Your Nervous System Was Built For Lions | S5 EP134

Your heart races before a difficult talk, you overthink a text, you walk into a crowd and your whole body scans for threats and then you shame yourself for being “ridiculous.” That combo is exactly what we’re unpacking: the shame of small fears, and why it can quietly run your relationships, your confidence, and your daily peace. 

We dig into the stress state many of us live in, from fight or flight to freeze and fawn, and how hypervigilance can make normal public life feel tense even when you’re objectively safe. I talk through the popular “lizard brain” idea as a practical tool for understanding why emotions and survival instincts hit fast while logic shows up late, and why that mismatch can make you feel like you’re always bracing for a bear when it’s really just someone looking at you sideways. 

We also name the outside forces that poke that reactive wiring: nonstop news cycles, attention-grabbing marketing, and social pressure that keeps your nervous system on high alert. Then we land on what actually helps: self-compassion, dropping the self-ridicule, and practicing modern bravery, the quieter kind that looks like honesty, boundaries, saying no, and doing the hard thing even while your stomach drops. 

If any of this hits close, subscribe so you don’t miss the next one, share it with someone who’s stuck in a shame spiral, and leave a review so more people can find the show. What “small fear” has been feeling huge for you lately?

Source material -

https://chriswillx.com/3-minute-monday-shame-men-breast-enhancement/

Pod ep- https://open.spotify.com/episode/5oG2jVfIwpDPVuqkhoRFHL

1/6/26

1/6/26

Transcript

Welcome Back And Quick ASMR

SPEAKER_00 0:05

Welcome back, everybody! This is another episode of Around the Kinky Campfire. This is your host, Julius Marquise. H H Julius, or just Julius, if you're feeling less fancy. I am the Uber Ecstatic. Do I ever get Uber Ecstatic? Host of Around the Kinky Campfire. I'm here for you, campsters, to let you know what's going on in all avenues and Venn diagrams that intersect or come close to alternative relationships. And before I get started in my topic today, once again we have our ASMR five seconds. I am still drinking a black raspberry sparkling ice caffeine, not sponsored, zero sugar energy drink, 70 grams of milk, 70, 70 milligrams. Damn, 70 grams of caffeine? That'd be crazy. 70 milligrams of caffeine. And we're gonna start our ASMR two seconds here in three, two, one. Oh, still cold. Still very cold. Okay. Energized. Oh my teeth. Okay. It's a school night, so we're doing not adult beverages. Thank you, you two. Okay, here we go. Our topic for now, for today, for this time, period. We are here at this time is a concept called the shame of small fears. So once again, I've stolen, I've nabbed an article from the one and only Chris Williamson of Modern Wisdom Podcast. Um, from his website, Chris Willex.com. Uh this concept called Shame of Small Fears. This this this guy slowly starting to become my internet guru here. Number two. Is this stuff he talks about? Hits close. Uh do you seem to stay in a stress state constantly? Fight or flight mode. That is my question to y'all for this episode. When you go out and not feel stressed and have fun. Oh

