210 Moral Outrage in Midlife: Why Certainty Feels Safe

We live in a culture that rewards certainty.  In this episode, I reflect on the energy surrounding recent public controversies and ask a different question: what if moral outrage is sometimes a nervous system strategy rather than moral clarity?  Drawing on anxiety physiology, childhood conditioning, and midlife change, I explore how certainty can feel like safety, and why building capacity for uncertainty might be the real work as we step into midlife.  

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Transcript

Sally Garozzo (00:01.112)
So over the last few weeks, I've found myself quietly stepping back from a lot of conversations, especially online. Conversations about current affairs, know, Jeffrey Epstein, Deepak Chopra, Lucy Lettby, all the things. These are stories that are moving really, really fast. Very strong opinions. There's a lot of moral certainty traveling at speed. And what struck me?

wasn't just the content of these conversations, but the energy underneath them. That sense of urgency was what I was picking up in my nervous system, that need to land somewhere to take a stance, that sense that also not taking a position immediately meant something was wrong. And I noticed...

Sally Garozzo (00:57.602)
And I noticed it particularly in group chats and online spaces where the tone quickly moved from curiosity to absolute certainty and absolute conclusion. Now I want to be really clear before I go any further because I know this stuff is very sensitive right now and I'm definitely not here to declare anyone innocent or guilty. I'm not minimizing harmed under other people. I'm not dismissing

victims' experiences, and I'm not saying that these stories in the public domain don't matter. Of course they do, they matter deeply and our voices matter too. But what has been catching my attention has been something really quite subtle, it's like a pattern hiding in plain sight that my spidey sense tuned into. And in that I noticed my own reluctance to join in, to jump in.

not because I don't care, because I do, I really do care, but because I could feel how complexity, how quickly complexity was being kind of squashed into this two dimensional certainty. And I found myself thinking, I actually don't know enough to comment on this. What if this, what if that? Like there was just too many angles that I was looking at to be able to comment.

and my comments tend to be more questions. And more importantly, I felt that I actually don't have a need to regulate my nervous system through outrage. That used to be me and sometimes it still is me, don't get me wrong. And that's okay, of course, there's no judgment here. It's obvious when you think about it that we would do this, that we would use outrage.

to regulate our nervous system. But what I do want to name...

Sally Garozzo (03:06.776)
And so what I do want to name is...

Sally Garozzo (03:13.198)
And so I actually want to name this because this is the piece we don't often talk about. And that is that how quickly moral certainty can become a way of stabilizing deep inner anxiety. When something disturbing appears in the news or whatever, when our trust feels really shaken, when the world feels unsafe, our nervous system and our brains actually want to ground.

They want clarity. They want resolution. And certainty offers that. Certainty says, I know what this means. I know who's wrong. I know where I stand. I know who's safe and who isn't safe. And that can feel incredibly relieving. And I understand that Paul, of course I've been there, especially for women. For many women, certainty just wasn't there growing up. Scratching around for certainty was how

reality stabilized when things were really unpredictable is how trust in our own perception was reclaimed. Certainty and the need for it and the fact that we go looking for it has done a lot of important work. But watching these conversations in

Sally Garozzo (04:31.469)
But watching these conversations unfold, I started to notice something else running beneath them, a kind of tightening, a bracing, and a nervous system that was unable to tolerate this idea of not having all the facts yet, and also not really knowing who's spinning it in a particular way. And that's what led me into this line of thought because

At the same time, as I'm seeing this kind of moral vigilance everywhere, I'm also seeing how many women are struggling with anxiety, this low grade chronic ever present anxiety. And it made me wonder whether these two things were actually connected, whether the constant grip on certainty showing itself on social media at the moment, the constant scanning for threat, the constant pressure to hold the right position.

is actually keeping the system activated rather than soothed. And then menopause enters the picture, which we know has a rather delightful way of removing all of our safety nets and our props and the security we once held dear to. You know, our bodies are changing, our identity is shifting, and the old strategies don't quite work the way that they used to.

