I’ve talked about mindfulness before, being in the moment and recognizing what is going on around you and inside you. I’ve recently just had to deal with some stressful family issues and work issues all during the least opportune timing, thus “Surviving The Shit Storm” post I had last week. Things have been emotional with plenty of ups, downs, stresses, and curveballs; I’ve been able to address and react appropriately to each one of these situations because of my daily practice of mindfulness. In the last 24 hours I got reminded of how big of a difference it can make when the lizard brain kicks in; the lizard brain, for the people who don’t know, is the fight or flight center of our brain, it is the first thing that kicks off in any situation. It is the part of the brain that makes split second survival decisions before the higher thought processes of our brain kick in. If unchecked the lizard brain can really run rampant and kick off a day or even a decade of complete shit. Being mindful is the tool to keeping the lizard brain in check.
It’s really not hard for any of us to lose control to the lizard brain, it’s the part of the brain that evolved us from rodents to apes to humans and everything in between. The fight or flight instinct is a powerful instinct that shouldn’t be ignored but it shouldn’t be listened to with blind abandon. Not keeping the lizard brain in check can lead to some very damaging consequences. Irrational reactionary emotions are some of the very most powerful chemical reactions we can have and these are often times the reactions that get us in trouble; rage, addiction, jealousy, carnal desires, uncontrollable impulses, etc. Now we know that there is a tool we can develop to keep that destructive lizard brain under control.
I know much of this seems very vague and non-specific, but there is an example that has got me thinking about mindfulness and the lizard brain, especially in the last 24 hours. My father recently had heart surgery and we brought him home last night. It was very stressful going into the surgery and I was nervous about it but it went off without any issues and frankly it’s incredibly impressive just how great modern medicine is, but I digress. I’ve volunteered to take care of him for his 2-3 month recovery based on my geographic location and availability, plus he’s had my back no matter what for the last 27 years it’s really the least I can do and I’m happy to help him out, but that means monitoring him and his medication. Being a recovering addict and more specifically an addict which focused primarily on prescription painkillers, the whole administering his pain pills is a weird situation to be in. Now I will preface this saying that I have absolutely NO intention of ever going back to using, especially after just finding out that someone I have a great respect for just threw away 20 years of sobriety for a drink, nor do I have any desire, drive, inclination, or impulse to use at all. I’m frankly much happier, successful, and motivated when I’m sober, which I prefer. That being said I am also not naive and think that I am “cured” because I know that the demon that once consumed me is not gone, it’s waiting in the lizard brain. So when I first gave my Dad his first dose of Vicodin that part of my lizard brain ignited in activity, it’s not what I was expecting would happen but it did. Luckily though, in the nearly 5 years I’ve been sober, I’ve developed the skill of mindfulness and could recognize the things I was feeling and thinking as a reactionary development from my lizard brain. I reacted accordingly, by assessing what was going on I could react appropriately. The thing was that it’s not even that I wanted to use or even thought about taking any, which I did neither of, it was just an overwhelming stimulation of a base level emotion that is controlled by the lizard brain and in this instance it was my impulse and addiction.
Now I hate talking about my deep inner personal life, especially in things that would potentially damage how some people may see me because I’ve worked so hard to grow and distance myself from my previous life of addiction and despair. However, I find it to be a great example of how powerful and influential the lizard brain is. Had I not developed the skill of mindfulness the likelihood of me relapsing in that exact moment would’ve been 100 fold more likely. I know this because I spent 10 years giving into the lizard brain and allowing it to control me. Being mindful of these sorts of developments in our lizard brain could literally mean the difference between life or death, they can also mean the difference between doing something you regret and thinking past an overwhelming impulse. The lizard brain is in all of us, we all have it, those impulses and instincts that we experience are straight from the lizard. It is why it is really important that we discuss these emotions, instincts, and impulses when they occur or at least acknowledge them and think through them yourself. Spending 10 minutes a day developing your mindfulness, assessing what you are experiencing, thinking and feeling can lead to more positive decision making and less destructive reactions. I encourage everyone to do their best to work on becoming more intuned with themselves, it is sometimes scary to realize how little we know ourselves and how incredibly dangerous that can be. We can grow to unimaginable heights if we just get out of our way and not succumb to our lizard brain when it is detrimental to our growth.