One, two, three!

Three ways to becoming wiser

Last week I talked about the need to rebalance our hemisphere usage by rebalancing how we use our attention.  Focused attention for detailed work taking place with the left hemisphere leading, and one of the global forms of attention for everything else with the right hemisphere leading, especially engaging with people.

Mindfulness is the practice that can help us to do this re-balancing. Then, what do we do?  We can be more systematic.

We know how to develop the left hemisphere using the scientific method to improve our capacity for inference, for good decision-making.  This is a 3rd person perspective.

We develop the right hemisphere by a focus on caring, through mindfulness – as noted - and extinguishing triggers.  This is a 2nd person perspective.

Finally, developing insight allows us to move flexibly between hemispheres. We can do this through practices such as inquiry. This is a 1st person perspective.

It is worth noting that these three approaches correlate to critical thinking, collaboration and creativity – the core cognitive capacities required for 21st century skills.

Thus, as adults, we can develop our capacities in parallel to – and modelling to – the learning of students.

For adults, developing these capacities makes us wiser and, ultimately, that is what we want to become as we grow older.

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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