Understanding INSTINCT Can Save Your Life
Understanding INSTINCT Can Save Your Life
By Bill Knell
Years ago I became interested in the study of INSTINCT. After a while I came to the conclusion that most people have no idea how much it can influence their lives. That's because all living creatures are imprinted with certain behaviors. These behaviors can sometimes be modified or enhanced, but never disappear completely.
Google says…
“The term "domesticated" refers to the process by which certain animal or plant species are adapted and modified over generations through selective breeding to live alongside humans.”
“Domesticated” animals may be used as pets, food or other things. However, some may still revert to their built in instinct when faced with certain situations. For example, “domesticated” dogs bred and used over many generations for guarding, hunting or fighting can still pose a threat. That's because the instinct to attack is still there and impossible to resist in favor of learned behaviors in certain situations.
Aggressive or knowingly vicious dog breeds are never a wise choice despite how docile individual animals might seem.
Another good example of instinct at work in dogs is barking. They bark when strangers or other animals appear. It's an instinct designed to sound an alarm to protect themselves, their peers and their family from possible harm. They can be trained to modify this behavior, but it never actually disappears.
Nature Lovers still wander out into the wild without being properly prepared to fend off wild animal attacks. I recall one naturalist who studied grizzly bears saying, “I don't need a gun, I have a camera.” He assumed that bears and other wild game would not attack him as long as he did not appear to threaten them. He forgot that it might be the animals that were the threat because they were hungry. He and a friend were killed and eaten by a grizzly bear.
On October 3, 2003, during a live Siegfried & Roy performance at The Mirage in Las Vegas, a 7-year-old white tiger attacked Roy Horn.
During the show, Mantacore, who had been a part of Siegfried & Roy's act for years, bit Horn on the neck and dragged him offstage. Stagehands intervened, using a fire extinguisher to get the tiger to release its grip. Horn sustained serious injuries and was unable to work again.
People have the same problem as animals. Imagine when humans were Hunter / Gatherers. They come across an area with an abundance of wild agriculture and game. They are going to hunt and gather as much as they can, try newly discovered wild foods, preserve what they can for later and eat all they can for fear that no food will be available the next day, week or month.
Yesterday's hunters and gatherers might be today's people with addictive personalities. They can't seem to get enough of certain or all things. I knew a reformed alcoholic. He could never drink enough sugary soda and always over ate. People trying to lose weight sometimes take up smoking, while smokers trying to quit may begin over-eating.
People with sex addictions might also be acting on instinct. In times before modern medicine was developed, people tended to have shorter lives and infant mortality was at its height. This made it desirable to have as many children as possible hoping that a few would survive.
Even in early America and right up until the 1940s some people would marry at 12 or 13 and begin having children at 14. Others would marry close relatives at young ages. Parents often had 12 or more children if they could. Sex addicted people might be surprised to learn that their situation is more about a built in desire to reproduce, than just to have fun in bed.
The real problem is that many mental health practitioners ignore or belittle the effect instinct has on people due to their inability to believe that animals and people are pre-programmed to perform certain actions. That would seriously negate their belief in more "scientific" behavioral concepts and less pre-programming instinctual beliefs.
Once people accept the idea of how much influence INSTINCT has on their lives, they experience less guilt and understand their base problem. They gain the realization that just being given a psychiatric or medical diagnosis to fit their situation may not be enough to solve it. They must make conscious decisions to fight their instincts with realistic behavior changes and stick to them.
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