Full text of Liudmila Schafer’s TEDx Talk titled ‘Awakening your Organic Bravery’ at TEDxWhiting conference.
Listen to the audio version:
TRANSCRIPT:
Liudmila Schafer – Oncologist
Let me take you back to the summer of 1978. I was on vacation with my family. I was sitting on the rock at the ocean’s edge, looking at the turquoise sparkling water. In an instant, everything went dark, except for tiny bubbles floating past my face. I couldn’t breathe. Everything went black.
Next thing I knew, I was lying down on the beach. Then I realized I was about to die. I almost drowned. And for the next several decades, I could not put my face under the water. Early on in life I experienced a real fear for the first time.
But my childhood wasn’t through with me yet. A few months later, my family was at the beautiful lake, surrounded by pine and oak trees. It was fun. I was splashing in the clear water. Suddenly, I looked up, and our car was gone. Mom and Dad left without me. I froze.
What am I going to do now? Think! I quickly decided to run to our farmhouse over a mile away. As I was running as fast as I could, tears were streaming down my face. The sun was unbearable. The unpaved road was so hot, so then I had to run on the side of the road, but the dry short grass cut into the soles of my feet.
I was swallowed in clouds of death from passing cars, a taste of grit in my mouth. I couldn’t breathe due to the dust and crying. But I kept running.
Once I reached my final destination, my parents were not there either. The neighbors took care of me. In the meanwhile, back at the lake, my parents were in a panic.
The police had arrived as they thought it was a death scene. Everyone thought I had drowned. It turns out, Dad just moved the car.
At first, I got yelled at, but after that, people started calling me brave. Brave. This word has fascinated me since then. All I did, run from the lake, and they called me brave? It’s not like I sacrificed my life to save another person. What was so exceptional?
Years later, I realized they called me brave because I was decisive and took a risk. There are all kinds of bravery. An example, President Theodore Roosevelt. As a child, he was asthmatic, nearsighted, suffered from heart problems. To overcome his weaknesses, he exercised very hard, lifted weights, climbed. He ran for president in 1912, and he lost the election.
So then he embarked on a dangerous expedition down to an uncharted river in the Amazon region at age 55. Today, we think of him as Billy Coe’s rough rider in the notorious River of Doubt.
How did Roosevelt stay motivated for an adventure and risk despite a crushing defeat? I believe he was brave and had an inner driving force.
Here is another historical example of someone beating tremendous odds by being brave. Elizabeth Blackwell. She was the first woman doctor in America. Twenty-eight medical schools rejected her because she was a woman. The only way she got into med school were male students voted her in, assuming her application was a joke from a rival school.
As an intern in Philadelphia, Elizabeth was forced to sit separately at lectures. Her male fellow residents refused to be in the same room with her, withheld vital information about patients. She was harassed, humiliated, she faced a torrent of abuse.
In 1849, Elizabeth graduated first in her class. Dr. Blackwell set up a clinic for the poor in New York City, trained nurses during the Civil War, and did so much more.
As a cancer doctor, I see all kinds of bravery. But what exactly is bravery? Most define it as a state of emotional strength in extraordinary circumstances. It’s often associated with emotions like fear, anger, love, determination. I believe there is one special kind of bravery lying quietly inside of us, waiting for the chance to step into the spotlight. It’s what I call organic bravery.
Organic bravery, it is a vital system to train your body and brain to make better decisions in unexpected obstacles with more stable emotions that positively affect your life and the lives of those around you. And it is an inner superpower energy, if we allow it.
As an oncologist, I see organic bravery every day in my practice. A cancer diagnosis is a shock and a fear. Some patients fight in unexpected obstacles with poise and stability. Some panic or lose control with anger and fear. Many marshal their emotional resources to heal.
A thin elder man taking on an aggressive chemotherapy despite being in a wheelchair. A relative is saying goodbye to a loved one and turning off the life support. Very different life and death situations. Yet, all are examples of what I call organic bravery.
Organic bravery. Where does it come from? What was that inner force that President Roosevelt and Dr. Blackwell capped into throughout entire lives? Could it be genetic predisposition? Scientist Gleb Shumyatsky discovers stathmin, a gene located in the amygdala, a center of emotions, suggestively controls fear, that I think could be part of organic bravery. And it could be acquired.
You may not realize this, but when you were a child, some significant event affected your life deeply. That moment when you confronted fear for the first time became the seed of your own organic bravery. And as you grew and inevitably faced challenges and setbacks, your organic bravery strengthened into inner superpower. You felt more confident in dealing with difficult circumstances.
That’s because our safety has an enormous impact how well we recover from physical illnesses and heal from injuries. Some research showed a correlation between physiologic stress and cancer risks. Stress could affect our entire body, from headache to stomach bloating, increased blood pressure.
In 1994, Suzanne and David Felton described that stress could lower our immune system. Stress could activate our nervous system, send signals from the brain down to bone marrow, thymus, spleen, lymph nodes, all parts of the immune system. The Felton wrote that nerve fibers could release chemicals that decrease effectiveness of the immune system.
You could activate your own organic bravery in two ways.
Number one, when an unexpected obstacle happens, for example, shock from a horrible diagnosis, and you make decision as a fight or flight response, and you are forced to burst your organic bravery.
And the second, you could do it by a natural awakening. If you wield your organic bravery into existence. I face many pervasive challenges in developing my own organic bravery. Challenges many of us have in common.
When I grew up, it was difficult to believe one day to live in the United States. The very thought seemed impossible. Once I got here in my late 20s, I was working in a research position, raising my young son Vitaly, who is a successful professional now. I continued learning English, studied for accreditation to become a physician. Stress, exhaustion, how did I keep going? Every step of the way I tapped into my organic bravery.
Remember, in 1978, I was drowning. Not long after this event, I learned how to swim. It sounds odd, but the water calms me. The very thing that tried to kill me makes me feel the most alive.
36 years later, I made a decision. Not trying to prove anything. It was deeper than that. I could do what was once unthinkable. I became an advanced open water diver and dove 133 feet down into the Atlantic Ocean, specifically the Great Blue Hole off the coast of Belize. I even swam with sharks in the open water and jumped from the boat like a James Bond.
I survived because I discovered a secret power of my organic bravery. Save your life. Dive deep inside yourself. Awaken your organic bravery.
