The best way to make behaviour change impossible

There is a part of the brain that measures exactly when we are dehydrated, missing certain vitamins, low on oxygen and a bunch of other stuff and then it motivates us to act accordingly.

What part and how is not important now but I think it’s worth thinking about whether it’s true that this staggeringly mind blowing machinery somehow stores fat by accident because we somehow found ourselves with a malfunctioning one?

Or is it more likely that we are storing fat because given the current internal and external environment it is in fact the best thing to do right now in order to ensure survival?

There is a part of the brain that constantly scans the external environment to assess social safety.

It notices hormonal, postural, tonal and pitch changes in others and then changes how we feel in order to guide us towards making decisions that might save ours or even our children’s lives all without us being consciously aware of it.

Again, I won’t go into detail here but the important question I think is,

Is it more likely that this incredible piece of equipment is broken in some way, that we somehow have to contend with a lazy, demotivated, angry, shy, anxious, overwhelmed, depressed or stressed model?

Or is it more likely that these feelings are alarms screeming for attention and pointing to threats in the environment that need closer inspection and safety creating around them?

I’m not saying that the brain doesn’t make false interpretations of the environment, it does, all the time.

I’m not saying that it doesn’t create habits that served it once and now the side effect has created greater problems than the one it was seeking to solve.

This happens too.

But the important thing to know is that the story of broken, malfunctioning, weak willed, lazy or that we need to man up (woman up) in anyway aren’t just wrong.

They are VERY WRONG

They cause us to look towards an approach that will NEVER resolve the problem while also re-enforcing the idea that we are somehow not enough.

Not good enough, smart enough, disciplined enough, and don’t want it enough and a whole bunch of other not enough’s that just aren’t true.

In fact we can have all of the health, happiness and success we desire, we just have to observe and integrate all of the threats.