Why you are flipping your lid?
Do you remember the last time you “flipped your lid”? Or experienced it when someone around you did?
“Flipping your lid” is psychiatrist Dr. Daniel Siegel’s term for what happens when stress shuts down part of your brain. Marital researcher Dr. John Gottman calls it “emotional flooding.”
At The Living in Green Project, we call this going into Yellow.
You may have described it other ways: “I tried to talk to him, but it was like he’d lost his mind.” “I was so freaked out, I just couldn’t listen.”
Did you know that when you or anyone else feel like this, it’s actually because of a hardwired response that is activated when you feel physically or emotionally threatened?
It’s important to pay attention to times you flip your lid and what sets you off.
Dr. Siegel explains the brain science behind “flipping your lid.” To help us understand what goes on in our brains when we “flip,” he demonstrated a hand model of the brain which you can see in the following video.