1 Easy Way to Know You’re in Your Lizard Brain

I’m loving Seth Godin’s book, Linchpin. Consider giving it a read. He says one easy way to know your are using your Lizard brain (reptilian part of your brain) is to manufacture anxiety about people stealing your ideas. Read on to see how this applies.

As I danced to the music on the dance floor at Rhythm Sanctuary, the old song, Good Vibrations by The Beach Boys was mixed in to the electronic music.

“And the way the sunlight plays upon her hair…”

This line evoked inspiration in me to see others in that artistic, appreciative way. I suddenly immersed myself in love & admiration of those around me.

I wondered, how often do I suppress my love & joy & appreciation so that I can “tone it down” as my family often said, or protect myself from being vulnerable?

In that moment, there on the dance floor, I poured out every ounce of love I could muster & sent it towards those around me.

I fell in the with the beauty that we BE.

Soon, I had to stop dancing. It was all I could do to be still, in awe of the humans around me. The way we move, love, dress ourselves with beauty, annoint ourselves with smells & give ourselves over to be danced.

We each are so unique, yet so the same. A Course in Miracles says, “None of us is special and each of us is special.”

Given that many of us have been raised in similar cultures or societies, with the same media & messages & popular culture, similar schooling, etc. how much are we alike & how much are we truly different?

This question has been on my mind as of late, since a so-called “friend” wrote me a nasty note out of the blue.

She accused me of stealing all of her ideas, style & voice.  I was shocked.

She actually told me to find my own IDEAS and my own VOICE. As if all of mine are hers?

As if every blog post I’ve written here, or the novel I’ve been writing for a year, or everything I’ve shared on FB, is somehow, hers?

I wonder, is that even possible?

Firstly, I was shocked that someone in my community, who I know & have cared for & supported would choose to harbor resentment toward me and then lash out, with accusations & threats & no compassion, love, grace or tenderness. (Especially when she has a popular on-line presence all about being authentic & living a happy life & she’s a yogini too.)

Second, I was shocked that someone could be so fear based, so competitive, so threatened as to think that my work in the world, my love, my gifts, my contributions are somehow a threat to her????

Seth calls this our “Lizard brain.” We’d do well to stay out of it if we wish to share our work with the world. Cultivating anxiety about others stealing our ideas just keeps us from doing our work. And, it’s a fear-based reaction.

If we truly wish to get our art out into the world, we have to keep our eye on the prize & not get worked up about what others are doing in our perception. After all, your point of view is but one interesting point of view in a world of millions of possible views.

If we’re gonna make stuff up, we might as well make it inspiring.

John Lennon’s Imagine came on as I continued to dance on the dance floor.

Have you ever been influenced or inspired by music?

I wonder how many musicians appreciate & perhaps copied, to some respect, the music of the Beatles?

Is this not a question that is asked of great artists? Who inspired you? Who did you listen to as you grew up? Who influenced you?

This person actually said to me, “Feng Shui & clutter clearing my ass, Rachel.”

Did she invent Feng Shui & clutter clearing? If I now offer a service that someone else on the planet offers, I am copying them?

So, anyone who plays music is now stealing from the Beatles?

How self-obsessed, absorbed, or narcissistic does one have to be to assume that all my sharing, writing, voice, ideas, & offerings in my business are sourced from them? Think about that.

My truth is that I am not intentionally copying anyone. I am evolving & trying new things all the time & expand who I be & what I offer based on what I am learning in my life.

Yet, on the other side of that, are any of us truly original? Can any of us claim to have our own unique style & ideas, independent of the whole? I am influenced by your art, your beauty, your being, I can’t help but be.

Is this not how the divine expresses itself? Truth, beauty, goodness. 

As we become ever more connected via the internet, social media and the expansion of our consciousness and if we truly are to ever live as one, as John Lennon wrote, then will we not have to give up trying to prove that we are separate & distinct?

We will all always have our own unique blue-print or thumb-print, yet we are dependent upon the collective, we are all part of the one Mind of God as A Course in Miracles says.

Isn’t it in our nature to look to the beauty around us and appreciate it? Is it not the divine beauty in all things that is a pure reflection of the divine beauty that resides in us? Are we not mirrors for one another?

Life expresses through us in infinitely beautiful ways, yet it is always that one pure life-force, never altered, undefiled, pure & true. I can’t steal that from you. I can express it, but then it is not mine, nor was it ever yours- meant only to pass through like a river through the canyon; we are all but channels of the one infinite source.

The best we can do is be love. Channel that love and treat one another like we would want to be treated.

Go ye forth, and be love. Try to stay out of your lizard brain.

All my love,

xo

Rachel Claire

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