Your Brain Is Lying to You: The Hidden Survival System Running Your Life

Ep. 127. Every day, we face choices — some small and forgettable, others powerful enough to change our health, our relationships, our careers, and sometimes even our lives. We all want to make the right decisions… the ones that keep us safe, grounded, and aligned with who we want to be.

And yet, during stress — especially sudden stress — our thinking brain often shuts down. We try to reason, analyze, and “stay calm,” but the brain’s survival system takes over. The lower brain reacts faster than logic can think. This is where we see fight, flight, freeze, fawn, or shutdown responses take the wheel.

This isn’t failure.
 It’s biology.

The good news is that your body already contains built-in self-regulation programs — evolutionary survival skills passed down by our ancestors. And even better, we can train these self-regulation skills so they become automatic. With practice and repetition, these responses become quick, natural, and dependable — even in high-pressure moments.

When we learn to regulate our nervous system, we make clearer decisions, we stay present instead of overwhelmed, and we build habits that create real confidence — not just the appearance of it.

This is what allows us to live intentionally, move with purpose, and choose who we are becoming.

Take care — and walk well.

Transcript

Welcome back folks to episode 127 of the Running Man Self-Regulation Skills Project Podcast with me, your host Dr. Armando Dominguez, Ph.D. in Health Psychology, licensed professional counselor and an adjunct professor at a local community college. And what we're going to be discussing today are two types of self-regulation and one of them is

autonomic. That's our internal programming that we could call reflexive and also first nature if you will in that you don't have to learn it. You don't have to be taught it and it is something that arises as a result of our environmental stress and then we have what we call our learned responses that we'll call self-regulation skill but part of that

can get practice to the point where it becomes second nature to where it has enough power, enough practice, enough natural ease to it that we can very quickly bring it online to deal with whatever stressors may come to us within a lifetime.

So to begin this discussion, what I'd to point out is that whenever we're dealing with things that we will call stressors that require self-regulation, so to speak, and these are our responses to our environment that would be whether it be work, interpersonal, it could be survival skill in the sense that we're out foraging and hunting for food, this sort of stuff. When we used to be cave in a long time ago with cave people, I should say. But the point is that much of our self-regulatory skill is programmed. It's something that is our

genetic inheritance. is our endowment that we receive from our family and from our ancestors if you will and those are some pretty profound ideas to look at but much of what happens in our body whenever we approach things that are

armando (02:23.958)
little creepy spidery insect looking things when we're small, we don't have to be taught to get away from it. We have a natural creep factor, if you will, that comes from that. There are some that can override it whenever something is novel and interesting. And then there are those that cannot override it. And they start resembling things like phobias as we get older. Sometimes if they get exacerbated with an experience or they get conditioned in a way that they are overemphasized in a sense, we're something that

is potentially painful is looked at and felt like it is life-threatening somehow and then we're starting to reach into the realms of the power of a phobic response. In the truest sense that would be clinical phobia.

To clarify this point, I'd like to say that as an example from the perspective of substance use and also behavioral addiction such as gambling and things of that nature, we are looking at something where we have a behavior that is repeated. And these behaviors have an underlying commonality between all of them, including those things that we do for survival, such as eating food, drinking water, and also procreation and running from pain and moving towards things that are

like something soft and warm, cave or a fire, this sort of thing. And we have our natural hedonic tendency to pursue those things that are life-giving or give us a sense of comfort and avoid those things that are potentially dangerous or painful. And that is, I don't want to use the term no-brainer because there is an aspect of brain, but it's a no-thinker as it doesn't require...

higher cortical awareness and complex reasoning to be able to approach or avoid those things and generally the speed of which is really, really fast, depending on how the perception is. So from that point, what I'd like to point out is that the underlying commonality is the reward system. Our reward centers, our reward wiring, our connections that have to do with finding what is pleasurable. And of course the neurotransmitter that is the media honey right now,

armando (04:31.136)
is dopamine because it is that important.

because dopamine actually tells us not only to do things, it's also implicated in motivation, something that makes us want to do something and actually execute, whether it be pursuit or finding something interesting and being playful, or maybe stopping something that is uncomfortable that results in something that feels good. And it is something that is a very deeply seated within our brain, within our limbic area.

