Learning to Ride the Animal

Abstract:     
Have you ever gotten into an argument that frustrated you so greatly that you shouted something aggressive and later regretted it? It’s always disconcerting when you lose control in a certain situation and look back on it afterward. Even witnessing someone else behaving in a way you wouldn’t expect can be unsettling. At times like these, it seems almost as if something has taken over our will and caused us to act like an animal. While there will always be circumstances that make us feel powerless, growing as a person means that we have to exercise self-control, especially when we start to feel like we’re losing our cool. The purpose of this article is to recognize the dichotomy between the fight-or-flight animal portion of our brain and the reasoning frontal cortex that makes us human. Imagine if we could harness the power of both those parts of our brains and get them to work together. How productive and powerful could we be if, rather than being taken over by it, we could learn to ride the animal instead?

Number of Pages in PDF File: 8

Keywords: Distinction, symbiosis, relationships, amygdala, animal, lesser brain

working papers series