Use the right side!

The point of being mindful

In a much earlier posting (March-2016) I talk about the need for us to re-balance our brain hemisphere usage.

We are encouraged throughout our schooling to use focused attention as our primary form of attention which automatically triggers the left hemisphere.  The left hemisphere is exactly what we should be using if we are doing detailed work or handling things with which we are familiar.  At its best we go into flow where we are highly productive and also feel good about the experience.

But to deal with people we need to use the right hemisphere and that hemisphere is triggered by one of the global forms of attention (vigilance, alertness or sustained attention).

We need to use the right hemisphere with people for two main reasons, it can manage red brain triggering (and it is very often people who provide our triggers) and it is the seat of empathy and therefore has the means for collaboration.

The use of mindfulness is very topical in schools and we can view this practice as simply being a mechanism for engaging one or all of the global forms of attention.  For example, scanning inside our bodies can only be done by the right hemisphere as it is deeply connected into the lower parts of the brain and the body (this is why we do not feel hungry when in the flow state, the left hemisphere cannot detect those feelings).  When we stand still in a forest and look in awe up into the canopy above our heads, we are triggering the right hemisphere.

We want to get to the point where we naturally trigger the right hemisphere when a new event occurs -  a person appears, for example - allowing us to control any triggering and giving us the choice to continue as we are or switch to putting the left hemisphere in the lead role if we have familiar work to do.

To do this we need to train the right hemisphere to re-take its lead position by practicing as much and as often as we can.

John Corrigan is an expert in helping individuals to bring their whole of mind to their daily life and increase their effectiveness and the effectiveness of those around them. This expertise scales from the individual to the team to the organisation. At the core of this work is the practice of encounter.  Earlier blogs can be found here.

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