The Lizard that Talks to Me (Part 2)
And now you know about the Lizard that talks to me. Before you assume that I have finally lost it, I think I should explain a little bit more.
Sabre-Toothed Tigers lived on earth between 23 million and 2.6 million years ago. Woolly Mammoths wandered about at least a thousand years after the first Pyramids were built in Egypt. Us human beings spent our time trying to co-exist and were probably under constant threat of being savaged and eaten. To be honest, it’s a complete surprise that we got anything done other than run away. Back in those days, we were just trying to invent fire and the wheel. Surviving was the priority. That and finding the odd small mammal to snack on.
I’ve never met a Sabre-Toothed Tiger. I have met a number of managers who thought they had the same qualities, and a surprising number who bore a resemblance to the Mammoths. I imagine it must have been a pretty terrifying experience. Particularly, if all you were armed with is a rather poorly put together stone axe (think Fred in his leopard skin in The Flintstones). The problem is that, for those of us living in the 21st Century, when we experience what we perceive to be a threat, we still deal with it as if it still is a battle between us and the Sabre-Toothed Tiger. And this is where the Lizard that talks to me comes from.
By the time I had my second child, I’d spent about 15 years working in what are best described as toxic places. I was constantly worried that whoever I was working for, whether they be clients, customers or managers and employers. I’d be convinced that they were going to find fault. I could do a great job, the best job, a perfect job. But for some reason it never seemed to be enough. There was a continuous feeling of wondering who was going to come at you and from which direction. I had to develop eyes in the back of my head. The internal politics was horrible. There was always gossip and rumour. If you did a good job, someone would find something that you could have done better.
With two very tiny children now in tow and working part-time only, I realised that no one that I was working for looked upon me favourably. I was now just a Mum in an office, who had to leave at a certain time to get her kids. The consequence? They stopped relying on me to be competent. Why? Because I was no longer prepared to give my soul to the people who paid me. They in turn were no longer interested in me. It sounds outrageous but believe me, this is how it was.
In 2020, at the time of the Covid19 Pandemic, I realised that the voice in my head got really loud when I was anxious, worried and felt that I was under attack. As we were all locked down, the voice began to chatter and got louder and finally I joined the dots as to why. For the first time I really recognised that if I was scared, afraid or under pressure, I had a voice inside my head that began to shout and talk continuously.
As if by coincidence, one day flicking through social media, I came across a post about a book called “That Little Voice in Your Head” by Mo Gawdat. Having looked at it, wondered about it, worried about buying it and then not reading it, thinking for a long time that it probably wouldn’t help and generally engaging in endless debate with myself that it might help and it might not, and if it didn’t so what, I could just add it to the huge pile of other self-help books I have and then donate them to charity, I finally bought it.
What I have learnt has finally helped me to understand a little bit about how my brain functions. I’m going to try to explain it here, probably very badly. My suggestion to anyone reading this is that, if you want it explained better, you should go and get the book to read for yourself. You can read more about Mo Gawdat, his other books and his mission for us all to find happiness by going to his website https://www.mogawdat.com
Our brains have three parts, the Reptilian Brain, the Limbic (or Mammalian) Brain and the Rational Brain. I’m going to leave the second two parts for other stories on other days. This blog is what I have found out about the Reptilian Brain only.
To be clear, you do not have the brain of a reptile. There is no fear of your inner Alligator suddenly gaining control of you. You won’t find yourself going berserk in your local swamp. What we do all have though is a part of our brain that is primal (and found in reptiles) and completely focussed on our survival. It controls the body’s vital functions, our breathing, how the blood moves around your body and your heart rate. It is also triggered as soon as we think we have a threat to contend with.
What I didn’t know during all those years that I was dealing with the stress of work, was that all I was doing was dealing with what I interpreted as daily threats. Whilst I wasn’t facing death or being threatened with being imminently eaten, my Reptilian Brain treated them in the same way. Our brains are hard-wired to keep us safe. Every time my brain sensed a threat, the survival hormones kicked in and triggered the Reptilian Brain response. This included a voice in my head that began to scream that I needed to survive this. The problem was that, what my brain thought of as impending peril were just difficult meetings. Or phone calls, complaining emails and the employers who were finding things to criticise over and over again.
Now, having the odd threat of this type to deal with is ok. Your mind and body has time to recover from it. When it happens as much as it would to me, you begin to see everything as a threat, even if it isn’t. The Lizard that talks to me (or Lizzie if you like) is in fact my now over developed Reptilian Brain. It kicks in and yells at me (in lots of different and imaginative ways) of danger, even when there is none.
From reading this book, I have discovered that by allowing Lizzie to talk to me the way she does (Mo Gawdat suggests that it can help to give your brain or the voice a name to help you to quieten it down, apparently, it isn’t weird, honest) that this has led me to become well practised in dealing with every threat I encounter in the same way. I have without realising learned this behaviour. What’s sadder is that this learned behaviour is the consequence of not stopping the stress that I was under years ago. I just went along with it, thinking it was normal. I now know that it wasn’t normal and it shouldn’t have happened.
I’m still reading the book. It is a good book but it is hard going. Training your brain to stop behaving in a way that it has done for over 20 years is tough. It takes time. It’s complicated. I find it hard to admit that this is the way I feel. All I can say at the moment is that I am working on it. I can’t stop Lizzie yet but I will keep trying.
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