Sometimes people don’t come from anger or any other emotion. Even if that’s how it seems. Instead, they come from fear. In fact, I’d lay odds on the fact that most of us come from fear most of the time:

Fear of being rejected. Fear of losing control. Fear of not being enough. Fear that if we soften, someone will take advantage of us.

You’ve seen this in action and so have I. Fear can make people defensive even when no one is attacking them. It’s how they taken in the behavior of others and has nothing at all to do with how the other is acting.

Fear can make them cling to certainty when life is asking them to tolerate the unknown. And life does at times ask us to sit with uncertainty.

It can make them judge others because judgment feels safer than vulnerability.

Yes, fear can be a knee-jerk response to what happens in life.

And sometimes, fear disguises itself so well that even the person carrying it doesn’t recognize it. And THIS is the crux of it, in my opinion. Most people do not recognize that fear is at the root of their behavior.

Do you recognize any of this?

Understanding vs. excusing it

Understanding where someone’s behavior comes from doesn’t mean we excuse it. But it can help us see that what looks like hardness may actually be a frightened heart trying very hard to protect itself.

That kind of understanding can soften our hearts. I know it’s softened mine more than once.

Because we’ve all felt this way at one time or another. We all have places where fear speaks through us.  The work is learning to recognize its voice before we let it make our choices.