Our reaction to the world follows an evolutionary patter in which the newest circuit is a circuit of social interaction linked to a uniquely mammalian pathway. We're animals after all. If we’re safe we will make friends easier, whereas if we’re in a more dangerous situation, like a novel environment, we will go in a physiological state which will support the fight or flight mobilisation behaviours. If we escape the threat we’re simply negotiating with the danger. However If we’re unable to escape there is a possibility that we could trigger another type of neurological circuit which shuts us down and makes us go into a more dissociative state. Our conscious mind isn’t always aware of everything and we don't always react in the way we hope to. Our system can sometimes react and we feel the bodily response but we don’t know what we’re reacting to. This is important to understanding how our mind works and how our body responds, remembering that everything is connected!

The first step to addressing any emotion is to become aware. In the moment that we become aware of an emotion we immediately start turning what’s passively happening inside into something we are an agent of, something that is ours. This is a crucial aspect as most of the time we just don’t know what we’re feeling. When’s the last time you asked yourself : What am I feeling right now? 

Let’s think about the brain as being built from the bottom up. Imagine you're on an elevator going up in floors. Each floor has corridors and rooms on its own, yet they all make up for the entire building. In the same way our brain is built in levels. In this episode we will start by looking at the most primitive part, the one that’s already online when we’re born, the so called Reptilian Brain. Right above the Reptilian Brain we have the Limbic System, also known as the Mammalian Brain. We can call this The Emotional Brain. In this episode we dig in a little deeper, starting to explore what happens inside our brain when we detect a threat or feel pleasure.

What does being empathic mean? How does empathy differ from sympathy? What is the role of compassion in this triad? 

From the etymology (from Greek meaning "sense of truth") of these three words, to a simple yet inquisitive way of underlying differences amongst them.