Primal Tension

Key Takeaways for the Reader (from the article):

• Discover the "Motivational Triad": Learn the three core drives of your lower brain and how they shape your actions.
  
• Identify Primal Tension in Your Life: Understand how the brain's ancient programming for survival manifests in modern-day behaviors like procrastination and resistance to change.
  
• Recognize the ABCs of Primal Tension: Explore how this programming leads to Apathy, Boredom, and Criticism in your life.
  
• Gain Self-Awareness: Understand why you might resist new habits or blame others, and how to start navigating these tendencies.
  
• Anticipate Future Solutions: Get a glimpse into how to overcome these primal urges and move towards action, belief, and connection (to be discussed in the next episode).
  

Alright, so let's suit up here. Let's suit up and be ready for primal tension and the pull of the lower brain, the second installment in the foundation series that we're working on right now. When I refer to the pull of the lower brain, we're going to talk about this in terms of a motivational triad. Our lower brains, or our ancient brains (some people refer to it as the reptilian brain), can be distilled into three core agendas:

1. Conserve energy
2. Avoid pain
3. Pursue pleasure

That's it. Our lower brains are programmed for this. So we're going to spend some time on each of these things and kind of break it down and show how it relates to the model that I talked about in the prior episode, the CTFAR model of circumstances, thoughts, feelings, actions, and results. We'll find that primal tension, which is the term I use to describe the pull of the lower brain—primal tension, okay? Ancient, undeniable programming of our brain to conserve energy, avoid pain, and pursue pleasure—that is primal tension, and it impacts how we show up in the world all the time. And while we can't get rid of it, if we know about it, we can learn how to navigate it and push past it.

Conserving Energy

Let's talk about conserving energy for starters. Case in point, your brain has a job, and that is to keep you alive and to do so by expending the least amount of energy possible. What we have in our brains right now is programming that worked for millennia upon millennia upon millennia, deep, deep, deep in ancient history, where resources were more scarce. Actual threats to our lives were more prevalent, and we were operating within the fight-or-flight response way more often than we are now. And what I mean by that is actual threats. Nowadays, for many of us, the threats are much different, and our brains like to hype them up as though they're the types of threats that our ancestors used to experience, like immediate threat to their lives, hand-to-hand combat, stuff like that. I acknowledge that still happens in a lot of the world. But for many of us, the fight-or-flight situation is just overactive, and we could do well to bring some awareness to it.
For many of us, access to resources isn't a huge issue the way it was before, but our brains are still operating in this manner: if you're alive, then everything's fine. We don't need to do anything different than what we're doing now. Let's conserve energy. Everything's fine just the way it is.

How this sort of plays out in our lives is we tend not to pursue the things that we really want in life because, hey, let's stay the same. Our brain tells us, "Everything's good just like this. No need to change anything." You see it show up in little areas of life. It just happened to me. It's happened a few times today, actually. I was thinking about getting out of bed sooner than I did. I don't work today, so it's okay. I hung out a little bit longer. Normally, I leave the house at 5:15 a.m. So today I got out of bed a little bit later than that, but I hung around in bed longer than I really needed to, because guess what? Everything was fine. I'm alive. Things are good, no need to change anything. Let's just stay doing what we're doing, which is lying in bed.

I did get around to going for a jog, and when I was done and preparing to record this podcast, I was bringing my jogging clothes out to the back porch where our laundry setup is, and realized, "Oh, there's some laundry in the dryer and some in the washer." And I was just going to leave my clothes out there in the dirty hamper, and it was like, "Oh, I'll just handle this later." Again, why? Because the programming in my brain says, "Conserve energy. It will take a little bit of extra time to do this right now. Let's just wait." Your brain's always going to tell you, "Just wait, just wait. We'll do it, but we'll wait." It is very tricky like this. Our brains are very persuasive, and they sort of have us figured out, if you will. "Oh, don't worry, we'll just wait. It's not that we're not going to do it. It's just that we're going to wait. We'll wait a little longer."

These are just a couple examples of how our brains are programmed to conserve energy and how it shows up and manifests itself. It will manifest itself in terms of spending effort getting to know people or to deepen your relationships with your family. It'll show up in terms of career development. Now these are all areas in which you're not required to do anything, but if you decide that you want to and you meet some resistance, the initial resistance is conserving energy here.
There's another element to this. So not only is it just about taking the effort to do something, but our brains like to automate things as much as possible. Hand-eye coordination, muscle memory—you go through motions and do things on a day-to-day basis once you're in a certain routine that almost feel as though you don't have to think about it to do it. That's a good place to be in.

