Danger is imminent and activates the frontal lobes that function as our executive level of higher functioning. Cognitive skills include monitoring and organizing our thoughts from going down a slippery slope. Our frontal lobes manage impulse control and problem-solving skills, expressive language, and memory. Shame recycling in our brains repeatedly changes the neural pathways, damaging brain tissue and impairing our frontal lobes’ best performance and functioning.
Deep within the limbic system of our brain is the amygdala, which is highly useful in detecting threats and danger. This is the brain’s fight, fight, or freeze center. This tiny but mighty amygdala in our brain can shrink under chronic stress. This part of our brain is responsible for processing and regulating emotions.
While this small part of our brain is processing, it has also encoded previous memories like the here-and-now of what’s occurring at any given moment. While your brain may be detecting and encoding a shameful memory, you get thrown into a pattern of either fight, fight, or freeze, and your frontal cortex goes offline while the amygdala takes over.
If your brain is offline, you’re not available to be at your best performance or speak to your needs and, nonetheless, your partners. You cannot comfort and empathize with your partner when she desperately needs your fully functioning brain. She needs you to be available to put your needs on hold and help her heal. Your amygdala has detected danger and is ready to move on your behalf, and unless you can recognize the incoming threat and slow it down, shame, fear, and other emotions take on an overstimulated mind and body.
It is like your brain has been hijacked; you are unable to think and respond clearly. Using the 6-second breath in and breath out rule is like allowing your brain to work on your behalf. It breaks down the toxic chemicals in your brain. Take a deep breath in for six seconds, and breathe out the toxic shame for six seconds. Taking vitamins and Omega-3 fatty acids( brain food), going for walks (moving your body can alter your brain), and having all checks and balances in your recovery protocol promote a healthier limbic system and a calmer you.
I love Daniel Siegel’s works on interpersonal neurobiology, a field that helps us understand the mind and mental health. Dr. Siegel’s hand model of the brain structure shows the amygdala deep inside our brain within the limbic system.
The fingers represent the prefrontal cortex, our thinking, rational, and emotional brain. The thumb represents the limbic system deep within the mid-center of the brain. This part of our brain reacts under stress, access to pre-frontal lobe activity is limited, and functioning is as though our cerebral brain is offline. When our brains are offline, we lose the ability to think constructively and positively and operate from a place of high emotion, hence shame. You have lost your full potential to connect to the highly functional, rational, thinking brain and, therefore, unable to give your very best to your partner. It never goes well when both of you have a “flipped lid.”
The flipped lid, as Siegel refers to a brain offline (the image where the four fingers are up and not cupped over the thumb/limbic system), commands a reaction from the limbic system; it screams danger! A threat to your mind and body. You temporarily do not have full access to your rational and thinking pre-frontal cortex, which allows you to process and reflect incoming information (the image that looks like a fist); this is how it operates when brain parts are on board and talking to each other. Knowing yourself in this process is essential, as well as what shows up for you when you “flip your lid.” How does your shame play into this? Do you shut down, freeze, fight, or flee in shame? What is your pattern? Know how to restore a fully engaged self that can be clear, concrete, and concise in what needs to be communicated and done in those difficult moments when your partner’s reaction triggers you. If nothing else, breathe in and out nice and slowly. Things don’t go well when both partners get triggered by each other’s triggers.