Left-brain dominance
Our culture places high value on the left side of our brains, but left-brain dominance limits our full potential.
The left brain sees the world as fixed, certain and knowable. It interprets the world in parts, focuses on details, and categorizes information in order to make the world seem knowable and certain.
As a former lawyer, I used to be left-brain dominant. I wanted to see the world as knowable, black and white, right and wrong. But cases and courts involve people, who are sometimes unpredictable. Life is messy, and outcomes are uncertain.
My left brain wasn’t comfortable with the messiness and uncertainty.
Left vs. right perspective
Although both hemispheres are needed for reason and creativity, most of us likely have well-worn neural pathways that tend toward and reason and logic (left hemisphere) or creativity and intuition (right hemisphere).
Iain McGilchrist, psychiatrist, researcher and author of several books on the brain, says that when we’re left-brain dominant and something doesn’t fit with an existing framework, the left brain ignores it.
Plus, the brain’s network (the default mode network) that is self-referential is dominant in the left hemisphere. When this network is active, we might become pretty convinced of our own narratives. We won’t see the need for growth and change, because we’re already sure that we’re right. (Know anyone like this?)
How can using the right hemisphere help us?
Unlike the left, which reduces concepts into parts, the right brain sees the whole. It also focuses attention on the external world, including people and relationships. In the right brain, people are not categorized but unique. The world is seen as changing, complex and interconnected.
The right brain is also open to new ideas, even those that don’t fit with prior understanding. (For more, see Iain McGilchrist.)
Growing our connections, growing ourselves
In order to reach our greatest potential, we need to expand our thinking and grow our brains.
And we can do this! Scientists now know that our brains are plastic, capable of growing and changing through our focus and attention.
As Dr. Dan Siegel says, “Where attention goes, neural firing flows and neural connections grow.”
A well-connected brain, using both hemispheres, is an integrated brain – like a city with superhighways connecting across all parts (rather than a few well-worn roads in one part).
An integrated brain has greater skill and flexibility. Rather than repeating the same thoughts and patterns, it considers different thoughts, ideas and feelings, and moves moving between them or even merges them for greater understanding.
As Einstein said, “We cannot solve our problems by using the same thinking we used when we created them.”
Speaking of Einstein, his brain was found to be highly integrated, with great connectivity between the left and right hemispheres (across the corpus callosum which is between the two).
Coaching the brain for growth
Like forging a new path in the woods, growing new neural connections takes effort.
The best approach is to enlist another person in this process, be it a coach or trusted mentor. Through this relationship and particular coaching questions, the brain becomes activated in new ways and begins to rewire.
As Dan Siegel has described it: “When there is contingent collaborative communication, the brain functions optimally both within itself and within present and future relationships.”
At Case Western Reserve University, research by Richard Boyatzis and Jack Anthony has shown that coaching questions activate greater neural pathways in the brain than receiving advice or recommendations.
And as research psychiatrist at UCLA School of Medicine, Dr. Jeffrey Schwartz, said of the brain and coaching: “The questions you ask of your brain significantly affect the quality of the connections it makes….”
Short of having a coach or skilled and trusted partner to help shift your attention and rewire your brain, how else might you begin to strengthen connections in under-utilized parts of the brain?
7 ways to grow your brain
Each time you think in a new way, or take a new action, you are creating new neural connections. Here are 7 ideas to exercise your right brain and get you building new connections:
- Explore ideas and perspectives from different points of view, such as that of another person, a larger/helicopter view, or a future perspective
- Be open to not knowing, holding uncertainty and grey areas
- Go out of your way to explore different places, people and cultures (even take a new route home)
- Explore a challenge without words, such as through a metaphor, music, dance, images, food or other sensory context
- Invite new ideas by exploring: what’s possible?
- Ask how situations, people, and ideas might be connected
- Approach people, situations and problems with curiosity, even if you think you already have it/them figured out
Like practicing an instrument, consistency and repetition are key to strengthening the neural connections. The more you practice shifting your attention in different ways, the more you will start to create that superhighway in your brain and improve your potential.
We may not be Einstein, but with a little practice and letting go of what we think we know, we – and our brains – can reach greater potential!
Photo by Bhautik Patel on Unsplash
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