I have great faith in a seed. Convince me that you have a seed there, and I am prepared to expect wonders.
Henry David Thoreau, “The Dispersion of Seeds”
The “Big Bang” has been widely accepted as an accurate description of the origin of the universe. It conveys the image of an explosion – a fireball set off by some unknown source for an unknown reason.
When we slow down enough to look at the natural world, we see a plethora of intricate patterns and fascinating features, a highly efficient capacity to adapt and restore balance, and a continuing evolution of emerging improvement. Scientists are discovering new levels of interconnectedness in nature – how different species of animals, trees, and fungi in forests collaborate to form a network that sustains and improves their lives and environment; how birds and animals communicate and cooperate, how our physical world is not an accumulation of fragments but an interconnected whole that is continuing to adapt and evolve as you read this.
How can it be that such an amazing place with all these intricately connected, wondrous features began from an act of violence?
Maybe it didn’t.
Scientists have found evidence for an eruption where the seeds of all matter and life were concentrated in a “singularity” that burst to begin the formation of the world as we know it. What if we replaced the image of a violent, roaring boom with the image of the silent bursting of a flower’s seed head sending its embryones into the void on a wind of its own making?
Violets do this. So do Oxalis (daisies), and Jewelweed (Touch-me-Nots).
When the pod can no longer contain the maturing seeds, it bursts to disperse them in every direction. (Slow-motion videos of this process are amazing)
What if we replaced the image of an origin from violence with an image of an origin from violets?
What if we consider the essential message of all religions and spiritual philosophies that have stood the test of time that God (whatever that term means to you) is love – that we were created from love to love?
What if every aspect of the universe grew from seeds of love that could no longer be contained in a singularity?
That would mean there is a seed of love within every part of our world – even in human beings.
But if that were true how could we explain all the problems mankind has created? How could we understand increasing divisiveness, acts of mass violence, and the “me-first” mentality that makes life so difficult for all of us?
That’s a very important question.
It may have a simple answer.
It’s been widely accepted that human nature is essentially self-centered, aggressive, and competitive. We’re told we have a “selfish gene” and that we live in a world based on “survival of the fittest” where only the strongest and most aggressive thrive. Rutger Bregman undermines that theory and dispels arguments that support the myth of natural human selfishness one by one in his book “Humankind.” He describes how many of the stories used to explain human depravity are taken out of context, missing critical elements, or simply not true.
Think about what brings us joy and makes us smile; who we truly honor and respect. We’re drawn to the spontaneous laughter of a child and the enduring beauty of oceans and forests. We’re touched by the kindness of a stranger and stand in awe of the heroic efforts of those who risk their lives to save someone in danger. We look with disdain at those who will do anything to make it to the top and tend to avoid people who are self-centered and arrogant. The research is clear – happiness and fulfillment depend on meaningful relationships and contributing to a better world.
So how do we explain all the evil things that humans do to each other?
The simple answer is fear.
Being self-centered, aggressive, and competitive is how we respond when we’re in a state of fear.
Fear puts us into survival mode. Self-preservation and self-interest take center stage. We seek control and certainty, adopt an adversarial mentality (fight or flight), narrow our focus on potential threats, and embrace a scarcity mindset where we worry we won’t have or be enough to respond to life’s challenges.
Fear leads us to put everyone and everything into broad, binary categories – safe/unsafe, right/wrong, for/against. It undermines our sense of connection and belonging as we look for and find adversaries. Blaming others for our problems provides an illusion of certainty and agency while freeing us from responsibility for our potential role. We seek strong leaders who will “fight” for us and wonder why divisiveness dominates our politics.
Fear is an automatic reaction to the perception of a threat to our health and well-being. Fear in nature is short-term – things return to normal when the threat has passed. When I was in Kenya I saw wildebeest calmly grazing near a lion who was sleeping by his kill. He was a potential threat but not at that time. Fear in the 21st century is constant – fed by increasing stress and pressure, a history of trauma, and repeated messages from media and politics that use it to grab and keep our attention and support. Fear has become a habit that’s been structured into how we see and think about ourselves, our world, and each other. We’ve become stuck in Fear Based Thinking.
Fear Based Thinking shrinks our perspective as it narrows our thought processes. It stifles creativity and curiosity and keeps us from asking questions or considering other points of view. It makes us vulnerable to propaganda and manipulation by politicians and media.
What can we do about it?
We could start at the beginning.
