One of the common initiations in team sports is to get up in front of your new teammates and sing a song. This particular ritual is a great example of the misalignment between the comfort zone and the safety zone.
When called upon for a song it’s no coincidence that your mind instantly draws a blank and can’t think of a single song to sing. You’re panicking because you’re on the spot and everyone is looking at you. To your amygdala you might as well be in the room with a vicious man eating tiger but in reality all the audience wants is for you to tick a box, to sing a song long enough to fulfill ritual. It’s not actually life threatening it’s just uncomfortable. If you sing the song badly you will not burst into flames or drop dead instantly, you might get laughed at for a moment but people will move on quite quickly.
The amygdala would like to convince you that your comfort zone and safety zone are aligned but the reality is they can be quite far apart especially in the case of risking social humiliation.
Thomas Duggan 