{"id":3804,"date":"2016-01-19T14:33:12","date_gmt":"2016-01-19T22:33:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lifeinfullcolor.com\/?p=3804"},"modified":"2017-01-24T09:10:37","modified_gmt":"2017-01-24T17:10:37","slug":"january-19-2016-left-and-right-brain-not-what-we-thought","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lifeinfullcolor.com\/dev\/life-stories\/january-19-2016-left-and-right-brain-not-what-we-thought\/","title":{"rendered":"January 19, 2016 – Left and right brain – not what we thought!"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n \n \"Fb-Button\"\n <\/a>\n <\/div>
<\/fb:like><\/div><\/div>
\"Using<\/a>

Using my left brain to make the “hearts”, seeing the interesting shapes with my right.<\/p><\/div>\n

Listen to this post:<\/p>\nhttp:\/\/www.lifeinfullcolor.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/01\/20160119-Post.m4a<\/a><\/audio>\n

There are a couple of themes that have taken ahold of this life of mine \u2013 one of them is a seemingly insatiable curiosity, about how we work as humans, why we do what we do, how our consciousness grows and changes, and leads to the evolution of our species. And the other is the dance between the masculine and feminine \u2013 not necessarily male and female. Rather than physical biology, I mean energies and modes – yin and yang, passive and active, receptor and provider \u2013 elements that we all embody and live out to varying degrees.<\/p>\n

These two elements have come together recently in some new discoveries. My Sister Mary (my spiritual-director, not my sibling) pointed me to Iain McGilchrist \u2013 a psychiatrist and author who wrote a book called, \u201cThe Master and his Emissary: The Divided Brain and the Making of the Western World.\u201d I\u2019ve started reading it and it\u2019s interesting but dense, and I\u2019m not making much headway. So I\u2019ve found other resources \u2013 including a TED talk<\/a> and a much shorter e-book, \u201cThe Divided Brain and the Search for Meaning\u201d<\/a> (which is downloadable for only $.99) that gave an idea of what he\u2019s discovered and the conclusions he\u2019s made. It\u2019s completely fascinating to me, and it\u2019s something that I think is useful to our lives and art-making.<\/p>\n

In it, I\u2019ve learned that how we think of the left and right brain, means something completely<\/em> different than we thought. Common thinking of the left and right brain, have been along these lines: the left brain is rational, logical, language and math-oriented and deals in symbols, while the right brain is spatial, emotional, and creative and sees the world in shapes and curves and lines \u2013 rather as \u201cthings.\u201d It\u2019s been known in the scientific community for a while, that this is false. We use both halves of our brains for language, for visuospatial imagery, emotion and reason. Yet, there is a very distinct difference in our two hemispheres, both physically and how they operate, as is revealed in stroke patients who lose parts of their brain function.<\/p>\n

What he reveals is this. It\u2019s not so much what the two halves of our brains do, it\u2019s how<\/em> they do it that is the big differentiator. Here\u2019s how:<\/p>\n

\nThe left brain…<\/i><\/p>\n

Purpose is to narrow down to certainty<\/p>\n

Narrow focus that gets and grasps<\/p>\n

Pays attention in service of manipulation<\/p>\n

Deals in the world of the known and understood<\/p>\n

Render things explicit<\/p>\n

Tends towards fixity<\/p>\n

Sees what it expects to see<\/p>\n

Likes the simplicity of the map<\/p>\n

Sees the world as discrete elements<\/p>\n

Either \/ or<\/div>\n

\nThe right brain…<\/i><\/p>\n

Purpose is to open to possibility<\/p>\n

Sustained attention with vigilance<\/p>\n

Pays attention in service to connection<\/p>\n

Deals in newsness – drawn to what is fresh, original, unique<\/p>\n

Takes in the implicit meanings in things<\/p>\n

Tends towards flows<\/p>\n

Sees what’s really there<\/p>\n

Likes the complexity of the territory the map represents<\/p>\n

Sees the world as a web of relationships<\/p>\n

Both \/ and<\/div>

<\/div>\n

Looking at this list, I can imagine how some of us may have a preference for the right brain. It goes without saying, though, that we need both<\/em> in order to function. So that we are not on overwhelm, we have to be able to draw upon what we know and understand already. I cannot imagine a life where everything was new all the time! I remember when I was a teenager, learning to drive a manual transmission car. It took all my attention, to manage the timing of releasing the clutch as I pressed the accelerator, in order to not have the car lurch or have the engine die.<\/p>\n

The way I interpret what he says, this was an engagement of my right brain. But then once I became skilled, how to do this became second nature, and I didn\u2019t have to think about it. My intense focus is no longer required every time I get behind the wheel \u2013 but rather my left brain guides my driving based on what I already know. Please note, though, I could be entirely<\/em> wrong here. What he says may not apply to motor skills (that is mine, not the cars!). It\u2019s just that this was a really powerful memory of learning something new and \u2013 to me \u2013 it seems relevant!<\/p>\n

