Tag: amygdala

Cut yourself some slack, it’s just how brains work

Sights, sounds, smells, and all those senses enter the brain through something called the thalamus.

The thalamus passes this mix of sensations in two directions: The amygdala and the frontal cortex.

The amygdala keeps you alive by freaking out about stuff. It quickly checks with the hippocampus to see if the new information might remind us of any yucky stuff that’s happened to us in the past. And if it feels any threat, it goes “Okay, it’s time to stay alive!” And it bombards you with stress chemicals and makes you do things like fight or fly or freeze.

The frontal cortex, on the other hand, thinks a bit more critically. Like “Um that’s just a shadow” or “Not all bosses are as evil as your old boss” or “No stress, zombies aren’t real” or “Actually not everybody who calls your name from another room is about to beat you.” And so it helps you not try to hit everybody or run screaming from the room.

And here’s the fun thing.

The information travels from the thalamus to the amygdala more quickly than to the frontal cortex.

In other words: “Not responding emotionally” is literally impossible.

Your brain is wired to save you from lions and to feel suddenly hurt by your partner when they didn’t mean anything. You literally can’t help freaking out sometimes about things you don’t need to freak out about, especially when it looks or feels or sounds a little bit like something that has hurt you before.

This doesn’t mean you can’t practice and get sort of good at slowing your reactivity so that your frontal cortex has a chance to be like “Um you don’t need to punch them in the face.”

But it does mean that you’re not a bad or defective person just because you get emotional or scared or react sometimes in ways you wish you wouldn’t.

Especially when it’s stuff that brings up your deepest scars.

Your amygdala is just trying to save your life.

Deep breaths, count to 3, trust the process, your frontal cortex can help you sort it out.

That being said, for some of us these pathways have been screwed up by especially rough experiences. If you feel like you’re always, always being hijacked by overreacty feelings, don’t blame yourself–maybe you’ve just had to work too hard to keep yourself safe in life. It’s not fair, but don’t give up hope. There are some PTSD therapies that can really help to rewire this.

But in general, I think it can really help to understand about ourselves: None of us are “calm, cool, and collected” the instant something happens. Your amygdala will always show up before your frontal cortex. Which means working on nurturing a baseline of safety and taking deep breaths and counting to 3 are all a much better and fairer use of your energy than calling yourself stupid or sensitive or irrational.

You’re just good at staying alive, and sometimes it makes life weird.

That’s just human.

~

For a so-much-deeper-life-changingly-eye-opening exploration of this and other humany topics, read The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma by Bessel van der Kolk, M.D.

Good luck with your amygdala. <3

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The problem with being good at running away from lions

Humans are good at running away from lions. (Like, yes, a lion’s gonna catch us, but we’re good at trying.)

Danger equals adrenaline equals quick speedy fight or flight. Human bodies are good at this.

Some people grow up running away from lions every single day. Lions that sound like dad yelling again or the cool kids taunting you again or your relationships failing you again and again. Every day is scary and unsafe.

Traumatized people get really good at running away from lions.

Problem is, to a traumatized person, everything begins to look like a lion.

What good things have you been running away from?

What you focus on

For the first time when I was about seventeen, I noticed a Dodge Charger. Bright red, powerful looking, muscle from bumper to bumper. Wow, I thought, here is a unique and beautiful car. I must have one. Over the next couple weeks, half the population seemed to share my revelation and purchase their own Dodge Chargers. They were everywhere.

You get what I mean, right? You never, ever see something. Then you start looking for it. And suddenly you see it everywhere.

I just tried googling “What you focus on expands” to see who to credit with the quote. It’s attributed to an endless list of thinkers. It has just become one of the universally acknowledged principles in life: We will find more and more of the things we spend our time looking for.

Universally acknowledged, but still worth reminder after reminder.

What are you focusing on too much? What are you not focusing on enough?

And how does that apply to your People? Your relationships? Your community?

Like your significant other, your sibling, your co-worker. What do you think about them these days? The more you think it, the more you see it–right?

Maybe you know me. I’m a really kind person. Every day, you can see me speaking thoughtfully–to someone or about someone. In fact, the more you think about it, the more amazing it is how attentive I am to other people and their needs. Every day that you try to see if I’m a kind person, you will see proof. Pretty soon, if you stare at it every day, you’ll realize I am the kindest person in the world. I’m also a really sensitive person. Every day, you can see me getting my feelings a little hurt or misinterpreting a word or a look. In fact, the more you think about it, the more shocking it is how anxious I am that people mean to hurt me and take advantage of me. Every day that you try to see if I’m a sensitive, fragile-hearted person, you will see proof. Pretty soon, if you stare at it every day, you’ll realize I am the most over-sensitive person in the world. . . . . . Do you get it? I have a thousand different Peter-things for you to know me by. “Good” ones and “bad” ones, “fun” and “hard” ones, “happy” and “sad” ones, “normal” and “weird” ones. And what you think of me, what you expect from me, what you “know” about me has a lot to do with which parts of me you choose to look at the most.

What parts of your People are you looking at the most?

What parts of your People are you forgetting to look at?

If it ever seems like you know the MOST [insert-any-characteristic] people in the world–the MOST frustrating, the MOST toxic, the MOST obnoxious, or even the MOST loving, or the MOST fun–it may have less to do with this unique set of unusually extreme people the world specially assigned you, and more to do with your focus. Because of your focus, they are the “MOST” to you.

Some people really are especially kind. Some people really are especially sensitive.

Some people who have been frustrating you these days are actually really amazing people with really healthy roles to play in your life. Some aren’t.

Some people who have been wowing and attracting and filling your tank these days really are people that you’ll be healthier letting go. Some aren’t.

But two things are for sure: If you decide to focus on someone’s “good,” you will not miss out on knowing a beautiful soul. And if you decide to focus on someone’s “bad,” a beautiful soul will look ugly and dangerous and scary to you.

What you focus on expands.

In all the world of living things, you and I are uniquely developed to see the bad. Your amygdala is why you’ve made it this far. Your amygdala also has the capacity to destroy your relationships and ruin every good thing you’ve ever had. . . . if you forget to look for the good things.

So today, scrub off your lenses a little. Your People–what normal-things of theirs have you been obsessing over and looking for until it’s all you see about them? Can you look at some of their other things today, too? The whole them? What beautiful things have been hiding behind the fog?