If you’ve ever jumped at a loud noise, you have fear-driven instinctual behaviour to thank. However, if you’ve ever been hurt, you can also thank fear-driven instinctual behaviour for why you’ve never tried it again – even though you are smarter, stronger, and braver now.
At some point in my adult years, my mother told me a story about something weird I did as a kid: I packed all my shoes in a garbage bag in preparation for a visit to my grandparents. Apparently, I was told to pack for a trip, and the next thing she knew, I was lugging a garbage bag down the stairs that contained all the footwear I owned and nothing else.
The story has stuck with me, in that I’ve reflected on it many times. Why, I wonder, did I do that, and why, when I was told the story, did I not ask, and why at the time did no one ask me why I did that? Yes, it’s weird, so wouldn’t you be the least bit curious?
No, apparently, I was just a laughing stock, a whipping post, an outcast. I’m so curious because I’ve learned as an adult that no one does something stupid on purpose. Yes, everyone always has a reason for what they do, and if all they can do is shrug and say, “I don’t know,” then they’d better sit down and figure it out.
Given my poor overnight trip packing ability, I have to start with the age I was and what I’d witnessed, done, seen, learned, or otherwise picked up organically from that age backward. We always do our best to comply with this code. It’s up to us to change the code, add to it, whatever, and that is the process of growing up, not just growing older.
We all know people who still act like children. The press accuses Prime Minister JT of it, acting like a fifteen-year-old. We all hope we aren’t them, but hope isn’t a strategy.
Love as a Verb
Judging by the description of the stairs, I can figure out which house we were living in at the time. I was likely three, but I could have been as old as five. No more.
By the time I was five, we’d moved house from the one we lived in when I was born, to another one where I’d cut my hand and experienced the fire, then to another one located three provinces away.
Perhaps my little brain didn’t recognize the difference between going for a trip and coming back, and never coming back. Perhaps that garbage bag was full, and I needed another one for all my clothes, then all my books, and so on. “Go pack,” was something I’d heard a few times, and it never meant returning. Not so dumb, perhaps.
Today, I know that to love, as a verb, is to ask why. To kneel down in front of that little kid, eye level, and ask kindly, politely, and quietly, why? It is to reserve judgment, and to reserve the action that the judgment brings. You are dumb, that makes me feel superior, that gives me the right to stand in judgment, and on my high horse, I look down and laugh at the court jester.
To love as a verb requires first letting go of the mirror. It has nothing to do with you. Next, seek to understand and fully accept the view, perspective, or opinion of the other. Finally, provide support where you can and how you can, without altering or disturbing the course. It’s not compensating, substituting, projecting, or rushing. It’s soothing their fear-driven instinctual behaviour.
Love is difficult work, truly and openly embracing another person’s universe and why it is what it is to that other person.
Packing Permanent Lessons
Yes, it takes compassion and not looking down on such a poor soul, because if that person agrees, they’ve been victimized and didn’t realize that’s not how human beings are supposed to treat each other. Not as adults or as fully responsible individuals, but as two fear-driven, instinctual, behaviour-based people.
We all have the power to “help it”, for every time I’ve heard it said and accepted that “I couldn’t help it.” Yes, you always can. Even if it’s just a fraction of help, it could change the outcome for the better.
Don’t hurt the ones you love just because you can get away with it. Everyone has a tipping point between self-respect and group acceptance, and it’s always changing. It might catch you unprepared one day. Surprise!
It’s possible that my little mind wasn’t confusing packing permanently with packing temporarily, but rather, that I wanted to be prepared for whatever weather came to pass, whatever activity was going to be on the agenda, whatever.
Every girl knows that the right shoes make the outfit, don’t they? Maybe I was simply another clichéd girl and her shoes. Eyeroll, how boring.
Today, I have a wide variety of shoes. They are not displayed in a collection, but strategically located. Recently, I worked a part-time job, and used it as an excuse to acquire four new pairs of shoes, each just a bit different, and all within the narrow dress code requirement of completely black flats with traction. In fact, there was one pair that I’d wanted to buy for likely a decade, but I couldn’t find a time or place in my life in which they’d be the shoe of choice. I’d simply never need them, so I never bought them. They did, however, fit the dress code. Yay.
First Failures
The first time I remember being allowed to choose my own clothing, and I mean from the store, and not the closet, I was headed to the store to select shoes for the new school year at the start of grade one.
