An ongoing conversation about America, the Middle East, and Jesus

What is A Healthy Childhood? And What is Fear?
Part one of an eight-part series by David Traub, Co-Founder, Unityfor.org

What is fear?
It is many things.  
 
It is the biological warning of incoming threat.  It is that clenched feeling in your stomach that comes with the immediate release of ‘fight or flight’ chemicals throughout your body vividly announcing incoming danger. 
 
It is also the enduring anxiety associated with lack of safety, physically or emotionally – an emotion that directs or otherwise colors our behavior in attempted defense to such threats.
 
But it is finally, in my opinion, also traceable as source to most of the world’s man-made ills – the abuse, the prejudice, the bombings, the genocides…
 
And certainly, it is the source of the teasing and bullying that wrenches away childhood’s bliss for so many of us as we abruptly bump our way into the horror of middle schools and its highly confused denizen. Unchecked and enduring fear in youth is the beginning of criminal mind and intent, the cancer upon our schools, families and economy, the end of childhood – and the beginning of so many of our once and future mighty societies’ ills.
 
How so?
 
Let’s begin with the opposite of fear – the experience of comfort and perceived control. As with excessive teasing, seduction, humor – and so many other increasingly ominous pathologies – fear announces the loss of perceived environmental control, or safety.  Among other things safety is the perceived and blissful sense of control over our lives in which we can do and be as we wish without the unforeseen consequences of others or fate.
 
Safety can be translated into the vital illusion of power, control and opportunity that the lucky among us first receive over the course of early childhood with the blessing of loving parents and community, steady meals and safety, clear boundaries, consistently nurturing behavior and authentic faith.  
 
Together these gifts of strong family, home, community and faith – if consistently nurtured – bloom into the super-fuels known as self-esteem, enduring confidence, sense of opportunity and spiritual power. They bloom into the basis for confidence, consistent behavior, powerful decision-making in the face of adversity, and vitally, empathy and compassion for others.
 
They are essential as the basis for a healthy society.

Click here to read part 2 of 8: Dealing with Fear The Healthy Way

Peace to All,
David Traub, Co-Founder, Unityfor.org