Greatheartedness
For many years, I described folks dealing with chronic and serious illness as “warriors” fighting a great battle. Not pillaging and destroying, power-hungry kind of warriors, but warriors who are brave beyond measure amidst uncertainty and discomfort and daunting circumstances. Warriors who persevere on days when walking back and forth to the bathroom is sometimes all – or even more - than one can do.
That imagery is intended to be validating. It’s meant to communicate sincere admiration for the strength and determination it takes to deal with such daily hardship. It’s also meant to be mobilizing: a call to arms for folks to rise to their daily medical challenges. We need substantial resolve to rise to those challenges, to be sure. But lately I’ve been thinking about the warrior imagery we so often use. No right or wrong or good or bad. I’ve just been wondering what that imagery might do to our psyches and spirits and central nervous systems and, thus, our healing.
Using warrior imagery makes our illness the enemy. And because our illness resides in us – IS part of us - we are declaring war on ourselves. (And resisting this fact is its own war!) So, we fight ourselves, making our bodies the battlefield. I wonder if we can genuinely heal and nurture a place we’re fighting? How do we find calm amidst the agitation and dysregulation and conflict of a battlefield?
But, what if we only declare war on the parts that are toxic or are not functioning, you might say? Our body is an integrated system. Every part of us is connected. If we’re at war with one part of ourselves we’re at war with all of ourselves.
And just as different parts of our bodies are connected, different aspects of our experience and ourselves are connected. So, being engaged in an interpersonal battle with a friend or partner, say, or struggling in a spiritual or existential battle impacts our physical bodies, and vice versa. True and lasting healing necessitates a shift to an integrated awareness that understands healing any part of ourselves requires healing all parts.
These battles we wage can keep our bodies hypervigilant - on continual battle-ready high alert - even if it’s below the threshold of our conscious awareness. So might that warrior and battle imagery, rather than help us summon what we need for our healing, trigger our internal fight or flight (FoF) response? This response is an ancient, instinctual survival mechanism that, thankfully, is in place to enable us to mobilize the physical resources we need when a tiger or oncoming car threatens our safety.* The FoF response is a response of alarm, fear, hypervigilance, and immediate action. When our safety is threatened, our amygdala is triggered to send messages to our hypothalamus, which sends messages to the pituitary, which sends messages to the adrenals, and on and on. These chemical messengers impact everything from our blood pressure to our digestion to our muscles to our blood sugar to our immune and endocrine systems.
All of these mechanisms and reactions that our FoF system brings online are, by design, inflammatory. In the short term, just as a rising fever is one of our bodies’ helpful ways to deal with a threatening infection, when our FoF system rouses us to deal with external threats, this inflammation is good. It’s a vital survival tool. If we all sat around and yawned as a tiger came running toward us, then we would soon be tiger lunch and we wouldn’t survive very long as a species. So, hooray for those inflammatory survival reactions! But, when our bodies (and minds and spirits) continually react as if there is a tiger about to eat us, we create a cascade of inflammation that can, in time, become chronic and disease-producing and sometimes debilitating to those same bodies (and minds and spirits). Inflammation from a chronically engaged FoF system is as inflammatory as any toxin or disease process we’re dealing with. That’s important to remember: chronic inflammation is chronic inflammation, no matter the source.
In addition, a chronically engaged FoF system uses up a tremendous amount of energy. Whether we’re constricting a muscle to “protect” ourselves from the pain of fibromyalgia, or we’re depressed, we’re robbing precious energy resources from a system that is already over-burdened and needs all the energy it can get to heal. (Yep, it takes a lot of energy to maintain depression. I think of the image of a person pushing down on a huge spring 24/7.) We think we’re mobilizing to heal and protect, and in a convoluted way that’s what we’re trying to do, but we’re actually hyper-mobilizing in fear. Most of this is completely unconscious, out of our awareness.
So, how do we bring it more into our awareness? How can we mobilize in the service of healing and not chronic, hyper-inflammatory fear? That takes us back to our warrior imagery. I suggest one way is to pay attention to what we say to ourselves, because rather than just being nitpicky semantics, we really do take the words we use to heart – and to the rest of us.
If we say, “I hate my stupid thyroid,” as one person said to me, well then, we’re going to do what we do when we hate something. Perhaps we ignore our thyroid, and therefore miss the valuable messages and cues it's telling us. Or, maybe we don’t really take care of it the way we should. Or perhaps our anger sends inflammatory chemical messengers to it, inflaming it further. Remember: hating, ignoring, missing cues from, calling stupid, being angry at, and inflaming any part of us is doing it to all of us.
Neuroscientific studies have now proven that in the long run we inspire ourselves with kindness based in honest evaluation, not harsh and critical “motivating” self-talk. And as per Stephen Porges, that same kind, anti-inflammatory mindset may well apply to how we talk about how we heal. What if we took the time to be still and explore how the language we use to describe our illness and our healing efforts impacts our minds and bodies and spirits? What if we chose words and metaphors resonant to each of us that are mobilizing and inspiring without being potentially hyper-mobilizing and inflammatory?**
A word I’ve been playing around with is: greatheartedness.