My father asks me how I can remember these days, these events. “Trauma!” I replied, having worked through the fear-driven instinctual behaviour it created.
It was a horrifying experience, and fear is ingrained in our brains. Just like an animal learns fear and never forgets, a child touches a hot stove only once ever in their lives, and apparently, I only buy perfect shoes once in my life.
If you have seen The Wizard of Oz, you know that the only pair of shoes you ever need are red ones. I remember convincing my dad in the store to let me choose them. They didn’t quite fit, and the salesman knew how to make a sale. Outfitted with little pads on the inside, they fit, and better, would fit me longer, as my feet continued to grow. Remembering how happy I was that these stickers existed, and that I’d get these perfect shoes, I can feel my heart glow, as I am sure it did then.
However, when my mom found out, all hell broke loose. “How dare you let her talk you into that! You are so stupid. Why did I send you to go? It’s wrong, all wrong!” Or something to that effect.
I remember my dad saying nothing. Maybe he did. I was up in my closet, crying my eyes out, scared to death that something that was so perfect, well, wasn’t? How was I so wrong? More importantly, I loved my father and never wanted to see him in pain that I caused.
Early Permission
I do know that she told him that red shoes don’t match anything. Had I been permitted, I might have decked my entire wardrobe out in red, and the shoes would have matched everything. The shoes were the central piece around which to build the wardrobe.
I wore those shoes right out. I remember the sad day I had to throw them away, even. It was so sad that the memory is still there. I don’t remember any of my pets dying, or anything else that should outrank that memory, but it doesn’t. I remember carrying the bag to the curb myself, which actually meant the alley behind the house at number four. That meant I wore those shoes for at least two years, likely three. Pretty excellent value in a pair of shoes.
Are kids allowed to choose their gender these days? I wasn’t even allowed to select shoes without causing the revocation of my future permissions. Fear-driven, instinctual behavior followed; future potential tanked under the anchor of self-doubt created by that experience.
As a kid who was constantly on the move, why wouldn’t she want shoes that might have the magic to take her home? Maybe that concept was already lost. Home, where was that? People ask me where I am from and where my accent comes from. Hmmm, I wisely answer, I have no idea.
I have noticed that every pair of red shoes I see while shopping makes my stomach twist. Just for a split second, maybe even shorter, but it’s there. Maybe one day I will buy a pair of red shoes, but today, I don’t own any. I have coral colored wedge sandals, but that’s the closest, and it’s by no means a comparison. Today, I don’t need any.
Love as a Community
I am not scared of red shoes; I am scared of trusting my intuition, the choices I would have defined as “perfect” for myself, which means authenticity takes a beating, too.
I fear my choices might lead to someone I love getting hurt. My mom was scared of what people might think of her, and for only invisible legitimate reasons. We all have fear-driven instinctual behaviour to avoid tossed out of the clan, because instinctually, we behave as if no progress has taken place since then.
To be scorned is to be killed off by isolation. If they weren’t there for you, you would be eaten or succumb to the elements. If you let this invisible programming run unchecked, you risk becoming a people-pleaser – I know; I had to recover from it myself.
There’s always another clan. Today, it’s not a trek across a mountain range; it’s a matter of recognizing that you are so much stronger, wiser, and braver than you think.
To be wise is to act in the moment; to have wisdom is to extract knowledge and embody it, not just carry it with you. When you carry a suitcase, you might not get your raincoat out in time to protect yourself from a sudden soaking; to be wise is to be waterproof.
I once read Daniel Gilbert describing that if a child is cold and shivering, and a mother doesn’t have a blanket, or even a bosom to offer, she will say, “No, you are not.” The poor child. Why do they do that?
Ego over emotion. It’s more important to think “I’m a good mother,” than to think, “I’m an unequipped mother in this situation,” because you’d call yourself lazy, stupid, or mean along the way.
Misplaced Roles
Someone would say, “Overcome fear-driven instinctual behaviour and just buy the shoes,” but I say, “Why part with money and lose a friend, too?”
Fear is my friend; I don’t want it to go away. I want to hear what it has to say. Then, as Elizabeth Gilbert says, it can ride shotgun when I need an extra pair of eyes, someone to control the thermostat, or someone to read the map. It can sit in the backseat and leave its hands off the radio if I’m in a territory I have the wisdom to understand. I’ve driven in all kinds of weather, and I also know when to pull over and stop.
