This Is Your Brain On ...
Understanding and working with the (male) brain.
I have proposed that manhood isn’t about something defined that we become, but the journey from boyhood (being born male) to a healthy self-determined adulthood. With that comes six critical ideas on what the journey of manhood (as opposed to the journey to manhood) would entail:
Honoring your biology while
growing beyond cultural expectations,
overcoming cultural obstacles, and
healing your psyche, to
discover your most authentic self and
use your gifts to serve the world.
I will unpack these in upcoming posts. This post is the second on honoring your biology. Here are the links to parts one and two.
Is There A Male Brain?
The simple answer is yes … and no, with every typical variation between males and females existing on a spectrum (much like height). Moreover, as we age, these variations tend to decrease, so while we might need to be intentional about teaching boys and girls differently (affiliate), which is not the same as teaching them different things, it shouldn’t be nearly as big of a difference as adults.
That said, as an adult male, you will still have more testosterone in your brain than the typical female brain, which will influence your mood and has been linked to social behaviors like competitiveness and aggression, as well as, potentially, assertiveness and dominance.
That said, an array of social, environmental, and other genetic factors play a significant role in shaping how our individual brains work, and due to the brain’s neuroplasticity (its ability to rewire itself), there is no space to dismiss unacceptable or harmful behavior as “boys being boys.”
So what do we do when our impulses take over? Perhaps it’s some road rage. Then again, it could be wanting to express our attraction to a woman who isn’t interested in our advances. Or maybe we’re feeling extra competitive and want to rub our victory in someone’s face.
Love? Fuck? Kill?
A couple of years ago, I hired a sex coach. I originally matched with her on a dating site and, while nothing happened there, I ended up following her on Instagram. There we had a few interactions over Mantak Chia’s work (affiliate). While she mostly works with women, she pitched the idea of doing some sessions to help me explore, enhance, and work with my sexual energy.
One week we did an exercise that prompted me to realize that the energy behind love, sex, and murder is fundamentally the same. It can take the form of passion, jealousy, protective nurturing, or rage, but it all springs from the same place. It’s simply a matter of how we use that drive or energy. While not scientific in the sense that we can’t measure it, Mantak Chia would call this sacral energy, and it is connected to our feelings, relationships, and creativity.
From that framework, boys being boys isn’t some biological destiny, it is boys not knowing how to work with their sacral energy.
A more scientific way to look at it is boys who don’t know how to engage their prefrontal cortex. While we will dig into this more when I address “healing your psyche, to discover your most authentic self,” here’s an introduction to the biology behind it.
This Is Your Brain
Take your hand and open it up like you’re about to give someone a high five. Then fold your thumb to your palm and wrap your fingers over your thumb. You’ve just created a model of your brain.
In this model, your wrist is your most primitive brain. It is why you don’t have to think about breathing or keeping your heart beating. It just happens.
Your thumb, which sits just above your wrist is your limbic brain, which is newer in evolutionary terms than your wrist but is still ancient. This part of the brain is all about emotions, memory, and arousal. It is the center of your sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems. If the parasympathetic is activated, you feel calm and at peace in the world. If the sympathetic is activated, you have some level of fight, flight, freeze, or fawn driving your behavior.
The final part of this model, the part of your hand that wraps around your thumb is your neocortex, the newest and most evolved part of your brain. This is the part of your brain associated with perception, spatial reasoning, conscious thought, and language. The front part of that, your fingers, is your prefrontal cortex, which handles decision-making, planning, impulse control, and social interactions.
How Your Brain Works
Rene Descartes, the father of modern philosophy, is perhaps most known for his line, “I think therefore I am.” It is his first principle of philosophy and laid the foundation for his theory that human beings are essentially thinkers. Descartes was also wrong.
Yes we can think, and we like to believe that we are rational thinkers, but just because the neocortex wraps around the limbic brain doesn’t mean it runs the show.
Instead, far more often than not, the neocortex works to justify the feelings, desires, and impulses of the limbic brain giving us the illusion that we are rational rather than emotional. In other words, the limbic brain decides what is true based on feeling, and then our neocortex adds logical reasons to give that feeling validity, a statement that might prompt those who pride themselves on their rationality to get defensive rather than dig into the brain science and discover that I’m right, an act that proves my point.
The Challenge Before Us
So what does all of this mean?
The average man is physically stronger than the average woman. That isn’t a bad thing. What is bad is when he uses that strength to do harm.
The average man is taller than the average woman. That isn’t a bad thing. What is a bad thing is when he uses that height to intimidate her.
What is behind how we use our strength and height, or any other physically or socially granted power that we can use for good or to marginalize another person? The feelings, desires, and impulses of our limbic brains.
Boys have unregulated limbic brains. The journey of manhood includes learning to not only regulate your limbic brain, but cultivate it so its feelings, desires, and impulses serve the world. More on that to come.
Thanks for this!
I recently heard some fascinating studies about how testosterone can actually lead to more cooperative behaviours, and that whilst in competitive societies (like capitalist ones) testosterone tends to be associated with aggression it's a bit more complex a player and is more directly related to motivation around increasing status...which if your social status is through being kind to others rather than physical dominance might lead to increase in social behaviours rather than anti-social ones.
See also testosterone increasing at merely the thought of your football team winning, and up to 20% higher when they actually do. Sadly this may be part of the reason domestic abuse increases during World Cups etc (though obviously that's not to excuse it in any way)
One of my fave testosterone facts though is that testosterone decreases rapidly after men becoming dads, and stays lower for some months if they are regular caregivers - and prolactin in men about to become fathers ramps up. How amazing is that?? I love the adaptability of human biology to our relationships and world around us.