Living with His Inner Warrior
© 2007 Take the Lid Off Inc Patricia Wall Published Healthy Directions Magazine, Oct/Nov 2007
Women are pretty wise about how men tick, and how to live with them. Women don’t usually find men nearly as mysterious as men find women. Most guys are socialized to civilized behavior, except during play-off games involving their team or camping trips. However, the primitive programs of the inner warrior may be affecting the males in your life more than you think.
Primitive programs operate below thought, and below consciousness, which means their effects are subliminal unless you know the signs. Consider a man who drives to work regularly. Perhaps on his way to work there is a four-way stop sign. Everyone knows how people behave at four-way stop signs: there are the inch-ahead cautious types, the ones who feint and retreat in case it’s not really their turn, and the aggressive types who barrel through. No big deal, drivers can cope.
But the primitive brain of a male creature is programmed to seek status in the tribe and to handle threats – and the primitive brain is neither rational nor practical. Its basic functions consider a spear appropriate for most events, and view the world as if it were populated by great hairy beasts that eat people. The primitive limbic subconscious views all the world as a potential threat, regardless of the attitude of the man’s civilized cognitive brain.
All it takes to trigger a primitive threat reaction is one driver cutting off the man at the four way stop sign. The primitive brain efficiently registers the stop sign as a threat to his status, and creates a subconscious association between threat and stop sign. A threat reaction floods his body with chemistry like adrenaline and cortisol. Depending on his reaction type, this will trigger either irritability, emotional withdrawal, or distraction.
Primitive programs are designed to anticipate potential threats (so that the spear is deployed before the hairy beast eats anyone.) Therefore, an association with a threat will produce threat reaction chemistry in advance. Formation of gestalts is a technical way of saying that associations accumulate and intensify. If the man drives to work and encounters that four-way stop sign regularly, his reactions will become more irritable, withdrawn, or distracted. The reaction will occur in anticipation of the threat, whether or not anyone actually cuts him off at the stop sign. As accumulations occur, the threat reaction chemistry will flood his body earlier and earlier in his morning.
Consider how that affects your morning coffee time. Over time, your guy is becoming more irritable, or more withdrawn, or more distracted. In the morning rush, this is not an advantageous state. It’s definitely not good company. Good luck trying to have any kind of real conversation when he’s in that state.
Of course wise women investigate these behaviors obliquely, because a direct question of ‘What’s wrong with you?’ generally produces the all-helpful response of ‘Nothing.’ But even creative questions like ‘How did you sleep?’ or ‘Did that garbage truck wake you?’ or ‘Is there anything special going on at work?’ won’t get useful information about his bad mood, because his cognitive brain has no idea what is going on.
His cognitive brain will rationalize, and come up with some explanation like ‘I hate my job’ or ‘The traffic is brutal.’ He’d have to know how his subconscious functions to be able to say ‘My body is flooded with threat reaction chemistry because my subconscious considers that four-way stop sign a war zone.’ Since that information sounds unlikely to the rational, cognitive brain, he might even deny the possibility that his emotional state is being dictated by cave man programs. Actually, he’d probably just deny he was having an emotional state altogether, since emotions are generally considered a threat to status, too.
With a moment’s thought, you can probably make a list of a dozen situations in your man’s day that would trigger such a primitive response. It could be any situation that involves an assessment of performance, or conflict, or competition. Obviously some guys have learned to wind down from these floods of threat chemistry, especially if they go to the gym or run. Threat chemistry is designed to cope with fighting, fleeing, or hiding, so it naturally dissipates with physical activity.
Threat chemistry, and subsequent pessimistic moods, can also be dissipated with techniques for releasing the threat state from the body. A simple directed meditation can be used to release threat chemistry because the subconscious mind cannot distinguish a meditation from reality. Even a guy who thinks meditation is silly can usually relate to this type of directed process. It’s simple and quick enough to do whenever needed.
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Sit quietly and breathe slowly for a moment to quiet your thoughts. Music that appeals, whether it’s quiet or rock and roll, can help keep your focus.
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Imagine a ball of light spinning around and through your body, either clockwise or counterclockwise. Think about the light melting away the tension of your day.
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Think about one situation during your day that involved conflict, competition, or evaluation. Imagine a fantasy outcome to that situation that just blows away any remaining tension. For example, you can imagine quitting your job to escape the evaluation, or punching an aggressor in the nose, or winning the competition situation. Since this is fantasy, there are no limits. Your goal is to release any trapped reaction chemistry, not to make a mess of your life with aggressive behavior. This is strictly a meditation.
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As you imagine the releasing outcome, think of the light flowing through your body and whisking away any reaction chemistry and reaction emotion that may be lingering. Let the light keep spinning and whisking until your body feels relaxed.
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Repeat for any other situations from your day.
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When you feel done release the light and take a moment to acknowledge in your thoughts that the situation doesn’t have to bother you any more, because you’ve dealt with it. Even if there is stress tomorrow, for today it’s over. Take your restored good humor to your family and your life, and have a much better day.
This method also works for stress in a woman’s day. You can learn more about stressors and solutions, by clicking here for the relationship workshop.
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