Within the area of the ventral striatum and the middle all of this area that we have to do with weighing and determining if something is novel interesting or fear inducing Will activate and dopamine is actually quite active in those areas What is interesting is if you were to do some analysis as to the brain structure and the nucleus accumbens in the ventral striatum area Those are actually kind of front leaning and low

the limbic or more central area of the brain that is closer to the prefrontal cortical structure which that kind of indicates how important it is to determine action because that actually influences what it is is the motor output that guides our behavior and we've taken to consideration

what it is that a stressor may be and if we're determining if it is threatening to the organism, me, or if I am able to in effect get something that's useful like food that feels good and this sort of thing that give me pleasure and also that sense of payoff, the good feelings that I get from dopamine and all the pleasure chemicals that say hey not only that I win but I survive and I am thriving in my environment and it makes sense that those

armando (06:15.252)
connections from the rental straddle area within the amygdala and nucleus accumbens areas all of those that are closely related to our thinker that makes decisions is also there as a backup if we look at it's not just about quick connective decision making so we can find food and avoid pain but it's also one that

If we get stuck in thinking whenever we should be reacting, if we see a ball that is looming in the sense that it's thrown from far away and it gets really big, really fast, that means it's approaching and it's going to intercept our head unless we duck or something. And if that is the case, that lower area brain must override. And this is where I like to use this term. And, this is also one of those things that,

I have lifted and adopted because it makes nothing but sense whenever you see it actually play out. Dr. Glenn Morris in his book, Path Notes of American Ninja Master, I often mention it, but he mentions this as one of those things that in the context of learning how to avoid being struck by a sword from behind, for instance, your body has to become hypersensitized to the environment. And the important thing is that if we get stuck in thinking, duck now, that is a slow higher thinking prefrontal cortical

process and that also leaves you vulnerable for something that moves faster than your thought process. So in essence, you don't want to be stuck thinking whenever you should allow for your perceptual level of think, so to speak, that is pre reasoning and is faster than what your thinker can do and decide that

ODA loop that many of the first responders and policemen and people in military talk about wherever you do observe, organize, decide and act, it's much more quickly decided than something that involves higher cortical process that is reasoning and you have to be fast. So this is what he said. Dr. Morris said, the late Dr. Morris, he said that we tend to overvalue the higher cortex and in a survival situation, yes, maybe

armando (08:21.471)
being

but is definitely something that is helpful to have and in a situation where it gets simplified to a binary one or two black or white reaction that will determine whether or not you survive or get injured or not and then You want something that's going to get you out of the way not from the frying pan into the fire so to speak so instead We have to take into consideration that that structure being so close is not only wiring to communicate approach avoid but will

in essence if things become emergent very quickly that they become dangerous then

It can override our best thinking and this is wherever we start having echoes of what Jung would call the dark nature or the subconscious self or the shadow self and there is a quality of consciousness that goes with that that is very basic very deep and if you've ever eaten in a room by yourself and nobody's watching you're kind of messy and you use the natural napkin on your forearm and some y'all know what that is a bunch of hillbillies and I say that to the folks that know me because when we're kids sometimes we wipe

our chin and our mouth on our forearm. And it doesn't matter what we have a shirt or his arm is just a matter of nature to clean off our mouth, that sort of thing. There are things that are very deeply driven that aren't taught. And this is that level of

armando (10:11.284)
Consciousness that is very simple very simplified in the sense that it doesn't require a whole lot of sophistication to be effective And that's really the point I'm making now the next part of this conversation is going in the direction of well that very ventral stratum I was talking about and our prefrontal cortex. Why is that so important today regarding self-regulation skill? Well, let me tell you There are two times of self-regulation and the one that is autonomic is the one that's going to be more so along the lines of a pre-programmer of what we

called closer to reflexive and not anything that you have to learn or practice but that we inherit. It's an endowment and often whenever you have somebody flinch that would be part of that or whenever somebody startles whenever there's a sound behind them. This is the kind of reflexive of what we will call in this discussion first nature and most people don't use that term but first nature is reflexive. It is the program that we inherit by virtue of our genetics if you will and this is the endowment that we

with. Now we can't really improve on reflex. You will have a natural limit to that, but you can improve on those things that we learn. And of course there are natural limits to that too when we get to the end or the edges of what our capacity to perform a certain motion, let's say at speed or you know to jump to a certain height. We do reach limits there and we can exceed them with some assistance but not much beyond what would be our typical normal. And conditioning helps and weight lifting and building more

more muscle helps, but neural firing, the only thing we can do is get out of the way, so to speak. So the more relaxed you are, the less tension around your neural structures, the faster you can get in response. But even then, of course, you're starting to reach your natural limits. And that's an important thing to note. Now, what does that have to do with self-regulation? Once again, and I repeated this three times because it is really this important in that often whenever we're trying to regulate, let's say an elevation of anxiety or the

onset of fear, sudden body fear, we have to note that the body does several things and we'll divide it in these three areas. One is we have the perception of whatever signal would be causing us, if you will, to trigger, to respond, to react, if you will, where we have a state of discomfort, elevation of stress.