We could revise our idea of who we are and where we came from. We could replace “Big Bang” with “Bursting from Love”
Imagine what might happen if we erased the image of a bomb exploding and replaced it with the vision of a delightful, delicate flower bursting with a love it can no longer contain. Imagine if more and more of us realized that love forms the essence of all creation and that fear is the greatest obstacle to love.
What if we did shift our focus from the fear of violence to the beauty of violets? What if we believed that each one of us and every aspect of our world grew from seeds of love and that those seeds are patiently waiting to sprout within all of us? What if we began to see seeds of love in all of nature and realized we are part of that nature and part of that love?
I’ve worked with people who have done horrible things – people who molested children, people who cheated, conned, and even killed others. Each one of them had closed their hearts as a result of fear. They had become self-centered and narrowly focused on meeting their perceived needs at the expense of others. They sought power over others to compensate for a fear of inadequacy and a lack of belonging. They lost track of how we are all connected.
There was a seed of love in each of their hearts that desperately wanted to be acknowledged and recognized but was afraid of things that had already happened. Their fear came from trauma, rejection, isolation, and a fragile sense of belonging that was dependent on appearances, accomplishments, or commitment to causes and beliefs that didn’t fit who they really were.
How does a tightly closed heart begin to open?
The words of thirteenth-century poet Rumi are helpful to remember: “What you seek is seeking you.”
Seeing love as the creative force of the universe and realizing it is within each of us eases and softens the task. It’s not an uphill battle but love is on our side. We only need to recognize and remove the obstacles and the single greatest obstacle is fear.
How do we let go of fear?
The first step is to restore balance. Slow down, lighten up. Breathe, bend your knees, stop the build-up of tension. This brings us into the present moment and allows us to see and think more clearly. Fear Based Thinking locks our focus on past and future threats. Being in the present allows us to see where we are and what we need to do at this point in time.
The next is to stop judging and blaming. This can be accomplished through empathy – for ourselves as well as others. Empathy involves seeing a larger picture and putting lives into context. We have adapted to a world enmeshed in fear in ways that are undermining our health and the health of our planet. Fear Based Thinking does that to people. Empathy requires acceptance. It allows us to see ourselves and others in terms of where we’ve been.
Making contact with the clear intention of seeing seeds of love within the other dissipates fear. This requires respect. The root of the word “respect” means to “look again.” Respect involves taking another look to see more clearly – see the challenges others have faced as well as their gifts and potential; seeing who they can be when the seeds of love within them sprout and take root; seeing their limitations and what they are capable of seeing and doing at this moment in time.
Seeing another for who they can become draws our interest. When the love within us makes contact with the love in them, we want to know them. We become curious about how they see the world and how they came to adopt the views they hold. We remain humble. We realize that every one of us and every aspect of nature has value and purpose – to the extent that we place ourselves above or below another, we diminish us both.
Balance, Empathy, Respect, Interest, Curiosity and Humility. You can remember them with the acronym BE-RICH. We can BE-RICH or be afraid. The choice is ours, day-to-day, moment-to-moment.
But what about real threats – threats to our health and well-being, threats to our planet? Don’t we need fear to be able to respond to those threats?
All emotion is a response to our perception of the moment. Fear is a reaction to the perception of danger. The threat has been recognized. Our reaction changes when perceptions shift. I’ve defused dozens of violent incidents but didn’t feel afraid because my focus was on understanding what it felt like to be in that person’s skin. Fear can be transformed into caution, care, curiosity, and concern when we restore balance and shift our attention to how to deal with the threats we face. I call them “The Four C’s of Transforming Fear.”
Fear narrows our focus and makes us reactive. Caution slows us down and expands our vision. Fear makes us more self-centered and tempts us to cut corners. Care recognizes our shared interests and commits to quality of thought, word, and deed. Fear jumps to conclusions. It leads us to label, judge, and blame. Curiosity seeks to understand a larger picture and relevant details. It opens us to different perspectives and input that may challenge current beliefs. Fear drives us to act without considering the effect on others or the environment. Concern maintains awareness of the needs and interests of others and seeks to benefit all. Fear closes our hearts. Caution, care, curiosity, and concern allow them to open.
We can’t go back a see whether life as we know it began with a violent “Big Bang” or as a bursting of seeds of love that could no longer be contained in a finite space. But we can choose how we view our world and each other. Viewing through the eyes of fear has led to uncountable acts of violence and destruction. Imagine what would happen if, starting with you and me, more and more of us chose to view ourselves, each other, and our world through eyes of love? What if we chose love instead of fear? What if more and more of us sought to create fertile ground where the seeds of love could germinate, grow, and reproduce?
It would be a new beginning.
Bring Truth to Fear 