At first, the idea of working magick successfully can raise a bit of instinctive fear. There are a lot of negative stereotypes to overcome before we feel comfortable with realizing that we really do have power over our lives. How do we learn to recognize the fear, and let it go?
Fear is a primal emotion. It's a life_or_death, self_preservation emotion. It's very difficult to get an instant grip on fear when it is triggered suddenly. The good news is that you do have power over fear when it relates to such things as magical working.
The difference is that the fears that arise during a working are not the life_or_death variety. (usually.) You actually have the time to access the emotions that your working raises, and to deal with them in the most effective way possible. If fear is raised as you work, you must pause and work on that level first. If you are working on the magical level and you perceive fear, chances are likely that you're not about to be suddenly attacked from the dark corners of the room. You're not talking about fear of personal harm. What you are actually describing are "insecurities". You cite as examples "fear of what you want not happening, and fear of the opposite happening." These aren't really examples of fear, but insecurities that can cripple a magical work.
So the real issue is: how can you handle these insecurities that rear their ugly head just when you need to be as focused as possible? Well, as I hinted above, the answer lies in ~pausing~.
A scenario: You are desperate for a job and having no luck, so you decide to do a magical work to help yourself. As you light your candles and lay out your tools (or whatever you do in your Craft), these big ugly thoughts of insecurity and self_doubt begin plaguing you. "What if I'm just fooling myself that all this hoopla will actually work? Am I wasting my time? How is this going to actually do any good anyway? What if I do get a job? Will I hate it? Am I making things worse? Wouldn't it be better if I just did nothing and see what happens? Don't I believe in Divine? Won't They step in with the best possible solution? Should I meddle? What am I doing all this for?"
HINT: This sermon of self_doubt should sound familiar to just about everyone.
So the good news is that you're not alone... it's just that we're all a bunch of pagan braggarts here, and we don't talk about this much. Furthermore, we've all developed personal ways of getting past this and getting down to the actual work... and feeling better about it in the process.
So pause. Listen to yourself when you begin the internal litany of fear. Immediately postpone any work you were originally planning on and listen to yourself. Let your mind wander down the worst_case scenarios. Offer best_case scenarios as a counter measure. Play out your insecurities as far as they can go, while offering yourself positive results that are possible. For each time your mind says "we can't, because..." say "we might, because..." If your insecurities are very deep, you will have to dig even deeper to find counters to each fear. But you can find those reasons, because if you didn't have an innate sense that you could change things, you would have never found yourself in the middle of a ritual to change things.
So stop your ritual mid_stroke... pause... and listen to your fears. Track down each and every little niggle of doubt. And then proceed. Your magic will be that much stronger for it, because you will then have clarified things to an extent that wouldn't have been possible otherwise.
Don't let fear stop you. Understand it, and use it.
~Flame RavenHawk