Designing Around the Amygdala

Amygdala: Part 2

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In part 1, I explained how the amygdala can hoard fears and stack them up, creating clutter, baggage, and a block to intimacy in a marriage. Those fear systems are strong, but the coding of memories can be planned and reinterpreted, opening up possibilities for routing around our biology to foster greater joy and intimacy.

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Let’s start with designing the future to route around the amygdala.

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The awesome part of a long-term relationship is the long term. The sweetness and depth are earned over time. The hard part, when it comes to the fear systems, is the ‘always’ stretching out into the future. That fear system jumps in when things are hard and adds ‘always’ to the scary part. If I feel lonely in my marriage: “Am I ok with feeling alone for the rest of my life?” If I feel my partner has treated me poorly: “Am I ok with being treated like this for the rest of my life?” The amygdala is great at ramping up the fear of the future with ‘forever’ to protect us. The easy answer to ‘Do I want this [not good thing] forever?’ is no. This internal process happens quickly, sometimes subconsciously, and undermines our commitment.

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Using the smarter parts of our brains, we can design a practice to short-circuit this normal amygdala drama queen system.

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My wife, my family, and I created a monthly practice of selecting a value theme that feels right for the next month, three days before the beginning of the month. This theme is often from our list of shared values. (Our family’s core values are Connection, Community, and Adventure.)

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We then brainstorm 3-5 intentions that fit (loosely; we don’t stress about selection) into that value for the month.  We pick things that seem fun. It’s a playful process. We pick things we would be proud of.

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If completed, these intentions prove to us that we can change. The practice proves we can explore new habits and live a life of integrity where our actions align with our shared values.

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If we don’t finish something, we discuss what got in the way, and if it still feels worthy, we put it in the backlog to try again in the future. There is no guilt; just a simple try again later. We complete around 50% of our intentions on the first try—life happens, and we’re okay with that.

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The value theme and the intentions get printed on postcards and put on the fridge, where the kids can see them and where we are reminded of this fun, possible future every day. The successes add up and become a great journal for our marriage.

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It’s a deceptively simple practice, but the difference is profound. Instead of allowing our attention to be guided by what our default systems think is scary in the forever future, we are focused on what is exciting in a future that always changes. Our future is always full of things we are both excited about and working on together in service of a growing and deepening relationship.

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Because of this practice, our little amygdalas’ can’t take over and drag our future down.

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