Episode 94 - Fear - Live in Nashville

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hey liturgists michael gunger here i'm science mike i'm william matthews and i'm hillary mcbride welcome to the literature's podcast everybody just a real quick announcement up top about the buddhist series in case you were expecting this episode to be buddhist part three uh apparently the slice of our audience that is buddhist or buddhist curious is not very significant according to the numbers am i right mike i'll say the numbers were singular [Music] so rather than just a boarding mission entirely we're going to put up buddhist part 3 for the patrons for the six people that listen to this show that are interested in buddhism you can head over to our patreon page and hear the finale honestly the numbers on buddhist part 2 made me afraid that the liturgist podcast had reached its end which interestingly enough is what this week's podcast is about fear and the way that it shapes our emotions shapes our actions our beliefs our behaviors it's this constant undercurrent in the human experience and we got together with a few hundred friends at the liturgist gathering in nashville tennessee to explore what fear is and if there's a way that we can have a healthier relationship with it welcome to the liturgist podcast everybody this is jamie lee finch [Applause] a reading from the book of sapiens one of the most common uses of early stone tools was to crack open bones in order to get the marrow some researchers believe this was our original niche just as woodpeckers specialize in extracting insects from the trunks of trees the first humans specialize in extracting marrow from bones why marrow well suppose you observe a pride of lions take down and devour a giraffe you wait patiently until they're done but it's still not your turn because first the hyenas and jackals and don't you dare interfere with them scavenge the leftovers only then would you and your band dare approach the carcass look cautiously left and right and dig into the edible tissue that remained the word of ourselves thanks be to yuval harari there is a reason you're wired for hope there is a reason you rebuild after unimaginable loss there is a reason you wake up every single morning and try again and again and again it's ancient it's biological it's an inescapable inheritance you are a human being and we human beings have always apparently been hungry for the life that might still be living after everything else appears to be gone it's the oldest thing we've ever done you know breaking open bones digging for what's left after death to find the meaning the meat the marrow still hidden within i don't know what it was about us what has always been but something told us that surviving would come at the cost of cracking open the end and saying not yet even after every outer layer of life was stripped away from flesh from bone we were sustained by still believing something was left for us right where we stopped thinking anything else could be we are one in a long lineage of absurd tenacity and this holy work of how we became human is how we remain adamant on enduring hunters gatherers foragers scavengers you won't tell us it's finished you won't tell us we're done we know better we've tasted we've seen and we've survived on what's left on the other side of over so many times before because it's the oldest thing we've ever done and we are breaking open the bones digging around for what's left after death even still this weekend we celebrate the birth and death of two american revolutionaries shirley chisholm and james baldwin shirley anita chisholm was born on november 30th 1924. she was an american politician educator author in 1968 she became the first black woman elected to the united states congress and she represented new york's 12th congressional district for seven terms from 1969 to 1983. her campaign slogan was this unbought and unbossed [Applause] yo in the words of modern poet yg she bad she bad she bad she bad [Music] in 1972 aunt shirley became the first black candidate for a major party's nomination for president of the united states shirley struggled to be regarded as a serious candidate instead she was often viewed as a symbolic political figure she was ignored by much of the democratic political establishment and she received little support from her black male colleagues she later said when i ran for congress when i ran for president i meant more discrimination as a woman than for being black men are men or in modern speech men are trash she expressed frustration about the black matriarch thing saying they think i'm trying to take power from them the black man must step four but that doesn't mean that black women must step back though shirley didn't win the presidential nomination she didn't give over to fear her courage gave way for a plethora of women of color to walk in her footsteps inspiring women from all walks of life and for decades to come including representative barbara lee representative maxine waters and even the first woman to win a presidential nomination hillary rodham clinton james arthur baldwin [Music] he died today december 1st in 1987. he was an american novelist social critic y'all baldwin was the force to be reckoned with if you don't know you need to know he was a playwright a hollywood screenwriter an author a civil rights proponent he personally knew martin luther king he knew malcolm x lorraine hansberry medgar evers a story too little told though about james baldwin is that he met with attorney general robert kennedy at the time brother to jfk in may 1963. [Music] bobby asked jimmy as they called him to organize a quiet off-the-record unpublicized get-together of prominent negroes to discuss the state of race relations in the 60s as the meeting got underway bobby kennedy began to recount how the justice department had been super supportive of the civil rights movement jerome smith suddenly began to weep as if he had just suffered some traumatic flashback he said i've seen you guys referencing the justice department i've seen you guys stand around to do nothing more than taking notes while we were being beaten the mood quickly became tense baldwin later accounted jerome set the tone of the medium because he stammers when he's upset and he stammered when he talked to bobby and said that he was nauseated by the necessity of being in that room baldwin continued i knew what he meant it was not personal at all bobby took it personally bobby turned