The Brain Isn’t Just About Logic: Better Relationships in 2 Minutes #4
A number of years ago, I took a course with Dr. Bruce Perry, who is a neuroscientist, brain researcher and clinician. One of the things that I found to be most fascinating is that our brains aren’t really meant to be logical all the time and that’s actually ok. We’ve been taught by our culture that if it isn’t logical, it isn’t valuable. Period. But Dr. Perry’s research blew that out of the water for me.
I’m Rebecca Thompson Hitt and this is Better Relationships in 2 minutes.
He explained that our brains have different areas with different jobs. All information, from all of our senses, comes in through the base of our brain to assess safety. If it doesn’t pass the safety test (whether it is an actual threat or not), we’re going to be in a place of survival- fight, flight or freeze. This part isn’t logical. It is designed to keep us alive and overrides our thinking brain.
Our emotional brains help us connect to one another. They’re not really logical, either, but they’re essential for connecting to one another. This is our heart. Without this part, we’d just be robots. Our emotional brains need a different kind of handling than our logical or our survival brain and that’s the focus of my course Listening to Feelings.
Our thinking brains are good for solving problems, making breakfast, creating an exercise plan that you can hopefully stick to, but the emotional brain is what cements those plans into place. Our emotional brains are what makes us human, yet we seem to have very little literacy with our emotional brains and what to do in the big and small storms of life.
You can learn more about the emotional brain in particular in my course Listening to Feelings.
Tomorrow we’ll talk about the paradox of feelings.
