Love, Fear and Punishment

Deep down, all humans have an underlying fear -- a deep-rooted fear of a cosmic punishment.

Very few acknowledge this at the conscious level. It would be impossible to fantom, and too great of a burden to carry.

But it informs all forms of fear in the fear-punishment cycle mankind inflicts.

Babies cry from an underlying fear -- when wet, cold, hungry, alone -- there is a deep, primal fear of a punishment -- which is abandonment, rejection, the loss of love.

We don't think of it this way because the of a parent willfully punishing a baby is so extreme and foreign. A baby crying because they peed in their pants and are hungry is easier taken at face value.

But form their perspective, with primal instincts, some element of this stems from a fear -- "What if my hunger isn't met? What if this discomfort is relieved?"

Fear comes from a deep-rooted sense of a punishment -- inflicted pain -- whether directly from an individual, from society at large, or at the base, from the world, the universe, from the cosmos.

This cycle then perpetuates itself, and is the condition of mankind. The fear of punishment leads the fearful to act out in ways that seek to punish someone else, directly or indirectly, in-your-face or passive aggressively.

And this flywheel drives the world.

What, then, is the antidote to drive out this fear?

The saying, "perfect loves drives out all fear" has deep implications as the antidote. It's both the puzzling paradox, but may be the only way out.

From this perspective, we can reframe fear which comes from punishment or a fear of punishment, as rooted in a withdrawal of love.

A baby, for example, may cry out of fear, because it experiences discomfort, hunger, loneliness as a form of punishment -- it's a punishment because those experiences may trigger a withdrawal of love by the parent.

This dynamic can be extended to nearly all human relationships.

The harsh tone feels like punishment because it signals withdrawal of love by a spouse.

The criticism at work feels like punishment because it is a withdrawal of love by the company (which, itself, invites inspection because no company loves its employees).

The incompetence of a service worker creates anger, because it is experienced as a form of punishment, which is a withdrawal of love by that service worker (even though there shouldn't be that expectation to begin with, the withdrawal still incites fear).

This doesn't mean the hurting behavior is correct.

In many cases, it does come from a malicious or ignorant perspective.

But there is no true corrective or defensive posture if we remain in the punishment-fear cycle.

This reframing of fear from punishment (experienced or expected) is so visceral because it is driven by a loss of love. So in some ways, every expression of punishment from that fear is an expression of a loss of love.

This is why "perfect love" drives it out.

The response to this, no matter how horrible and insulting, is love.

It may not change the punishing behavior, largely because the fear of the loss of love is greater than the love we can offer. That's not our burden, however. It's just the ideal response.

For in responding in love, and viewing all punishment as a cry for love, that fear we feel from the punishing behavior is driven out by our love.

Summoning this supply of love is, of course, humanly impossible. It's hard to be loving to people who are half-way decent.

And so the source of such power must come from how people experience love.

And the reframe is to find all the sources of love, the pennies dropped throughout the day, the poorly express, imperfect love, that we receive from co-workers, parents, relatives, friends, as a source of such love.

It is imperfect, and may drive us crazy.

But if we can't farm those imperfections, dust off the annoyances and collect them into our bag of treasures, like pennies in a jar, we'll never have the love we need to reframe the inevitable punishments out of fear from other people.