away from him that was a mistake because he turned to us because we were the responsible mature representatives of the black community lorraine hansberry said you've got a great many very very accomplished people in this room mr attorney general but the only man who should be listened to right now is right over there kennedy and jerome begin to argue the assembled group felt generally that kennedy did not understand the depth of the problem of race relations at that time jerome bared his soul in all his pain and very aggressively said let me tell you something in the midst of our oppression you expect to find us giddily going off to war in vietnam that's your war that's unjust that's unfair and so dishonorable it should shame you i wouldn't pick up a gun to fight for this country i'd die first now here's where kennedy messed up bobby kennedy said that his family immigrants from ireland suffered discrimination upon arriving in america but were able to overcome their hardships to achieve political success and and just maybe the us might have a black president in 40 years david baldwin jimmy baldwin's brother observed that his family had been in the country for far longer than kennedy's yet had barely been permitted to climb out of poverty when everyone left the meeting angered and frustrated that moment was a long-term turning point in bobby kennedy's attitude towards the black liberation struggle his white fragility caused him to feel ambushed and he actually ordered the surveillance of the black radicals as he's called them even going as far to calling james baldwin a pervert in a communist less than one month later though president john f kennedy gave his landmark civil rights address bobby kennedy was the only white house advisor to actively encourage his brother to give the speech in which the president publicly proposed legislation that would become the civil rights act of 1964. today's podcast is about fear this word is the title of a popular book by presidential author bob woodward in it it's a direct quote taken from president donald trump in which he said on the campaign trail real power is i don't i don't want to use the word fear we must acknowledge that we live in an apocalyptic age where evil is showing us its hand as we journey in these turbulent times let us take time to remember and celebrate the lives of saints and rebels shirley chisholm and james baldwin lived unapologetically they are two in a lineage of many who spoke truth to political power and made a new way a new reality a new understanding for humanity and for human dignity for generations to come they didn't live to see barack obama become the first black president 40 years later like bobby predicted accurately they did not live to see racism eradicated but yet we are here and their courage calls out to us their blood along with the toil sweat and tears of generations long gone speaks a better word we may not live to see the full dismantling of systemic oppression but we have in this moment an opportunity to deal a heavy blow so i ask you today let us all take up our cross let us reject fear and live lives of bravery and courage so that we may become part of the line and that we may be worthy to stand among the great cloud of witnesses we love you shirley and [Music] james it is no easy ask though to give up fear when we look at your brain we look at how it came to be we understand that our best theory and our best ideas in the sciences say that like most features of biology brains are basically accidental but worked well jellyfish were the first organisms in the history of this planet to have nerves and it let them feel for the first time nothing had ever felt before a jellyfish felt they had nerves and thanks to quirks of genetics over time those nerves started to cluster in the first basic brains appeared and as eons unfolded and arrived at contemporary times the approach evolution took to building brains was to just keep stacking new things on top of the old and so it also shows us a priority list for your brain those things deepest in the brain and closest to the spine are the most important for your survival so at the deepest parts of your brain there's little bits that deal with breathing which is important and your heartbeat which is important but just beyond that essential enclave in a throne of power in your brain is the amygdala a structure which enables you to feel both fear and anger the two most powerful human emotions which happen to be twins now fear and anger represent remarkable innovations in life contrary to the ways that we're often uncomfortable with anger and dread fear you can be afraid because it kept life living when you could imagine through your senses that a shape resembled a predator or physical hazard you could feel a powerful sensation that predicted danger and caused you to respond in a very real way fear is a gift but like all gifts sometimes they can be misused and as we have reshaped the world in our image this species has also created an environment where we deal with chronic and debilitating fear that doesn't actually represent an immediate threat to our physical survival because just past the amygdala is the part of your brain that is social and as a social mammal belonging matters to you and i've only recently discovered just how much belonging matters i was sitting in a therapist's office and i hate therapy that's not true i love talking therapy where i talk about my thoughts about my feelings arrive at a conclusion and a therapist tells me i think you've made a lot of progress what i don't like is therapists who interrupt my talking and ask me how i feel and then don't let me say it because they just want me to feel it i was telling my therapist how i'd gotten a call in the evening from hillary mcbride to check on me and in the course of that call hillary told me that i mattered to her and that she valued our relationship and my therapist said how does that make you feel and knowing i'm not allowed to answer that question with words i just sat and did nothing unlike what i usually do which is cry a bunch and my therapist said go ahead and tell me what's happening i said nothing i never believe it when somebody says i matter to them it rolls right off my back and he said that's good i was like that's good really he's like no it's good that you told me and he said what's behind that and i said i don't know and he said let's just sit with the idea he said i want you to picture hillary's face and imagine that she likes