I would recommend getting in touch with that fear and facing it. Being afraid of a label is a terrible reason to avoid doing something as important as understanding your job.
Richard Feynman was famous for asking dumb questions - sorry about the dumb article but it was the quickest one I could find (1). There's more if you Google, he wrote about it autobiographically.
Life outside of academia requires this kind of emotional grit - and it's absolutely something you can learn. It takes practice and reflection, and accepting that nobody starts out with the answers.
Richard Feynman was famous for asking dumb questions - sorry about the dumb article but it was the quickest one I could find (1). There's more if you Google, he wrote about it autobiographically.
Life outside of academia requires this kind of emotional grit - and it's absolutely something you can learn. It takes practice and reflection, and accepting that nobody starts out with the answers.
1 - https://philipliao.com/feynman-and-dumb-questions (edited to add the link)