Via our left hemisphere language centers, our mind speaks to us constantly, a phenomenon I refer to as "brain chatter." It is that voice reminding you to pick up bananas on your way home and that calculating intelligence that knows when you have to do your laundry. There is vast individual variation in the speed at which our minds function. For some, our dialogue of brain chatter runs so fast that we can barely keep up with what we are thinking. Others of us think in language so slowly that it takes a long time for us to comprehend. Still others of us have a problem retaining our focus and concentration long enough to act on our thoughts. These variations in normal processing stem back to our brain cells and how each brain is intrinsically wired.
One of the jobs of our left hemisphere language centers is to define our self by saying "I am." Through the use of brain chatter, your brain repeats over and over again the details of your life so you can remember them. It is the home of your ego center, which provides you with an internal awareness of what your name is, what your credentials are, and where you live. Without these cells performing their job, you would forget who you are and lose track of your life and your identity.
Along with thinking in language, our left hemisphere thinks in patterned responses to incoming stimulation. It establishes neurological circuits that run relatively automatically to sensory information. These circuits allow us to process large volumes of information without having to spend much time focusing on the individual bits of data. From a neurological standpoint, every time a circuit of neurons is stimulated, it takes less external stimulation for that particular circuit to run. As a result of this type of reverberating circuitry, our left hemisphere creates what I call "loops of thought patterns" that it uses to rapidly interpret large volumes of incoming stimulation with minimal attention and calculation.
Because our left brain is filed with these ingrained programs of pattern recognition, it is superb at predicint what we will think, how we will act, or what we will feel in the future--based upon our past experience. I, personally, love the color red and am inclined to collect a bunch of red things-- I drive a red car and wear red clothes. I like red because there's a circuit in my brain that gets very excited and runs relatively automatically when anything red comes my way. From a purely neurological perspective, I like red because the cells in my left brain tell me I like red.
Among other things, our left hemisphere categorizes information into hierarchies including things that attract us (or likes) or repel us (our dislikes). It places the judgment of good on those things we like and bad on those things we dislike. Through the action of critical judgment and analysis, our left brain constantly compres us with everyone else. It keeps us abreast of where we stand on a financial scale, academic scale, honesty scale, generosity-of-spirit scale, and every other scale you can imagine...
When we evaluate the unique characteristics of the two cerebral hemispheres and how they process information differently, it seems obvious that they would manifest unique value systems that would consequently result in very different personalities. Some of us have nurtured both of our characters and are really good at utilizing the skills and personalities of both sides of our brain, allowing them to support, influence, and temper one another as we live our lives. Others of us, however, are quite unilateral in our thinking--either exhibiting extremely rigid thinking patterns that are analytically critical (extreme left brain), or we seldom connect to a common reality and spend most of our time "with our head in the clouds" (extreme right brain). Creating a healthy balance between our two characters enables us the ability to remain cognitively flexible enough to welcome change (right hemisphers), and yet remain concrete enough to stay a path (left hemisphere). Learning to value and utilize all of our cognitive gifts opens our lives up to the masterpiece of life we truly are. Imagine the compassionate world we could create if we set our minds to it.
Sadly, the expression of compassion is often a rarity in our society. Many of us spend an inordinate amount of time and energy degrading, insulting, and criticizing ourselves (and others) for having made a "wrong" or "bad" decision. When you berate yourself, have you ever questioned: who inside of you is doing the yelling, and at whom are you yelling? Have you ever noticed how these negative internal thought patterns have the tendency to generate increased levels of inner hostility and/or raised levels of anxiety? And to complicated matters even more, have you noticed how negative internal dialogue can negatively influence how you treat others and, thus, what you attract?
As biological creatures, we are profoundly powerful people. Because our neural networks are made up of neurons communicating with other neurons in circuits, their behavior becomes quite predictable. The more conscious attention we pay to any particular circuit, or the more time we spend thinking specific thoughts, the more impetus those circuits or thought patterns have to run again with minimal external stimulation.