you and then tell me what happens in your body and usually when someone says tell me what's happening your body i turn to my body and my body says let's go get a pizza but in this instance instead i felt a pressure in my chest and heat in my belly and i didn't know what feeling to call that so i said i feel pressure in my chest and heat in my belly but i don't know what that means and he said that means feelings are on the way and so i sat and then a wave hit me of grief of shame and a fear and i started to cry very hard and i knew i was not supposed to talk about it but my delightful storytelling prefrontal cortex would not be denied and so i told my therapist none of this makes any sense that i'm so sad that hillary likes me and as i'm crying he said don't worry it makes sense we'll talk about it later right now just feel the feelings he's really getting to know me as a client and as i i wept something remarkable happened i mean truly remarkable [Music] i remember my childhood i don't remember my childhood hardly at all if i try to go past about ninth grade there's just a deep gray fog but so clearly i remember my kindergarten classroom i remembered the layout where the chairs were where the art board was where the door was that led us to recess and where those tiny cute little toilets were and in that classroom i remember the face of my teacher etched with concern as she watched all of my peers make fun of me so much that she couldn't teach the lesson i didn't know at the time but i was a fat little autistic kid and so to try to continue the lesson she came and took me by the hand and led me away from all the other students and sat me in the timeout chair and told the rest of the class that they were in time out and so most days i sat by myself in kindergarten along with my thoughts and my imagination so i told that story to my therapist is that i don't have any idea what that memory of kindergarten has to do with hillary and he told me that based on what i told him that was probably not a unique story from my childhood and that every time as a child i reached out to friends or to make friends i received rejection and that my brain had stored that as trauma and that that trauma was so intense and so hot that my brain did its best to protect me from it by hiding it from my awareness and that in a very real way that little kindergarten child sits in the deepest part of my skull and watches out for bullies so i'm a 40 year old man who never texts or calls friends or family not my co-hosts on this podcast not my wife not my children not my parents because it's safest if i sit in timeout by myself with my imagination fear leaves a mark in the brain fear roots deep down and even when we don't know it's there shapes our every action and our every decision and because we live in a culture of self-sufficiency and false humility we're told that talking about these very uncomfortable feelings and experience is not okay and not generally with words the first time you open up invulnerability to your friends and family and community they will probably be receptive if reserved the second time your feelings will awake their own feelings and they will withdraw in an attempt to preserve themselves and their body language and their facial expressions but the only way out of fear is relationship i have the good fortune and the immense privilege of a constellation of dear friends who refuse to let me sit in time out who like my poor and frustrated kindergarten teacher will come and take me by the hand but instead of carrying me to a place alone they make me sit at a table over bread and wine and talk to people and they tell me mike i know you don't believe me but you're never a burden and i'm happy every time you call and i know that you can't hear that and you probably won't start calling me but i care about you so here's what i want you to know friends if fear has left its scar deep in the structure of your brain it's okay it's actually quite beautiful that fear kept you alive but when others reach out and try to reach across it take it from me the risk of accepting an outrage reached hand can lead to something like the liturgists in the last however many years it's been no person has pursued relationship with me as voraciously as an introverted artist known as michael gunger slash fish new doss and that is what inspires me to reach out my hand toward all of you [Applause] [Music] when i think about the times of my life where i'm most afraid i used to be so i used to be so afraid as a kid and looking back it they were kind of about funny things to me now like i was super afraid about the mark of the beast [Laughter] i thought for sure it was gonna happen any day and i was gonna get my head chopped off or something i remember oh yeah i remember like some bible verse about like the sun or the moon would turn to blood or something at any time i would look into the sky and if it was like a if it was weird colored at all like a really brilliant sunset rather than feeling wonder or amazement i'd be like is this it this is the end the moon's turning to blood i was terrified i would keep me up at night i remember i was afraid of war for some reason i thought that i would be called as a soldier i was a child i don't know what i uh a martyr i was afraid of being a martyr i was i some somebody i'd seen a movie one time where a witch whipped some kid's feet i don't know what movie it was uh anytime i had my feet out of the end of the bed i was like witches are gonna whip my feet irrational weird things right but it's paralyzing and and it's kind of funny now but it wasn't then and i think about how the fear has translated as it got more sophisticated as i got older and i can see a common thread that thread is an unwillingness or at least an inability to live in the here and now and instead to get caught up into an imaginary future potential that doesn't exist and i think of that most clearly i was trying to think the other day we were talking because i'm not afraid these days of anything but i was trying to think when is what's the most potent adult fear that i had and then of mike reminded me uh you're a dad and i was like oh yeah he's seen me he's he's seen some stories through the years especially the birth of lucy my youngest daughter i thought about sharing the story but i actually have a little passage in my upcoming book called this that if you don't mind i would like to read it because i'll say it better in the book this is from a chapter called