And suddenly the moral outrage that once felt like gripping onto certainty is starting to feel pretty exhausting. And so here's the image that's been helping me kind of make sense of all of this. Imagine that you're walking along a path with a handrail. At first, the handrail is essential because the ground underneath you feels uneven. You don't quite trust your footing, so you hold on.

And holding on makes sense with this unsteady ground underneath you. It keeps you upright, it keeps you from falling. But over time, something subtle happens. Your grip tightens and your arm stays braced and your body never quite learns how to use its innate sense of balance and grounding with the unstable terrain underneath it. And eventually the handrail isn't there because

Sally Garozzo (06:50.561)
path is particularly dangerous it's there because you've forgotten how to walk without gripping and I've been thinking about certainty like this a lot especially as I've also been working a lot on my balance and mobility too in the gym. Something that once genuinely helped us navigate harm, danger and uncertainty quietly becomes something that we don't know

how to deal with on our own. We don't know how to deal with it without holding on really, really tightly. And menopause and midlife in this phase that we're in wants us to ask a different question. It wants us to ask, how do I build the capacity to live without gripping so tightly? But unfortunately, the old version of us is still trying to ask the old question.

And that is, how do I become more certain?

And that first question, how do I build the capacity to live without gripping so tightly, doesn't mean apathy or silence or ignoring harm. It means learning how to stay with not knowing, without panicking, how to tolerate discomfort without immediately discharging it into outrage, how to trust that.

energetic capacity, not certainty is what actually creates safety in the body. And that's what I want to explore with you today. Not verdicts or absolutes, but what happens when we loosen the grip just enough to feel our own balance again, to use our own minds with our own feet. So let's take a breath together.

Sally Garozzo (08:46.157)
And I want to talk about something that will really make this anxiety loop clearer and why it's a nervous system strategy, not a pathology, because anxiety doesn't actually start in the mind. It starts in the nervous system. Anxiety is a felt sense first, a tightening, a buzzing, a contraction in the chest or the gut. And when that sensation is tolerable,

we can stay present with it. But when it isn't, the mind tries to step in to help. And this is where worry, anticipation, and seeking certainty come into the picture. So in the book, The Anxiety Prescription by Dr. Russell Kennedy, he talks about anxiety, not as a thinking problem, but as a body-based alarm that the mind then tries to manage.

And that distinction really matters because when the body doesn't feel safe enough to stay with uncertainty, the mind starts scratching around for something that it can hold onto, like an explanation or a prediction or a plan or a conclusion, just something, anything. And here's the point, that strategy didn't just come out of nowhere. For many of us, especially women, certainty was learned early as a way of

surviving emotional unpredictability. So if you grew up in an environment where moods were volatile, where adults were inconsistent, where you had to read the room, you had to anticipate reactions or take responsibility really early on, your nervous system didn't get to rest in that sense of not knowing. You learned that safety in a way lived ahead.

of the moment that you are in right now. That safety existed in thinking, in anticipating, in figuring things out. And as a child, something important happened here. You worried, you anticipated, you tried to work everything out until eventually something resolved. Maybe the storm passed, maybe the adult calmed down, maybe nothing terrible happened and your nervous system now

Sally Garozzo (11:13.495)
has made a very understandable association. It learned that when I worry, things get fixed. When I think ahead, things get fixed. I'm safer. Not because the worry actually fixed anything, but because it gave you a sense of agency. And that agency, that sense of agency, here's the rub, comes with a dopamine hit. It's not exactly pleasure, but it is

activation, movement, doing, trying. So over time, this whole pattern, this whole system gets conditioned.

Unease in the body leads to going into the head. Feeling of uncertainty leads to thinking harder. A sense of discomfort leads to seeking certainty. And so none of this is a pathology or anything like that. It's intelligence. It's wisdom under a great deal of pressure. It's a nervous system doing the best it can with the resources it had.