In addition, our minds are highly sophisticated "seek and ye shall find" instruments. We are designed to focus in on whatever we are looking for. If I seek red in the world then I will find it everywhere. Perhaps just a little in the beginnig, but the longer I stay focused on looking for red, then before you know it, I will see red everywhere.
My two hemispheric personalities not only think about things differently, but they process emotions and carry my body in easily distinguishable ways...My right hemisphere is all about right here, right now. It bounches around with unbridled enthusiasm and does not have a care in the world. It smiles a lot and is extremely friendly. In contrast, my left hemisphere is preoccupied with details and runs my life on a tight schedule. It is my more serious side. It clenches my jaw and makes decisions based upon what it learned in the past. It defines boundaries and judges everything as right/wrong or good/bad.
My right mind is all about the richness of this present moment. It is filled with gratitude for my life and everyone and everything in it. It is content, compassionate, nurturing, and eternally optimistic. To my right mind character, there is no judgment of good/bad or right/wrong, so everything exists on a continuum of relativity. It takes things as they are and acknowledges what is in the present.
One of the most prominent characteristics of our left brain is its ability to weave stories. This story-teller portion of our left mind's language center is specifically designed to make sense of the world outside of us, based upon minimal amounts of information. It functions by taking whatever details it has to work with, and then weaves them together in the form of a story. Most impressively, our left brain is brilliant in its ability to make stuff up, and fill in the blanks when there are gaps in its factual data. In addition, during its process of generating a story line, our left mind is quite the genius in its ability to manufacture alternative scenarios. And if it's a subject you really feel passionate about, either good or awful, it's particularly effective at hooking into those circuits of emotion and exhausting all the "what if" possibilities.
As my left brain language centers recovered and became functional again, I spent a lot of time observing how my story-teller would draw conclusions based upon minimal information. For the longest time I found the antics of my story-teller to be rather comical. At least until I realized that my left mind full-heartedly expected the rest of my brain to believe the stories it was making up! Throughout this resurrection of my left mind's character and skills, it has been extremely important that I retain the understanding that my left brain is doing the best job it can with the information it has to work with. I need to remember, however, that there are enormous gaps between what I know and what I think I know. I learned that I need to be very wary of my story-teller's potential for stirring up drama and trauma.
In the same vein, as muy left brain enthusiastically manufactured stories that it promoted as teh truth, it had a tendency to be redundant--manifesting loops of thought patterns that reverberated through my mind, over and over again. For many of us, those loops of thought run rampant and we find ourselves habitually imagining devestating possibilities. Unfortunately, as a society, we do not teach our children that they need to tend carefully the garden of their minds. Without structure, censorship, or discipline, our thoughts run rampant on automatic. Because we have not learned how to more carefully manage what goes on inside our brains, we remain vulnerable to not only what other people think about us, but also to advertising and /or political manipulation.
During the process of recovery, I found that they portion of my character that was stubborn, arrogant, sarcastic, and/or jealous resided within the ego center of that wounded left brain. This portion of my ego mind held the capacity for me to be a sore loser, hold a grudge, tell lies, and even seek revenge. Reawakening those personality traits was very disturbing to the newly found innocence of my right mind. With lots of effort, I have consciously chosen to recover my left mind's ego center without giveing renewed life to some of those old circuits.
Everyone's brain is different but let me share with you some of the simple things I have found to be true for mine. It seems that the more aware I am about how I am influencing the energies around me, the more say I have in what comes my way. To monitor how things are going in my life, I pay very close attention to how things are flowing, or not flowing in the world around me. Depending on what I am attracting, I take responsibility for how things are going and consciously make adjustments along the way. This does not mean that I am in complete control of how I choose to think and feel about those things. Even negative events can be perceived as valuable life lessons, if I am willing to setp to the right and experience the situation with compassion.
Now that my left mind's language centers and storyteller are back to functioning normally, I find my mind not only spins a wild tale but has a tendency to hook into negative patterns of thought. I have found that the first step to getting out of these reverberating loops of negative thought or emotion is to recognize when I am hooked into these loops....Learning to listen to your brain from the position of a nonjudgmental witness may take some practice and patience, but once you master this awareness, you become free to step beyond the worrisome drama and trauma of your story-teller...
