Absolutely LOVED and hated Seth’s blog this morning. Why? Because for the past 30 years I’ve been learning to quiet my lizard brain like he said, but it’s only been this past year that I finally found something that works. It’s not quieting it. It’s listening to it.

Seth writes, “We say we want one thing, then we do another. We say we want to be successful but we sabotage the job interview. We say we want a product to come to market, but we sandbag the shipping schedule. We say we want to be thin but we eat too much. We say we want to be smart but we skip class or don’t read that book the boss lent us.

The contradictions never end. When someone shows up and acts without contradiction, we’re amazed. When an athlete just does the sport, or when a writer just writes the words, we can’t help but watch, astonished at the purity of their actions. Why is it so difficult to do what we say we’re going to do? The lizard brain.”

Martha Beck had the same questions. So did Stephen Pressfield. But Martha takes a different approach - one that says the Lizard is our friend (and I truly believe that). The Lizard, she explains, protects our essential self - keeping us from being successful cubicle monkeys and clinging to dead-end jobs. The Lizard, exists not simply to screw up our lives, but to point us away from mediocrity and towards Nirvana. If we are happy wearing Poodle skirts, eating funnel cakes and dating a guy with a mullet, our Lizard will indeed sabotage that polyester slack suit, fresh produce and five veggies a day and the Marine hunk with the buzz cut.

When we begin to see the Lizard as a brain with access to our true being, as the gate keeper to happiness, not the reptile with the party pooping agenda, we begin to understand why it’s really there. Men call it “resistance,” and women call it “possibility.”

Seth writes, “The resistance grows in strength as we get closer to shipping, as we get closer to an insight, as we get closer to the truth of what we really want. That’s because the lizard hates change and achievement and risk.”

Martha sees the “resistance” not as a force that hates change and achievement and risk, but as a compass that shows us what we really love. When Stephen Pressfield encountered resistance as a major force in his life he was living in a Chevy Van with his cat. (Sound familiar?) He was driving trucks and doing all sorts of menial jobs to avoid doing the thing his soul wanted to do - WRITE. (If I could find the essay he wrote about resistance I’d post it here….if you find it, please do. I’ll link to it.) I read that and it struck me that I was doing the same thing….so I began studying the lizard brain in depth.

Seth writes, “The lizard is a physical part of your brain, the pre-historic lump near the brain stem that is responsible for fear and rage and reproductive drive. Why did the chicken cross the road? Because her lizard brain told her to.” And that is SO lizard brain!! He’s right. The lizard brain is where fear and rage and reproductive drive originate because the lizard brain’s job is to see, record and document patterns that put our lives at risk. The lizard brain exists not to give us hell, but to ensure our survival. When we listen to what it is trying to say (it is, after all the seat of our intuition as well), we survive, but can also thrive!!

Where I will diverge from Seth’s reasoning is in believing that organizations are run by lizard brains. I contend that organizations are run by people who are DENYING THE WISDOM and direction and patterns their lizard brains are trying to share with them. Organizations fear change, risk and balloon popping because past patterns of more failures than successes through this behavior indicate that NOT changing, risking and balloon popping is a better alternative. That is ALL the lizard brain is doing - prodding us with statistics of our experience. Our lizard is a data base of every experience we’ve ever had - good or bad. If risk and balloon popping brought you success early on - guess what? That’s what your Lizard is going to push. Because it works for you. That’s all it does. If you don’t know how to read a spread sheet or interpret data, you probably won’t understand how valuable the lizard is. Ever since you were born that part of your brain has been cataloging information into “safe and fun” or “Painful and scary” and prodding you when you encountered similar situations. From the type of food you like, to whether you’re a breast, leg or ass man, the lizard has controlled it all. But let’s go back to the Lizard’s alarm when faced with a new situation.

