“The time is always right to do what is right.” —Martin Luther King, Jr., The Other America.
The phrase is easy to say, but often much harder to do. Bravery and courage can be difficult to come by. When we feel threatened or unsafe, or when we fear we will lose things we care about, we tend to freeze and retreat. We instinctively make ourselves small or invisible, hoping the threat will pass us by. Maybe after the threat is gone, we will be safe.
All too often, though, freezing and retreating can be perceived by those around us as tacit approval of the threat itself. We undermine our relationships and our communities if we don’t speak up when something is wrong. How do we find our voices when the stakes seem high? How do we reframe our outlook and find our power when the situation seems outside of our control or when we feel helpless?
I was lucky to train in both psychotherapy and psychiatry from an expert in these matters, Dr. Jim Abelson. His research focused on anxiety and stress and how they affect our bodies and behaviors. Social anxiety and social threats activate our body's stress response. If this stress response becomes chronically active, it causes all kinds of problems, including higher risk of heart disease, sleep problems, and even early death.
Social threats can be studied in a lab where people participate in tasks. One especially important task is the Trier Social Stress Test. This test is designed to make a person (the study subject) anxious by asking them to give a speech to critical evaluators about why they should get a job they want.
During my training, Abelson’s group made an exciting discovery about how to reduce the body’s response to social stress. His group studied whether there were concrete strategies that people could use to reduce their body's stress response during this social stress task. His group tried multiple strategies, all of which could theoretically reduce stress, and they measured stress responses with questionnaires and blood tests for stress hormones, like cortisol.
The findings were fascinating. Giving participants the option to leave the task when stressed (escape) or using cognitive techniques in anticipation of anxiety (coping strategies) did not reduce the body's stress response.
You know what did? Focusing on compassionate goals. When participants were instructed to focus on how their goals would help others and do good in the world, their stress response was lower. Interestingly, participants didn’t subjectively feel less anxious; the feeling of anxiety remained the same. And that makes sense—stressful things feel stressful. However, blood samples showed that their body’s stress response was measurably lower, and they also felt subjectively better afterward.
Many other studies also have shown that compassionate goals and non-zero-sum relational thinking (cooperation rather than competition) reduce stress in stressful situations. Importantly, higher compassion doesn’t just help us as individuals. Higher compassion improves behaviors linked to the health and resilience of our communities (e.g., improved health behaviors during the COVID-19 pandemic).
This isn’t to say that being brave or courageous is easy, or that we will always get what we want if we stand up for what is right. However, it is clear that bravery and courage are cultivated. The things we practice and nurture in ourselves are ultimately what we become and what we bring to the world.
How do we gain bravery and courage?
Focus on compassionate goals. This helps you feel less defensive. Bravery is easier to access when you don’t feel trapped and “on defense.” It also enables you to think more creatively and reduces stress.
Find your community. Keep in mind you may have many communities, each oriented around different aspects of things that matter to you. Not only does engaging with your community reduce stress, but it also helps you “get out of your head” and connect with your compassion and values.
Plan your rest. As we learned above, constantly elevated stress is not healthy long-term. Treat your rest as if it is important, because it is. You cannot come back stronger and more resilient if you never take a break.
Doing these things alone will not change the world. We have to act bravely, not just feel brave on the inside. When we act courageously, with feedback from our communities and with our eyes on the goal of building others up, we engage the situations that make us feel powerless, rather than freezing or retreating from them. That is the first step toward making change!
For further reading:
Abelson JL, Erickson TM, Mayer SE, Crocker J, Briggs H, Lopez-Duran NL, Liberzon I. Brief cognitive intervention can modulate neuroendocrine stress responses to the Trier Social Stress Test: buffering effects of a compassionate goal orientation. Psychoneuroendocrinology. 2014 Jun;44:60-70. doi: 10.1016/j.psyneuen.2014.02.016. Epub 2014 Mar 3. PMID: 24767620; PMCID: PMC4120861.
Tolonen I, Saarinen A, Puttonen S, Kähönen M, Hintsanen M. High compassion predicts fewer sleep difficulties: A general population study with an 11-year follow-up. Brain Behav. 2023 Oct;13(10):e3165. doi: 10.1002/brb3.3165. Epub 2023 Aug 22. PMID: 37608595; PMCID: PMC10570475.
Ospina J, Jiang T, Hoying K, Crocker J, Ballinger T. Compassionate goals predict COVID-19 health behaviors during the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic. PLoS One. 2021 Aug 6;16(8):e0255592. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0255592. PMID: 34358256; PMCID: PMC8345887.
Photo by Vonecia Carswell on Unsplash