The Pumpkin and the Raisin Brain
OK, so, it’s not pumpkin season, and I hate raisins, so I worked with what I had! That means watermelons and a dried cranberry from my little bag of trail mix. Also I didn’t want to grab AI art.
Anyway, what the heck is the pumpkin and the raisin brain?? It’s an image that Dr. Scott Walker (the founder of NET) used to talk about back in the day.
In NET, we talk a lot about “the three brains.” (I talk about it in my book, The Issues are in the Tissues, too!). The idea is that there are 3 distinct parts of our brain, which are separated by both structure and function. The three basic areas are the reptile brain, the mammalian brain, and the neocortex. The reptile brain is the most primitive, as you would expect, and it’s all about basic SURVIVAL. It’s all about breathing, eating, reproducing, fighting to stay alive, etc. The mammalian brain is a lot more nuanced. That’s where we’ve got emotions, hormones, complex relationships and behaviors, and even spirituality! And then there’s the neocortex, which is the most recent part of the brain to evolve. This is the part that handles language, math, conscious reasoning, and all that. We spend most of our awareness in the neocortex, and so we mistakenly think that this part of the brain is in charge. We think it’s the part that is making decisions and driving the ship! But, guess what??? It’s not. In fact, the neocortex is the last to know what’s going on. Some studies even suggest that the body is already doing something by the time the brain “decides” to do a thing. It means that the brain is really making up a story to explain why it’s doing what it’s doing! Scary, huh??
On the handy Three Brains chart that we use in the office, each of the “3 brains” has their own column, and they’re all evenly spaced out. It gives you the impression that they’re co-equal, like the 3 branches of government. But this is not true at all.
And that’s where the raisin and the pumpkin come in. (Or, you know, the watermelon and the cranberry.) Dr. Scott says that the neocortex is like the raisin. It’s puny compared to the gigantic pumpkin brain, which is comprised of the reptile and the mammalian brains. In other words, the animal brain.
What does it mean??
It means that MOST of what’s going on with us is completely unconscious! Most of it is based on unconscious animal reflexes.
Anyway… this blog post isn’t about offering any “solutions.” It’s really just food for thought. Your chattering inside voice (the neocortex) is just that little raisin/cranberry. What’s really going on for you? What’s really going on is what’s happening in that pumpkin/watermelon. And that is why it’s so powerful to approach your problem from the pumpkin/watermelon brain perspective — not just the surface story coming from the neocortex!