The Shame Of Small Fears

SPEAKER_00 2:04

no, you can go out and not feel stressed and have fun. I can read. Truth is that no one's going to attack you, even though the news will have you thinking differently. The news that is the CNN and other bull crap out there. The reason why I wanted to talk about this is because I feel like I was born a few centuries centuries too late. I'm definitely one of those people that's in the fight, flight, fa freeze, fawn state, the stress state. I'll just say that the the four F's, whatever you want to call it for this episode. I am I was definitely a person that was definitely in a um stress state, constantly going out. Uh campsers that have listened to private previous episodes know that I was definitely I am definitely a socially awkward person. A lot of times because I'm always in a stress state. There's always a lot of fighting and freezing happening or f flight flying off and going off somewhere. Okay, so this is why when he started talking about this concept, shame of small fears, I'm like, ah, ooh, ow, damn it, man. You hitting me hard right in the gizzards. I don't have gizzards, but it felt like I did and it hurt. Because um, yeah, I feel this whole entire article that he's talking about here. So he calls it the shame of small fears, which is an interesting title. You're constantly fighting. So I feel like I'm one of those hunters back in the hunter-gatherer days, but I got nothing to hunt because I go to the grocery store like a lazy motherfucker and buy my shit myself. I ain't cutting up no cows, okay? I feel bad for those cows, but they taste delicious. But I still feel like I'm back in my hunter phase because when I go out, I'm always constantly searching for threats. The hypervigilance due to trauma response is very strong, and I had to learn how not to be that way, so I'm not looking around anxious all the time because I tell you what, people notice that shit and it makes them feel off about you or scared of you because you act like you're about to fight somebody. It's hard to just relax in social gatherings in big groups because you always think something is gonna happen. I've been intentionally working on these habits to make people feel more at ease, thus they approach me more, or just accept my social advances. Not talking about people I potentially want to be partners with. I'm just talking about making friends in general, being cordial with people. Kind of ridiculous that um I went in this late in life, and uh it definitely didn't come into my radar or even can consider I didn't even consider it to be a thing until like my late 30s, so it's only been about eight years now. Math is mathing. Yes, probably no, less than that, damn, less than eight years. Goodness, I'd say a solid five. We'll give it a five, six, seven. Okay, um, yeah, so it's I say five confidently. Did not know about what this was. So upon deep diving, I came across this thing called lizard brain. Now, I'm pretty sure if anybody of you are on social medias, which you should be, there's certain social medias associated with this podcast that you should be friends with and all and and uh on and attracted to, I don't know, uh subscribed to, um, following. There you go. Should be following these social medias attached to this podcast here, campfire kingsters. Okay, and lizard brain is a term that is very much in the now. If you don't know what lizard brain is, let me break it down for you. It's a pro popular term for the most primitive intellectual part of the human brain, going back to the caveman days, commonly associated with subconscious survival instincts, like fight or flight, fear, hunger, basic impulses,

