I lived on Spaceship Amygdala for the first thirty years of my life. I traveled to all kinds of stressed out, anxious, addicted, terrifying and highly reactive places while traveling on Spaceship Amygdala. What a ride! The exhausting thing about traveling around on Spaceship Amygdala was that it never took me to the calmer and more satisfying places where I really wanted to go. Instead, it took me in dangerous directions where I felt like I was continually stressed out and under threat.
Everyone I knew was also traveling on Spaceship Amygdala so I never knew I could get off the ship. I thought that Spaceship Amygdala was the only way to get to where I wanted to go even though I always seemed to be landing in a bar or emergency room or trying not to hyperventilate and shake while pulled over in my car on the side of the road. Every time I realize that I am no longer flying around on Spaceship Amygdala I feel so grateful that I want to get down on my knees and kiss the ground.
The amygdala is that part of our brain which deals with emotional reactions, memory and decision making. It is a part of our limbic system, which is the part of our brain we share in common with most animals. Anything that has to do with our behavioral fear response, such as anxiety, worry, emotional reactivity, stress- is the result of an amygdala that is overactive (functioning abnormally). The amygdala functions to keep animals and humans alive when dealing with very real predators in the wild. But if our amygdala is continually sending us into chronic fear reactions (fight/flight) when there is no real threat in our immediate reality (other than the thoughts in our head and symptoms in our body) it is often because our amygdala is not working right. It is perceiving a threat when there is no real threat present (this is what PTSD is). This is why when we are traveling on Spaceship Amygdala it can be a really long, frightening and uncomfortable trip.
Imagine being on an airplane that was continually bumping you around, sending you into cold sweats, agitation, elevated blood pressure, and palpitations, when there was no real weather-related reason to do so. Maybe the plane had experienced some real turbulence in its past, but now when there is no real turbulence the plane still cannot stop bumping you all around. This is what being on Spaceship Amygdala is like. It scares you and stresses you out even though there is no real threat present.
Many people take various drugs to calm themselves down when traveling on Spaceship Amygdala. Sometimes this works. Those who work in the control tower day and night trying to keep Spaceship Amygdala on a straight flight path recommend that when on board Spaceship Amygdala you should try focusing on your breathing and use mindfulness techniques to calm down. Those in the control tower realize that Spaceship Amygdala may never stop bumping people around but they also know that people on board are not in the life-threatening situation that they feel like they are in!
Fortunately, new policies are being implemented so that there are more employees on board Spaceship Amygdala coaching passengers on very effective, scientifically validated mindfulness-based practices that people can use to prevent themselves from becoming overly reactive. These practices are proving very effective for keeping people from freaking out every time Spaceship Amygdala bumps them around.
There are also ways to get off Spaceship Amygdala for good and climb on Spaceship Frontal Lobe (which is a much smoother, more satisfying way to travel) but these ways often require much more effort and discipline than passengers want to give. Most passengers on board Spaceship Amygdala still do not seem to realize that they do not have to be getting so stressed out all the time, but they often do not want to change. Such is the nature of space travel. But I am happy to report that now more than ever, some passengers seem to be fed up with getting bumped around all the time and are learning healthier ways of coping with the stress of traveling around on Spaceship Amygdala.
From my forthcoming book, “No Bullshit Mindfulness.”
