Taming the Chimp – Living our Values, Shaping Society

Prof Steve Peters, renowned psychiatrist, (particularly for his work with Sports teams) has written a brilliant book called ‘The Chimp Paradox’, which I regularly recommend to my patients. It’s well worth the read and full of helpful and practical tools to enable effective mindset and behaviour change. In it, he teaches about the 3 main parts of the brain when it comes to our habitual behaviours – what he calls The Chimp (Limbic System – where we make our immediate responses – based on our feelings and impressions), The Computer (the parietal cortex, which stores our automatic programmes and responses based on our beliefs and experiences) and The Human (the frontal cortex, where we do our thinking and make more conscious choices based on fact, truth and evidence, usually from a place of compassion and empathy). Many times we find ourselves acting in ways which are simply responses of our chimp brain – we’re not being guided by conscious choices or values, or even if we want to, we can’t seem to overcome the strength of our chimp. The problem is that our chimp is 5x faster than our human brain. And if we also have ingrained trauma-based responses to certain situations, when we are triggered (e.g. when we feel scared or lonely or whatever), our chimp gets ready to act, checks its facts with the computer which agrees that this is how it should/would usually respond and a bar of chocolate later……. Same old cycle, same old shame…..

 

 

So how can we change these patterns? Well, we need to feed our computer brain some new messages, so that when the chimp starts acting out and checks in with the computer, the computer no longer agrees with that old way of reacting, puts a pause on the chimp and allows the human brain to kick in with more positive choices. This happens, by consciously renewing your mind by feeding your mind your core truths and values. When you fill your mind with what you know to be true and the values you want to live by, you begin to make different choices. Your computer begins to store new and different information and therefore when your Chimp begins to act out, it will check in with your computer and find that the automatic affirmation of a learned behaviour can begin to change. This has huge implications in how we think about ‘taking responsibility’ and managing our own behavioural choices. I also think it has a wider application to our corporate mindsets and behaviours which cause us to continue acting in certain ways in society (which I will come onto later).

 

So, I have some core truths and core values which my lovely wife has painted on a board in my office. I have them written in my notebook, and (now less then I used to – to begin with it was at least twice a day) I remind myself of them regularly.

 

Here are the Truths that I live by:

1) I am unconditionally loved by the community of God (who unconditionally loves everyone and in whom we live, move and have our being), my wife and a bunch of other people

2) I am seen and accepted for who I am

3) Being a husband and a father are more important than any status I can ever achieve in work

4) It’s OK to make mistakes – in fact, failure is a gift

5) I can’t do everything – limits are important and so are teams!

6) Life is not always easy and happy, in fact it is unfair and really sucks at times – pain is part of the journey

7) People may not always deserve love and may not be easy to love, but you can still choose to love them – even your enemy

8) Forgiveness is a choice and it sets you and the other person free

 

Here are my Values:

Love people unconditionally

Walk with humility and integrity

Listen with kind eyes

Seek first to understand

Encourage and Forgive others and yourself

Act gently

Live generously with extravagant hospitality

Be open, honest and vulnerable

Leak joy

Release healing and hope

Walk in peace

Be faithful

Speak truth with compassion

Embrace pain

 

If you don’t know what is true and you don’t know what your values are, you cannot line up your behaviours to match them. If every time I experience pain, in whatever form that may take, I need to find comfort in a self-destructive behaviour, I have lost sight of my truths that I am unconditionally loved, that life sucks sometimes and have let go of my value to embrace pain. However, if I accept that I mess up sometimes. then I can forgive myself, and get back on track. It doesn’t have to mean a downwards slide. This is how change happens – slowly, but encouragingly as I learn to focus on who I am becoming, rather than believing I will never break out of unhelpful habits.