Lizard Brain And Stress Responses

SPEAKER_00 5:38

like fucking. Um uh generally describing mental processes, responsible, yep, yep, yep, uncontrollable physical and emotional reactions to perceive danger. Now, what danger are we perceiving in this modern world? Not all the I'm definitely not a camper, so what the hell am I doing in my house, or even when I go to the grocery store or the gym? What perceived thoughts? The fucking news got you tripping, that's what it is. I'm very emotionally triggered by this thing. That's why all the cussing's coming out now. So there's a this is the reason why I wanted to talk about this. Wanted to talk about this um coal entire concept that he was just randomly talking about in this podcast, and just that makes total sense. I went and read the article, I was like, God dang it, he's so good, he's right on the money. Fundamental drivers for survival, eating, sleeping, and reproduction. We know what that stands for. Uh quick pattern. Let's see, quick pattern recognition and following movement without conscious thought. Yep, that's the hypervigilance, which is great, because being born an Asian child, we always had to mind read our parents' freaking thoughts. It's like you don't know it, making assumptions. You don't know what I'm thinking already as a child of five or eight years old. No, person and parent? I'm not how am I supposed to know these things? They just assume you knew the right answers to shit. And it's like, I'm only eight years old, and I haven't even been on this planet for a decade. Like, how am I supposed to know these things? And yet, we have to parent ourselves because our inner child is still doing all this stuff decades later. Take time, people, and forgive yourself for all the stuff you were supposed to know and not were not taught growing up. Me, right here, Julius is right there with you. Uh the term lizard brain comes from the true brain model proposed in the 1950s, which divided the human brain into three evolutionary layers: the primitive lizard brain, the emotional brain, uh, the limbic system, and the rational brain, the neurocortex. So, we have all these things going around here: our instincts, our emotions, and our logic. All mixing around. I tell you, I got like 10 different personalities for each one of those things, and it sucks. Um, modern neuroscience, Larsey, views it as a myth, which I don't know what they're talking about. If you don't understand, you need to do more self-work. Do not realize that those three things are constantly fighting with each other all the time. You got a little robot man or woman or whatever you have in here piloting this big ass, honking, stupid thing that we call human body, and we have to figure all this stuff out later in life because they don't teach you it in school. Stupid freaking history and uh English. Like, we need that crap. Don't know how to speak, and I don't need to know how speaking. Alright, but yeah, they should teach you this growing up that you have these three different things fighting with each other. I didn't learn this until my late 30s. How many times I gotta tell you that? I was in my late 30s to realize there's three different things, fights, three different entities in your body fighting each other. Ugh. If you take a second to like meditate and just think for yourself, you'll feel them in there. I've been long aware of them and still trying to figure out how to mix all these things together and make it all work. Uh boy. Okay, evolutionary studies and genetic research show that the vertebrate vertebrate brains evolved concurrently as a shared plan rather than as simple layers stacked on top of one another. Okay, that's very nerdy. Um the phrase is still heavily used in psychology, marketing, and self-help to describe uncontrollable emotional reactions. Uncontrollable. Fucking don't act, don't feelings aren't facts. You can control them to a point. You can no, you can't control your feelings. The feelings are there. You can control your actions to the feelings. Let me correct myself there. Advertisers often design packaging or campaigns to appeal to the lizard brain. Stupid fucking Burger King, the juicy, delicious frame boiled patties. Oh aiming to trigger immediate impulsive desires rather than logical consideration. Yeah, all the freaking calories are in that stupid burger with the mayonnaise and lettuce mail and the sauces, and I'm still gonna eat it, even though it gives me irritable bowel syndrome. No. Uh let's see here. Okay, therapists use the concept to explain why we panic in safe situations or snap in anger before our logical smart brain has time to evaluate this the sti uh situation. Stimulation situation interchangeable. Yeah. It's just uh very unfortunate that we have to go through this and not realize that this is a thing. But it is a thing. People are fighting you. If you all didn't know, including the news and advertisements, they're trying to trigger this lizard brain of yours so that you think after you react. Did y'all know that? I hope you are aware of this, or at least this is the first time you're hearing it now you're considering this. There are forces working against you, not in not only internally, but externally as well. Some bullshit. Okay. It acts instantly to protect you, whereas the logical part of your brain is much slower to engage. So you are reacting to threats that are not there, but they are there because they're triggering you. Hmm, how the fuck do you work that out? Okay, here are some few common reasons people use the term to explain impulsive behavior, where someone acts entirely out of emotion, hunger, or fear without thinking through the consequences, which is awesome. Lizard brain crap to rationalize irrational fears is often used to describe why we panic in safe situations like feeling anxious during airplane turbulence, because the primitive brain instinctually perceives sudden movement as a threat. So, when you're in your hypervigilance and you're in a crowded area, guess what happens all the time? Sudden unexplained movements. So almost lost my um document there. Uh so that explains why you're always in a fight response state. Because there's movement unexplained all the time in public situations. Why? Because there's people there and they move. So this is great, great stuff to know. Okay, the definition. Let's break it down here. Describes a psychological phenomenon where we feel intense anxiety over modern low-stakes situations, like having a difficult conversation paired with guilt and embarrassment because we feel our panic is disproportionate or illegitimate. So this is great. This, like a difficult conversation, explains why most people run away from uncomfortability. Because we like to sit in our comfort, because then we feel more at peace than if we are dealing with uncomfort, which triggers our emotional state, which is great, our stress state, whatever you want to call it. So awesome. Hello, shame us from all fears. We have an explanation for this now. Thank you, Chris Williamson. Among other people, good lord. Okay, we experience this feeling of

When Low Stakes Feel Like Danger

SPEAKER_00 12:36

inadequacy due to a fundamental mismatch between our biological and our modern lives. Now, going to explain why this shit doesn't make any sense because there's no lions and tigers and bears and jungle cats trying to eat us all the time like they were in the hunter days, hunter gatherer days. So why are we feeling this now in the modern age? I live in a house with walls and a locked door. Why do I still feel like I need to be wary of threats that are not there? We experience this feeling of inadequacy due to fundamental okay, evolutionary residue. Our nervous systems are wired to react to life or death survival threats. Your body responds to an awkward confrontation exactly as it would to a hungry predator, gearing up for a fight or flight scenario. So, yes, back in the day, when you were kicked out of the tribe, you were left to be alone by yourself, and then usually you got eaten or you just starved, which is great. We don't have to deal with that now. People have been all been there alone, individual, independent shit for decades now. Thank you, also due to a global wide pandemic. So now we don't have to rely on anybody. Let's just call Uber Eats, get our food delivery. We ain't even gotta leave the house. Want porn? I can jack off by myself. Who do why would I need to talk to somebody for a romantic partnership? I can do this all by myself. So it's great. Secondary suffering. The real pain often isn't the initial fear, but the internal voice that asks, How dare you up be upset by this? This shame makes us feel weak, small, or broken for being triggered by mundane safe circumstances. Who else out there was in a shame spiral? With uh along with Julius. This is great. So not only do we perceive an illogical threat that's not even there, we feel horrible about it, and then we shame ourselves, and then we eat a bunch of junk food, fatten up, and then don't go anywhere and just like stream TV shows all day, never leave the house. So awesome. So that's where the shame comes in. Because you reacted this way due to probably some trauma. Thank you, parents. That's that's kind of a joke, okay? So not always a super generalization, but this is not always the parents, but a lot of the times it is, okay. So yeah, that is the thing that happens. Uh then you feel shame about it. Okay, testing reality, bravery in the in the modern world is not the absence of fear, but acknowledging your stomach dropping and doing the terrifying thing anyway. So be comfortable being uncomfortable. Just because you fear something does not mean you can just run away from it. You can still do the thing. Guess what? You'll survive. Most of the times you'll survive. I do a lot of scary things, and I run away from scary things sometimes still in the uncomfortable. So I'm not just preaching for my high horse. I'm right in the mucky muck with the rest of you campsters. Okay. This is a thing that happens. We're all here together. I don't want to make it seem like I'm on a high horse. I don't have a high horse. I don't even know what a high horse looks like. I wouldn't know where to find one. If I started shopping, I wouldn't even know what a what I'd be looking for, okay? So I'm right down here in the mucky muck. I am forever in the mucky amuck. Alright? Still, go out and do the terrifying thing. You think this right here was easy starting out? I don't want you to ever think that I am not nervous or anxious. Anytime I power this stupid thing on and look at you. Okay? Looking

