The Herky-Jerky Lizard

All right, and welcome back. Today, I want to share a little story about something I was recently up to.

Took a little personal retreat to do some deep men's work and shadow work with some guys I've been meeting with for a couple years now that have really moved the ball and changed a lot in my life. And blessedly, this was up in Northern California, beautiful retreat center, and got to spend a lot of time outdoors in the sun, in the forests. And there was one day I had a little downtime, just walking around a bit, and I just saw one of many countless little lizards running around.

And, you know, I had nothing to do. So I just decided to engage with this lizard and be with it for a little while. And it was kind of shooting across a small wood deck outside one of the yurts we would meet in. And as I was with it, you know, I really just became aware of and started to notice and even feel the energetics of MIT's movement my body.

And while not all lizards are like this, you'll often see many lizards move in a very linear and almost robotic, herky jerky like fashion, as I would call it. So in the instance of this little lizard that I was with, right, it would jerk its head to the left, jerk its head to the right, look up at me, look down, and its movements would tend to be swift, very directional, and kind of staccato, so not very smooth.

That's that herky jerky. And as I was with it, you know, I really just started to notice this polarity. And it was either in motion or still totally in motion or still totally in motion still. And I started to map that to parts of my own experience. Specifically, having been doing a lot of shadow work this weekend and touching old emotions and younger parts of myself, it occurred to me that this lizard was really just existing in flight or freeze.

So it was either totally frozen, not sure if I was safe, not sure what to do next, or moving, getting away flight. And there was no real middle ground. And it really just struck me how even though, you know, these ideas of the triune brain and we have a reptilian brain and a mammal brain and frontal cortex, which is kind of what makes us human, isn't actually true as the science has Continued to unfold over the last decades.

It's far more nuanced and complex than that. It's not as linear as one brain was put on top of another. And different parts of the brain can be used as different things and whatnot. But I think there's a sense that most of us have experienced of, am I coming from the fully conscious part of my brain or an unconscious or reactive part of my brain? And I really like the work of Dan Siegel here. We've been reading some of his books on parenting, and he kind of calls it upstairs brain and downstairs brain.

Downstairs brain tends to be part of us, just concerned with our survival. Upstairs brain tends to be the part of us that's, yeah, more conscious, more aware, can make choice, is aware of our awareness and whatnot. And with our little lizard, that part's not really there. It's really just that downstairs brain, so to speak. And specifically in that lizard's case, really just that freeze response or that flight response.

And not a whole lot of middle ground, Not a whole lot of nuance in between. And, you know, research is showing, you know, we often hear about fight, flight, or freeze, that even that's got some more nuance in terms of adaptive behaviors and what happens with people that. Yeah, it tends to be flight, freeze, fawn, and then maybe sometimes fight. Fight's kind of a different engagement level in a lot of ways.

But freeze is where we tend to just totally freeze and not move, try not to be noticed. Flight is just get away to safety. Fawn is a more complex adaptation where we try to befriend. Right, befriend, or make peace with or become agreeable to whatever the situation or attack or predator might be in fights, obviously, I'm not just gonna run away.

I'm gonna take you out. And, you know, these are natural impulses in all of us. These are natural impulses. At least flight and freeze are to the lizard. And as I was sitting with this and kind of why I'm chatting about this is just this realization that I'm still driven by these impulses myself. And all of us are. We have some of these basic tendencies inside of us of part of our system in any moments, like, I gotta get out of here or don't be noticed, freeze, stop, be safe.

And then the emergence of, you know, make friends, befriend fawn, or, yeah, sometimes fight. And that lizard, that binary, that polarity of it's this or that, this or that is a pretty exhausting way to live for us as humans, where we have more room, more space for fluidity, gray nuance. But how when we get stressed or overwhelmed, it's so easy to fall back into that kind of polarity.

Things are either a disaster or about to be. And then it takes real work, certainly has for me to open up more into the gray area. The gray space of it's not all a disaster or I'm not. My life's not actually at threat here. Just feels like it sometimes because yeah, there's certain traits, behaviors and adaptations we've all made over the generations to survive and that have often been handed down to us from our foremothers and forefathers and men's work, you know, and the practice of becoming more conscious and aware and embodied in the moment, I think is about moving away from the binaries.

