Imagine someone else is there, someone less threatening, perhaps a childhood acquaintance or your third grade teacher. This effectively removes the emotional charge from the encounter. You and the woman across from you are, as yet, strangers to one another, all possibilities unrealized, and you cannot, will not impinge upon each other, neither physically nor yet in the realm of feelings. It is a small, safe beginning. In time, you will learn to harness the motive force, the savage power, the explosive energy that fuels your mind and body's reaction to challenge.
Fear can mobilize, rather than paralyze.
Think of it as a resource, a reservoir of energy. Learn to fly with it. Life only demands from you the strength you possess.