I certainly refuse to throw up my hands and let fear-driven instinctual behaviour take the wheel. Now? In this crucial moment, you are going to wuss out? Why didn’t you do it earlier, when there was a chance for a replacement to get up to speed? This is the problem with robots driving cars, with health care, and with every individual.
While I was in my sister’s car, she narrowly avoided an accident. I couldn’t believe what had happened.
She hit the brake and then took her hands off the wheel! One went up into the air, and the other flew across my chest, as if to protect me from being thrown forward, even though I was wearing a seatbelt. Who has the steering wheel if you don’t? God? Even He is shaking His Head.
Mind your role with attention and effort, and leave the things you cannot control to higher powers. Help yourself first, and aim to have some left over to help others. They sure could use it.
Be the example. You are the product, so be the best example.
A Full Heart
First, we are lazy. We let our lizard brain rule our behavior, and its choices and motives which are primarily passing genes to the next generation. Get a mate and get busy. When you look fear in the face and act with courage, you take control of that lizard brain and start using the next one. When you feel a pang of hunger and head to the fridge, fear-driven, instinctual behaviour rules your universe.
Next, we are stupid, because it takes time, intention and instruction to not be stupid, and those are real constraints. What it doesn’t take is money. Yes, I have a university degree, but today, I would look long and hard at that investment before making it. I have six free library cards, and with two of them, I can access a wide network of libraries to track down a book on any subject. Some libraries also contain course catalogs, and many carry The Great Courses, which I’ve found to be simply, well, great. Do you need the knowledge or the credential, because they are two different things and sometimes, they don’t overlap at all.
Finally, we are mean, because it takes a full heart and an unthreatened existence to stop putting ourselves first and foremost in every decision. Survival of the fittest pits human beings against each other, and one day, when you have enough love, and enough money, and enough food and water, and well, enough, you realize that desperate people do desperate things, and now things are different, and you’d like that to be true in your universe.
And forward or upward you progress, taking control and responsibility until you are genuinely acting with a will that is not governed by some one, some thing, some time, some body, or somewhere.
A Focused Mind
What would be more helpful is to say to the shivering child, “Go in your mind. Remember when we were in that sauna? How the moist air filled your nostrils, and you took a deep breath and felt it in your lungs? The smell of cedar made you think of that warm crackling fire that we light on Christmas. The way your muscles relaxed as the heat soaked in, and your breathing slowed and grew deeper, more intentional and relaxed. Wasn’t that bliss? Focus. Concentrate. Stay there, and this too shall pass.”
One time, out snowmobiling, I knew it was bad, and I refused to look. Gas was low. A blizzard had moved in, or maybe we were following it. I didn’t know where we were staying that night or when we would get there, but I was determined to focus on getting there, not on any of the other possibilities.
I changed the channel on fear-driven instinctual behaviour. In my head, I pictured the best hotel room I knew: white, crisp sheets, dark wooden walls, and, most of all, a bathroom with a jet tub. While I rode, I focused on this memory and the experience for what felt like many hours.
It wasn’t without incident – we were lucky enough to encounter locals. We were able to follow them across blinding fields and through many turns we would have missed. I didn’t participate in the discussions, but followed silently, in my helmet and in my world.
At the hotel, they said they had one room left, and of course, we took it. The door was beside the kitchen door, with heaps of trash, recycling, and cigarette butts. The door jamb showed signs of a break-in and a quick and dirty repair job. Still, I saw but said nothing.
Learn it for Yourself
The door unlocked, it swung open, and there was my room. Dark walls, white king-size bed, and best, the four-person jet-equipped bathtub and granite stall shower. All for the price of what we’d paid the previous night, and that entire room would have fit in the bathroom.
Dream come true? If that’s what you want to call it, but I called it the product of effort. At the very least, don’t let fear plot your future or author your story.
Take fear-driven instinctual behavior, and lasso it with consciousness to make the outcome better than the one it thinks is coming.
After all, “You always had the power, my dear. You just had to learn it for yourself.” Without the belief, without the believer, they are just shoes.
When people cue up to ask you how you do it, be ready. Spend your time learning both the answer and how to transfer that knowledge accurately and precisely to someone else. I’ve had to learn many things for myself, and I wish better for you.
Leave a Reply