Jewell's Happy Trails
Holy cow, I don't know
why I am doing this. I click into YouTube, and what pops up? All those
professional speakers. People more knowledgeable than me, more experienced,
more, more. So why would anyone listen to my babble? That is a phenomenon every
artist must face—putting their work out there, knowing it doesn't match the
standards set by people who have practiced for 20 + years.
However, we all have a
voice and a gift, and perhaps my saying whatever I have to say will spark
something in someone.
If we wait until we
are perfect (ha), we will never do it. And so we begin.
I have two forest
walks filmed so far where I talk about this mystery we call life. My focus is
called The Law of Attraction, although I wish I had another
name for it. Guess I feel the title is cliché; however, here's my take on it.
Please go to: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC3pPWKU7N1VvVAHOClUSreA
And then here is the
blog post I wrote for this week.
Blog May 25 21 Pet
Your Reptile
In this age, we speak
of enlightenment—whatever in the heck that means…
Maybe it means we have
come to understand that we were born a perfect human and live the life of a
human. The cliché is that we are spiritual beings having a human experience. It
might be cliché, but I agree with the statement. We learn along the way, and
maybe enlightenment is living in peace and fulfillment. It probably comes after
we have walked the pot-holed road filled with boulders.
All along, we are
fighting our evolution.
My sister used to get
agitated when I used the word evolution, for she thought it negated
creationism.
I'm not going there.
Evolution simply means change over time—big deal. Things change, and we have
built into us certain behaviors that were undoubtedly a result of evolution,
aka, what worked at the time, aka, driven by natural selection.
Fast forward. We still
have behaviors built into us that do not work to our benefit. Sorry. Millions
of years built us.
For example:
Fear. It benefited us to run or fight in the face
of danger. However, now it is thrown at us regularly. It sells. (An adrenalin
rush.)
The hunter phenomenon. It was necessary to feed the
tribe. Killing for sport or war is counterproductive. (But it is another
adrenalin rush.)
Some native hunters
revered the land and the animals. Sorry, we must kill to eat, but that's the
way this earth is set up. (Vegetarians, charge ahead. The cow doesn't kill the
grass; she mows it. Most fruits and vegetables would rot if we didn't eat them.
(My refrigerator attests to that.)
Distain or fear
of strangers or people who look different from us. Well, what can I
say about that? Used to be you needed to fear marauders. They would come and
take your wife, your children, your animals, and your land. Then there was the
class system—money and title meant you were better than the common man. And
then there were slaves. Not a pretty picture.
Nationalism. Now we are World People. Used to
be, we had to protect what was ours for the same reason we feared strangers.
However, we still fight over land.
Judgment: I've heard more people fault themselves
for judging than I can count. Of course, we size up people to determine if they
are a friend or foe. It's natural. We pick and choose who we want to hang out
with or who we want to marry. Where this goes wrong is when the ego gets
involved. Wanting to be better than those others we are judging. We are taught
competition, not cooperation. (I've heard that Navaho children gave teachers a
hard time because they wanted to help each other on exams. They couldn't
understand why they had to keep their eyes on their own paper.)
Belief systems. Probably beliefs give us comfort. It
provides us with some understanding of the way the world works—even if it's
faulty. It allows us to find others who agree, thus giving us bonding and
friends.
When we look back, we
realize we carry baggage from our past, genes, nurturing, propaganda, etc. Yes,
we want to look ahead, but not to forget what made us. And we want to take with
us lessons learned. We developed a big thinking brain, a brain over a brain
over a brain. That reptilian brain is at the base of your spine, is hungry,
scared, angry, and horny. The midbrain is responsible for memory, temperature,
heart rate, swallowing, sneezing, among many other things. Then we wrapped it
up in a pretty package, the Cerebral cortex, the place where miracles happen.
We carry quite a
package.
"Why did the
chicken cross the road?"
"Because his
reptilian brain told him to."
The Reptile Brain also
is where repeating patterns such as rituals, automatic responses without
conscious thought, predictability, fear of the unknown, fear of losing a job,
spouse, home, dying, lack of money, and lack of resources. All are anxiety and
trauma responses. It is where racism arises.
"The lizard brain
is the reason you're afraid, the reason you don't do all the art you can, the
reason you don't ship when you can. The lizard brain is the source of
resistance."—Seth Godin.
In The Dragons of Eden, Speculations on the
Evolution of Human Intelligence, Carl Sagan wrote:
"Despite
occasional welcome exceptions, this seems to me to characterize a great deal of
modern human bureaucratic and political behavior."
The way to deal with
the Reptilian brain is to realize when it has taken over.
Reptilian brains often
label people as crazy or unstable who willingly take a leap of faith and go for
it, like quitting their job and moving to another country.
These people acted
despite their reptilian brain – allowing them to experience life as it was
meant to be, free and boundless.
Eckart Tolle has a
trick to calm the reptilian brain:
Sit quietly, hands in
lap, and think of your hands. Notice you know they are there without looking.
Focus on them, and soon you will feel them tingle. You will feel energy in
them. After that, you can move to other parts of your body. And you can use
this at night when you want to go to sleep.
You are giving your
reptilian brain a pause.
After writing this
post, I understood my reason for doing the forested trail walks and talks.
Let’s say you are an
artist, and I believe everybody is. To perfect your craft, you practice. You
show up every day.
I view this travel through
life the same way. You show up every day—consciously. You find things that
uplift. You look for the good. You find ways to still your mind chatter; you
pull yourself back into alignment when you stray off the path.
I would love to have
you join me on Jewell's Happy Trails. The second video will be up before long.
It's better. (Try not to listen to my hugging and puffing in this first
one.)
You readers are
special to me.
Love, Jewell, aka Jo,
aka Joyce
Premiering
today:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC3pPWKU7N1VvVAHOClUSreA
P.S. After I get 100 subscribers I can have a personal URL which will be easier to remember.