I know: it’s a serious mouthful. But, it’s a good mouthful. It means, loosely, having an open, generous, and courageous heart. The generosity is typically connoted to be toward others. But, if you only have a generosity of spirit toward others and not yourself, I'd argue you haven’t yet stepped into full and true generosity. So, for our purposes, the generosity is first directed toward us.
Greatheartedness says, “Yes, I may be incredibly afraid or treatment weary, but I will face this illness, this day, this moment, this body with an open curiosity, self-love, and unwavering courage.”
It takes a tremendous amount of courage to be truly and openly curious and self-loving despite what’s happening in the difficult moments of a chronic illness, like when a symptom leaves us with little to do but lie in bed. It can trigger intense vulnerability. Allowing ourselves to be emotionally open and, hence, vulnerable amidst an illness (or any major challenge) is one of the most courageous things I see people do in therapy. I wonder if warrior language, similar to the dismissal and devaluing of “self-love” as a necessary and core healing concept, is, in part, a defense against such vulnerability. Perhaps the warrior language comes from an understandable fear of “losing the battle” of the illnesses we face.
True healing isn’t about battling to “get rid of” what ails us. Deep and true and lasting healing integrates and explores and stands in the face of vulnerability with the daring and tender courage greatheartedness brings. So, perhaps rather than warriors – though we are no less brave and resilient than the bravest of warriors - from now on maybe let’s call ourselves GreatHearts.
*There are other survival mechanisms we employ such as “comply/befriend” and “freeze,” both of which deserve their own articles. Briefly: we sometimes comply/befriend initially to try to save ourselves in a threatening situation, and if that doesn’t work we may move on to FoF. And if those FoF efforts fail, we may employ a freeze response, which Porges asserts comes from a much older system in the brain. Think: mouse playing dead. In humans, think dissociation or withdrawal. Or, we may respond with any of these survival mechanisms initially. Most of the time, these responses and all the ways they manifest are automatic and not conscious choices, and aren’t to be judged negatively. They are to be honored, as their initial purpose was to protect, even if in the here and now they no longer serve us.
**As always, you are the one and only expert of you. Please do what feels most resonant and best to you. I know someone who used the imagery of Joan of Arc going into battle when she was dealing with cancer, and while we don’t know how it may have engaged her FoF system, her experience was that it was helpful imagery. Hooray for individualized, helpful tools!
That imagery is intended to be validating. It’s meant to communicate sincere admiration for the strength and determination it takes to deal with such daily hardship. It’s also meant to be mobilizing: a call to arms for folks to rise to their daily medical challenges. We need substantial resolve to rise to those challenges, to be sure. But lately I’ve been thinking about the warrior imagery we so often use. No right or wrong or good or bad. I’ve just been wondering what that imagery might do to our psyches and spirits and central nervous systems and, thus, our healing.
Using warrior imagery makes our illness the enemy. And because our illness resides in us – IS part of us - we are declaring war on ourselves. (And resisting this fact is its own war!) So, we fight ourselves, making our bodies the battlefield. I wonder if we can genuinely heal and nurture a place we’re fighting? How do we find calm amidst the agitation and dysregulation and conflict of a battlefield?
But, what if we only declare war on the parts that are toxic or are not functioning, you might say? Our body is an integrated system. Every part of us is connected. If we’re at war with one part of ourselves we’re at war with all of ourselves.
And just as different parts of our bodies are connected, different aspects of our experience and ourselves are connected. So, being engaged in an interpersonal battle with a friend or partner, say, or struggling in a spiritual or existential battle impacts our physical bodies, and vice versa. True and lasting healing necessitates a shift to an integrated awareness that understands healing any part of ourselves requires healing all parts.
These battles we wage can keep our bodies hypervigilant - on continual battle-ready high alert - even if it’s below the threshold of our conscious awareness. So might that warrior and battle imagery, rather than help us summon what we need for our healing, trigger our internal fight or flight (FoF) response? This response is an ancient, instinctual survival mechanism that, thankfully, is in place to enable us to mobilize the physical resources we need when a tiger or oncoming car threatens our safety.* The FoF response is a response of alarm, fear, hypervigilance, and immediate action. When our safety is threatened, our amygdala is triggered to send messages to our hypothalamus, which sends messages to the pituitary, which sends messages to the adrenals, and on and on. These chemical messengers impact everything from our blood pressure to our digestion to our muscles to our blood sugar to our immune and endocrine systems.
