smoking nervously. It had to be him. It was.
When I introduced myself, he handed me a stamped, self-addressed envelope and a card, which was blank inside.
It was for me to send him, afterwards, to tell him to get lost.
To save us both the embarrassment of a face-to-face rejection.
Because that’s what he expected.
No wonder he wasn’t looking for a relationship.
We talked for hours.
Life stories, funny stories, things we cared about, people we cared about, aspirations - anything and everything.
We were kicked out of two coffee shops as each one closed for the night.
Then we sat in the car and talked for a couple more hours, neither wanting to break the spell and head home.
Sometime during his life story, at the second coffee shop, a thought came into my head:
‘I am going to marry this man.
Being with him feels like coming home.’
When I got home, I threw away The List.
I could put up with cigarette smoke for this good man.
The next day I tore up the ‘get lost’ card, put it in the envelope, and sent it to him.
He phoned me when he received it, and we arranged to go on a proper date.
Five months later we were married -
first and only time for both of us.
I was 40.
He was 39.
We had seven wild years together:
moved across the world, explored our new home country and a few more besides - and even adopted another cat.
And we found out the strength of our love through sickness and health - before a massive heart attack took him Home, leaving me behind. He was worth the wait, the unexpected adventures - and even the long years since he passed.
Love, real love, is not about sex,
and it’s not about romance either, although both are pretty great.
Love is a choice you make - and a gift you give - and a way of being in the world.
He taught me that.
He was the love of my life.
And I, was his!

Margaret Gallagher, Wales