Do reptiles love? What kind of a question is that? Well, it’s a very important one because there is a reptile inside you. Yuck! Yep, it is called your “limbic system” it is the part of the brain that we inherited from our dinosaur ancestors.
Think like a reptile for a moment, what would you fear, what would you be interested in? How would you feel when you saw something new? Let’s assume for the moment that our awareness of reptiles is correct and that they are relatively free of finer feelings like love, joy and happiness, they are largely motivated by fear, hunger, sex and self-preservation.
Imagine you are still that reptile, and you see something new. How would you react? Either ignore it, unless it moves (it might eat you) or attack it first, just in case but chances you’d just move away because of the fear of something unknown.
Now step back into “you” again. How many times has your inner reptile made you react the same way? You see, we think we are all one thing: a human being. But we are made up of thousands if not millions of different parts. Our brains are at least three major parts: the reptile brain, the mid-brain (emotions) and the higher brain (rational thought). That’s just the brain. If we zoom right into our cells, yes deep in there we have DNA, but DNA cannot directly interact with the body without RNA. So in some sense DNA is “foreign” to the body. The cells are made up of other parts which each evolved from different sources too. All our genetic heritage is passed on from the female side generation after generation, in a part of the cell called the mitochondria. Think about that one for a bit!
Our being the sons and daughters of Eve is absolutely right. If you trace back any of our ancestors you arrive back in Africa about 20,000 generations ago. That is just the blink of any eye, so really, we are all African. The genetic difference between all members of the human race is barely measurable. The chimpanzee, our nearest relative, is on 2-3% different from us.
So what’s with the evolutionary tour? Back to the brain, the limbic system is aware in a very vague way of other parts of the brain and frankly all it really cares about is survival. Not rich, happy or fulfilled. Survival. That’s it baby.
The mid-brain has a richer emotional life and is aware far more than the limbic system, but it views life through an emotional lens. And there were we thinking our brains are purely rational. They absolutely are not. In fact, thought is often a action STOPPER rather than an action TAKER.
Want an example, when you are at a store and the attendant comes over and starts to sell to you, if you are marginally keen, what’s the most common phrase people use? I’ll ____________ it.
Notice that interesting second word? No emotions there. Thought tends to lead to more thought. Did you not get the phrase? I’ll think about it.
So in the end, we usually make emotional decisions and then justify them afterwards. Just ask anyone who just bought product X over product Y. It boils down to the fact that they liked one more than the other. The features and knobs and whistles all justified the decision, they did not make the decision. We had a series of beliefs about that product being a better fit for us than another one. You know what? Someone walked into the same store just after you did, and for them product Y was so obviously better than X, only a fool would by X. Who’s right? Neither or both. Take your pick. Both had beliefs about something that caused them to take action and buy something.
So what about our larger lives? What role does belief play there? Beliefs can then stop us from doing things too. Let’s say you have a strong belief that you can’t swim (forget the “because’s for the moment”) well first off, you can’t swim because you have a negative belief around swimming which you can justify with lots of reasons and secondly, because you believe that chances are you’ll stop yourself from learning to swim. So of course it’s true you can’t swim!
Now let’s apply that to money. Oh no! The dreaded M word. Not THAT one boys, the one around the green stuff. There are few subjects on which there are more experts than around money. Everyone has an opinion about how to get it, who should or should not have some and so on. Frankly, there are probably more opinions about money than sex.
Why? Well, because it is an essential ingredient to living in the 21st century, it is the means by which we can live our large dreams and achieve the kind of freedom deep down we all believe we can have. But up pop our beliefs and either say we do not deserve that life, or cannot have it because there is not enough to go around, or the rich are greedy bastards (and hey, who wants to be labeled a greedy bastard). Ever heard the phrase the “filthy rich”? In that belief world you have to be filthy to be rich. Who deep down really wants to be filthy if that’s what it takes to be rich. Filthy anyone? That comes before the rich.
How about “money is the root of all evil”? That’s another good one. Being bad is one thing, evil is entirely another. Bad is more of an attitude thing with a bit of non-conforming going on. Evil is deliberately and consciously setting out to harm others. Just reading that probably gives you the willies. Now imagine how your reptile brain reacts to that one! That’s a pretty strong danger signal, wouldn’t you agree?
It is our deepest, hidden beliefs that are guiding our lives. We are not even aware of these beliefs most of the time. Yet, there they are guiding us with the precision of a laser bomb to our target. Is our target destruction or happiness? Depends on your beliefs about you, money, relationships and all the rest.
You see, our reptile brain is alive and well, so are all the other parts of us. Our emotions, our feelings, our conscious thoughts and our subconscious beliefs. They are all operating, but if they are all working with different goals and agendas, is it likely that you’ll get to where you consciously want to go?
I didn’t think so either. The process of clearing out and harmonizing these parts of us is called spiritual growth. Well, spirit is perfect already, but that is the subject of another post.