 

In her brilliant book, ‘The Value of Everything’ in which she talks about an Economics of Hope (how good is that?!), Mariana Mazzucato applies some of this thinking into the realm of how we build a society based on our values. What if we broke out of some of our self-defeating societal norms and built our economy from the best of our compassionate values? I wonder how many of our corporate chimp-computer agreed behaviours might change if we really examined what we value when it comes to the way we build society, through our economics and politics.  So much of the time we are sleep walking with our eyes wide shut to the mindsets we unconsciously imbibe, which shape our corporate behaviours and choices. How often do we examine our core values or the truths that we live by? It takes determined effort to demolish strongholds set up in our minds and replace them with a renewed set of values with which we can build a more loving and kinder world. What would this mean for health inequalities, poverty, and who or what we might choose to prioritise? Without this work, however, we will continue to behave in ways which tolerate huge social injustice and climate destruction. But things do not have to remain as they are. We can change! Hold onto hope! In this apocalyptic moment, in which we are seeing the realities behind the facades more clearly than for many years, it remains time to rest, reflect, reimagine and reset.

 

 

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Making Healthy Choices for the New Year!

So……a new year…..some new resolutions? How about some health resolutions? Given the health crisis we are facing, if you could change one thing over the next 6 months, what would that be? And if you did change something, how would you know it was being beneficial? What would you notice? What would others notice? How would you know you were progressing up your ‘ladder of success’?!

 

Come on, now! You can do it! What would you like to focus on? Would it be exercise? What would be realistic for you? Walking for 10 minutes three times a day at a pace that gets you out of breath? What about taking a leaf out of the books of children all over the UK in running a mile a day – it only takes about 15 minutes?! Or how about seriously reducing your sugar intake or the amount of alcohol you drink? What is your focus going to be?

 

Think in a solutions focused way! You don’t have to make unrealistic goals or promises you are going to break next week. Be honest with yourself. Think about what the barriers and pitfalls might be and get prepared for them. Your inner chimp has had too much control and it’s time you lived out your values this year. (Read the Chimp Paradox by Steve Peters). What is your number one health value? Feed that value to your mind every day as you wake up and when you go to sleep, so that you can re-program your brain and get living in line with what is important to you! Two of my values for this year are that I value being active and I value feeding my body with things that benefit my health.

 

So, let me give you an example of how you can work this up on your own, to have goals that you can achieve. Firstly, choose the thing you want to change. So, I might say, I want to do 3 lots of 10 minutes of exercise every day. Does this feel achievable? Yes – I think so, but I won’t beat myself up on days where work is crazy or the kids are sick. But I am going to make a determined effort to ensure work does not stop me being healthy. OK, so what will I notice if I am doing more exercise? I’m going to challenge myself to make a list of 10 benefits:

 

1) I will be able to fit back into my favourite jeans.

2) I will feel less breathless when climbing stairs – now I challenge myself and instead of using a negative (I will feel less), I try and phrase it in a positive way – I will have more energy when I climb stairs.

3) I will have more focus in my work because I will have cleared my head with a midday walk

4) I will be more fit

5) I will be looking in better shape

6) I will have more energy to play football and other sport with my kids

7) I will feel more alive and active and I will know this because I will be breathing more easily

8) I will enjoy walking with other people and talking with them

9) I will be sleeping better

10) I will have less back ache, as I will be losing weight

 

Ok – so what will other people notice?

 

  1. My wife will notice I have more energy and zest for life
  2. My kids will notice I am playing more actively with them
  3. My patients will notice that I practice what I preach
  4. My colleagues will notice that I am more present in conversation because my head is more clear
  5. My friends will notice that I’m taking my health seriously
  6. My wife will notice I’m in better shape
  7. My wife will notice I’m snoring less and waking up more refreshed
  8. My kids will notice we start going for more walks after dinner and at weekends
  9. My family will notice we are spending more time together being active, no matter what the weather
  10. My friends will notice I am more relaxed and happy

 

And the next step is really simple. All I have to do is simply recognise ANY time ANY of those things happen and it will encourage me on my journey of change. The secret is this: We have to imagine another way of being, paint as much colour onto that canvas as possible and slowly watch that picture emerge in our lives as we take hold of the future we actually want. It’s not the power of positive thinking. It’s the power of acting in line with positive choices we are making. Come on! Let 2017 be the year when you made a choice and acted in line with it! Put your chimp in it’s cage, stop making your excuses and be a more healthy you!

 

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