Where is the Heart in the Brain?
I remember my dad’s first mobile phone. He had recently opened a mini-storage business he needed to make calls on the go. Dad had lots of big interchangeable phone batteries and a long antenna I liked to chew on when he wasn’t watching. Society was walking into a new era of mobile devices with the promise of easier communication and more time efficiency. Years later I remember when my friends started getting Instant Messenger (AIM) and Facebook accounts. Now, the promise of wireless communication was not just efficiency, but more relationship. A mobile world has assuredly brought more efficiency, but the relational fabric of our society has become weak and porous. Somehow, we are more connected and falling through the cracks at the same time. I believe this individual and social reality can be understood by understanding the limbic brain. I believe this paradox can be understood by looking at the limbic brain.
The truth is that the first wireless connection device every made was the human brain. The limbic system is a set of structures in the brain that collect our memories and utilize our behaviors and feelings to keep us safe. Put simply (possibly too simply), the “heart” is the limbic system. This region is so connective that there may as well be a tether from one brain to another when two are with each other in any capacity. When two strangers pass and make eye contact, there is a wealth of data in that simple interaction. Even keeping eye contact carries volumes of information that our brain processes.
What does this have to do with you?
Whether we want this to be the reality or not, our childhood experiences shape the way our hearts wirelessly connect to other hearts. Dr. Chip Dodd told me once that the limbic brain sees in silhouettes – a person’s tone, the topic at hand, or the setting of the present moment can (even unconsciously) trigger memories and we start behaving in old relational ways. The silhouette of the present aligns with the silhouette of the past although the details can be vastly different. Trauma therapists often say there are no clocks or calendars in the limbic brain, so we experience relational life in similar ways until the patterns are confronted.
Please ponder these questions with others you trust:
1. How has the rise of technology, like social media, influenced your sense of emotional connection with others? Do you feel more connected or more isolated?
2. In what ways do you think your childhood experiences shape how you respond emotionally during conversations or interactions today?
3. Have you ever caught yourself reacting in a conversation as if you were a child again? What might these moments reveal about your emotional patterns?
These questions point us back to our wireless brain. Our very beings are the product of relationship, and our hearts continue to function in relationship whether we want them to or not.
One issue with social media is that it promises relationship without accounting for the needs of the limbic brain – faces, micro expressions, tones, trust. Apps are filled with misunderstandings, isolation, and hate because there is not a face-to-face buy in to be in an online relationship. We can be anonymous and caricatured (emojis) instead of known and authentic. Unfortunately, families can take on these same characteristics of social media today – high conflict, loss of vulnerability, or dishonoring of the way God made the heart to function. Fortunately, a family can decide together to clumsily practice attention (attending to the other), playfulness, repair after conflict, and trying new things together. The fullest life is one face-to-face with another.
Written by Colton Shannon, PhD and Alex Courington, MFT