Is My Brain My Enemy or My Friend?

Your brain loves to hold your back, but only because it wants to keep you safe.

The most ancient part of your brain, the reptilian part, gets stuck easily. It wants to keep you safe and uses everything in its power to prevent you from being eaten by a saber tooth tiger. When was the last time you were at risk of being threatened by a saber tooth tiger, let alone any large cat? The risks of modern life are decidedly different from that of prehistoric times and I invite you to give your brain some slack.

Your reptilian brain controls your primitive instincts and reactions, like fight, flight, or freeze. It’s also the part of your brain that keeps you breathing, digesting, and your heart beating without taking over the thinking parts of your brain. So that part of your brain is useful and necessary BUT sometimes it does it’s job too well and can label something like a bunny hopping out of the bushes as a dangerous threat because it startled you.

Your reptilian brain is super quick to react, which means fear and anger can feel like they’re coming out of left field (and like you can’t control them). And your reptilian brain does not adapt well to change since it relies on established patterns and routines. This can make it hard to break habits or learn new ways of doing things. And there’s hope.

My fear-based brain used to rule me. I was 110% risk-averse, never wanted to see a scary movie (that's still true), didn't like riding roller coasters (I make an exception for Space Mountain), and I dislike driving to the point where I'll happily hand over my keys to nearly anyone that I trust (that likely seems the reverse of risk-averse, it’s more about lack of trust in myself, but that’s for another story).

Then one day I became aware of how miserable I was because I realized I wasn't really living. 

I was mostly hiding in the places I felt safe, sticking to the safety of the shadows, so no one would see me or ask questions. 

God forbid, why would anyone want to ask me a question?! I knew nothing, so many people knew so much more than me, ask them instead.

I wish I could tell you the exact moment it all changed, the moment I stopped fearing and started to believe in myself. It came on so slowly, gradually, in blips of clarity and moments of depression where I felt I wasn’t the driver of my own life. I knew I needed to make a shift, I knew I needed help, so I turned to the thing I could always count on, books. 

I found self-help and personal development books that spoke to me and I consumed them. At first I avoided the exercises, choosing to read instead, but I soon realized that if I didn't do the exercises, little to nothing would actually change. Just like putting your history book under your pillow before a big test doesn’t lead to osmosis of the knowledge inside, simply reading a self-help book is like having a conversation. It's interesting and insightful, but you only retain about a third of what you read. 

When you pick up your pen and start to do the work, you tell your brain that you're serious, you want to change, and you are willing to get uncomfortable, stretch and grow. 

When you put pen to paper you tap into your subconscious and when you can get in there the real transformation magic begins. You can work through your limiting beliefs and reprogram your brain so the things that felt threatening to your reptilian brain now feel safe.

Journaling Prompt: What are you wanting to unstick, stretch or grow?

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