Why Turtle Diaries?
A few years ago, in my psychologist office we discussed the reptilian brain in humans and its function.
In short according to the Triune Brain model in Neuroscience we have three brains. The reptilian brain or primal brain is the basal ganglia and is what controls our innate and automatic self-preserving behavior patterns, which ensure our survival.
It’s our instinctive brain, our primal brain, sometimes called our “lizard brain”. This part of our brain is responsible for our flight, fawn, freeze and fight responses. It the brain that is formed by birth and control all our basic functions such as breathing, blinking, heart rate, flinching, digestion etc. So basically, all the functions we do not control consciously.
My psychologist and I discussed how my body, but specifically my “lizard” brain has kept me alive and that I need to make friends with it. See me and my “lizard” brain have a love hate relationship with each other as it’s so good at keeping me alive and functional, but also to good at it. It’s done its job now it needs to allow me to take some control of the situation. In essence its miss firing at stuff that’s not dangerous to me, or at least anymore. (Side note: My turtle is in complete disagreement with me here.)
So, in an effort to “make friends” with my nervous system my homework was to go and find my reptile brain a name. I sat with this for a long time. It is with no surprise to me that I ended up with a Turtle. I LOVE turtles and tortoises. I always have. I grew up Afrikaans and my first word was “kilpad” or skilpad which is a tortoise. The picture linked to this post is that of my first birthday cake, of course it was a tortoise. I grew up on a farm and we had wild berg tortoises come up to us all the time. I was in love and loved tortoises and turtles ever since. My first up close experience with tortoises was learning to deep sea dive and it’s still today one of my fondness memories.
So why the turtle. Turtles have interesting lives and by no means without danger. But they also have beautiful peaceful lives. For me this symbolized my life. The starting life of a turtle is terrifying. Only about 1 in 1000 eggs if not less according to scientists will make it to adulthood. Turtles don’t show particularly good skills when it comes to parenting, so its survival of the fittest. When they are on land its terrifying, dangerous, chaos. But once they are safe in (deep) water it’s a beautiful scene to watch.
Hence the birth of Turtle Diaries. The stories of my life on land and in water. I have to calm my “turtle” all the time and send it to water. I must remind myself that life happens both on land and in the water. It’s no coincidence either that my body feels safer to exercise in water than on land. See the link here? (Roll eyes)
I am very glad that I have my “Turtle” brain. It truly is my warning system; it has kept me alive and is still my screaming warning system. But now we understand one another and if I can just remember to listen to it most of the time, I will be better for it. See my “turtle” brain is a master at survival, I on the other hand am terrible at taking my own advice. But when I do, I can float and relax in the beautiful ocean of life.
Have you made friends with your reptilian brain? Its one of the first steps to healing a glitchy nervous system and to send it to safety.
Till next time.
