Making Friends with Your Amygdala
How The California Raisins and neuroscience helped me make friends with my amygdala
Have you ever been close to a big achievement in your life and felt anxiety, fear, and dread? I have.
I remember when my book was about to be published. After years of research, documentation, and preparation, Safe Movement for All Spines was about to be released to the public.
In this time of great achievement, I was walking through the park with my Dad, and I felt anxiety. Thoughts were running through my head that were not of joy, relief, accomplishment: What if it was a flop? What if people found something wrong with it? With my approach? What if it / I were ridiculed?
I stopped in my tracks. Why was I feeling this way? Why was I not enjoying my hard-earned success? Why could I not enjoy this moment?
I realized that I was experiencing what Gay Hendricks calls an Upper Limit Problem in his book, The Big Leap. In a jolt of awareness, I realized that my tendency toward anxiety was my own inner self-limiting belief that I was not worthy of success. Somewhere, sometime, I had been taught to dim my own light, so as not to outshine others. I learned that safety meant blending into the background. I was trained to not feel “good enough.” By offering my book to the world, I was shining my light in a way that was very public, I was going to be in a spotlight, and I was feeling very vulnerable.
I realized that I had a tendency toward anxiety as a first response to many new situations, especially if I might be noticed by others.
This realization came from years of work, living an examined life. It wasn’t solely the Hendricks book. It was the culmination of work I had done in many courses, over many years, both in self-guided study and with guides who appeared in my life as I was ready for the next lesson.
Over many years, my path has meandered through self-examination, meditation, breath work, yoga, Tai Chi, Qi Gong, Tibetan singing bowls, and deep study of the nervous system. I visualize the path I have walked like a trail through the mountains of my mind, somewhat like the Vagus nerve meanders through our bodies.
The Vagus Nerve
We know the Vagus nerve regulates our Autonomic Nervous System. What we experience either internally or externally creates a response in us, in our nervous systems. The older paradigm is the Sympathetic (fight, flight or freeze) almost seem as opposing the Parasympathetic (rest, relax, restore) nervous system. But this is oversimplified – we need both, and they are often working together to color our lived experiences. Think about the activity of play as a combination of sympathetic energy in a safe parasympathetic environment, with the regulation of each controlled by the ANS, primarily the Vagus nerve.
Without going too deeply into neuroscience, we can think about the amygdala as an interpreter of stimuli for our nervous system. The main function of the amygdala is threat identification, although it also plays a role in memory, learning, social communication and it is a major emotional processing center in our brains. Fear is the main emotion that the amygdala controls.
We have all heard about the “reptilian brain” or the “lizard brain”- an older part of the brain’s processing system that is an instinctive, survival-focused threat detector. The reptilian brain is the amygdala.
Vagus nerve research and pain science tell us that a factor in chronic pain, and chronic anxiety, is how our nervous system interprets stimuli.
The Amygdala
Information from our environment, including what we see, hear, touch, smell and feel, travels at lightning speed to the amygdala.
The amygdala matches the incoming information to past experiences, and sends signals to the nervous system that we are either safe or unsafe.
Now think about how often we humans may defer to retaining the status quo – a known environment is felt as safer than an unknown environment.
I can think of dozens of examples from personal to global of this manifestation.
Why would a person feel safer in a known environment than an unknown one? Basically, the amygdala assesses the current environment and says, “Well, they aren’t dead yet, so the current environment must be optimal for safety.” Versus, “This new thing is different from the current already-established safe (because they’re not dead yet) environment. So since it is different, it is a threat to our safety.” No kidding, that is literally what happens. This is why we cannot logically debate deeply-rooted fear-based beliefs and behaviors.
I was offered the opportunity to present at POT Scottsdale in May, 2026. This was an opportunity that I had worked toward for years and it was finally happening. My amygdala was having a field day. I’m pretty sure that the saying “be careful what you ask for because you might get it” is a quote directly from an amygdala.
Certain that standing on a big stage presenting to an audience of my peers was a threat to my safety and survival, my amygdala was sending fear-based survival signals to my ANS; things like, “make her mouth dry – that’s it, now speed up the heart rate – now, interrupt her sleep – good, good, now send the anxiety thoughts into her consciousness – we’re almost there…a little bit more and maybe she’ll talk herself out of this…”
Now, you might have noticed that I have given my amygdala a voice. This is because I chose to consciously make friends with mine.
I realized that fear and anxiety gifted to me by my well-meaning amygdala were trying to rob me of joy, and I knew that I would not be able to “logic” or “rationalize” my way out of this primal repeating neurological circuit.
I have been working on this for years, first by changing my language and self-talk from self-deprecating to positive, then making a habit of reframing “anxiety” into “excitement” and “opportunity” (which I highly recommend as a starting point). But what is one to do about the amygdala when it is a problem, and the “reptilian” brain is sending unwanted fear-based signals?
I did more research, and looked at artists’ renditions of the amygdala, a pair of almond-shaped structures deep in the brain’s temporal lobes. Boring-looking, it was depicted as tan or brown in a sea of pink undulating brain matter. Really not the picture I wanted to see for a processing center that affects us so deeply.
I wanted to put googly eyes and arms and legs on it and turn it into a critter that I could communicate with. I wanted to make it a friendly toy, like a Mr. Potato Head. I thought about making stuffed almonds with arms and legs and eyes and thick Mr. or Mrs. Potato Head lips and ears so I could make it fun, friendly, and communicate with that little part of my brain in a loving way – as if it were a child. You see, if my amygdala was reacting to external stimuli that I KNEW was positive, with fear, I figured it was like a 3 to 6 year old child – so I thought I would treat it like a child.
Suddenly, a memory came to me; the almond-shaped googly eyed Mr. Potato Head amygdala toy that I was envisioning became a character from the California Raisin Council’s 1980s ad campaign with 4 California Raisins in sunglasses, an R&B group playing instruments and singing “Heard It Through The Grapevine” by Marvin Gaye (sung by Buddy Miles in the ad campaign). I smiled. I had finally made friends with my amygdala.
Now, whenever I have “that” feeling that my little amygdala is at work and I would like to redirect and reframe from a fear-based to a love-based emotional state, I talk to my California Raisin amygdala as if it is a 6-year-old. I smile, and breathe, and know everything is going to be O.K.
See you soon!
-Gwen
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