The Shame Spiral After Fear

SPEAKER_00 16:00

right at you. I'm right there with you. It's still scary. Come talk to me or message me. I'll still tell you it's scary every single time. I do improv on the stage. I've seen karaoke on the stage. I've seen karaoke for decades. Still scary. Think you think everything else after karaoke that I do on stage is less scary because of that? Hell fucking no. Okay? Still scary. Still gotta try to do the shit. I'm right here with y'all. Okay, let's pause. Look at my notes, say pause. Alright. Treating these fears with self-compassion rather than ridicule. It ridicule is critical. So pause. Okay? Remember this. Rational. Don't ridicule yourselves. Don't ridicule. I'm looking at you, looking at me in a mirror. Looking at myself in the mirror. Don't don't ridicule yourself. You really want to, because that's what you were learned. Maladaptive response. Let's not ridicule ourselves. First step to overcoming the same spiral is to replace judgmental words like ridiculous with normal. Remember, we're all here together, okay? We're not the only ones going through this. There's other people out there going through the same exact thing. Otherwise, there wouldn't be articles written about it. Acknowledging that your body is simply trying to protect you. Yes. So your body naturally does not want you to do the uncomfortable thing, okay? I'm gonna tell you all that right now. If you did not know this, there is a reason it is so hard to break out of your comfort shell. And number one is that your body is fighting you. Did you not know this? This information shocked the shit out of me when I heard about it. I was like, my body's fighting me? I'm trying to do the brave thing, and my body's fighting me. Great, great, awesome body. Thank you. Yeah, those three forces are still fighting each other, and one of them doesn't want you to do anything because it's scary. Because you could get eaten by a bear? No. Because people, could you look at you sideways? Oh no, they looked at me. That's the same as a bear coming and chase me. This is my point, people. This is the reason for this article, because your body thinks a bear when it's just somebody looking at you. Logical, illogical. One of those things is not like the other. It doesn't make any sense. There's no bear, unless you're going out in the woods. There's no bears, there's no tigers, there's no pumas out there trying to eat you. If you're just going to the shopping mall or whatever it is, to a movie, and you feel this response coming on, there's no bears, it's just people looking at you. Fuck those people. But don't really. Okay, that's the point of this whole entire thing is that your body is making up all these weird things to keep you safe,

