The behavioral activation system (BAS) is a neurobehavioral system that motivates people to seek rewards and achieve goals. It's also known as the reward motivation system, behavioral facilitation system, behavioral approach system, or the approach motivation system.
BAS is active when we are in discover mode – scanning for opportunities, copiousness, thinking for ourselves, desiring to explore, grow, and learn. Feeling safe is a prerequisite to BAS.
The behavioral inhibition system (BIS) is a neuropsychological system that controls how people respond to situations that could lead to negative consequences.
BIS is active when we’re in defend mode – scanning for dangers, anticipating scarcity, and clinging to your tribe in a desire to be kept safe. In BIS, we are ready to freeze, fight, or take flight. In BIS, we stockpile, hoard, build walls, and lock doors. It’s all very appropriate if there is a real threat.
An underlying fundamental question involves our worldview. Is the world a safe place? If not, we default to BIS. We are on edge, hypervigilant. If the anxiety is ubiquitous, we are nervous all the time. Helicopter parents over-protect their children from very rare or nonexistent external threats, not allowing them out of their sight. And yet, those same parents too often allow children free access to multiple real online threats.
If a person fundamentally feels safe and secure, they will default to BAS. The world is a wondrous place, filled with mystery and beauty. We look for opportunities to learn, expand, and grow spiritually, emotionally, and intellectually.
But how can anyone feel essentially safe in this world? Local channels report crime constantly, never telling us that the rates are way down. Politicians invent and exaggerate threats and play on fears. Social media algorithms herd us into silos. Meanwhile, madmen have access to nuclear arsenals, invade countries, and bomb women and children. The world can be a scary place.
Essential to feeling safe is spirituality. Every major religion uses rituals to lift us out of the profane (everyday life) into the sacred. Religious or spiritual rituals engage us in embodied worship, adoration, and veneration. Silence, stillness, and meditation connect us with the divine. Spiritual people express gratitude and thanksgiving, are actively involved in service because they are focused on others rather than self, eschew judging, and are quick to forgive. They spend time reflecting amidst the grandeur of nature.
Meditation, slowly absorbing sacred texts, deep breathing, long, slow walks in nature, stillness and contemplation – listening to the gentle inner voice of love. Serving the poor, mentally ill, homeless, displaced, incarcerated, ill, and shut-in. we become conduits of the divine, conduits of perfect love.
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