When you start a new job, you don't have anything like that going on. You're not certain of all the processes and procedures and decision trees that you need to engage with. It takes a few months to get some of that stuff down, and sometimes even a little bit longer. I noticed that very specifically in my new job in the hospital lab, where I don't know how anything works. It's a totally new computer system, multiple new computer systems. At first, it feels very strange and it feels challenging and difficult. The reason why is my brain hasn't been able to automate any of this environment at all; there's zero automation as to what to do. I don't have neural pathways laid down for any of these behaviors and actions that are required in this environment. So now that I've been there, I was thinking about this a couple of days ago, "Wow, it feels a lot more comfortable than it used to. My brain is getting on to this. It's getting the hang of this. Thanks, brain. Appreciate you for going to town and making this happen for me. This feels a lot easier now." The nature of the job itself has not changed whatsoever. It's just that my brain has laid down neural pathways and automated a lot of this so that I can go through the actions without having to sit and think about what to do as much. That's all thanks to the lower brain. It's a good thing, but it's something to be aware of. It's very useful to be aware of it.

It also comes into play when you're in the middle of a certain task; your brain just kind of wants to keep doing that. "Let's just do this. This is the mode that we're in. Let's not change. Let's just keep doing this." And what I mean by that is let's say you're trying to introduce some exercise into your routine or change your eating habits, or you want to set up like a new weekly thing with your family where you're going to, say, do family home evening or something. But you haven't really been in a huge habit of whatever it is you're trying to change. Your brain doesn't want to switch gears. You're already in a habit of another way of living, another series of events that your brain is used to. Automation has been set up around it; neural pathways have been laid down.

Same thing goes for your emotional state or your general emotional vibe, or, as I've talked about this in a previous episode, your emotional playlist. We have certain thoughts that we tend to think about different elements of our life, and because our thoughts create our feelings, we have a routinized emotional playlist, if you will. You feel a certain way in the morning on the way to work. You're thinking the same thoughts about it. Same thing happens while you're there. You have routine thoughts and routine feelings while you're there. You get home at night, same routine; you have similar thoughts, similar feelings about everything, and it's just sort of on rinse and repeat. So if we want to change something up, if we want to change the way we think about something, how we feel about something, or we want to introduce a new routine or learn something new, our brain in essence isn't interested in that because it's a change to the pattern. We're switching gears now. "Everything's fine the way it is." And really, by definition of the lower brain's agenda, if you are alive, then everything that you're doing right now is fine just the way it is. "Let's not change it. Everything's fine."

When Brittany and I started talking about relocating to Hawaii from Utah, our brain was thrown all kinds of red flags up like, "Oh, well, why would we do that? That's a lot of work. That's a lot of effort. Everything's fine just the way it is. Everything is fine. Don't change it." According to the metrics and what's important to the lower brain, everything was fine. Everything was perfect. Why change it? And for many family and friends, same thing for them. Our changing this element changes their life too, so their brain doesn't like that. And plus, we're just super lovable and we smell really good and all that kind of stuff, and we're just great to be around, you know? So naturally, people are devastated that they don't get to be around our cool vibe as much, right? It's more over a video call right now, but that's what's going on there.

Our brains don't like changes. It's okay. Changes aren't bad. Changes aren't good. Changes are neutral. Remember, they're a circumstance. It's the story that we assign to the circumstance that causes how we feel. So the changes in and of themselves mean nothing. But generally, when we are seeking to make a change in our life, we're only doing it because of how we think it's going to make us feel. And you don't have to wait to actually make the change to have a version of that feeling going on. I will say, when I'm out doing a jog a couple of times a week down this coastline over here, seeing the ocean and the beautiful cliffs and all the plants, it's just a really pristine sight. I have been there in my mind for years. When I would go out jogging in Utah, there were times I was convinced in my mind that I was already in Hawaii running, and now I'm doing the thing that I used to imagine, and I was sort of vibing into it and experiencing it before it actually happened. I'll admit it's a lot more amazing in person than imagining it, but you can start to experience the benefits of things before you actually get there, so to speak.

So that's all I think I need to say for now about rule number one of the lower brain's agenda, of conserving energy. Pay attention to that. Notice that in your life. You'll see it everywhere.

Avoiding Pain

The second one is avoid pain. Avoid physical pain. Avoid emotional pain. Really, it's the emotional pain in so many situations that our brain is trying to protect us from. Pain to the brain is equivalent with death. Your brain will tell you, "Don't do that. We could die. We don't know what's on the other side of that. We don't know all that's going to be. We don't know all the details of that situation. Let's just stay away from it. There could be pain there. There's potential pain, and if there's potential pain, then let's just stay away from it," right? Again, rooted in ancient realities and needs, our brain is trying to keep us alive, and hey, that's a good thing. I want to be alive. My brain's helping me do it. But the "avoiding pain" piece is overused. It really is.