light [Music] she has physical characteristics consistent with down syndrome the nurse's voice trembled as if she were handing us a death sentence had i known then what i know now i could have smiled at the melodrama of someone delivering the news of our newborn daughters lucette's 21st chromosome with the emotional timbre one might use to deliver news of an imminent species annihilating asteroid collision with earth if i had known then how much joy my lulu would bring to our lives if i had known how precious every moment of life is regardless of the number of chromosomes it builds its tissue with if i had known that nurse's dire sounding pronouncement was simply a limited description of one aspect of the unique and marvelous attributes of our new little princess i could have responded to the nurse by saying something like that's fantastic news thank you we are so lucky but i didn't say that i didn't say anything at all the most i could do at that time was to nod helplessly tears flowing down my cheeks as we received the news of my daughter's diagnosis in that hospital room i was not okay with the this that had suddenly and unexpectedly presented itself the bottom of the world dropped out and i was in a free fall i couldn't believe what i was hearing this couldn't really be happening not to us we weren't responsible enough to handle something like this lisa and i were flighty bohemian musicians who had a hard enough time keeping our lawn and first born alive trying to effectively parent one child in our chaotic world of airports buses vans and grimy phallically adorned green rooms was already a stretch for us and i was already worried about trying to add a second kid into our mess a second kid with special needs nope i knew i couldn't do that i was already at my limit so as i took in the news of lucette's down syndrome i watched an entire world of that crumble before my eyes i looked at my wife lisa she looked stronger than i felt of course i could have figured as much unlike myself lisa's first thoughts in life are not always about her own needs and convenience lisa isn't a person who tends to think so much or so quickly of her own needs as i do i could see that she looked sad after the nurse delivered the news of our new baby having down syndrome but i'm pretty sure it was mostly because she was worried about the health of the baby i was mostly worried about myself and then this old crushing thought entered my mind is this my fault my heart sank further into despair i searched my memory recall the night around the time the baby had been conceived that i had taken a couple colorado gummy bears did i do this time became a blur people coming and going talk of surgery all i wanted to do is google can marijuana consumption cause down syndrome pregnancies i eventually got the opportunity to leave the room i pulled out my phone no there was no correlation between marijuana usage and higher rates of down syndrome pregnancies thank the gods still i couldn't shake the feeling that this was all somehow my fault my world was collapsing the hospital walls were closing in around me and i was suffocating i escaped outside to get some fresh air and walked around the block for a while the thoughts were relentless why is this happening what are our options here i don't want a baby with special needs i didn't sign up for this i can't handle this we can't handle this i called my sister lissa who was a christian she told me that god knit this baby together in her mother's womb and that it's going to be okay while i hadn't found the need to cling to atheism in the couple years since the spa my atheism had gradually morphed into more of an evolved version of my earlier mysticism in the couple years that had passed since my experience at the spa i still didn't believe in any sort of divine being that knits babies together in wombs though eventually i walked my collapsing self back into the flame engulfed world of the hospital room i was told the baby needed two heart surgeries one of which would have to happen immediately they would go in through her back and somehow fix part of this tiny fragile baby's heart maybe that'll be the end of it i thought and immediately hated myself for it lisa was crying she was terrified the surgery wouldn't work i was terrified that it would what was wrong with me i felt so ashamed i looked at lisa the warrior queen who had now survived two human beings growing in and then coming out of her own body like an aliens movie she was scared but strong seeing her made me wonder if maybe it was going to somehow be okay something in me knew that we're going to end up loving this baby girl just as much as our first but i was so afraid i'm afraid she would die afraid she wouldn't and that i would afraid that this would ruin our marriage our family our career i was a man who had dreams i had a vision for my future i had all these thoughts and feelings but my life was supposed to look like and certainly none of them resembled anything like this but where had those thoughts come from was our yet unnamed hours-old baby girl who was whisked away and still off being poked and prodded by the doctors really any intrinsically less valuable than any other life almond-shaped eyes are still eyes aren't they crooked pinky fingers are still pinky fingers hell my pinky fingers are crooked too i walked over to lisa and looked deeply into those brilliant blue eyes i fell in love with when i first saw them 15 years before i never would have imagined being in this moment with that girl with the cute gray skirt and the magical blue eyes now those eyes were full of tears so were mine both of us were absolutely terrified i wanted her to know that i saw her when i was with her i couldn't do this but maybe maybe we could i didn't know who or what god may be but in that moment at that hospital bed i could once again feel how whatever the creative force behind and within it all that knits babies together in wombs was present this baby was still a baby not just a baby our baby i gently laid my hands on lisa's belly those old words that saw him i had memorized as a kid began to flow out of my mouth as a sort of prayer for this new baby girl of ours for you created her in must be [Music] you knit her together in her mother's womb i praise you because she is fearfully and wonderfully made afterwards we held each other and cried we cried for the pain of it all for the beauty of it all and in that moment something in our hearts opened and we begin to let go into