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This article is developed from the Life Model and the work of Dr Jim Wilder.
Introduction
God created the Brain as Temple of the Holy Spirit and Dwelling Place for Christ.
The LifeModel is a Neurotheological view of Man that seeks to explains growth of the Fruit of the Spirit in us by looking at Brain design and processes. Brain Science is a growing discipline and this is a work in progress.
The Fruit of the Spirit
22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23 gentleness, self-control. Against such there is no law. 24 And those who are Christ’s have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. 25 If we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit. 26 Let us not become conceited, provoking one another, envying one another.
” (Galatians 5:22–26, NKJV)
- Love
- Joy
- Peace
- Longsuffering
- Kindness
- Goodness
- Faithfulness
- Gentleness
- Self-Control
The Description of Man
Biblical Terms that pertain:
- The Spirit (Holy Spirit)
- The Spirit (Human Spirit)
- The Heart
- The Soul
- The Body
- The Flesh
- The Mind
- The Strength
The Bible does say that we should love God with all these faculties and that as we Love God, Love His Law, Love His People we will be transformed more and more into the image of God and that we will be saved.
The LifeModel on the Brain’s Control Centre
The main function of the brain’s control system is regulating our emotions in a way that fits our Spiritual Identities as Christians in the context of all our relationships and in our churches. The first control skill we really appreciate is the ability to quiet ourselves. People who can’t quiet themselves stay upset too long, tend to “lose it” with others and are overly reactive.
The main emotions the control center regulates are:
- Joy
- Fear
- Anger
- Sadness
- Disgust
- Shame
- Despair
The Life Model refers to these regulation skills as “building joy” and “returning to joy” when we speak of regulating the unpleasant emotions.
Four Levels of the Control Center
The right hemisphere of the brain holds an emotional regulation structure called the control center. This four-level control center tops the command hierarchy of the brain. Identity, who I am in Christ, resides at the top (level four) of the control center in an area called the prefrontal cortex. Below who I am in Christ, the third level, or cingulate cortex, synchronizes our life rhythms (blessed be your going out and blessed be your coming in). The lower two levels control our basic evaluations , judging and discerning (level two) and our personal reality, The Revelation of Jesus Christ (level one.) The primary development of the control center is in the first two years of life, depends on proper stimulation of the brain and is primarily non-verbal.
- 4-Identity: Who I Am In Christ
- 3-Synchronize Our Life Rhythms – Remain Relational and Synchronized
- 2-Basic Evaluations – Judging Good, Bad or Scary
- 1-Personal Reality (The Truth I Believe)
see Levels in the Brain’s Control Centre
Limited Capacity
The control center keeps the activity of the brain running smoothly as long as the emotions do not become more intense than the capacity of the system can handle. A well-trained control center has lots of capacity. A poorly trained control center has a low capacity so the person is easily overwhelmed or traumatized by emotions a stronger control center would handle comfortably.
The capacity of the brain’s control center is built through experiences of joy in our significant relationships. When we lack capacity or skills we are in need of quality brain training i.e. discipleship.
Training the Control Center (Right Brain to Right Brain)
We are particularly interested in synchronization of our emotional capacity to act like a Christian. This synchronization is developed by right-hemisphere-to-right-hemisphere communication from a trained control center in one person (elder) to an untrained control center in another person (disciple). Right-hemisphere-to-right-hemisphere communication requires face-to-face interaction between two people. Right-hemisphere-to-right-hemisphere communication is so fast it completes six cycles of communication every second. This rapid and authentic communication creates a momentary Mutual Mind between the two brains. If one brain has a trained control center and the other does not, this right-hemisphere-to-right-hemisphere has very strong training effect on the untrained brain’s control center.
Brain Functions needed to be a mature Christian
- Secure Attachment
- Emotional Regulation
- Mutual Regulation
- Self Regulation
- Sufficient Joy Strength (capacity) to resolve Distress
- Return to Joy Circuits from all Emotional States
- Four Level Control System Synchronization
- A working Internal Interpreter of Others (Judging Actions and Judging People)
- Ability to repair Ruptures in Relationships
19 BrainSkills to Thrive
The LifeModel training has developed a list of 19 essential and nonverbal skills that can be learned and passed on from one control center to another. These skills govern the raising of a child, forming of a church, persuasion of a sales call, the calming of rage, the avoidance of violence, the recovery from trauma, the effectiveness of counseling, the capacity for empathy, the strength of a bond, the ability to focus and learn in school, motivation at work, falling in love, blending families, recovering from addictions and making up after something goes wrong.
Likeability
We like the people with these Control Center Skills and generally avoid people who lack them. Few trainers can even identify what these control center skills really are because the skills are largely nonverbal. Even fewer people can detect which skills are missing and then systematically retrain the control center. For this reason, many ministry, training, discipleship, counseling, small group, recovery, family, school and business methods work for some people and not for others.
Control Capacity (Right Prefrontal Cortex)
- The control center is like a fuse – if the current gets too strong the weakest link will get fried. It has limited capacity.
- The control center is like an amplifier – if emotions get too loud it will distort. Everyone has limited capacity.
- The control center is like a bridge – you depend on it to carry the relationship loads between people. It makes business possible when it is strong enough but when it collapses we are really in a mess.
- The control center is like a computer – when you exceed the speed, memory or disk size it no longer runs smoothly and important data gets lost, conclusions come out wrong, when it really gets bad you get a shut down and a nasty message when it finally starts up again.
- The control center is like a bucket – when you try to put in more than its capacity it starts to spill out everywhere.
- The control center is like a muscle – it can be flexible, get in a cramp, get stronger and bigger if you train it, needs good nutrition, can only lift so much, can be poisoned or injured and some people naturally have bigger ones than others.
- The control center is like a mirror – it reflects how other minds see us and if it is warped it reflects a crooked image of what is in other peoples minds. We call this bad or leaky mindsight.
- The control center is like a simulator – it allows us to predict what it would feel like in our bodies if we did or did not act certain ways. When it runs well we can find the least painful path, least damaging solution, the most desirable outcome, understand what others feel and have motivation when we need it. When the control center is overloaded, we get answers too slowly, stay in the past instead of the present, let the guard shack run the show, lose the capacity to quiet our feelings and can’t achieve a mutual-mind with others that would stabilize us again.
Capacity is developed by practicing joy with other people. Any time we amplify joy in a mutual-mind state with someone we build our control center capacity. The odd part is that it is really the quieting after the joy that is most helpful as it causes us to do two things: first it strengthens the serotonin system in the brain and second, it teaches us to release serotonin on demand. This way we learn to quiet bigger and bigger signals whenever the need arises. This makes us resilient and strong.
