If we want to change the way we react to situations, we must search these reactions for the original stimulus and situation that created this now hackneyed response.

We do this by truly relaxing into a mindful relationship with the current trigger situation. We allow our brain to harmonize with itself so that all the data buried within the patterns of brain are accessible to our higher cortical brain.

Our current reaction reveals the tip of the iceberg of a state of mind that is associated with some original trauma or difficult situation. By relaxing into a mindful relationship with this current situation, we are able to slide under the waters of the current situation and feel into the fullness of our brain’s reaction and feel our way into the roots of that reaction.

When we do this, we are bringing a part of our brain that is somewhat free from the past, that is capable of creativity and novel reactions to a part of the brain that is, in the current reactive situation, bound up with history. Neurologically we are able to recontextualize a rigid set of neurological patterns within a new and larger neurological context and dissolve those rigidities. Those former rigidities are no longer needed as a default setting for dealing with some set of dangers. The rest of the brain is now on the job and can free up these deeper structures for more contemporary and productive safety operations.

Given that we now have a more fully developed brain than we did during the original upset, we are now able to bring many more neurological and cognitive resources to that original situation and discover many more functional responses not only to that original situation but to situations like it that may occur now and in the future.

We react to situations in stereotyped and problematic ways because, once upon a time, long ago, and given the cognitive and environmental resources that were available when we were young, we came up with the best responses that we could.

In the absence of love-filled debriefing from that past incidents, we will continue to react to similar situations in a similar manner.

We must integrate our left and right hemispheres. We must develop a relationship with the ways of being and knowing of the autonomic and limbic parts of our brain and their modes of being and knowing.

Because our present and problematic reactions to situations are based upon well learned reactions to similar situations from our distant past, change cannot come from changes in the higher coritical regions of the brain. Insight alone will do little to change or override the patterns of our autonomic brain. Also, unless we are able to ride the waves of emotion that flow from our experience of the world, we will have trouble getting close to the intense and programmed reactions of our reptilian brain.

We need our reptilian brain to be able to act automatically. We don’t really want to nor can we reliably override this part of our brain. We do however want to be able to reprogram our reptilian brain based upon new data. We also want to be able to be present to the intense emotions and reactivities of our limbic and autonomic brains so that we can influence our reactions to various situations and respond in more novel and measured ways. We want to be able to respond and not react.

However, if we are able to develop a relationship with the life of the body, if we are able to harmonize our higher cortical mind with the body-mind, then real change is possible.

The reptilian brain operates with the data that it has. When we establish a strong neurological and psychological relationship with our reptilian brain, then new data is able to flow through these circuits and real measurable change is possible.

Unless talking therapy really includes ongoing attention to the body (and the deeper structures of the brain that are involved with body-wisdom), then real healing will come with glacial slowness if at all.

The wisdom and concerns of the reptilian brain cannot be ignored. It is preoccupied with our most basic survival needs. We cannot shut it off. In addition to ongoing moment by moment safety and security needs, it is also burdened with our history and operates based upon that history. If our history has certain patterns of threat and disequilibrium, it will continue to operate as though that is the nature of the world.

No matter how much insight we gain (higher cortical knowledge), we will not touch these deep patterns of self protection and self-maintenance (reptilian brain).

Whether we view things from a spiritual or psychological point of view, who we are finds its home – however temporary – in the neurological pathways laid down from years of busy brain activity.

I respond to certain familiar sensations in my tummy by getting up, as I have done so many times before, and going to the fridge to look for something to eat. I don’t discover all over again how to interpret these sensations in my tummy. I don’t have to figure out how to walk again. I don’t have to look through the whole house to find the room in which the refridgerator is located. I know what these sensations mean. I know how to walk. I know this house like the back of my hand. I don’t have to give much thought to any of these dimensions of my experience. I just get up and head to the kitchen and see what’s there.

This is true for much of life. What we do is based upon what we have done.

The left hemisphere is very different than the right. It comes on line quite late in life. For girls, it comes on line at age 7-8. For boys, 8-9. Our left hemisphere is concerned with narrative and sequential forms of knowing. It is quite separate from the the right hemisphere and the limbic and autonomic brain. When we are using our left hemisphere to realize the sequential order of things, we are quite free from our immersion in the world of the right hemisphere and the deeper structures of the brain.

As a culture, we have tended to valorize the modes of knowing and being that are associated with the left hemisphere. We push kids to read even before their brains have developed the basic tools for the job.

We tend to become more attached to our stories about life than life itself

Some religious traditions have tended to view the body as a source of evil, our desires and passions are, in some of these traditions, not to be trusted.

Narrow understandings of science associate its accomplishments and ways of being as primarily left hemispheric. This is, of course nonsense. All great scientific inquiry and discovery relies as much upon the right hemisphere with its connections to the deeper structures of our brain, as it does on the right.

In addition to these basic structures of the brain, is the division between left and right hemispheres.

The right hemisphere is very much in the flow of the autonomic and limbic brain. The higher cortical function of the right hemisphere is more holistic and flowing. Through our right hemisphere we have a new view of the world that is spaceous and creative but still filled with the intensities of the reptilian and mammalian brains.

Our higher cortical brain introduces many uniquely human abilities. Our ability to speak belongs to this part of our brain.

Our higher cortical brain gives us enough distance from the concerns of the reptilian brain and the intense feelings of the mammalian brain that we can develop a sense of self that can live both in and beyond the folds of the flesh. Our higher cortical brain gives us the capacity to enjoy many levels of connection with the world. In thought, speach, and creativity, the higher cortical brain also gives us the tools to transcend this world.

Because we have a higher cortical brain, it is possible to work with the other parts of our brain and find ways to respond to the world that refine, transform, or transcend the fight, flight, freeze impulses of our autonomic brain and the storms of emotion that course through our limbic brain.

It is also possible to misuse our higher cortical brain by fleeing the wisdom and intensities of the deeper structures of our brain. One of the ways that we abuse these powers is to dominate and attempt to bypass the forms of wisdom that arise from the depth of our being.