Lizard Brain or Wizard Brain

I often coach my clients on topics such as: willpower, emotional eating, and small steady changes. Really, at the core of this coaching is Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT). And, it is something that we can implement right away. Today, I want to talk a bit about CBT and how we can start sharing it with our families, even kids. 

The CBT triad says that thoughts create feelings create behaviors. Asking children about how they are feeling will empower them to trust themselves and their feelings. A huge skill that many adults do not have mastered.

When they can identify their feelings and you ask why they are feeling this way, they will tell you their thoughts. In order for us to create a different feeling, we have to think a different thought. When we ask, “What makes you feel better?” We are actually asking for new thoughts. This is an easy way to start implementing CBT on your own. This can become a typical conversation that you have with kids.

Why is this important?

When we are talking about overeating behaviors, they are most often emotionally-driven. If we can process our emotion, first by identifying what we are feeling… we can eliminate eating because we are sad, stressed, bored - insert your feeling.

Now, this won’t happen overnight. When we learn to eat emotionally, then we create a type of neuroplasticity that looks like this. Let’s say that Little Johnny was sad because he had no one to play with. So, his mom and dad felt bad and said, “Let’s go for ice cream.” Ice cream will typically release feel good hormones, so next time Johnny is sad, he will remember that ice cream made him feel better and he may ask for it.

This is probably a good time to talk about the wizard and the lizard brain.

The wizard part of our brain makes logical, practical decisions. The lizard part of our brain just wants immediate pleasure. When we repeatedly listen to our lizard brain, this is when we will form bad habits. Our wizard brain knows better, but the lizard brain can overpower it if we leave it unsupervised… if this goes on too long, this is when we start to believe that we do not have willpower.

But, we don’t ever actually have to use willpower if we can understand and implement the CBT triad. The CBT triad says that we can create beliefs with our thoughts that will drive a healthy behavior, rather than having nagging thoughts that will trigger our lizard brain to want a quick fix. When our wizard brain and our lizard brain are fighting, this is when we are using willpower. Willpower is not a long-term solution. Imagine if we can help ourselves and our families with this now. 

So… how about some homework?

I want you to notice your thoughts this week. Particularly, notice your urge to do something. When we are using our wizard brain, we have typically planned ahead of time to make a good decision. When we use our lizard brain, we are talking about the primitive thought pathway that wants pleasure ASAP. Notice what you use more of - wizard or lizard.

When we shift more towards wizard-driven actions, we will be creating good habits that will serve us. Realize that fatigue, stress, and alcohol will shift us more towards using our lizard brain. Use this time to just be aware.

Awareness is powerful.