Well•come, kin. Pause, and take a deep, calming breath with me. In... and out... As you breathe, remind yourself of your innate wisdom and wholeness. With each breath—be here. Fully present, as we embark on this journey together.

LaShaun Here to help you feel good & function well n the most meaningful areas of your life. Because being stressed, striving and stuck in survival mode was never the goal. ​ #whensciencefeellikemagic

perhaps you know the moment.
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the micro-second where something in you whispers, very calmly, very inconveniently:
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​mmm… this ain’t it.​
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but you keep going.
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you write the email.
you say the thing *with emphasis*.​
you defend the decision.
you go through with it as if your ego is a tiny courtroom drama with a very committed cast.
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(i have done this. with alarming eloquence.)
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I once constructed an entire narrative architecture to justify a choice i knew (knew in the marrow, knew in my knower, in the intuitive inkling) was off.
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To be clear, I knew it was wrong while I was making the wrong decision.
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In fact, in the midst of making the wrong choice, I wrote a letter to convince myself of how it might work. What was salvageable. How it could be defensible. Finding faux silver linings.
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(basically: how to not admit i was wrong.)​
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​…and let me tell you.
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I was upholding it for dear life because I didn’t want to admit.
i. was. wrong.

I stayed committed to the wrong thing.
loyal.
devoted.
I held it tightly like a little pearl-clutcher: doubling down.

because admitting I was wrong felt like a small collapse of identity
(and there it is).

Being wrong rarely hurts because of the error itself.
It hurts because of what we think it says about who we are.

Being wrong happens.
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It happens to the most emotionally attuned,
to the one with the yea-long track record,
to the most impressive one in the room,
and the highly educated and the one with street smarts
and the one with incredible style and the spiritual practice and the gratitude journal.
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Wrong is not a character flaw.

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But staying wrong???
That’s a choice *with a cost*.
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And the cost is rarely abstract. It's time. It's lifeforce rerouted. It's the slow tax on imagination that survival mode charges. The sheer accumulated weight of being loyal to the mistake.
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There is a specific kind of exhaustion that comes from being the sole protector of a wrong decision. And then, there is a specific kind of relief that comes when you admit you were wrong.
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Say it. Out loud or just to yourself, quietly:
​I was wrong. Try it.
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Let’s get into the science.
The architecture of self-protection that keeps us loyal to our mistakes has a name.
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— actually, several names and researchers have been watching it function in the brain with increasing precision.

The phenomenon most of us know as doubling down is formally studied as belief perseverance: the tendency for a position to strengthen in the face of contradicting evidence, particularly when the belief is identity-adjacent. When a decision reflects who we think we are, threatening the decision threatens the self. The brain responds to this threat in ways that measurably overlap with physical danger responses: heightened amygdala activation, decreased prefrontal engagement, the whole cortisol-soaked narrow-channel of defended thinking.

What's newer, and more useful, is what network neuroscience is revealing about why correction feels so costly, and what actually makes it possible.

Neuroscientists call it belief updating: the process of revising a conviction when new evidence arrives. Classic learning theory assumed we did this more or less neutrally: evidence in, belief adjusted, rational actor proceeds. Research from Tali Sharot and Neil Garrett at University College London dismantled that assumption with some precision. Their work documents what they call a valence-dependent asymmetry: the brain does not process good news and bad news through the same channel. For self-relevant beliefs especially, people incorporate favorable information readily and underweight unfavorable information a lopsided accounting that feels like neutrality from the inside.

Which means: the more a belief is about you: your judgment, your identity, your story, the more the brain resists updating it downward. Correction requires the self-concept to absorb a small contraction. And the self-concept, it turns out, has opinions about that..

Consistent self-concept is adaptive. But it becomes maladaptive the moment it starts defending positions that are actively costing you.

The research on error processing in positive psychology is similarly illuminating. Studies examining what differentiates people who recover well from mistakes from those who don't point consistently to two capacities: the ability to hold the self stable while updating the behavior (self-compassion + accountability, together), and the presence of psychological safety: in relationships, in environments, and internally that makes the admission of wrongness survivable.

Carol Dweck's foundational work on growth mindset, extended by recent fMRI research, shows that people with higher error tolerance show more robust activity in learning-associated neural networks when they make mistakes they're processing what went wrong, not defending against it. The brain in protection mode and the brain in learning mode cannot fully coexist. You choose, in any given moment, which one gets the resources.

There is also compelling work from Kristin Neff's lab on self-compassion as a prerequisite for accountability. The fear is that being kind to yourself about a mistake lets you off the hook. The data says the opposite: shame and self-attack correlate with avoidance, while self-compassion correlates with the willingness to acknowledge error, make repair, and change course. You are more likely to correct yourself honestly when you are not also punishing yourself for being wrong.

Which means the most useful question, when you know something is off, is not: what does this say about me? It's: what does this ask of me?​
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​a practice, when you're ready to get real:
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Find somewhere quiet. Consider: where in my life am i currently “loyal to something I know is wrong?”
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Write one sentence: I have known this was wrong since ____________.

Just let it exist on the page, dated and true.

Then write the next sentence: What it would cost me to act on what I know is ____________.

Name the cost. Specifically. Not vaguely.
Not "it would be hard." What, exactly, would you lose or have to relinquish?

Worth noting: the costs are real. But none of them shameful. And they're also finite. They have edges + endings. What we rarely do is put them next to the ongoing cost of staying wrong (which doesn't have edges at all. It just keeps running)
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​the practical magic
​learning to be wrong well is a skill.
it can be practiced.

If anything you’ve read here has been resonant, nourishing, or of service to you in a meaningful way, please do, share this email. I appreciate your reciprocity.

In sharing, you contribute to a bigger picture - a world pulsating with well-being and wholeness. I'm grateful for you!

Here are more ways I can support you.

• Feedback, love notes, and other inquiries? Just hit reply
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p.s. This is in the spirit of an honest reckoning with yourself Reader and the inevitable grace that follows. So proud of you ❣
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