Love Rules Fear

Fear is a natural state.  Fear causes the body to contract, temperature to rise, visual acuity to increase and a host of behavioral changes.  The more frightened an animal or a human becomes, the more obvious it is to any observer.  Fear can look really big.

Humans are fight or flight animals. The fight or flight response is great to have when a threat actually exists.  Without fear, we might behave really slowly and inappropriately, when faced with a car swerving toward us.  The fight or flight response is a great system to have in your back pocket when danger is imminent.

The problem with the fight or flight response, in humans, is that we tend to perceive danger where there is none.  Once we perceive that something is "dangerous" then our whole limbic system starts to amp up.  Once we are amped, fear can have a deleterious affect on our cognitive and decision-making processes.

There are an amazing array of phobias that illustrate this point.  Homophobia, or the fear of people who are attracted to members of the same sex, is one example.  This phobia causes the sufferer to avoid same-sex couples, to bully individuals, or to use the court system to suppress the rights of a minority of people who are oriented to love and form families with members of the same sex.

Fear is a powerful and natural state.  Fear is designed to protect the individual from imminent danger or harm.  However, when the fight or flight response is engaged when there is no actual danger the reaction becomes dysfunctional.  In the case of homophobia, exposure to the feared person or group will ultimately extinguish it.  In the meantime, patience and love is required. We need to support the phobia sufferer and move forward in the face of their irrational fear, until love is triumphant.