Triggers and solutions to Gates-Crowley
I read Desidero's standout piece read the actual statements as well as Wattree's blog and saw President Obama weigh in as well as walk it back a bit. These two triggered one another.
What happens then? When you're triggered, you can't respond with the logical part of your brain, heart, or other compassion circuitry in your system. The signal gets sent directly to the reptile in there, and your reptilian brain can eat it's own young. It's bad for pretty much everyone, unless it's a true emergency. Maybe TheraP can explain in more depth.
Advertisers know this - they design ads to hit multiple triggers, so before you know it, you're in the store, clicking "buy", in the restaurant horking down a hamburger, or at the bar inhaling an ice-cold gimlet before your better angels can return to the bridge and order, "wait a minute, it's much better for your being to go for a short sunset walk. Off with the TV, please." (Or perhaps the blog, for that matter...)
Political advertisers especially know this - so it is a major testament to the collective consciousness that more of us were thinking rather than watching when we elected Obama last fall. (Perhaps more of those that weren't were lifted up by "yes we can" rather than those scared by the Wright-McCain 9/11 riot refrains as they rushed to the polls.)
The good news is there is a gap - between the instant the buzzer goes off and the time the snake takes over. It's been shown that meditation widens the gap.
So, let's get back to health care, energy and other far more important items. If we do this work, will we be able reach for salad rather than a soda? Save rather than whip out the credit card? Walk rather than drive?
What else do you do to widen the gap and give the logical brain or compassionate heart a chance at the captain's chair before the system goes into arrest?
And how do you get us to do more of it? (Struggling with this one myself!)
Anyone?
Update - Wattree's commentary - the first link may not work right...
What happens then? When you're triggered, you can't respond with the logical part of your brain, heart, or other compassion circuitry in your system. The signal gets sent directly to the reptile in there, and your reptilian brain can eat it's own young. It's bad for pretty much everyone, unless it's a true emergency. Maybe TheraP can explain in more depth.
Advertisers know this - they design ads to hit multiple triggers, so before you know it, you're in the store, clicking "buy", in the restaurant horking down a hamburger, or at the bar inhaling an ice-cold gimlet before your better angels can return to the bridge and order, "wait a minute, it's much better for your being to go for a short sunset walk. Off with the TV, please." (Or perhaps the blog, for that matter...)
Political advertisers especially know this - so it is a major testament to the collective consciousness that more of us were thinking rather than watching when we elected Obama last fall. (Perhaps more of those that weren't were lifted up by "yes we can" rather than those scared by the Wright-McCain 9/11 riot refrains as they rushed to the polls.)
The good news is there is a gap - between the instant the buzzer goes off and the time the snake takes over. It's been shown that meditation widens the gap.
So, let's get back to health care, energy and other far more important items. If we do this work, will we be able reach for salad rather than a soda? Save rather than whip out the credit card? Walk rather than drive?
What else do you do to widen the gap and give the logical brain or compassionate heart a chance at the captain's chair before the system goes into arrest?
And how do you get us to do more of it? (Struggling with this one myself!)
Anyone?
Update - Wattree's commentary - the first link may not work right...
