To be brave?

How do you be brave? You just focus on something you need to do and go for it, right? It's so much harder than that though, isn't it? And I'm sure everyone understands. The hardest part is knowing that it's not something you can just pick up somewhere. You can't grow into it. It can't be taught. You need to find it within yourself. And that takes some MAJOR soul searching.
I truly admire the people who can rush into circumstances that require courage without a second thought.
The reason I bring it up is that I just gave a copy of my story to my Grandmother as a gift before it gets published. And I'm so embarrassed about it. I don't know how other authors felt the first time they knew someone would read their work. I don't know how they handled the knowledge that they would soon be the center of admiration or criticism. Or both. I'm proud of my own work. But I can't take criticism. Bad news for a writer. It's a serious problem, and I know, I need to toughen up. Not everyone will like what I write. Get over it.
People criticize my art all the time. I'm okay with that, to a reasonable degree. But when someone reads my work, I get so anxious. I think it's because writing just goes so deep. It's my passion, my deepest and truest dream. When writers write, we put our very souls into our work. Writer's like me, we don't always cherish every word we put down, but we try to. We want to. And what we write evolves into something amazing. It's a part of us. It contains bits of who we are; our fears, our hopes and dreams, our love really... But if other writers will agree with this or not, I don't know. I'm sure not everyone is as soft as me.