“I’m not going to hide from what’s true just because it hurts.” —Toni Morrison

Amygdala lovefeast

Feeling vulnerable, feeling open to harm, to attack, to criticism, isn’t something many of us delight in. Certainly, our very old, very loving amygdala is present, ready and prepared to respond to any perceived threat well before we are physically aware there is a threat. Our very old, very loving amygdala doesn’t distinguish physical harm from emotional harm, or even discomfort. That is where we come in, we have the ability to distinguish, we have the ability to create patterns our amygdala can distinguish and understand so we’re not unnecessarily in flight, fight, freeze or fawn mode.

But but for real

Before I say another word, I am compelled to share a learned pet peeve of mine. When I was coming up through learning how to give presentations, I learned about a common pitfall people often set for themselves. Right at the beginning of their talk, people will take away their own credibility and ask the audience to stop listening to them or to question the validity of what they are saying. You may have heard someone say, “I’m not an expert, but…” It happens often. If you haven’t noticed, be on the lookout, tell me if you come across an example in the wild. Now, when I hear people say that, I don’t stop listening to them, and I don’t invalidate what they are trying to say. More, I want to help them rewrite what they want to say*.

Yet, there is a specific phrase, adjacent to “I’m not an expert, but,” that I do think is important for people to say and I am going to say here: “I’m not a doctor. I’m not a clinician. I’m not a therapist.” Everything I say is either my opinion based on my life—this whole photo writing project as I mentioned is based on my experiences. And, I am a huge intellectual nerd, so I will offer lots of resources from people who are doctors, clinicians etc. But I’m not a trained or licensed professional.

I mention not being something because in talking about our very old, very loving amygdala’s role to keep us safe, many, many people are in actual harm’s way. They are in very terrible home and life situations and the resources they need should come from professionally trained people. I mentioned in my piece, Anger, when my sister felt herself reaching a breaking point, she didn’t turn to yoga or stretching, she didn’t turn to knitting or hiking, she didn’t turn to her trusted girlfriends and she didn’t turn to me. She turned to a trained licensed therapist, and that was the absolute right person to help her. I tear up thinking how grateful I am to my sister and to the professionals she sought support from. And it is with peace and love that I manifest to those who are in harm’s way, to tarry to safe ground; you deserve safety.

I almost always take the invitation to breathe when it is offered

I definitely invite all of us to take those in breaths through the nose, pause at the top and let the breath out through the mouth. Even now, when I look back at the moving pictures of my sister and me 30+, 20+ years ago in specific scenes of ick, I tense up. I shallow breath. Even now, in writing this, I’m feeling a lot, even though I’ve written and talked about my sister’s decision to seek a therapist a lot. The invitation to breathe for a second is for me, too. But, I know I am okay, I am safe.

Getting and being vulnerable

You Talk About Race Too much came from my desire to do more. I’m busy, so are you. That is not going away for me anytime soon. I like being busy and how I’m busy is important to me. And, I want to offer to everyone reading some of how I came to a place right now of being open to do more when I already do so much. In my writing Anger, I pulled out the tarot card of emotions and specifically on that card, was anger. A new tarot card I’ve pulled for this conversation is Vulnerability, and vulnerability is its own card. 

Being vulnerable is deeply, deeply uncomfortable, and again, our very old, our very loving amygdala is going to protect us against things scary and vulnerable. We have the opportunity to work with our very old, very loving amygdala to let our brain know, to let us know we are safe, we are just uncomfortable. And being uncomfortable, experiencing discomfort, is survivable. It is. I would say, maybe not airtight, but if we find ourselves purely uncomfortable, we’re probably physically safe.

But we have to work with ourselves to remind ourselves that when we are uncomfortable, we are physically safe. We have to send the message to our very old, very loving amygdala that we are physically safe so we can also know we are spiritually safe. And that message channel needs a clear pathway in order to signal effectively. When we find ourselves in places of discomfort, we have to message to ourselves often, even within a short period of time because for a lot of different reasons, sometimes the travel pace of the message we are physically safe is s l o w.

Come Correct

And as I said in Anger, we also have to come correct. To be vulnerable, to be open and exposed means we lay our weapons of defensiveness and barriers and excuses down, even if for 30 seconds, breathing the whole time (or your practice of choice): in for a count of 4, hold that precious breath for 7 whole seconds and slowly let that breath out through your mouth for 8 seconds**. By repeating this breath, and, for the breath to transport you to a place of feeling safe, just be patient with yourself and don’t rush. Believe in the breathing. Actually count. Actually be in the moment of discomfort, of vulnerability. By repeating this breath, you signal to your brain—to your very old, very loving amygdala who lives at the base of your brain, that you are physically safe. And when you are physically safe, you can be spiritually safe, and when you are physically and spiritually safe, you can focus on listening to hear and listening to understand and listening to learn new and different. And overcoming discomfort to relearn, to lengthen empathy, to deepen and strengthen resiliency, or whatever it is that you are trying to accomplish. We will be moved out of and away from the same old same old that isn’t serving us, and we will navigate to a new place that feels more authentic. And this practice grows our power. And when we have power, we can do more.

*I am an Ambassador to the incredible organization, The OpEd Project. The OpEd Project works to support more representation in writing and specifically writing op-eds, which to this day are overwhelmingly pitched and published by white men. As an Ambassador, I can offer scholarships to people to attend a 2-day virtual workshop on writing op-eds. Let me know if you are interested. 

**Breath breathing has a lot of variations, in breath through the nose for 4 seconds, hold for 7 seconds at the top, and out breath through the mouth for 8 seconds is one example. A 4-4-4 breath is another. There are breath exercises that are all nose breathing. There are workshops that you can attend online and maybe even irl about breathing. What a gift!