Moose! No -- wait -- it's a dog.

One of my favorite things to do is walk with my dogs up Cache Creek, in quiet, noticing all that beauty. On one of these sweet walks last week, I rounded a bend in the trail and caught sight of something black and furry, I embarrassed myself with a loud, undignified screech, my brain filling in the blanks (“moose!”), until I saw a big, friendly dog bounding through the trees. 

Once my heartbeat returned to normal, I remembered my surprise a few years back when I learned that the brain responds to the thought or idea of a threat in exactly the same way it responds to an actual threat. A misidentified danger (dog, not bear) understandably triggers the body’s automatic “fight or flight” system. But the same chain of events happens when we simply imagine a frightening scenario, such as delivering a public talk or losing a job. Whether or not the threat proves out, our brain responds as if it does: mind goes blank, hormone messengers send queues to our body to marshal all resources away from thinking and straight to physical survival. 

Test it for yourself. Picture doing something that scares you. What happens? 

You may have noticed that this month’s Daily Acts emails are encouraging you to “notice what you notice.” This requires actively focusing attention on what is actually happening in any given moment, instead of making up a story about what might be happening.

While I appreciate that my brain relieves me of responsibility for what it does unconsciously (take a breath, trigger my heart to beat, cue me to pull my hand back from a hot stove), modern society puts pressure on me to develop a better relationship with the prefrontal cortex, where we access executive function and critical thinking. It’s the part of the brain that enables us to respond, not react, in the face of chaos, threat, and fear. 

Lately, I’ve noticed so much public discourse littered with words designed to elicit a dramatic response and goad us into a fighting stance. Most of the time, the rhetoric doesn’t even consciously register. But words have power. We are called to “fight back” and “rally the troops.” You ask your colleague not to “shoot the messenger,” to get “locked on loaded” on the priority. “Take the rifle-shot approach” and avoid the “shotgun approach.” And then there are all the wars — on poverty, drugs, the virus, our “way of life.” No wonder we’re exhausted and amped up when we listen to the news or politicians or even our own words. Our brains are, as the pundit might say, under assault. 

This verbal aggression entices our brain into efficiency mode, using something like autopilot to begin its job of sorting into categories of us (the in-group, the good guys) and them (the out-group, the enemy). We abandon our ability to see the truth, that we are just one group -- a human group that populates towns and states and communities, sure, but ultimately shares a single planet where we rely on each other’s values, judgment, willingness to show care. 

Out-group thinking is anathema to the human capacities that can actually help us solve our political, social, and societal challenges -- capacities like critical thinking vs. reactionary rhetoric, moving in the right direction vs. insisting on perfection. Remember the deck chairs on the Titanic, how perfectly arranged they were while the ship sunk neatly to its icy grave? Reminds me of the way we arrange ourselves into tidy groups – in or out – as our planet ship rotates towards increasing complexities, increasing opportunities to learn that we sink or swim together. 

Settling in Wyoming was not for the faint of heart, and life here still isn’t. Like generations of settlers before me, I find my footing in a place that embraces pioneers and potential. It’s in that space we call community, where friends pick up our kids, our prescriptions, and our spirits by swooping in with acts of mercy and support when we need it. 

It feels like the dominant message in society today is to heed the battle cry, conquer the enemy, get them before they get us. But I want more than that, for myself, for you, for our kids. I don’t want our communities to be roused into street fights with language that is long on “threat” and short on ideas, care, innovation. So I will continue to do the mental exercises that train my brain to better discern between the moose and the dog. Will you join me?

With much love and care,

Sara and the Becoming Jackson Whole team