It's all this or it's all that. It's all fight, it's all flight, it's all freeze, it's all fawn. In that we can bring a lot more consciousness to the middle ground. To really check out what's happening for me here and what's going to be the best response that I want to consciously make instead of just reacting from these more habitual kind of deep grooves in our brain chemistry that I do think, you know, at least at a deep structure wise.

Which means it's not necessarily on the outside of the brain, but on the inside of the brain. Yeah, some of the things that have helped animals survive for all of history still exist inside of us. We have those capabilities. And this upstairs, downstairs analogy, which I think is a little simpler and kind of obvious to understand when you start to see it in humans, is a great way to kind of move this work forward. And I see it all the time.

You know, I learned about it by reading parenting books and I totally see it with my kid of when her brain flips, she's in that downstairs brain, be it aggression or tears or anger or frustration or not getting what she wants. And there's no rationalizing her out of that at that point. She can't even really hear in the same way, the words coming in her brain just isn't there. And I still catch myself trying, trying to talk to her, trying to talk to that rational part of her brain even at three and a half years old, that just doesn't get it.

That's not online at that point. And that needs space and time to come back online. And more than anything else, often just needs connection. Right. Needs a little holding, needs a little eye contact which helps tip the scales and re Regulate the system so that upstairs brain can come back online. It's pretty wild to see it when she kind of comes back into her body, so to speak. And, you know, I've experienced this too, in intense moments, survival moments, moments of deep fear, moments of deep passion, you know, which what man out there hasn't had an experience sexually and realized afterwards, like, wow, part of me went offline there.

That was downstairs brain. That was not necessarily upstairs brain. And our work as men is not to get rid of the downstairs brain, but to keep that fluidity so we can move back and forth between the parts of our brain, between the parts of us that are just reacting, which sound awful, but are also the home of our impulses and our intuition and our kind of just deep knowing from our body. We want to have access to that, and there's absolutely a time and place for it.

And we want to have access to the rational part of ourselves that conceptualize ourselves, our thoughts, what's going on, provide context, be aware of the past, the present, and the future all at once. We want to have fluidity between all of that. And ideally, in a moment to moment basis where we're getting to use all parts of our brains upstairs and downstairs. I've found in my journey that this practice of mindfulness work, embodiment work, and shadow work are kind of my gym for doing that, where I get to access these different parts of my brain and sometimes trigger them, right?

Sometimes trigger the shadowy parts, sometimes trigger the downstairs brain, Sometimes get myself back into that state of feeling like a lizard. It's safe now. It's not safe now. It's safe now. It's not safe now. Safe now, it's not safe now so that I can start to work more of the gray area. Well, what does safe mean? Where do I already feel safe in this moment? How can I relax into this moment?

How can I recontextualize this moment? There's so much yoga or ways you can work that over time that are so powerful. As I came back from retreat, spending time with that little lizard and moved through the world, I started to just feel into people the same way and realize that how often we really are just running around like little lizards in that binary of it's safe or I got to get out of here safe, or I got to get out of here safe.

I got to get out of here. And how precious and amazing it is when we can drop into community that has access to more than that, that can support us in remaining fluid between our upstairs and downstairs brain. Between the parts of us that are just fighting for our survival and maintaining our systems and constantly looking for threats, and the parts of us that can be aware of connection and safety and love and take that bigger conceptual picture of where we're at in each and every moment of our lives.

So when does your little lizard show up? Invite you to take some time this week to be with yourself and notice how you move through the world and when are you moving through the world in that herky jerky kind of flight or freeze lizard like way? And what would it mean to maybe soften that up a little bit and engage more in the gray area of activating both parts of your brain to be able to stay tapped in using your intuition absolutely tracking your safety and survival and bringing online even more that context, that awareness, that awareness of your awareness and that ability to open in connection to others.

Be super curious what you find about when your lizard shows up. Definitely let me know. Shoot me an emailasonvolutionary men or contact me at my website. Until next time. If you're interested in working with me around dating, relationships or your masculine presence in the world, just go to Evolutionary men. Apply.