There are plenty of great things that the left side of our brain does for us.
The left side of the brain is the detail side. It’s the part that helps us keep track of our accounting, remember where we left our car keys, speak with good grammar and have a laugh at the idiocies of life.
But there is another side of the left brain that I have recently been wondering about – the survival side.
I got into healing work years ago by studying Brain Gym. Brain Gym itself is a series of cool little exercises that supposedly help you to integrate your left and right hemispheres.
After mastering Educational Kinesiology, I went on to study Touch for Health, Total Body Modification, One Brain, Psy-K, and more other kinds of kinesiology than I can even remember.
One of the basic premises behind Brain Gym and Educational Kinesiology is that everybody functions best when we are using our whole brain.
I have now, at this point, done more healing work on my own brain than anyone I have ever met. I have taken fish oils and personalized amino acids, done Brain Gym for years, studied in Canada to master and practice an entire in-depth system to heal any aspect of the brain and also received years of craniosacral therapy. I meditate regularly, exercise religiously and do calming exercise like tai chi, yoga and qi gong to quell the stress hormones that destroy most people’s brain cells. I have also detoxified heavy metals out of my body in order to prevent the possibility of Alzheimer’s.
In other words, my approach to the brain has been as comprehensive, as intensive and well informed as you can find practically anywhere.
Recently, I have been working with the writing coach Tom Bird. His phenomenal work has empowered me to write two new books.
As part of his approach, Tom has made subliminal recordings that he encourages his authors to listen to during various aspects of the writing process.
Everything was going great for me as long as I was listening to his CDs that amped up the right side of my brain.
This week, as I began listening to his Revision CD, to help me see my own punctuation, grammar and reasoning mistakes, I noticed the effect on my thought processes.
The Revision CD is supposed to amp up the left side of the brain.
The more I listened, the more I thought my book – which only a few days before I had decided was the best thing I had ever written – was actually worthless. I didn’t want to read what I had written and went into what felt like a familiar pattern of low self esteem and self flagellation.
The purpose behind keeping track of all the important little details in life is to help us survive.
Survival is obviously kinda important, but what about ecstasy? What about fun? What about looking on the bright side of life? Even Monty Python had Jesus singing, “Always Look On The Bright Side of Life,” while he was hanging on the cross!
The right side of our brain sees the big picture. The big picture is it’s all good, even if we haven’t figured out why just yet.
I do believe that it is important to learn and re-learn, integrate and re-integrate.
Even the greatest golfers in the world stop at the top of their games to take their strokes apart and rethink what they are doing. In that way, they inch ever onwards to a higher level.
I do the same thing with my own work. For example, I am currently taking my sixth yoga teacher training. I am breaking apart how I usually do things in order to take my entire practice of yoga – personal and teaching – to an entirely new level.
I had accepted for years that it is best to use both sides of my brain all the time.
Not only to remember why a yoga pose feels so good, but to be able to explain all the little details while I am teaching it.
But I am learning that in some situations, such as writing, the part of our brain that runs the tape about how bad we are, how small and insignificant we are, how our mother/father/friends/world won’t care, that part of our brain needs to be told to take a hike in order to allow our creativity to soar.
“Thanks for sharing!” I would like to say to the left side of my brain.
“Now, please shut up!”
I am just exploring this hypothesis, so if I figure anything else out, I will let you know.
What I do know is that play is sacred and that the more we make everything that we do into a joyous act, the better it will be.
When I play with my yarn and beads, I make scarves and shawls and jewelry so gorgeous that women everywhere stop to ask me where I got them. When I play with my clients, we all have a laugh and the deeper messages get received more easily. When I play with my yoga and qi gong classes, we explore the poses at a deeper level and rediscover parts of ourselves that had long since been hidden.
