The other day, when I talked about the Anger Muscle, I was really leading into something deeper I call the Inner and Outer Voices (setting your narrative), Jungian archetypes (intrinsic values, more or less), and thanks to some recent reading, we tie into brain structures – specifically the Limbic System. It intrigues me that there is a unique structure within the brain responsible for the same responsibilities which I have found to be associated with a semi-autonomous entity within us I call the Monkey.
The Monkey is the metaphor I use to refer to the “being within you” responsible for emotional response. Anger being one. Horniness is one I like to attribute to this guy as well. 🍆🍑
Fruit salad? Yummy yummy.
Where was I ?
Oh – so I want you to think of the Monkey as a subordinate pilot within your mind-body. He or She is essentially the operator of the complexities of the emotional-response mind-body. They’re in charge of your Anger Muscle and your crotch.
And I don’t condemn the Monkey. We’re only trying to understand the elements of our mind-body and how they interact with other elements. Another element the LS interacts with is what I refer to as “Brain Space”.
Brain Space refers to a sort of “working set” of recent experiences (roughly 30 days by my estimates) that are responsible for “setting your influence”, as well as establishing long term memory engrams. Um, let’s shortcut this … TL/DR; You are the sum of the people (and the thoughts and emotions and memories) you spend the most time with.
If you feed the Monkey negativity (negative thoughts, like cursing at a driver who cuts you off), it gets riled up. The more time it spends riled up, the more you become like an agitated monkey. It has a negative, toxic effect on those around you. Once the Limbic System (LS) takes over, you’ve lost control of the Monkey. It becomes You. And it’s quite hard to put back in its cage.
It can be difficult to find a way to be at peace with all the stresses in one’s life. How do you not feed the Monkey when… (*gestures at everything*). For that you need to find presence, and we need to get into internal and external voices too. For now, spend more time with good emotions and less time with bad ones and you’ll have that Monkey under your thumb in no time.
