A healthy conscience

The primary instincts to protect our body, are known as the flight-fight-freeze response. They work as a protection mechanism against danger by giving feelings of fear (so we flee), anger (so we fight) or powerlessness (so we freeze), depending on the situation. If we act upon those feelings, we might feel shame and guilt and depression, even when the danger was real and we had no choi…ce but to do anything else than to flee, to fight for our life, or to do nothing at all. Yet with our human mind, we can process and analyze all that has happened, and – with the help of others – the shame, guilt and depression will fade away and hopefully we’ll find our balance again.

But our mind can also activate our flight-fight-freeze response. This happens when we (plan to) do something that’s wrong in our own eyes. We feel uncomfortable, anxious, angry or disconnected, and have two ways out: Either we act upon this flight-fight-freeze instinct and start for example lying, trying to get away with it (flight), or we start blaming, an argument or a fight (fight), or we deny responsibility and don’t do anything at all (freeze). The other way out is to act upon the backside, the shame and guilt, where those feelings make us communicate honestly with the other, or correct our mistake and say sorry, or reconsider our planned action to decide upon something better.

To know about this mechanism is important, so we are able to recognize how we are using our mental warning system. It shows, shame and guilt are moral qualities that should give us self-confidence. They are a defense against lying, blaming and agressive behaviour that makes us strong, not weak, as they are a guidance to ethically sound speech and actions. Therefore parenting and education should be aimed at developing the conscience, by stimulating imagination and reasoning rather than teaching to obey a set of rules without understanding.