How do you handle your fears? Do you run the other way or face them head on?

What are you afraid of? Many people say spiders and clowns are scary, but do you have a fear that drives you — a fear that might be unique just to you?

Amy Pearl is the senior producer of the podcast “10 Things That Scare Me” from public radio station WNYC.

In each podcast, a person reads a list of their fears and elaborates on some of them.

Pearl said that people don't like to think about what scares them. “We're kind of taught to turn away from that,” she said.

Examining fears for the show took Pearl back to childhood, a time when everything around her seemed alive. It reminded her that “when you don't know about something it can really freak you out.”

Much of what they do on the podcast is help people get in touch with their fears. Pearl said that many people don't realize what actually scares them. They’ll say, "I'm afraid of something happening to my kids" or "I'm afraid of something happening to my wife."

But instead of leaving it there, the producers encourage people to examine why they’re worried, to look at the fear beneath the fear. Pearl said giving people that opportunity helps them work through their fears.

“It's when you start really looking at the fear, it actually makes the person feel better and it really opens up a whole new world to the person listening," she said.

A common fear for many is getting to the end of one’s life and regretting they didn’t accomplish more. It’s easy to get caught up in everyday life, working, paying bills and raising children before 20 years have gone by. Conversely, some people fear running out of time and not appreciating all that they have in the moment.

Pearl said we might overcome a fear once, but then it comes back and it must be overcome again.

“Maybe it's just me,” she said, “but I find my life is more like a spiral where I keep going over the same things from different angles and I keep thinking I'm over certain fears but they always rear their head again.”

People in the Pacific Northwest might have location-specific fears like being in the wrong place when an earthquake hits.

KUOW listener Michael, from Olympia, worried about getting caught on the beach during the Cascadia event.

Michael said his grandparents wouldn’t panic if there was an earthquake and subsequent tsunami. “I know my grandparents have talked about, you know, just taking lawn chairs down to the beach and watch it,” he said.

Like Michael’s grandparents, Jerry from Key Peninsula in Pierce County faces his fears with calm.

Jerry has cancer that he says has metastasized — and now, he uses fear as a tool. He uses it to focus on healing and living fully.

“I have a whole community of people I know are terminally ill with cancer and I've never seen such alive people,” he said.

Instead of turning away from fear, from ignoring it, Jerry said he embraces it.