The whole family and our new nanny hopped an airplane for Houston Friday, and did we have a fun weekend! Clear Lake Presbyterian church had a couples event and Jeff and I got a chance to share Friday and Saturday. We did more of the brain science stuff Friday night, as I’d been thinking about, and that was well-received then as well. It makes such a difference once you know WHY someone is doing something the way they are.
It really makes a difference for men to know that women aren’t ‘trying’ to be emotional – its just that our brains are wired to be much more emotion-laden. For example, more of a woman’s life experience (sensory input) gets funneled through the emotion-processing part of the brain! Its like everything coming in gets put through an emotion bath before it gets parceled out to other parts of the brain. And in the men, more experience bypasses the cingulated gyrus (this important emotion processor in the brain), so their brain is simply less emotion laden. You could actually see the men in the audience relax a bit at the idea that much of this is biological and not a ‘choice’ that the woman is making. Same thing on the women’s side, when they hear that he’s not ‘trying’ to be cold – but his brain just isn’t wired to process emotions as easily.
Sometimes I wonder why God wired us so differently, you know? I know there was a grand purpose of iron sharpening iron, but sometimes I think He also just had some fun and likes seeing how his kids are going to navigate THIS one!
The other thing about Houston that was amazing was just being there to see the Space Center AND to see the aftermath of Hurricane Ike. Clear Lake is a major port right near the gulf, and even 5 weeks later, there were still dozens of boats just thrown up on dry land, lying on their side or smashed into buildings or each other. If wind and water can take a 40 foot boat and throw it dozens of feet like a matchstick, it really is sobering to consider the power of what that area must have faced. Glad we got a chance to be there.