Vulnerability is my greatest asset.
I stumbled upon this idea when I began writing some years ago. My writing journey began when one patient came into my office and told me how much better he felt after leaving. By then, I had changed the entire paradigm of my practice. I had gone from a typical internal medicine office, where I might see thirty-five to fifty patients a day, to becoming one of the first doctors in the country to start what was then called a personalized, or concierge, medical practice.
That change allowed me to see fewer patients and get to know each one deeply. I often joked with my wife that I had a whole other family she knew nothing about.
So, let’s call him Bill. Bill came into my office one day and asked if there was a way I could keep him motivated between visits. We came up with the idea of a weekly email message. After a few weeks, I realized those messages might benefit others, so I began sending them to more of my patients. In many ways, those emails were an early version of what these Substack essays have become.
But something happened as I wrote.
The messages were not quick health tips. They were not polished motivational slogans. They were not prescriptions dressed up as inspiration. What they became was a deep dive into my own psyche and beyond. I was looking into myself in order to offer something real to my patients. If I was going to talk the talk, I had to walk the walk.
And that mattered because so many health conditions are connected, directly or indirectly, to lifestyle choices, emotional patterns, self-sabotage, stress, and the difficulty of doing what we know is right. Most people do not suffer because they lack information. They suffer because something inside keeps pulling them back to the familiar.
At the time, I had a busy practice, four children at home, and a full life. Patients would ask how I had time to write. I told them the truth.
It was my therapy.
As I wrote, people would often say, “It felt like you were writing directly to me.” I would smile and tell them, “Actually, I was writing about myself.”
That was the surprising discovery. The more honest I became about my own fears, insecurities, anxieties, and self-sabotage, the more others seemed to feel seen. Not because my life was the same as theirs, but because the patterns were familiar. The circumstances may differ. The wiring is often the same.
As I developed the concept of the Automatic Brain, or AB, I began to see something clearly. The AB is always trying to protect us, but its version of protection often comes at a cost. It covers for us. It defends us. It helps us hide. It gives us reasons not to admit fear, not to show weakness, not to tell the truth about what is really going on inside.
The AB says, “Don’t let them see that.”
The Mind says, “That may be the very thing that connects you.”
The AB tries to preserve the image. The Mind seeks the truth.
I remember writing about my insecurity as a young doctor. If I saw a patient outside the office, without the “protection” of my white coat, I could feel embarrassed and exposed. That coat gave me authority. It gave me a role. It gave me a place to stand. Without it, I was just me.
Today, people might call that imposter syndrome. Back then, I only knew it as discomfort.
But the discomfort was telling me something. It was showing me how much of my confidence depended on the costume, the setting, the title, the appearance of control. The AB loved the white coat because it helped shield me from vulnerability. But the shield also kept me from understanding myself more deeply.
That is what the AB often does.
It builds armor and calls it strength.
It builds walls and calls them boundaries.
It builds defensiveness and calls it confidence.
It builds image and calls it identity.
But real strength does not come from hiding what is human. It comes from seeing it clearly and no longer being ruled by it.
That is where The Mind enters.
The Mind is not loud. It is more than neurocircuitry. The AB is physical, reactive, and designed to move us toward fight-or-flight when external or internal information signals danger. The Mind is something deeper, part of human consciousness itself, and because it is more than a protective circuit, it does not need to perform.
It does not need to win every argument, impress every person, or prove its worth in every room. The Mind is reflective. It can pause. It can admit, “I was scared.” It can say, “I was wrong.” It can recognize insecurity without becoming enslaved or weakened by it.
And one of the primary virtues of The Mind is humility.
Humility is the ability to see yourself truthfully, without the AB rushing in to distort the picture. It is the willingness to recognize both your gifts and your wounds. It allows you to stand in your humanity without needing to hide behind superiority, defensiveness, anger, perfection, or control.
These are often the characteristics we have come to call ego. But I have come to see ego less as a separate part of us and more as the AB in disguise, protecting the image, guarding the wound, preserving the mask, and mistaking exposure for danger.
That kind of vulnerability does not make us weaker.
It makes us less breakable.
Because when we stop using all our energy to protect the image, and the AB is high maintenance, we have more energy to live from the truth.
That is what I discovered through writing. The more vulnerable I became, the more useful I became. Not because I had all the answers, but because I was willing to ask the questions in public. Not because I had mastered every fear, but because I was willing to expose the lie fear was telling.
Over time, something quietly shifted in my practice.
Patients stopped only asking me what to eat, what medicine to take, or what numbers to improve. They began telling me where they were stuck. They told me about the fear, the shame, the self-sabotage, the insecurity, the private battles they had often carried silently. My vulnerability did not make me less credible. It gave them permission to be more honest.
That is when I began to understand it.
The AB protects the mask.
The Mind reveals the person.
Often, the revealed person can reach places the masked one never could.
That is where healing begins.
Related: Fear Feeds Itself: Understanding the Loop and Regaining Control