Self-Compassion Over Self-Ridicule

SPEAKER_00 18:37

quote unquote, because they were it's scared of bears and wolves. Those things are not there anymore in the modern world, for the most part. Okay, alright. Let me just read some stuff to you here as my time gets about to be run out. Alright. He says we inherited a nervous system calibrated for lions, and we're using it to navigate awkward conversations and underwhelming careers. Evolution never updated the software, it is just repurposed it. Thank you, evolution. Your ancestors need the courage to keep their bodies alive. You need the courage to keep your identity intact, online and in person. Like the fuck online is a made-up world. It's almost comic when you zoom out. The same species that once stared down hungry predators now breaks into sweat trying to say something needs to change. But it's not because we've become pathetic, it's because the monsters change shape, old dangers could kill your body, the new ones threaten your belonging. Oh my poor, poor ego. Your whole biological gears up for exile from the village, but only exists now as a group chat. Mm-mm. Remember I said that you get kicked out of the village. Now you ain't gotta worry about that shit, but you're still scared of it. Your body still thinks you'll die alone in the wilderness if you tell the truth. It's the residue of a limbic system designed for a world that no longer exists, and this is where the real suffering begins. Not in the fear, but in your shame about the fear. What's going on? This is bullshit. A voice inside says, How dare you be upset by this? Other people had it so much worse. Don't you know how small and feeble this map makes you? Oh man, it's like he's reading my mind. It's great. Because you have that and you are not taught how to deal with that. It's amazing. Fucking amazing. Sure, maybe there are more kinetic threats in the past, but knowing that your life isn't collapsing doesn't stop your heart racing, as if it is. It just makes you feel guilty for crying in the ancestral equivalent of a featherbed. It's not just the fear that hurts, it's the feeling that your fear is legitimate, that your emotions need to pass some mythical severity threshold before you're allowed to feel them. This is the shame of small fears, the belief that because your life is comfortable, your panic must be ridiculous. But your nervous system doesn't know that. It only knows threats, and it reacts to a difficult conversation the same way it once reacted to a rustle in the dark. Your biology is ancient, your circumstances are modern, and your feelings sit in the crossfire. This is why modern bravery is both smaller and harder. Smaller because the stakes are rarely life or death, harder because the threats are invisible. You can't swing an axe at uncertainty, you can't unrun heartbreak. Oh God, it's so great. Okay. Let me see if I can read this quickly. Uh so the new acts of courage are quieter, telling the truth, saying no, walking away from a career that looks great on paper but feels wrong in your chest. That one hit hard. Letting your friend uh down rather than letting yourself down, admitting you want more from your life than the version of you that other people are used to. These aren't heroic in the old sense, but they are valiant in the new one. Because the modern world rarely demands danger from you, but it constantly requests honesty. And honesty is terrifying. There's no applause for doing the right thing, no war medals for ending the wrong friendship, no epic poems for learning to tell the truth gently. But these are the decisions that actually shape your life. Bravery now is knowing the world won't end if you speak up. Yet your stomach still drops as if it might, and do it anyway. Your nervous system doesn't care whether the threat is a bear or boundary, it reacts the same way. Shh, fucking preach. Oh god, why? Why does it feel like a bear, even though it's just a boundary of mine? I can't tell the person no, because I make them may make them feel bad. Ugh. Getting rejected is difficult. Also, rejecting other people's fucking difficult. Okay, I'm um too upset by this whole entire thing. I'm done for the day. I think I got through most of it. If y'all want to read his uh article, make sure you look at the source material and uh let me know what you think. Uh this this is so hard. Even after I've read the thing, made notes from the thing, and now rereading it for the episode. Damn it. Ooh, it hits too hard. It's like we were not taught this. We were not taught this. And we're just over here feeling shame for something we were not taught. I feel like an asshole, then I feel shame for feeling like an asshole. So then I just get my depression initiation protocol and start working that shit. Fucking whoppers for me. Uh uh. I need some time to myself. Okay. Such a stupid thing that we had to go through. This is the whole reason of life, right here. To go through this bullshit, figure out that you've gone through the bullshit, and then the last part of your life is just like reconciling all this bullshit that you were never taught. But I'm here for you, camsters. H H Julius Marquis is here to give you the lessons relating to all of it, not only just the sex stuff and the kinky stuff, but also just the life stuff in general. I am your late in life teacher, telling you about all the things that was going on when you were a child. Welcome to the rest of us. Learning this shit late. I should change the name of the podcast. Learned it late, working on it now. That's the new name of the podcast. Learned it late, working on it now. Uh I could just make a t-shirt of that or something. I had to write that down. Okay, well, that's all for now. Once again, just Julius, if you're feeling less fancy. Catch new episodes of the audio version on Thursday and video version on Friday. Cross, fingers crossed. And uh hit me up on the emails and the social medias if you have more questions. Please let me know how you're dealing with your stupid lizard brain. Can't ridicule myself. Let me know how you're feeling about ridiculing yourself and just forgetting, not not ridiculing yourself anymore. Let me know how that's going. I'll catch you next time. Hello.