that timeless inconceivable ineffable this that knits together galaxies and spinning blue planets and mothers wombs and almond eyes today that chunky four-year-old with the crooked pinkies is one of my favorite human beings on earth and that's not only because she's my daughter lou's favorite song is happy birthday she loves it she sings it all day often in the morning as she's waking up with her low groggy sleep voice [Music] i think she likes the song so much not because of its compositional structure or lyrical depth but because she associates it with parties lou loves to party come to our living room turn off all the lights except for the dance light that was our family's best purchase decision of all time crank up the right music and look around for the shirtless twerking toddler holding a sandwich and one hand and a packet of applesauce pronounced saw in lu language in the other that'll be lou a human being more full of life love passion and presence than almost anyone i know her life is not a burden for anyone it's a gift our society teaches us such harmful myths about how life is supposed to look the top of the societal ladder is straight white male cisgender and able-bodied baby girl with down syndrome sorry that's way down the ladder and though i never would have thought that i bought into those sorts of societal lies my emotional rollercoaster in the hospital had proved to me otherwise the stories we tell are the reality we experience and from my limited frame of reference steeped in all the myths of 21st century american life i could only see a condition that threatened my personal pursuit of happiness my experience of the world was limited to the small destructive stories from which i was viewing lucette and everything and everyone else from living in these false stories about what the world should be rather than resting in the love and wonder that the world already had imprisoned me in a world of fear and shame lucy helped me to see the light that is always right here and right now and that's what her name means [Applause] [Music] light [Applause] [Music] it was feminism that helped me feel again i first felt anger how could we buy into these stories about our bodies about power feeling anger was the beginning of my freedom the beginning of my healing from an eating disorder where i'd been in and out of treatment for over a decade trying desperately to make my body disappear and go away but it was the neurophysiology of the traumatic stress response that made me believe in the goodness of my body again understanding the science of fear made me fall in love with how our bodies work i'll tell you why i was on highway which is the highway quite near where i grew up chair in the front seat reclined back dozing on the long drive home and my heart started to pound through my chest felt like heat fire and tightness all at the same time seemingly out of nowhere i was in the throes of an experience of intense panic i just been relaxing and napping while i was being chauffeured and i popped my head up and looked outside the car window and saw that i was at the exact same point on an overpass where three years previously i had been pulled out of my car by a team of firemen in an accident that involved 17 cars where i was one of the only people who survived my body was keeping me alive in my fear response because my body was telling the memory the story of something that had taken me dangerously close to death so as my body remembered the path that the car took that night and how far into the destination i was my body said this is a lot like that time you almost died so we're gonna start freaking out now just in case it's a lot like the last time i used to hate my body for all the things that it told me and it was in that moment and in many moments like that when i realized my fear was good it was part of me staying alive and my body was telling the story of everything that i'd been through up until that point fear is an emotion and unlike the socio-cultural narrative that we have around feelings emotions actually live in the body emotions move energy in motion through our cells and our muscles and our circuitry activating different systems in our brain hypothalamic pituitary adrenal access if anyone's interested in googling that later to emit this cascade of neurochemicals to activate our body so fear is this emotion in our body but a lot of times we've got trouble with emotion because it means feeling something and a lot of times we haven't been shown how to actually feel so when feeling comes up we do the thing that we were taught to do we try to make it go away and then we start to hate the thing that's trying to tell us something that we need to know to keep us alive we can become afraid of fear because no one ever showed us what to do with it when it emerges and no one ever showed us that it can be a beautiful thing that keeps us alive our brains are wired for connection and for survival as mike has talked about so frequently that means that the parts of our brain that hold fear are deeper embedded in our brain wiring and makeup they actually are more central you could even say to being human than our thought life fear has this capacity to protect us then from the things that we have been hurt by or the things that we could be hurt by it's a very very important part of each of you being in the room here it might have even been the thing that stopped you from walking out into traffic that one time because you heard some part of you heard a car coming and it activated the fear circuitry which told you to step back onto the curb so fear as an emotion is not bad in fact it is very very very good what i want to say though is that we learn what to be afraid of so fear isn't bad but sometimes we become afraid of things that aren't actually going to hurt us like someone who is other or a situation that is unknown there's a phrase in psychotherapy that we use it says tell me what you're afraid of and i'll tell you what's happened to you because our fear so often points us directly to the places that we have been hurt or to the things that we have been told are dangerous for us but sometimes we don't know if the fear that we feel is something that is dangerous for us or actually something that is just uncomfortable because we can learn to become afraid of the unknown if at some point on the other side of knowing there was something that scared us or if we were never supported into walking into places of unknown and we had to do it