I am taking a course online about emotional intelligence and learned some interesting information about the brain.
The brain have many parts but can be simply categorized in to three parts: the old brain, the middle brain, and the new brain. The old brain is also called the reptilian brain, and it is in charge of our fight, flight, or freeze instincts. The middle brain is in charge of our feelings, emotions. The new brain, which is rightly named since it is the part that evolved last, is in charge of logic and language.
Although the brain works as a whole, these areas cannot do the function of the others. In other words, the old brain cannot form language and the new brain does not dole out feelings. So in light of this, it is understood that although we have feelings that generate from our brains, or we institutionally respond with fright, flight, or freeze, we do not automatically have logical responses to those things. We must then use a different part of our brain to logically get through that feeling or response, to react in a way that is most beneficial to our life.
Wow- I just reread what I wrote above and it sounds like I know how to do this; no, not so much. Really, I think that my inability to do this has caused an enormous amount of problems in my life. I have often reacted very quickly to the things without thinking thus not reacting from my new brain.
My goal now is to try and process everything through my new brain.
How do you think you handle these different aspects of your brain? Do you think you use your new brain to regulate the middle and old brain?
Love to hear any thoughts any of you have!
Hugs!!
ReplyDeleteIt does sound like you know what you are talking about! Maybe you do know more than you think you do.
This is something I had never heard of other than when you eluded to it in your last entry. It does make sense. I would love to say I use my new brain to control the others but I know that is not true. Just the reaction when startled to run tells me the old brain is alive and well. I don’t think the old brain has a lot of good use in todays world.
I use my middle brain probably more than most. Thinking about it, I think this is what will define the type of person we are. This is probably where we can show compassion and love. This is probably also where we hurt ourselves by reading too much into a situation. Something I tend to do. Some how I need to balance the usage of this part. Too much and I will be set up to hurt or be used. Too little and I will become cold and unfeeling.
That is why I like your thoughts on processing everything through the new brain. Like you I tend to decide quickly about what I will do. So I am probably reacting on just the middle brains thoughts. If I can teach myself to slow down and process the info through the new brain then I should be able to balance the middle brain.
Which got me to thinking, is this why blogs appeal to me so much? By having to type a response I am force to at least use my new brain. It also takes more time and I have to reread (and yet there are still typos!) what I have typed which gives me time to think about things. I sometimes reread past posts and see that I appear much more together than I really am. Yet this lets me know that perhaps I am not that far off from being together, just need to slow down.
I am glad this post made you think, too. It definitely was a thinker for me to write it. I think that we shouldn't actually not feel things; instead feel everything and mediate through those feelings in a logical manner. I think that includes allowing some of those feelings to make their way through completely unchanged. It is an interesting process to learn, and skill to learn.
ReplyDeleteGood luck with this in your own life. It seems like overall it will be a good skill to learn.