The F-Words

Our community experienced a trauma this past week - someone shooting their way through an argument in a college computer lab. It's a piece of news that seems to appear too frequently these days, and shakes us to our core.

What does it mean for us to try to create safe communities and neighborhoods in a societal culture that is so addicted to fear and violence? Do we know how to argue with each other--experience conflict--without pulling out a gun and shooting?

They say human beings have three physiological responses to threat: FIGHT, FLIGHT, or FREEZE. The first is the epitome of strength, while the other two are usually seen as weakness. If we have guts, we turn and face the threat with teeth gritted and muscles readied (or guns drawn!) ready to fight. But, if we're weak and cowardly, we either turn and run the other direction, or we freeze like a deer in headlights waiting for our brain to kick in and tell us which of the other two options to take. Psychologists would tell us that there is no right or wrong, good or bad...all three are natural and programmed into us.

However, I suggest there is a fourth F-word that we could get a bit more proficient in when we encounter threat or conflict of some kind: FOCUS. Perhaps this response is best exemplified in the animal world by the maternal instinct of protecting one's offspring in times of threat and how apparently super-human feats of strength can result. When her child is threatened, suddenly a mother's strength, energy and ingenuity can become hyper-focused.

Most of the time, threats or conflicts that come into our lives are not life-threatening in the immediate moment. We need to be careful not to react to them as if they were. We can use the adrenaline to focus ourselves, let it teach us, push us to open ourselves to myriad of options we may have for response, open us to clarity, lift us to a higher understanding and perspective rather than a more desperate one. With FOCUS, conflict can open a doorway for us to become a better person--gaining greater skill, greater wisdom, deeper connections and more inner strength. We can allow the conflict to focus us more deeply on what our motivations, our expectations, our bedrock foundations, and our values are.