Pay attention to this in your life. If you are thinking about making a change in your life, your brain is going to tell you there could be pain. And what was interesting when talking about relocating to Hawaii, a lot of the sentiment of what people would say was, "Oh, it could be painful for you in this way or that way." And ultimately there was, and in their own brains, "No doubt this change is going to cause pain for me when my loved ones make this change." And there was certainly some of that going on too. And that's okay. That is totally okay. These realities of the lower brain and the fact that they impact us don't have any meaning until we decide to assign some meaning to them. These are just things that are important to know about as we try to navigate decisions in our lives.

I like to think of the lower brain as very much like Batman, in that the lower brain is sneaky. Not for the sake of being sneaky, but the lower brain is just very good at achieving the agenda of conserving energy, avoiding pain, and pursuing pleasure. So very stealthy, very persuasive, very good at what it does. A lot of tools in the tool belt, so to speak, like Batman's tool belt, and trying to sell us on the idea that making this change in your life is going to be painful, or going to the store is going to be painful, going on a jog will be painful, changing your eating habits in any way, that could be painful. We don't really want that, do we? So just pay attention to that. It's a very active element going on. "Oh, don't talk to them about that. Let's not have that conversation with this person because it could be painful," right?

Every time one of our kids gets into like fifth, sixth grade and they start sending out those announcements about the maturity talks and everything like that, I think to myself, "Okay, I need to... it's time to have a follow-up conversation with my kid about some of this stuff and provide some insights." And it's never super fun, you know? It's not fun for them. It's not fun for me, but at least in the end they know they're not alone as they go through their life and go through maturity, adolescence, and everything like that. At least they know they're not alone. At least they get that out of it. But it doesn't... it never has felt easy to talk about it. My brain likes to make it painful, "Oh, so you put it off," or you make it more awkward maybe than it needs to be. I like to take my kids to the steakhouse, and we have manly talks. I'm sure they would love that I put that out there, but yeah. I try to make it fun, you know, whatever, doing my best. But think about this when it comes to avoiding pain, the worst thing that can happen to you is a painful emotion. So what, we can do that? Really? We can.

Pursuing Pleasure

Now, number three in the motivational triad is to pursue pleasure. Pursue it specifically as it pertains to food and sex. We need food to stay alive; we need sex to propagate the species, or anything related thereto, okay? Again, this is all around keeping the species alive, the motivational triad of the lower brain, primal tension. Primal tension here. It's the pull of the lower brain. It's kind of like gravity, if you will, keeping us in the orbit of the human experience, so to speak. There's a lot more to it, a lot more to the human experience than primal tension, but understanding it I think helps give us some grace around why we do some of the things that we do or why we avoid some of the things that we avoid, and it doesn't mean anything about you as an individual. It just means something about the physical body and the physical mind that you've inherited. It's just part of the experience.

So when it comes to pursuing pleasure, we are not strangers to the reality that access to food and other resources doesn't seem to be a huge issue in this day and age. Most of us can get ice cream if we want it, right? Our ancient ancestors certainly didn't have that. Darn shame too. I hope that in the resurrection... I hope that a lot of them have had the chance to eat ice cream since they were resurrected, just saying. It seems only fair, you know, after living through the craziness that they did, that they should get to have a bowl of ice cream at some point.

But the pursuing the pleasure piece, once we're in an environment where we seem to be safe, there's nothing painful that we need to flee from, no immediate threats, you know, we're good there. Once we're in a safe environment, well, now you get bored. You get bored. So if you're bored, what do you do? This means, hey, we've got to eat, and we've got to propagate the human race, or do things your brain is just programmed to go after those things. So that's why the porn industry exists. That's why the high-sugar-content foods that exist are out there. These food companies spend so much money trying to find just the right crunchiness, just the right sweetness, just the right amount of saltiness to really just trigger an enjoyable experience so that you keep coming back for more. Ah, so tasty.

The ABCs of Primal Tension

So there you have it. This is primal tension: conserve energy, avoid pain, pursue pleasure. This is always active. This is the telestial condition in which we're in. This is the mortal condition. This is active, just like gravity. It's always present. In and of itself, not bad; in and of itself, not good. It's just neutral. It's just how it is.