But of course the consequences of that strategy, they seep out later on in life because what worked in childhood doesn't necessarily work in adulthood. As adults, uncertainty isn't just about what might happen, it's about sensation now. And if we've learned that sensation is dangerous or overwhelming or unmanageable, then certainty,

becomes more than just something you would prefer. It actually becomes a regulation strategy. Certainty pulls us out of the body and into the mind. It narrows the field of awareness. It reduces sensation. It gives the system something solid to hold onto. And for a while that works, but the cost is that the

Sally Garozzo (13:16.779)
body never learns that it can survive uncertainty. So instead of building capacity, we build control. And this is where certainty starts to harden and calcify. Because uncertainty doesn't just feel uncomfortable anymore, it feels unsafe.

Sally Garozzo (13:40.002)
Because uncertainty doesn't just feel uncomfortable anymore, it now feels unsafe. So we avoid it or we neutralize it quickly through worry, through certainty, through conclusions, through absolutes. And then later on through moral certainty, because moral certainty just does the same job. It says, I know what's wrong. I know who's wrong. I know where I stand. And that really gives the nervous system ground.

And that's why certainty can feel calming, even when it's actually keeping the system activated. It's not actually peace. It's a habit and it's bracing. A menopause and midlife, this phase that we're in tends to expose this pattern because the body changes anywhere, because the body changes anyway, hormones shift.

sleep gets disrupted, the nervous system becomes way more sensitive. So the old strategy of thinking.

So the old strategy of thinking our way out of these sensations stops working. The grip tightens, the worry increases, the need for certainty gets louder and louder, and this is the pattern revealing itself. But unless we recognise what's happening, we can mistake that.

But unless we recognize what's happening, we can mistake that for insight or awareness, when really it's the nervous system trying to stay upright. So the question is,

Sally Garozzo (15:25.325)
So the question isn't, how do I get more certain? The question is, how do I build the capacity to stay with uncertainty in my body without panicking?

Because capacity doesn't come from having all the answers. It comes from learning.

It comes from learning that sensation is survivable and that's where the work is. So let's take a breath before we move on to the next section.

Sally Garozzo (16:06.061)
So if certainty is a nervous system strategy for discharging worry, then we need to talk about one of its most socially rewarded forms on social media. And that is what I've mentioned before, moral outrage. Because moral outrage doesn't just happen in the mind, it happens in the body. It's activating, it's energizing, it creates a momentum, it creates movement forward.

And when you're feeling overwhelmed, uncertain or unsafe, as we often do in midlife, that activation can feel like relief. Outrage says, something is wrong. I see it. I'm not powerless anymore. I'm on the right side. And from a nervous system perspective, that can feel very regulating in the short term. It gives direction. It narrows the field of attention.

It pulls attention away from diffuse, uncomfortable sensation and it channels it into focus. It can also feel like empowerment. And again, I want to be clear, outrage isn't bad. It's not wrong. And it didn't come out of nowhere. For many people, especially women, outrage was how harm was finally named, how silencing was broken, how boundaries were drawn where none existed before.

I get it, it has its place. But here's the part we rarely look at. Outrage is a high arousal state and high arousal narrows our capacity to be with uncertainty. When the nervous system is activated like this, it can't hold much complexity. It can't tolerate ambiguity and it can't stay curious for very long.

So things become binary, right or wrong, safe or unsafe, with us or against us. And that narrowing feels really clarifying, but it comes at a cost and that cost is even more anxiety. You see your energetic capacity and your window of tolerance isn't expanded in high activation states.

Sally Garozzo (18:26.871)
Capacity is built in tolerable uncertainty.

Sally Garozzo (18:34.871)
Capacity is built in this tolerable uncertainty. And outrage doesn't tolerate uncertainty at all. It resolves it. It closes the loop. And that's why outrage feels relieving. But relieving isn't the same as regulation. It's a discharge of energy. Needed sometimes, absolutely yes.