IF, at this stage of the lizard’s input you simply decide NOT to change, NOT to risk, NOT to pop, you quiet the brain and shut down a stream of valuable information. Not a good thing. This is the stage where you can either say, “Ah ha! Risk is bad. Let’s not risk.” Or you can have a sit-down with the lizard. And if you do, and if you listen long enough you might realize your lizard isn’t saying “Don’t risk.” The lizard may actually be saying, “You know, we put Fickle Fred in charge of those last three failures. Let’s talk to Fred and see what really happened. Maybe we can put Agnes on this next venture if Fred can’t really account for what happened.” That’s not an option if you’re trying to shut the brain up. Apple doesn’t shut down its lizards. It buys them espressos and massage chairs and says, “So what do you think we ought to do to then?” You don’t ignore or discount the Lizard, you step back - put the fear on hold and listen and look at the data. It’s not the Lizard you want to quiet. It’s the fear you’re feeling. Remember the progression? Our thoughts create our emotions, our emotions create our actions….So, let the THOUGHTS the lizard is having come up. But press “pause” when the emotions are cued.

We are “fearfully and wonderfully made.” As a child I was gang-raped, drugged, tortured, beaten and abused mentally, emotionally, physically, sexually. Not just once - but over 15 years. My Lizard Brain and Amygdala are the size of apples, not walnuts. Seriously. Research shows that trauma increases the size and action of the amygdala. My lizard brain is fear on steroids. It’s like Godzilla, not the GEICO gecko. My lizard brain is why, when I was a cop, that I could walk into a building and tell you where the bad guy was hiding. I could smell fear and “knew” where the danger was - to the point of pinpointing the physical presence without even seeing it. Psychic abilities are so connected to trauma that psychiatrists and science consider psychic abilities as part of a diagnostic for trauma. I could have, should have by many accounts, be drooling in a strait jacket in a rubber room somewhere. But I learned to press the pause button most (not all) of the time. When the Lizard says, “Hmmm….teen-aged boys in gang colors standing on the corner, run away, run away!” I listen - and cross the street or go down another street. When the Lizard says, “Aaagh! Temporary Employment Agency!! Run away, run away.” I reassure it that it’s just for a month so I can make my bills. I understand, or try to, why the Lizard has its panties all in a wad. Then I deal with the data. Usually. Not always. But usually.

Seth writes, “The amygdala isn’t going away. Your lizard brain is here to stay, and your job is to figure out how to quiet it and ignore it.” Sorry Seth. But I read this today and thought, “Oh no. This is SO NOT the way to deal with the lizard brain at all.”

It’s NOT about quieting it, and certainly NOT about ignoring it. It’s about listening to it and acting on what you learn from it. The lizard brain simply identifies patterns and sends a signal to you telling you that what you’re encountering is not “safe” for SOME reason. If you’re not used to interpreting this signal all you feel/hear is FEAR. So you avoid or resist this THING your Lizard is all wired up about. If you QUIET IT and IGNORE IT you will never learn to understand it. You’ll continue the knee jerk reaction, stuffing it down in your attempt to keep it caged. Yeah. It’s hard work to learn to speak Lizard. But it’s so worth it.

Personally, I’m with Martha Beck on this one. I say give your lizard a name. Sit down and have a cup of tea and a conversation with it. You’d be amazed how articulate and astute it is, given an understanding ear. Why? Because your lizard brain can alert you to patterns, things you didn’t realize you didn’t like. And if you listen, and recognize those patterns, you can CHANGE the resistance, find a new direction, take action, cast off the chains and LIVE.

For instance, if your limbic lights go off when you walk into an office cubicle, or go with your best friend to look at bridesmaid dresses, there’s a message there - usually one that says, “Shit. I hate working in a cubicle. I loathe wearing puffy-arm party dresses in unnatural hues of magenta and lime.” So, instead of ignoring that message, or misinterpreting it, consider whether or not your lizard is saying, “You know, the last six times you’ve worked in an office in a cubicle you screwed things up. You screwed them up because you really don’t like working for the man. You’re going to botch this one too. Let’s start our own business selling t-shirts at rock concerts.” or “You really do look like a fool in those darn bridesmaid dresses. Next time, decline the invitation. We’ll put up with it this one last time, but seriously. Learn to say NO.”

Martha Beck encourages her clients to listen to their inner lizard. It is sabotaging us because it knows what we don’t like and won’t do well at. It is a compass. It is a tool. Embrace it. Listen to it. Heed its alarms and find your true path. You can fight it, or you can understand it. As someone who has spent most of my adult life alternately ignoring, fearing and running from or listening and learning to heed the advice of my lizard, and to understand what it knows, I can assure you….you’re better off making it a friend rather than an enemy.