But in our day and age, for most of us, where resources are available in relative abundance, and physical threats to our safety generally speaking are relatively low, if nonexistent, there are three outcomes in our life that manifest. And these are really important. I call these the ABCs of primal tension:

1. Apathy
2. Boredom
3. Criticism

Because we are programmed to conserve energy, and if we're not involved in fight or flight, we just have a tendency to be apathetic about improving things. Why should we improve anything if we're already alive? Technically, we don't need to. That's what our lower brain's telling you. Making any kind of change in your life, be it a career thing, relationship mending, pursuing better physical health, some better habits that will promote your well-being, lower brain doesn't care. And apathy is what manifests.

And yet, like I said before, you get bored as long as you're safe, as long as you're alive. Well, because you don't care really about pursuing improving anything, you're bored. Well, now it's time to pursue pleasure. And that's what happens.
And then there's criticism. This is really kind of a fascinating one. Because of the programming of the lower brain, because of primal tension, we are geared to and prone to looking for what is wrong around us, because if there's something wrong, that means it's potential pain, it could lead to death. Or not only that, but criticism manifests because we're trying to conserve energy, and we don't want to make the effort to improve something that should be someone else's job, okay? We become critical of others, critical of the world at large, and this is very fascinating. We make everything other people's problem. If anything needs to be improved, if anything could be improved or changed, it should be outsourced to someone else.

If you are feeling upset because of a story you're telling yourself, and the story you're telling yourself is, "My kid doesn't come home on time, and they should. They should, and they're not, and this is horrible. I'm being disrespected. They should change." Ask yourself why you think they should change. So you can feel better. Be honest. Take a look at that. It's so you can feel better. You can't deny that deep down that's really what you're after. There's a story you're telling yourself that hurts, and you've decided that the other person needs to change so that you can feel better. Why do you make it them that needs to change? Because you're trying to conserve energy. Your lower brain wants to outsource other people doing work so that you don't have to. That's what the lower brain is programmed to do.

So other people are going to do what they're going to do, and I'm all for protecting yourself if boundaries are being violated, if someone's physically harming you, verbally assaulting you, all that kind of stuff that says something about them. They obviously have an issue. You should protect yourself from that and get away from that. What I'm speaking to definitely applies to help us navigate those kinds of situations. They're behaving the way they are because they're very rooted in the lower brain's tendencies and kind of being overcome by them, in my opinion. It would be certainly part of what's going on there. But being aware of primal tension has so much useful application in just the little day-to-day things that bother us.
If you have a coworker that seems pretty consistently disagreeable or cranky—we've all experienced that over the years. Maybe you're that particularly disagreeable or cranky coworker. You might be, for all you know, right? But let's say you have one of those. You want them to change. They're not, they just, you know, a little less smiley maybe than you think they could be, or a little less cheerful, a little less approachable, maybe all labels that we've maybe put on certain people in our lives. And you're telling yourself a story that they should change. Well, the story that you're telling is rooted in your lower brain's programming to conserve energy and to avoid pain and to pursue pleasure.

We just want to outsource everything we can. We would all love it if all of our meals were handed to us on a silver platter and someone disrobed and robed us every day and bathed us and cut our fingernails and plucked our eyelashes and cleaned out our ear wax, right? And just, we all wish we had our own personal footman. We could just tie our shoes for us, dress us in our tuxedo, give us a nice hot towel and a shave, you know. Who doesn't want that? Everybody wants that. Why does everybody want that? Because our lower brains are programmed to conserve energy. That's why. And to avoid pain and pursue pleasure.

What Now?

So now that we know about primal tension and the ABCs of apathy, boredom, criticism, what now? What do we do about it? That is for the next episode, and we will talk about the flip side of apathy, boredom, and criticism, produced by primal tension. And we'll talk about how we move into turning apathy into action, boredom into belief, and criticism into connection. So we're going to talk about that next time when we discuss our higher brain's call to create.
But we have brought awareness to something very important today. Pay attention to this. Look at this in your life. Maybe take some time to sit down and write down some reflection on how primal tension has impacted you and your life. Remember, it's a neutral reality. It is a circumstance, and it's one of those things that is not going to change, just like gravity. Gravity's always acting at the same force all the time. Primal tension is a neutral circumstance just like gravity, but we can overcome gravity much more effectively as we understand that it's actually there and we know what we need to do—the extra effort we need to put in to overcome gravity. And when we start to come to grips with the reality of primal tension, we can start to navigate how to overcome it and not let its presence drive our life without us knowing.
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If you have any questions about this, reach out to me: [email protected]. Check out my website, BrycePeterson.com. I've got a whole page about primal tension and how to overcome it. And that's it for now.