armando (12:29.458)
on the interpretation of that signal. Once interpreted, it's either going to raise our heart rate and change our breathing to fight flight, which means more than likely we become much more hypertonic in the sympathetic sense that our body warms up. Our heart rate goes up. We start getting more blood flow to the periphery, but we also start getting a little dumber blood flow starts leaving my prefrontal cortex because if it is that sudden and is potentially threatening, we don't have to make sense of it and do calculus with it and then be particularly diplomatic.

with it either it's something that is dangerous to us get out of the way just like whenever a dog is a barren teeth you move out of the way you don't get closer to it you don't go up in and hug the puppy do you well some of y'all kind of wild that way but we'll not be talking to y'all folks but here you go whenever you see something that is threatening and moving towards you you want to make egress move away you don't want to lay chase but you don't also want to turn your back against something that could start to get the predator response whenever it sees you turn back then it might lay chase versus it being staved off by

walking backwards and keeping it in sight. Sometimes averting your eyes but not turning your back is a good thing depending on what you're doing. And this isn't just something for animals that may be approaching but for humans too. Sometimes not making contact is the best thing. Don't make it social but do let them know that you're aware and often that will stay with people that tend to be a little predatory. I've had a situation just recently where I was being circled by three males. I was practicing Tai Chi in the park of all things and

They decided to want to mug me and the fact that I was aware and didn't turn my back to him didn't allow them to sneak up on me and they were frustrated and one of them was in the process of pulling a knife but I caught him doing that and he put it back in his pocket and he threw his hands down like he'd been foiled just like a child would be frustrated about the throat tantrum and he walked around in a way then I made way to my vehicle got my coffee and Just smiled at him and looked at him and did nothing more and then it was averted in that sense but also being able to read

Situations requires that we be aware and not be so immersed or engrossed that we to the detriment of our environment become insensitive to it now the next part as far as the signal goes we interpret yes heart rate goes up sympathetic tone goes up We might note our change in our breathing, but we will actually gas

armando (14:45.127)
suck wind and whenever I say suck wind that means we're drawing breath and our body starts to get ready to use those lungs like bellows to be able to pump and run and that is what awakens the body even further and puts us higher into the aroused state or into the lower brain if you will and then we become much more physically capable of protecting ourselves. Now the third part of this isn't just the interpretation of the signal

nor the symptom tone that increases, but also the fact that we have a process of thinking that comes after. And once everything cools, we make sense of the fact after things cool off, when the assumption of safety is now met again. Whenever we have assumptions of safety, there are issues. And that means that we tend to take things and interpret them as if they are the way they look, versus understanding that they could very well look

rather deceiving in that they look safe but may not be kind of like nature has camouflage the people that prey upon others have camouflage people that may not be trying to harm you but try to trick you may come bearing gifts so to speak but also during this hyper aroused tate novelty

The unknown, those things that we cannot predict or determine tend to be one either scary or two very engaging. And if they're really, really pretty colors, they might capture our attention and bite us sting us or captures this sort of thing. And what I'm pointing out is that the third factor is that during the hyper aroused state, heart rate goes up, breathing changes, sympathetic tone increases, blood flow leaves the brain. We're much more open to suggestion, not that we want to be.

Not that we refuse everything, but you may be refusing the very thing that may be helpful to you, but you're interpreting as threat because your arousal state is too high. So you can be suggested to in the sense that this is safe, or it can suggest to you that is dangerous, even though it may not be. And our potential for misinterpretation of signal from environment goes up much higher. The further we get into the higher levels of stress state. So the next reasonable direction is, well, how can I apply this? How is this useful to me?

armando (16:51.455)
talk about self-regulation all the time. Yes, I do. It's because it's a rather rampant problem in all areas of human life. But I'm to make a very specific example here. And that is that when we're interacting with people and we are talking to them and let's say we want to go out and do something. Let's say I want to cut the lawn, but there was a dog out there yesterday and he was kind of aggressive and I have a memory of that. And that's kind of bringing up feelings of. Unsafety and that's real. Not a big deal.

But let's say I'm talking to my spouse, my spouse is getting upset and they're like, well, why don't you do it? We have friends coming over and I want the yard to look nice. And that's okay. Not a big deal. Just a very domestic example. And not that, all people that are, betrothed are arguing all the time, but this kind of stuff happens. It's just one of those deals. Life happens like that. But the example is close enough that we can actually dissect that a little bit. during that time, whenever let's say the person that's supposed to be cutting the yard, gets a little worried.

What they're bringing up our memories and their body is at some level believing that recollection as compelling because it was real last time. it mean it's real today? Well, it may not be happening, but there may be an apprehensive predictive, almost expectant sense that can elevate the body's arousal level and it can derail of what otherwise would be a good situation. Especially if you do what I used to do and that's cut grass, listen to music and just have a good time gaining a little sun exposure. That was always cool for me when I had a yard years back.

