The library is full of people who already lost what you’re scared to lose and kept going.

Whatever you are most afraid of losing, somebody has already lost it and written the account down. That is an odd sort of comfort and a sturdy one, because it means the worst case has a literature, and the literature is full of people who carried on afterwards. Fear stops at the moment of loss and refuses to describe the rest. Other people’s records keep going.

If one particular fear keeps circling, read one person who came through it. Not advice, somebody’s actual account. It makes the thing finite, and finite is easier to face.