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Love, Lust, and Sex |
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The good news is, and the bad news is ... we have choices. Recently I was emailing with Michael Myerscough, The Great Sex coach about a presentation he's going to do for a corporation about "reptilian" behaviors in the workplace.
The reptilian brain is our automatic-reaction basic-survival brain - the one that pays attention to - can I eat it? will it eat me? or can I mate with it? The life of easy choices. Since this brain is into survival, its messages are automatic and strong - defending territory, aggression, sex, fear, hunger, pain.
ARE YOU PAYING ATTENTION?
Michael and I come up with ideas and I supply cute phrases for them - banging the law clerk instead of banging the gavel, defending your turf instead of defending the merits of the proposal, hiring the black spandex mini instead of hiring the best candidate, hitting your partner instead of hitting the books ... the cute language ends. Firing someone because it's too hot or you’re in pain. Stealing food from the staff refrigerator. Missing work because of an addiction. The reptilian brain is also the seat of addiction.
Are we to act on these urges? Certainly not. If your life is threatened, yes, hit the person. But most of the things that occur in our modern day lives only FEEL threatening to our life, they aren't really. We react to insults to our ego or being cut off in the passing lane as if they were life threatening. Our brains don't know the difference between what's real and what isn't real, what's past and what's present.
UNDISCRIMINATING
The reptilian brain is very 'down and dirty'. It's designed to keep us alive, so when a stimulus (threat or sex object) appears, it pumps out those chemicals that SHUT DOWN our thinking brain. If a bear were in front of you, you’d be better off NOT to think. You don't need to "know" much about something dangerous - you just need to get the hell out of there. Or shoot it. If you stop and THINK, i.e., is this a grizzly or an Alaskan brown bear, you would be dead. So we're programmed to have a default mode that precludes thinking.
Back to "the many faces of love." There's love, there's lust, there's sex, there's making love. Learning to make distinctions, and understand that you have choices in your responses, can make a difference in your life.
Learning more about the different parts of your brain and the messages they send and how to respond to them is emotional intelligence. You can take an EQ course on the Internet. The good news and the bad news is that we, unlike the reptile, do have choices.
About the Author
Susan Dunn, The EQ Coach, GLOBAL EQ. Emotional intelligence coaching to enhance all areas of your life - career, relationships, midlife transition, resilience, self-esteem, parenting. EQ Alive! - excellent, accelerated, affordable EQ coach certification. Susan is the author of numerous ebooks, is widely published on the Internet, and a regular speaker for cruise lines. For marketing services go here. |
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