all on our own did you know that having a particular kind of attachment style can mediate if a person moves into curiosity or fear depending on what they've been through in their relational history when there is novelty that people can move into curiosity not necessarily fear but we have to have been shown how to stay open to things that were kind of unknown to us so our attachment history what we've been walked through the things that we've been told and shown about emotions predispose us to being terrified if there's something that's confusing or unknown or being curious and whenever i think about that i often ask myself what would happen if all the things that i'm afraid of that made me want to pull away from something or someone actually created a sense of openness and curiosity what would happen if when there was that person who felt scary to me or that situation or that opportunity that created fear and aroused fear in my body what if what if i saw that as an opportunity and an invitation to growth fear is something like every other part of being human that is bio psycho social and spiritual it involves the whole person and we can talk about the physiology of fear and how it impacts our thoughts and how it impacts the way that we move away from certain people in certain circumstances because because fear has this ability to make us want to withdraw to protect ourselves but fear also impacts our spirituality fear is a tactic that can be used to stop us from having curiosity fear is a strategy that stops us from understanding the responsibility that is required of us when we see ourselves in the other fear keeps things status quo and so when we experience fear first it's great to say thank you body for telling me that we're in a situation that might have been hurtful in the past or i might not have known how to get through but body is that fear because i'm uncomfortable or because i'm actually unsafe and there is a difference between fear when we are in discomfort and fear when we are in danger we're at a time in history where something very unique is happening where we can consciously choose to participate in our evolution as a species where we can choose willingly to move ourselves and each other forward by how we respond to the information that emerges in us according to the environments that we're in so there is an opportunity and an invitation here when you feel fear to join in this next phase of evolution of our species that instead of becoming afraid of the things that we no longer fear need to fear that we would choose to be curious and you don't have to do that alone [Music] the research from the field of interpersonal neurobiology and affect of neuroscience says that when we have someone with us who undoes the aloneness that it's easier for us to choose curiosity so isn't it interesting that choosing curiosity might connect us to each other and that connection might make it easier to choose curiosity connection is kind of the opposite of fear and it's also one of the things that we need to help us heal it there are three things that we know that we can do to help us manage fear we can learn strategies around emotional regulation so that when fear comes up we know how to say okay what am i going to do with this maybe now is a great time to take a breath and here's a great place to remind you that courage doesn't mean the absence of fear it means moving forward with fear present you don't have to get rid of fear to be courageous so doing emotional regulation and noticing what is it that's coming up for me and how do i respond to it the second thing this relates to what vishnu is saying is learning how to be present and training our minds there's some really fascinating research in 2012 that came out about people who'd done an eight week course in meditation where one hour a week they were in a class that was half practice half teaching and the rest of the week they did 20 minutes of mindfulness practice a day and after those eight weeks there was a noticeable difference in the size and the thickness of their amygdala and they weren't even meditating while the brain scans were happening they were just chilling out but their brain had actually adapted to have less of a fear response again amygdala as mike was talking about is also responsible for anger so there's a double payoff there what's fascinating about that research is that when people did compassion mindfulness and compassion meditation versus more of just kind of like a tuning in to the body that the compassion mindfulness after eight weeks actually showed subtle activation in the right amygdala in response to other people's pain that people actually became more responsive to other people's pain it hurt us more that in slowing down and tuning in that it can actually connect us to each other there's that word again the connection piece the third thing is that if fear tells us about what's already happened to us then sometimes if we're trying to move through fear that's no longer helpful for us we need to go back to look at the places where the hurts started we need to tell a new story about what happens when we're feeling overwhelmed and we need to learn how to create corrective experiences when we're in fear we're going to try a little bit of that later that's just a little teaser but we will do something together at the end of this podcast to hopefully begin to shift your story and your experience around fear thank you [Applause] here's a question since we are wired for connection and getting kicked out of the tribe equals death do you believe it's ever possible that the intense fear of rejection not belonging can diminish or even go away depends on if you have spaces where you can feel safe and accepted and how much time you spend in those spaces and how much of the connection you allow in and how much of that supports you to be buffered against the rejection in other places and and we call this an attachment theory the secure base do we have a place to go back to that builds us up that reminds us of our true worth and if we don't then that rejection eradicates our sense of self and the integrity of our identity but when we have a place to go back to no matter how small or how frequently and we can actually drink in the care of others then it can actually mediate the distress we feel in spaces where we are rejected i kind of i feel very much centered and have always found my place in books and even history having a sense of history and for me black history is