It\u2019s also how it goes when we learn to paint \u2013 we rely upon our left brains. There is knowledge \u2013 about paints and pigments, about paper and brushes \u2013 and our experiences of working with them, that we use to do the work of making our art. If every time we sat to paint, we were enthralled with everything, as if it were the first time we used it, we\u2019d never progress in our skill and be able to evolve our capacity to express what is inside us – in the form of paintings.<\/p>\n

I also think that we use our left brains, when we evaluate our work as we go. When I\u2019m in the process of painting something that doesn\u2019t quite \u201clive\u201d like I want it to, I use my powers of evaluation and comparison, to determine what information is there for me in the photograph I\u2019m working from, that differs from what I\u2019ve painted. Is it darker or a different shape, what might have I left out? I also think that it\u2019s our left brain that causes us a lot of heartache, in its criticism of what we\u2019re painting \u2013 especially as it is in progress. The left brain can tend to fixate on little parts of the painting, that aren\u2019t \u201cright\u201d in its estimation. Just recalling the experience of that kind of thinking, and I feel heavy inside.<\/p>\n

But it\u2019s our right brains that hold the big picture in our work. This is where we respond to a composition, where we sense the spark of inspiration – that \u201cI want to paint this,\u201d where we find things interesting. It\u2019s the where we find the motivation to do our work and the meaning in it. It\u2019s also our right brains that have us really see what\u2019s there \u2013 which is consistent with what I\u2019d previously though was domain of the right brain.<\/p>\n

I take a photo of everyone\u2019s painting, at the end of each painting session. They often \u2013 especially at the beginning of a painting \u2013 tell me there\u2019s nothing to take a picture of. But I insist, as the germ of their genius is already there, and it becomes really useful and interesting, once the painting is done. As well, it\u2019s fleeting – as soon as more is painted, that particular state is no more. When the paintings are further along, they are often surprisingly pleased when they see their work in my phone. Since the right brain sees the big picture, when we are in progress with our work, it takes distance to catch the glimmers of what\u2019s coming to be. The image in the phone provides this distance. We can\u2019t make the critical judgements, so we can see the painting more as everyone else does – and we see that it\u2019s not that bad!<\/p>\n

\"Firelight<\/a><\/p>\n

I just had a conversation with my coach Lissa, who was bowled over by my latest painting \u2013 Firelight. Her reaction was powerful, emotional, and it touched her so deeply, it brought her to tears. This was after I just wrote two weeks ago that, \u201cit\u2019s not my most inspired work, but I think it\u2019s ok.\u201d She clearly saw this painting in a right-hemisphere way, while I was\/am still stuck seeing it in my comparing<\/em> left-brain. I am grateful that in time \u2013 though sometimes it takes months \u2013 I do develop the capacity to see the spirit in my artwork as others do – who were not in the nitty-gritties of painting it.<\/p>\n

We live in a world that is dominated by our left brain sensibilities: rules, facts, being \u201ccertain\u201d about things. Iain McGilchrist makes a strong case, for the need to bring our right brains into our lives more \u2013 he even intimates, that our survival may depend upon it. We need to grow our capacities to see the inter-relatedness of everything, to have our intuition guide our decisions, to seek meaning in life. He says this: \u201cthe left hemisphere\u2019s values are those of utility and pleasure. But meaning cannot come from this linear project any more than happiness can be pursued. Happiness and fulfillment have to be the by-products of something else, of looking elsewhere.\u201d We can practice this in our creative endeavors. This says to me, that we have to make our work largely with one part of our capacities, but then we need to see it, receive it, find its true value and meaning with the other.<\/p>\n

I\u2019d love to know what you think.<\/p>\n

With my love,<\/p>\n

Cara<\/p>\n ","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Listen to this post: There are a couple of themes that have taken ahold of this life of mine \u2013 one of them is a seemingly insatiable curiosity, about how we work as humans, why we do what we do, how our consciousness grows and changes, and leads to the evolution of our species. And […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[29],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3804","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-life-stories"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nJanuary 19, 2016 - Left and right brain - not what we thought! - Life in Full Color<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.lifeinfullcolor.com\/dev\/life-stories\/january-19-2016-left-and-right-brain-not-what-we-thought\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"January 19, 2016 - Left and right brain - not what we thought! - Life in Full Color\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Listen to this post: There are a couple of themes that have taken ahold of this life of mine \u2013 one of them is a seemingly insatiable curiosity, about how we work as humans, why we do what we do, how our consciousness grows and changes, and leads to the evolution of our species. 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