How To Feel Braver And More Grounded Today

Wow do I need this--I promise, it helps

Hello friends.

Imagine you are terrified of spiders.

Tarantula, 1805.

Now here you are, pulling back the shower curtain at the vacation rental, looking at a VERY big spider. What do you do?

1. Distract yourself. Close your eyes, start humming a song. Pretend the spider’s not there.

2. Describe the spider out loud. Make it sound as nonthreatening as possible. “Oh, that’s just a little spider! There are no poisonous spiders in Maine. It can’t hurt me. It’s perfectly safe.”

3. Describe your feelings out loud. “I am repulsed. My skin is crawling. I feel jumpy and jittery. I’m panicky, expecting this thing to dart off any minute to I-don’t-know-where. Yet as frightened as I am, I can’t look away from this weird, alien creature. Maybe I’m kind of fascinated, a little bit, too?”

   These three strategies—known as distraction, reappraisal, and emotion labeling—have all been tested for their power to help us regulate our emotions.

   What’s the best option here? I’ll wait.

In a 2012 experiment, option three, talking about the feelings, known as affect labeling or emotion labeling, won out.

The more the subjects named their anxiety and fear, the better it worked.

“Greater use of anxiety and fear words during exposure was associated with greater reductions in fear responding” as measured by the skin conductance.

Why am I telling you this right now? First of all, because I happened to come across this study as part of my book research this week.

Second because I am freaking out, y’all.

Watching New York City mayoral candidate Brad Lander grabbed and manhandled by masked ICE agents on Tuesday felt deeply disturbing and personal to me. I’ve met Lander a couple of times. And I’ve been in that hallway.

Years ago, during the first Trump administration, as preparation for a potential story, I showed up for a training and spent some time talking to volunteers who help immigrants appearing in that court at 26 Federal Plaza.

People in immigration court have no right to a court-appointed attorney, so volunteers have been coming for years to accompany them, make sure they get due process, and offer the protection and solidarity that it is possible for one community member to offer another. That’s what Brad and his fellow volunteers were trying to do when he, and the man he was arm in arm with, got grabbed.

While all that was unfolding, my neighbors posted a photo online of what sure looks like ICE agents knocking doors in my neighborhood. I had been one block away that very morning.

Source: Reddit

Masked men are going door to door. We have a federal secret police dragging away our public officials in plain sight, in front of cameras, with no warrants, no badge numbers, no faces, no eyes. Judges, a Senator, a Representative (no accident the only Black woman on this list got charged with a felony), now a mayoral candidate/city comptroller.

And we have countless people with no titles, no lawyers, locked in faraway prisons where no one gets out.

The fear is crawling through my belly like a cold wet newt.

I have tried distraction. I have been distracted from distraction by distraction, until I am nothing but distraction. I’m doomscrolling in my dreams. On Tuesday night, I rode the subway in the wrong direction to a show on the wrong date.

I have tried reappraisal. Let’s talk whether this is competitive authoritarianism or Maoist cultural revolution. Let’s talk about spectacle, optics and the politics of it all. Let’s talk about protest and bodies on the line. Let’s list all the reasons they would never actually grab me or someone I love.

Now I am ready to try labeling my emotions.

I’m scared. I’m shocked. I’m trepidatious. I’m disturbed. Disoriented, in disbelief. I’m riveted, at the edge of my seat, because what the hell is happening!? And vicariously thrilled, in some way, treating this as an unfolding drama rather than reality. And guilty about that framing. I feel lucky and spared. Relieved that Lander was released and the charges dropped. Proud of his public statements, drawing attention to the immigrants he was trying to protect, and his overall menschiness at a testy time for Jews. I’m dreading what comes next. And after that. And resentful, because I know the thugs want me to be afraid, and they made me afraid. And exhausted preemptively, because this will not stop soon.

The ability to distinguish and describe our emotions in detail is a skill known as “emotional granularity,” a term coined by the researcher Lisa Feldman Barrett. Research shows that it can be taught. And, a wealth of evidence shows that higher emotional granularity makes your life better. People report more well-being, stronger relationships, they do better at work or at school, they are less likely to drink when stressed, and they even spend less time in the hospital.

Putting our negative feelings into words is especially beneficial. It helps us process them, make meaning of them, and enables us to choose more skillful actions in response. This limits the physiological disturbances—the churning stomach, cold sweats, sleepless nights—that take a toll on our health and well-being.

In the study with the spider, the arachnophobes who described in grisly detail how they felt did not actually subjectively report feeling less afraid in that moment. Which isn’t surprising, because they were focusing on and surfacing their unpleasant emotions.

But a week later, they were objectively less stressed by seeing a spider, as measured by skin conductance. And they were more able to approach this spider. That is, they got braver.

We do not have full control over the circumstances right now but I believe there is a scope of choice in our response. I encourage you to speak to someone today in detail about what is going on in this country and how it makes you feel, right now. Because science shows that that small action is going to help us all be a little braver.

Post it in the comments if you want.