so important to me because it speaks of the lineage and legacy that i come from but it's also the place of support when i feel de-centered in the world like it becomes the place that i go to for refuge so even sharing the stories about shirley chisholm and james baldwin they mean so much to me personally because here is strength that i don't have in this moment but it's being it's there in history it's there in these pages it's there in the lives and the testimonies of people who've gone before me and so for me when i feel when i felt lost in my deconstruction i felt like where do i lean where do i go what's true what's not true i instantly was able to fall back into the lives of the mystics and the saints and the rebels and the the prophets beca and that became a source of strength for me to know that i can make make it in this moment because they made it in their moment and regardless of whether you subscribe to a religious tradition or not i think that we can find ourselves in the stories of others and they can give us strength for today i have experienced a lot of rejection from the tribe of course it could be worse but i'll tell you i'm a hell of a lot less afraid of it than i used to be you said can it diminish i'm just telling you from my personal experience absolutely i think your question was wise and saying it's really deeply programmed and it's not gonna be easy if ever feeling like the people that you love don't love you back or that you're being pushed out of a tribe but i've been pushed out enough and then lived to see another day enough to know being pushed out of this tribe doesn't actually equal death there's there's another day and in meditation and spiritual practice finding community this will sound super woo and and just call me vishnu for this one but finding community with everything with trees and the sun and the moon and and not feeling like my tribe is literally just the people that i identify with with society or with my beliefs or whatever my tr my tribe is everything when i look into the stars that's i belong and i feel that i deeply feel that in my body now so that that kind of stuff i think i'm my body's learning to let go to some of that more and more and let that deepen but yes i think it can decrease as i was saying earlier the thing that you're afraid of has already happened to you and so when we're afraid of vulnerability it's likely because at some point we were shamed out of vulnerability or it went wrong in some way we were more at risk and more hurt when we let ourselves be seen and our nervous system holds on to that and does a very good job of trying to not let that happen again and so you can actually pretty easily i mean easy behaviorally speaking not necessarily easily emotionally but find corrective experiences like a therapist because the whole point of therapy is that i don't need anything back from you so i'm just going to hold the space and help you practice being the kind of person that it feels scary to be outside and we call that the developmental crucible that if i hold you and hold space for you to practice being who you've always been underneath all of the defenses then you can start practicing that enough that it becomes a new way of being and you can take that into the outside of therapy space and look for corrective experiences when you are vulnerable just a little bit and it goes right make sure that you take that in rick hansen neuroscientist has done some really fascinating research on how when we savor positive experiences that our brain encodes them and when we save savor them long enough like 30 seconds more or more that our brain goes oh oh that really happened oh maybe that can happen again in a way that it doesn't if we just note something and then move on or don't even reflect on it at all so when you see or experience exceptions when you are vulnerable and what goes well when you have an urge to be vulnerable and you take a little risk savoring the good things that happen can be an important part of transforming your neurochemistry and making it easier to reach out the next time hillary was trying to make me be vulnerable so i'll be vulnerable uh this is the first time in my life that i've lived alone so i'm coming face to face with aloneness in a way that i've never had to before i've always had roommates and i've always been in situations that i call even like religious situations that felt like adult summer camp right we're all just like weirdly co-dependent with each other and uh but it's like community we're family and this is tribe and this is you know whatever i feel blessed because i'm able to i found on craigslist a one-bedroom bungalow in the hollywood hills for a good price and i was able i'm able to live there and it's one of the most beautiful places i've ever lived yet i still am wrestling with this deep sense of aloneness in it where i can literally feel like i'm on top of a mountain because i literally am on top of a mountain and still feel alone and because i got to sit there and make dinner for myself alone like the weight of everything the weight of all the decisions i've ever made in my life the weight of the feelings that i've been just moving beyond just can then start to sit on you and that feels hard especially in your mid-30s to actually now realize this is the first time i've actually really been alone and once again to quote james baldwin who today is the anniversary of his death he says this and this is what i feel like i'm doing i don't think i'm doing it successfully but i'm doing it he says not everything that is faced can be changed but nothing can be changed unless it is faced so i sit here facing my aloneness in my mid-30s and trying to feel okay about it [Music] i forgot the most important part rupee carr says when you are lonely it is you crying out for connection with yourself and so when you are alone you are not alone that there is relationality and attachment within yourself structure that allows you to connect to something and practice vulnerability even if nobody is there you can have and if this is the place where it starts this is the place where it starts you can have a loving and attuned connection with yourself instead of going out there sometimes the lonely feeling is the cry for us to go in and explore and experience something that has been hurting and aching for attention so i'll invite you to find a supportive seated form whatever that means for you you know what you need to do in this moment when you're listening