Our brains are a little kludgy, like somebody didn't want to throw their old Atari computer away and over the decades cobbled together new hardware and software.
Neuroscientists say that we humans have three brains--the reptilian, the paleomammalian, and the neomammalian. Or more colorfully, we have a lizard, a squirrel, and a human brain all wired together. These three brains evolved one at a time, growing one on top of the other and wiring together. Our three brains, working together, are are how we process life.
I find this wonderfully encouraging. It explains why our thinking and feeling can be all over the map.
The reptile brain is simple. And fast. And what it 'wants' comes into our awareness as very strong urges, intense 'motivation.'
Our top brain (neomammalian/human) is slow and 'motivationally diffuse.' Our most sophisticated brain communicates with subtler 'urges.'
Mark Twain said that a lie can travel halfway around the world while the truth is still putting on its shoes.
Our lizard impulses can spread from our ears to our toes while our top brain is still processing what's happening--what's happening both outside us and what our lizard and squirrel brains want us to do about it.
This all happens while we're 'still putting on our shoes,' so to speak.
Mindfulness, by slowing us down and training us to notice what we think and feel, enables us to watch this. To understand it better. To work with our selves (and our three brains) as we are.
And it gives us a reason to smile, chortle even, in the process. Ah! No wonder it's tricky--this growing into being fully human.
I wish I'd known how this stuff works when I was a teenager.
