Is Your Inner Lizard a Bully?

My inner what?  Did you know that you have a lizard living inside of your head?  Paul MacLean, a neuroscientist in the 1960s, named the human brain stem as the ‘reptilian brain’ because the forebrains of reptiles were dominated by these same structures (basal ganglia) and accounted for certain instinctual behaviors in these species such as breathing, heart rate and the ‘fight or flight response’.

When we react with primitive emotions instead of rational thought, it is the reptilian brain that causes these impulses.  Naming it our ‘inner lizard’ helps us cope by giving it an image and identity that helps us recognize that it is a biologically-based response and not who we are. This allows us to notice these thoughts so we can manage them.

In her book Steering By Starlight, Martha Beck (my teacher and mentor)discusses how our inner lizards broadcast FEAR from a lack or attack perspective.  I don’t have enough or someone is trying to take it away.

So many of our problems in relationships come from this fear based thinking:

He doesn’t pay enough attention to me

She will want someone else

He didn’t do what he said he would

She pays more attention to her friends and the kids

You see, these are all thoughts we tell ourselves and they all come from a place of fear that I will not be okay. If it didn’t come back to that fear, then why would it matter if any of those things were true?  Now keep in mind that the lizard’s job is to constantly broadcast fear (lack and attack) in an effort to keep us safe.  The problem is that what developed through evolution to protect us from saber tooth tigers now sends the same danger signal to my client when she is waiting for a man to call her and he doesn’t.

So we have to learn to notice from a calm, non-reactive place what our inner lizard is telling us and then access more rational parts of our brain and assess the real danger.  In the above example, my client went into panic mode because this guy did not call.  What was her lizard telling her?

He’s not calling you because he doesn’t want you and no man is ever going to want you and you will be alone the rest of your life!

Wow, sometimes that lizard is pretty harsh!  Once she stopped to pay attention to the lizard’s words (lizards speak in biological impulses such as racing heart, shortness of breath, sweaty palms, etc) she realized that they were pretty extreme.  But before she learned how to notice the lizard’s words, she just noticed the feeling of panic and it was intolerable and scary.  Now she knows that it was just THE THOUGHTS that were scary.  Once she learned how to soothe herself and speak to that wounded place that was afraid of being unloved or alone, the biological signals of the lizard calmed down completely.  And now she is learning that most of the time, those ‘lizard thoughts’ are not even true so believing them is pretty crazy!

So, next time your reptilian brain, or inner lizard starts freaking out, pay attention to the message.  These are the thoughts you are actually telling yourself!  Do they sound a bit extreme?  Is your lizard a bully?  Are you going to let a bully push you around?