to your body and just notice that even as you're adjusting in this moment you're paying attention to your body you're having a conversation you're noticing oh this feels good oh that doesn't feel good oh i want to stay here and this is your first act of attunement to yourself to to shift your body in space we're gonna do a choose your own adventure with this because some of the things that i suggest might be really activating they might stir up fear and so if this feels like something you're not interested in going deep into now is a great time to stay with your breath to let my voice fade into the background to make your grocery list in your head you're welcome to keep your eyes open or closed whatever feels most supportive for you if you find at any point while we're doing this that there's too much fear you can open your eyes and orient notice who's around you feel your body in this moment in space and time and then you can go back in if you need to or not [Music] i want you to picture your younger self you might have an image that comes to mind immediately or you could picture a younger self who's in fear of something or maybe a story of fear that no longer works for you [Music] see how they look how are they holding themself in space notice your reaction in your body as you do this what kind of feelings emerge on the inside as you consider this younger version of you and you don't have to think too hard about this next step it doesn't have to make sense for what we're doing but i invite you to imagine that you show up as you are today with that younger self that you are immediately with them and you might want to introduce yourself and say i'm you but all grown up and notice if your younger self needs anything from you and if you can just just give it to them and if your younger self is afraid there's an invitation to say to them i am so sorry that you are carrying so much fear and and i'm here now you're not alone [Music] anymore and notice if they need something from you a hug an embrace to see you look deeply into their eyes but you may imagine telling them with your words or in a way that's kind of unspoken i'm with you forever now you will never ever be alone again [Music] because i am you and you are me and i'm sorry it took me so long to come back to get you but you never have to face fear alone ever again [Music] and maybe you want to give them a new story like next time we feel fear let's try this you can reach out to me or reach out to someone else you can name it you can learn to feel it you can ask for help or maybe you want to tell your your younger self something that you heard today as we were talking something that they need to know and you can tell them that sometimes when they're afraid it will be because they're in danger and sometimes when they're afraid it will be because something is new and that you want to help them be curious in spaces of the unknown notice if there's anything else you want to tell this younger version of you [Music] and again in a way that doesn't have to make sense intellectually if you're able to i'd ask you to invite that younger version of you and that whole scene to come into the present almost as if your younger self is here with you in this room right now and maybe you want to show them what happened today and what's around you as proof to say look we made it through we're okay you're here with me we got here you're okay and you never have to do fear alone because from this moment on you will always be with me [Music] and know in this moment from a place deep in your body and your belly that they are you and you are them and you may want to imagine hugging them or comforting them in some way and it may feel kind of strange but it may also make sense if you want to ask them to become part of you to merge into your being and that way you can promise to them they will never face anything scary alone ever again without you also being there with them [Music] and next time you feel fear there's an invitation to imagine what we just did to think of this younger part in you crying out for some comfort and touch and reassurance and that in response to the fear you can go inward to say to yourself i'm here with you you're not alone anymore we can do it together and there's an invitation if it's available to you to place one of your hands on your chest or on your belly or if there's somewhere else in your body that feels like it would be really good to touch or connect with neck or shoulders or hip and in this moment with your hand on your chest feeling yourself with yourself as a kind of in the moment sign of your not aloneness notice how your hand rises and falls as you breathe and if you can widen your attention while still staying present with yourself to notice that you are in a room of people who are doing the exact same thing [Music] that you can be with yourself and not alone in many ways you're welcome to come back to the room at any point or if it works for you at the end of three more breaths [Music] so we hope you found this episode insightful and helpful as you consider the role that fear plays in your life and relationships we'd love to hear about your experiences and reflections that arise from listening you can interact with us and the other listeners of the liturgist podcast in the following places the liturgists.com podcast where you can leave a comment on this episode we're on instagram and twitter as at the liturgist and at facebook.com the liturgists patrons of the liturgist podcast can use the corresponding discussion thread for this episode on patreon and anyone looking for a supportive ad-free social media experience can join with other listeners along with all four podcast hosts at social.the social.theliturgist.com this episode was made possible by all our patrons on patreon if you'd like to help make the liturgist podcast possible while getting access to patron only perks like early ticket access for our events an additional weekly podcast from the liturgists as well as weekly meditations join us on patreon you can learn more by visiting theliturgis.com just click the join us link in the menu william matthews hillary mcbride michael gunger and i science mike have been your hosts for this episode jamie lee finch shared original poetry as part of the episode greg nordin and vishnu das edited this episode vishnu das handled scoring and sound design brent cradle offered management support and victory palmisano produced this episode thanks for listening everybody