Part 2
“Fear can make us feel way more threatened than we actually are.”
— Ronn Lehmann
Part 2: Slag and The Tiger
To see how this hard-wired Fear system might have developed, let’s go back a few hundred thousand years to the Pleistocene epoch (as it’s known to people who name such things) and visit one of our ancestors…we’ll call him “Slag.”
Now, Slag’s world is one of terrible hardship and danger. There are a lot of threats to poor Slag, and lots of ways that he can get hurt…or killed.
One of these threats is the Saber-Toothed Cat, also known as Saber-Toothed Tigers or Smilodons (although you don’t hear that one much from non- Paleontologists.) For our purposes, let’s just stick to Saber-Tooth.
Anyway, Saber-Tooth was a fierce 5-foot long, 3-foot tall predator, tipping the scales (had scales been invented) at up to 750 lbs.; slightly smaller than today’s lion, but much, much brawnier.
Unlike today’s big cats, such as lions, tigers, and cheetahs, this beast didn’t chase down prey over long distances. Instead, Saber-Tooth would lie in ambush, wait for its prey to draw close, then attack suddenly and viciously, sinking its twin 7-inch teeth into the hapless victim. Large prey (such as Slag) were no problem because, in addition to those razor-sharp fangs, Saber-Tooth also had powerful jaws that could open to an angle of about 120° (today’s lions can only open their jaws to 65°; you do the math.)
Imagine it’s one of those beautiful Pleistocene days that one always hears about, and Slag is out enjoying the sunshine and scrounging for food. He wanders near a dark cave, and suddenly he comes face-to-teeth with Saber-Tooth.
Now, at this juncture, Slag has a couple of choices. If his Amygdala is effective, it recognizes a threat and instantly prepares Slag for Fight or Flight. (If he’s smart, he’ll choose Flight, given that Saber-Tooth doesn’t like to run too far and isn’t all that fast.)
However, if his Amygdala is not effective, Slag probably just stands there as his primitive brain tries to figure out what in the world is going on. But Slag really didn’t have time (or perhaps the ability) to form rational thoughts about Saber-Tooth, assess the threat, form an opinion, then alert the limbic system to create fear and urge the rest of the system to beat feet out of there. By the time he had done all that, poor Slag already had become part of Saber-Tooth’s digestive tract.
Now, if Effective Amygdala Slag does manage to successfully run away, he learns a couple of important safety tips:
- Saber-Tooths are to be feared and avoided at all costs.
- Saber-Tooths hide in dark caves; ergo, dark caves are also to be feared and avoided at all costs.
So Slag spends the rest of his all-too-few days avoiding dark caves and Saber-Tooths. The more effective his Amygdala, the longer he lives.
Obviously, we are all descendants of Effective Amygdala Slags; they lived longer and had more chances to pass on their genetic material. Slag’s legacy is that everyone alive today has very well-developed fear responses.
These responses are so well-developed that they not only feel they must protect us from actual threats, but they must also protect us from anything that can be perceived as a threat. Since the major purpose of the Amygdala is to protect us from threats, it sees almost everything as a threat—at least, until the Neo-Cortex can get through to it and convince it to calm down.
And therein lies our dilemma.
It’s been hundreds of thousands of years since any human was confronted by a Saber-Tooth. But did the Amygdala say, “Well, no more threats…I guess my work is done!”
Not by a long shot. Wanting to keep the gig, the Amygdala has found new fears to replace those old ones: Emotional Fears.
It’s important to reiterate at this point that Fear is not completely without merit. Sure, the Saber-Tooth is long gone, but that doesn’t mean that there aren’t some very real threats to life and limb that lurk in our world.
Let’s look at some of the benefits of fear. Fear helps us:
- Avoid dangers
- Respond quickly to threats
- Protect ourselves
- Live to fight (or flee) another day
But these benefits come with costs. Fear harms us by:
- Using a lot of energy no longer available for other, more productive uses
- Hindering clear evaluation and reasoning
- Focusing our efforts on surviving instead of thriving
- Trapping us into a “victim” mentality
- Causing us to miss opportunities for learning and growth
- Inhibiting conscious and rational control over our lives
Back in Slag’s day, the main role of the Amygdala was to keep Slag alive. That’s still true for us, but our Amygdalas have evolved to the point where all threats are perceived to be a direct threat to our lives…whether we are in actual physical danger or not.
And so, our fears can often make us feel way, way more threatened than we actually are.
In Part 3 of “Yikes!”, we’ll examine how Emotional Fears affect our lives today.
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Ronn Lehmann advises organizations and leaders on the human factors that determine their culture. Lehmann developed the Cultural Audit Process, which is designed to provide an outside perspective of an organization’s culture: what’s important, what’s rewarded and punished, what the rules are, and how people “show up.”
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