Jen, are you being light about breast cancer? This is really serious.
I do worry sometimes, and sometimes I feel serious. Also, the whole world, the internet, your mother-in-law, TV commercials, even well-meaning strangers are an endless supply of precautions, risks, side effects, personal horror stories, worst case scenarios, and prognoses.
I want to create a haven for possibility and potential. A respite from all that.
Look, our brains are designed to keep us safe. The amygdala is our primitive brain center dedicated to surveying for danger. From the days of cave people, those whose brains could effectively detect danger and act accordingly are the ones naturally selected to carry on the species.
So here we are with this well-trained amygdala, expert at finding reasons to be scared, but in our modern world our access to scary information is constant. And the more this brain center lights up, the more it activates our nervous system stress responses. But the threats aren’t always real or immediate. So we create a fear loop. The more fearful our thoughts, the more vigilant our brains are. The more vigilant our brains are, the more threats detected, the more our nervous systems trigger threat physiology in our bodies (fight / flee/ freeze / fawn), producing more fear, and so on.
Unless you disrupt the system.
When we use our prefrontal cortex, the part of our brain that separates us from animals, the part that thinks critically, sets goals, discerns, projects consequences, etc., we can act rationally and on purpose instead of reflexively. That’s what we want. We want to use our cortical brains to think on purpose.
Using the concept of neuroplasticity, we fire and rewire so the brain seeks supportive, empowering messages. We can turn down the volume on the fear and threats so our bodies can heal.
I used to believe my safety lay in VIGILANCE. But now I believe it lies in SURRENDER. When I’m vigilant, I’m reactive and fear based. Great for running from a tiger, not so great for healing from cancer. When I’m surrendered, I access deep inner knowing and I’m my most resourceful.
So there are plenty of spaces on the internet to scare the hell out of you in the name of being alert, vigilant, cautious, etc. Here we want to light you up with hope and give equal airtime to a felt sense of safety as we cultivate more ease, calm, confidence, and acceptance. We can recognize that it’s all okay in this present moment, and even not being okay is okay. Because spoiler alert, when you relax into self-love, acceptance, surrender, openness, and curiosity, that’s the most active and powerful thing you can do to optimize immune function and healing.