Helen Mayberg, a neuroscientist from Emory University called depression, “emotional pain without context.” In other words, here is this emotional pain and the brain can’t figure out where it’s coming from and so it feels lost, stuck and helpless. There is a strong lack of self-trust in these moments.
When it comes to trusting ourselves, we need to have retrievable memory of experiences where we were able to rely on ourselves to handle a difficult situation.
Most of us see vulnerability as something to stay away from because there is the fear of getting hurt or rejected in it. But the truth is, we can’t learn to trust ourselves without being vulnerable. You need one to build the other.
If we can learn to intentionally pay attention to our moments of vulnerability, without judgment, and meet it with a curious and caring awareness, we can build that into our hippocampus, and make it readily retrievable when we need it most. We condition the natural ability to trust and rely on ourselves.
But like anything, it takes intention, attention and practice.
Just sitting with yourself for 5, 10 or 15 minutes (or more) and paying attention to your breath or your body is, for many of us, an act of being vulnerable. The fact is, most of us are guarding against being alone all throughout the day by either staying busy in activity or staying busy in our mind.
In doing this you build trust that you can actually be with yourself with whatever is here. Through practice and repetition, the brain changes and a new thought emerges from the neural growth that “I can handle this, it’s going to be okay.”