But it might take away some enjoyment and living out a life that otherwise could be really good quality. So some important things to note are that our prefrontal cortical structure, our PFC, our higher brain, the frontal lobe of our brain. If you look at my picture, the running man model is always a big red spot on a whiteboard with a little circle in the middle indicating blood flow, leaving the frontal lobe. And, also that indicates a drop of IQ. means I can't reason well.

That means that I may not be able to put my mind at a level that I can believe the reasoning with enough strength that I will actually go out there and run the risk of cutting the grass. And what if the dog shows up again? And maybe I will literally not do anything. So I have a want, I want to cut the grass. want it look good, but it's not due to a lack of wanting, but a lack of doing. the pre funnel corkularia has to do with motor.

armando (19:17.064)
control, we mentioned that, but also deciding and guiding that is going to be the fear signal that comes from the amygdala from the nucleus accumbens area, that is the ventral striatum, that lower part of the limbic area that is in the brain that is closer to center, but also wired to override in case of fear. But if the fear response is brought on by thought, not by an actual event that's occurring, it's enough to signal that override.

such that I may want to do it, but I just can't. So it's now a lack of capacity to do that means the brakes are on. You would think that the fear response has to do with putting the accelerator down and it does, but it's also the brakes in the system. Whenever it's stopping us from thinking and reasoning ourselves into a corner, so to speak, and not being able to run and having to fight our way out. So it's predictive to a degree. It can happen very quickly.

But also it can distort what it is that we have as information that we generally decide with on whether or not we will do or not do, even though I really want to, it may prevent that. So this is an important thing to pay attention to often. What we would call failure isn't so much a lack of wanting to do, but rather our lack of capacity in the moment. It doesn't mean you're never capable. Doesn't mean you've never had self-efficacy. I've done this before and I can keep doing it, but rather at this moment, the brakes are on and it feels like I can't.

It's almost like whenever we get so scared that we freeze in light of a real situation, but yet now I'm freezing in light of a subjective situation in sense that I'm thinking of something that is insubstantial in the outside environment, but is substantial in my inside internal environment because there's a compelling quality. It's believable. Therefore my body will do what is going to be organismically safe. Now.

Several years back, there was a book that came out and they were talking about what's called I over E intellect over emotion or E over I emotion over intellect. And this very concisely points out kind of like a flow chart. what we were just talking about where our lower brain will override our best, higher level rational thinking. say our best, it's not always the best. Absolutely. But rather it is the best that we can offer in comparison to a more basic thought response. So in that sense, it is kind of,

armando (21:41.147)
Almost a egalitarian. I'm so much better type of thinking versus you lower brain and really our lower brain is what gets us out of trouble. So I don't buy into that is better or higher in the truest sense, but rather this is more so the term, higher thinking, meaning higher in the brain structure, the, the, the cerebrum versus, the lower brain having to do with the amygdala and the limbic areas, only in structure, not necessarily better cause situationally.

Sometimes being able to fight your way out is a very important thing and be able to have our our reflexive Work without impedance and that is one of the best things you can have Whenever that situation arises someone say no, that's violence Well, not necessarily that is self-protection and you're not visiting violence on upon people for the sake of gain But rather the protection of self that's allowed self-defense is allowed and in that vein

Higher thinking isn't always the best and in that vein also echoing Dr. Morris's perspective that we tend to overvalue the higher cortex. This is something that was made for times before we had laws, before we had guidelines, before we had ethics and morals. Our brain is not about those things. Those are things that we agreed to the social agreement when we live in this larger social stream that we tend to get all haughty about and realize that those are great things and they're wonderful.

But we're never so far away from our basic nature, our first nature. And I think we have to honor that and respect it and take care of ourselves so that whenever we have situations that are difficult, it does not override whatever it is our best intentions are for our long term and make decisions for us in the short term that otherwise we have to pay consequences and live through the circumstances of, because we are accountable and responsible for what we do. We're never far away from that.

And that really is the largest extent of what I want to talk about today. And I think it was just a wonderful topic. And it came to me this morning at four in the morning of all time when I should have been sleeping. But what I'd like to do is tell you, thank you for continuing to follow the running man project podcast. And I also wanted to tell you that, I love hearing from you. If you have any feedback or anything that you'd like me to discuss or focus on, please let me know at the Gmail, running man, get skills project.

armando (24:05.101)
Gmail love to hear from you But on top of that use these or self regular story skills pass this podcast on to people that you know, we're available on iTunes We're available on all platforms that you find your podcasts at and also I'd like to tell you we have the YouTube channel for the running man and I'd love to see more people sign up and click the The subscribe button and also give me some thumbs up there. That's great for the algorithm and we have more coming

And thank you for today sharing with me this Saturday morning and listening to something that I find is very useful and effective every day, not only for myself, but all the people that I help, whether it be in the clinic or as students or just people at large. Y'all take care. Walk well.