When my brain runs loops that feel harshly judgmental, counter-productive, or out of control, I wait 90 seconds for the emotional/physiological response to dissipate and then I speak to my brain as though it is a group of children. I say with sincerity, "I appreciate your ability to think thoughts and feel emotions, but I am really not interested in thinking these thoughts or feeling these emotions anymore. Please stop bringing this stuff up." Essentially, I am consciously asking my brain to stop hooking into specific thought patterns.
I whole-heartedly believe that 99.999% of the cells in my brain and body want me to be happy, healthy, and successful. A tiny portion of the story-teller, however, does not seem to be unconditionally attached to my joy, and is excellent at exploring thought patterns that have the potential to really derail my feeling of inner peace...These are the cells in our verbal mind that are totally resourceful in their ability to run our loops of doom and gloom. These cells tap into our negative attributes of jealousy, fear, and rage....My cells get the message that I am serious about not hooking into those negative loops of thought, but only if I am persistent and determined enough to pay attention to what circuits are running in my brain...
Recovering my left mind has meant that I have had to give voice to all of my cells again. However, I have learned that in order to protect my overall mental health, it is necessary for me to tend the garden of my mind and keep these cells in check. I have found that my story-teller simply needs a little disciplining directive from my conscious mind about what I want versus what I find unacceptable...I have found that just like little children, these cells may challenge the authority of my authentic voice and test my conviction. Once asked to be silent, they tend to pause for a moment and then immediately reengage those forbidden loops. If I am not persistent with my desire to think about other things, and consciously initiate new circuits of thought, then those uninvited loops can generate new strength and begin monopolizing my mind again. To counter their activities, I keep a handy list of three things available for me to turn my consciousness toward when I am in a state of need: 1) I remember something I find fascinating that I would like to ponder more deeply, 2) I think about something that brings me terrific joy, or 3) I think about something I would like to do. When I am desperate to change my mind, I use such tools. I have also found that when I am lease expecting it--feeling either physically tired or emotionally vulnerable--those negative circuits have a tendency to raise their hurtful heads...If I want to retain my inner peace, I must be willing to consistently and persistently tend the garden of my mind moment by moment, and be willing to make the decision a thousand times a day. p 150-154
Our patterns of though are grounded in rich multidimensional circuitry that we can learn to scrutinize. First, each though pattern has a subject--something that I am cognitively thinking about...Second, each thought pattern may or may not be accompanied by an adjoining emotional circuit of which I am cognizant. Finally, these specific circuits of thought and emotion may also be linked with some of my more complex physiological circuitry, which upon stimulation would result in predictable behavior.
Finding the balance between observing our circuitry and engaging with our circuitry is essential for our healing. Although I celebrate my brain's ability to experience all of my emotions, I am cautious about how long I remain hooked into running any particular loop. The healthiest way I know how to move through an emotion effectively is to surrender completely to that emotion when its loop of physiology comes over me. I simply resign to the loop and let it run it's course for 90 seconds. Just like children, emotions heal when they are heard and validates. Over time, the intensity and frequency of these circuits usually abate. p155-156 [She has previously explained it takes less than 90 seconds for an emotional program to be triggered, surge through the body, and then be flushed out of our blood stream. At this point the chemical component has dissipated from the blood and the automatic response is over. If we remain angry at that point it's because we choose to let that circuit continue to run. p.147]
This stroke of insight has given me the priceless gift of knowing that deep inner peace is just a thought/feeling away. To experience peace does not mean that your life is always blissful. It means that you are capable of tapping into a blissful state of mind amidst the normal chaos of a hectic life....
Based upon my experience with losing my left mind, I whole-heartedly believe that the feeling of deep inner peace is neurological circuitry located in our right brain . This circuitry is constantly running and is always available for us to hook into. The feeling of peace is something that happens in the present moment. It's not something that we bring with us from the past or project into the future. Step one to experiencing inner peace is the willingness to be present in the right here, right now. p. 159
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