All of these mechanisms and reactions that our FoF system brings online are, by design, inflammatory. In the short term, just as a rising fever is one of our bodies’ helpful ways to deal with a threatening infection, when our FoF system rouses us to deal with external threats, this inflammation is good. It’s a vital survival tool. If we all sat around and yawned as a tiger came running toward us, then we would soon be tiger lunch and we wouldn’t survive very long as a species. So, hooray for those inflammatory survival reactions! But, when our bodies (and minds and spirits) continually react as if there is a tiger about to eat us, we create a cascade of inflammation that can, in time, become chronic and disease-producing and sometimes debilitating to those same bodies (and minds and spirits). Inflammation from a chronically engaged FoF system is as inflammatory as any toxin or disease process we’re dealing with. That’s important to remember: chronic inflammation is chronic inflammation, no matter the source.
In addition, a chronically engaged FoF system uses up a tremendous amount of energy. Whether we’re constricting a muscle to “protect” ourselves from the pain of fibromyalgia, or we’re depressed, we’re robbing precious energy resources from a system that is already over-burdened and needs all the energy it can get to heal. (Yep, it takes a lot of energy to maintain depression. I think of the image of a person pushing down on a huge spring 24/7.) We think we’re mobilizing to heal and protect, and in a convoluted way that’s what we’re trying to do, but we’re actually hyper-mobilizing in fear. Most of this is completely unconscious, out of our awareness.
So, how do we bring it more into our awareness? How can we mobilize in the service of healing and not chronic, hyper-inflammatory fear? That takes us back to our warrior imagery. I suggest one way is to pay attention to what we say to ourselves, because rather than just being nitpicky semantics, we really do take the words we use to heart – and to the rest of us.
If we say, “I hate my stupid thyroid,” as one person said to me, well then, we’re going to do what we do when we hate something. Perhaps we ignore our thyroid, and therefore miss the valuable messages and cues it's telling us. Or, maybe we don’t really take care of it the way we should. Or perhaps our anger sends inflammatory chemical messengers to it, inflaming it further. Remember: hating, ignoring, missing cues from, calling stupid, being angry at, and inflaming any part of us is doing it to all of us.
Neuroscientific studies have now proven that in the long run we inspire ourselves with kindness based in honest evaluation, not harsh and critical “motivating” self-talk. And as per Stephen Porges, that same kind, anti-inflammatory mindset may well apply to how we talk about how we heal. What if we took the time to be still and explore how the language we use to describe our illness and our healing efforts impacts our minds and bodies and spirits? What if we chose words and metaphors resonant to each of us that are mobilizing and inspiring without being potentially hyper-mobilizing and inflammatory?**
A word I’ve been playing around with is: greatheartedness.
I know: it’s a serious mouthful. But, it’s a good mouthful. It means, loosely, having an open, generous, and courageous heart. The generosity is typically connoted to be toward others. But, if you only have a generosity of spirit toward others and not yourself, I'd argue you haven’t yet stepped into full and true generosity. So, for our purposes, the generosity is first directed toward us.
Greatheartedness says, “Yes, I may be incredibly afraid or treatment weary, but I will face this illness, this day, this moment, this body with an open curiosity, self-love, and unwavering courage.”
It takes a tremendous amount of courage to be truly and openly curious and self-loving despite what’s happening in the difficult moments of a chronic illness, like when a symptom leaves us with little to do but lie in bed. It can trigger intense vulnerability. Allowing ourselves to be emotionally open and, hence, vulnerable amidst an illness (or any major challenge) is one of the most courageous things I see people do in therapy. I wonder if warrior language, similar to the dismissal and devaluing of “self-love” as a necessary and core healing concept, is, in part, a defense against such vulnerability. Perhaps the warrior language comes from an understandable fear of “losing the battle” of the illnesses we face.
True healing isn’t about battling to “get rid of” what ails us. Deep and true and lasting healing integrates and explores and stands in the face of vulnerability with the daring and tender courage greatheartedness brings. So, perhaps rather than warriors – though we are no less brave and resilient than the bravest of warriors - from now on maybe let’s call ourselves GreatHearts.
*There are other survival mechanisms we employ such as “comply/befriend” and “freeze,” both of which deserve their own articles. Briefly: we sometimes comply/befriend initially to try to save ourselves in a threatening situation, and if that doesn’t work we may move on to FoF. And if those FoF efforts fail, we may employ a freeze response, which Porges asserts comes from a much older system in the brain. Think: mouse playing dead. In humans, think dissociation or withdrawal. Or, we may respond with any of these survival mechanisms initially. Most of the time, these responses and all the ways they manifest are automatic and not conscious choices, and aren’t to be judged negatively. They are to be honored, as their initial purpose was to protect, even if in the here and now they no longer serve us.
**As always, you are the one and only expert of you. Please do what feels most resonant and best to you. I know someone who used the imagery of Joan of Arc going into battle when she was dealing with cancer, and while we don’t know how it may have engaged her FoF system, her experience was that it was helpful imagery. Hooray for individualized, helpful tools!