Your what? you say. The amygdala is the part of your brain that registers fear. Without it, we’d end up like this woman who lost all sense of fear after a brain injury.
I like what Seth Godin calls the amygdala- the Lizard Brain. It operates on a primitive level and keeps us from harm, certainly. That’s good. But it also keeps us bound up and unwilling to change. That’s not good.
Without risk, there is no advancement. No changes. No new discoveries. No deep relationships. The list is endless.
And as though the amygdala needs any help feeding a steady diet of negativity and fear to control our behavior, there is an abundance of outside voices that will help it as well. (Remember the black crab story that Kiosaki tells?)
Every time I read a fear-laden email forward about how my mattress is poisoning in my sleep (due to chemicals breaking down,) to a new trend for axe-murderers to pose as kindly grandmas or a news story about how the democrats/republicans are going to….(fill in the blank), I am feeding my amygdala.
One only need look at the preposterous and bodacious actions of the TSA to see how this plays out.
Yes, there are dangers afoot and we need to live intelligently.
But that is pert near impossible if one is too preoccupied (and might I add, pissed off, as that is frequently a fruit of fear,) feeding their amygdala.
Life is a gift…a blessing. And it’s too short to spend it living in fear.
Filed under: Musings, Personal development, Personal notes, Politics | 6 Comments »
THANK YOU.