But when discharge becomes the main way we manage discomfort, the system never learns that it can hold more. So our capacity shrinks, our energy shrinks, we become more fatigued and burnt out. And nowhere is this more obvious than on social media.

Social media doesn't reward slow, calm digestion of ideas. It rewards immediacy. It doesn't reward uncertainty. It rewards certainty. Hot takes, clear positions, moral clarity, absolutes. And when you combine that with anxious nervous systems and trauma literacy that doesn't have full integration,

and also midlife destabilisation, wow, do you get the perfect storm. Outrage becomes not just an emotional response, but now it becomes a belonging strategy. And it says, this is where I stand, this is who I am, these are my people. And that can actually be really powerful, but it also makes it really hard for us to pause.

And it makes it hard for us to zoom out, to say I don't know yet, to say I need more time, and I'm not ready to take a position on this yet.

Sally Garozzo (20:37.911)
because uncertainty, especially in the context of taking sides on social media, it feels like risk. And now I do want to slow it down here because this is usually the moment where people start to squirm. So let me speak directly to what some of you might be thinking. Some of you might be thinking, I don't know, this sounds like minimizing harm or

If we stop being outraged, then nothing will change. And some of you might even be thinking, yeah, I don't know, this commentary feels dangerous, like sliding back into silence or complicity. And I want you to know, I really do understand those fears. They make total sense, yeah? If certainty once protected you, if outrage once gave you a voice, if clarity once pulled you out of confusion.

or self-doubt, of course loosening that grip on that handrail feels threatening, totally. And this isn't about taking anything away from you, it's about noticing when a strategy that once helped might have become maladaptive, might have become the only one that feels available to you in the present moment. Because here's the thing, I'm not talking about

what you care about. I'm talking about the state you are in whilst you're caring. Outrage mobilises, yes, we know that it's great at mobilising, but it doesn't sustain. And a system that lives in permanent mobilisation eventually burns out. That's just physiology. So energetic capacity.

and an expanded window of tolerance is what allows you to stay engaged with your chosen causes without being consumed by them. We get to care without collapsing. We get to act without needing constant certainty. And capacity doesn't come from more information. It comes from practice. Just like strength doesn't come from understanding muscles, it comes from

Sally Garozzo (22:57.821)
loading them gently and repeatedly over time. You don't go to the gym once and become fit. So in order to expand capacity, we have to practice being with the discomfort of uncertainty. We practice staying present when it would be much easier to take a side. We practice tolerating uncertainty and doubt in small, supported ways.

And slowly our bodies learn, hmm, you know what? This is survivable. There's safety here in this in-between, in this not knowing, in this liminal space. And that's the work. I'm not talking about dismantling certainty overnight or forcing yourself into not knowing, but I am talking about building the capacity to stay with...

your experience as it is without immediately jumping to a conclusion or a meaning or needing to resolve it.

And this is where I want to name something that I hold space for elsewhere. Because there aren't many places where this kind of practice is valued, where uncertainty isn't rushed, when nuance isn't punished, where you're not required to have a position to belong here. And that's actually what my new membership becoming is for. It's not about answers, it's not about fixing yourself, and it's definitely not

about being on the left or the right or the centre or whatever. It's a space to practise being with uncertainty. A space to practise being human, to notice your own patterns without shaming them, to build capacity slowly, relationally, semantically. In the same way that you build strength by returning to the gym, you build capacity by returning to presence.

Sally Garozzo (24:59.605)
in the face of not knowing again and again, not perfectly, just consistently.

Sally Garozzo (25:08.331)
And if this kind of space feels like something that would really help to regulate your body properly, you're welcome to put your name down on the wait list. Just go to salliegarozzo.com forward slash becoming. And as these episodes go on, I'll talk more about that later. But for now, I just want to leave you with this question. What if the next phase of your life isn't about sharpening your certainty?

but about expanding your capacity for uncertainty. What might become possible if you didn't have to grip the handrail quite so tightly anymore so that you could trust your own footing and improve your own balance?

Thank you so much for being with me during this episode. I'll see you next time.