Imagine the shadow in this picture is my Adult and the very subtle pattern in the rivulet represents my three Child Brain Habits. It’s not easy to step out and take a picture of what happens in your brain. Let’s try to help you get a picture of these brain habits to help your Adult catch them at work.
To reach mental fitness your Adult needs all the help it can get to manage your own fight-or-flight reactions and then try to cope with the people and activities in your life. When it knows what to expect from your mind it can do this better. It’s pretty easy for your Adult to recognize a toxic belief and the Parent laying it on your Child, especially when you’ve learned what the most common beliefs are. Your Child’s plunge into fight-or-flight can be felt in your body and almost heard in its usual complaints of I can’t stand it and this is unbearable. Your Child Brain Habits are more difficult to identify and overcome.
These deeply imbedded ancient brain habits must have been helpful during times when our Adults had to recognize threats very quickly for survival. Speed must have been more important than accuracy then. I’ve named them Child Brain Habits because young children’s smaller, immature brains naturally use them to interpret what’s happening. They are: black-and-white thinking, personalization and over-generalization. When your Adult learns to catch them quickly, it can head off a whole lot of drama at its root.
These three brain habits share many of the same characteristics:
1) Since they’re evident in very young children and other mammals, they were probably wired-in for our protection early in human evolution.
2) They persist throughout your life, despite Adult efforts to retrain your mind.
3) Each one can have a broader impact on you than a toxic belief.
4) They each lead your Adult in a direction that sabotages it.
5) Since they’re constantly available, they appear in many situations without being noticed.
6) Each one influences you in more than one way, making it harder to identify and overcome it.
7) They set off many of your Toxic Beliefs, which can’t be permanently revised without also combatting the underlying brain habit.
8) Often more than one brain habit occurs at a time.
You can practice recognizing these habits in yourself, but it’s fascinating to see them play out among others. They’re pervasive in political discussion, religious theory, committee interactions and any time people come together. It’s helpful practice for your Adult to look for them when you’re not involved, on television or in movies or when just listening to others. These habits are deceptively simple and even those with the strongest Adult can fall under their influence.
It can be depressing to recognize how really fragile our human grip on reality is while you see people embrace these habits with passion and conviction. At a certain point, however, it’s refreshing to have your Wise Parent help you keep your perspective. To build this Parent’s wisdom, it’s fun to find wise quotes from others who have found ways to handle these primitive traits in your human nature. Sometimes you’ll even find yourself laughing at how absurd it can get, even for yourself.