We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.
Albert Einstein
A miracle is the shift from fear to love.
Marianne Williamson
Your mind is your best friend. But it can also be your worst enemy.
Shirzad Chamine
Combatting stinking thinking with even more thinking is like pouring oil on the fire, expecting it to go out.
Patrick Little
We all know stressful situations in which we seem to get hijacked by destructive inner voices. Whether it be damning judgement of self, others, or circumstances or any of the other fear-driven patterns with which we are all familiar, until we `come down´ and reset, we will only wind ourselves ever tighter around the axle, working ourselves into paroxysms of rage, slow-moving rivers of resentment, the free-fall of resignation, and the like. The neural dynamics which feed into such mental behaviours, all very human patterns of thinking, are located in the left cerebral hemisphere of our brains, the `Saboteur Brain´.
We cannot think our way out of debilitating thinking with more of the same. We can be deliberate in our response to painful experiences, allowing ourselves to receive the painful impulse and then use it as fuel to shift to a solutions-oriented mental stance, followed by appropriate remedial action. In the Positive Intelligence (PQ) Mental Fitness framework, we learn that this requires a shift to what we call the `Sage Brain´ which is located in the right cerebral hemisphere.
In her inspiring TED Talk entitled `My Stroke of Insight´ Jill Bolte Taylor, American neuroanatomist, author, and public speaker, states: `When you look at the brain, it’s obvious that the two cerebral cortices are completely separate from one another.
Jill then elaborates further: `For those of you who understand computers, our right hemisphere functions like a parallel processor. While our left hemisphere functions like a serial processor. The two hemispheres do communicate with one another through the corpus collosum, which is made up of some 300 million axonal fibres. But other than that, the two hemispheres are completely separate. Because they process information differently, each hemisphere thinks about different things, they care about different things, and dare I say, they have very different personalities.´
Delving deeper into these differences, Bolte Taylor describes the Right Brain in more detail: `Our right hemisphere is all about this present moment. It’s all about right here, right now. Our right hemisphere, it thinks in pictures, and it learns kinaesthetically through the movement of our bodies. Information, in the form of energy, streams in simultaneously through all of our sensory systems.
` And then it explodes into this enormous collage of what this present moment looks like. What this present moment smells like and tastes like, what it feels like and what it sounds like. I am an energy being connected to the energy all around me through the consciousness of my right hemisphere. We are energy beings connected to one another through the consciousness of our right hemispheres as one human family. And right here, right now, all we are brothers and sisters on this planet, here to make the world a better place. And in this moment, we are perfect. We are whole. And we are beautiful ´.
I love that image of a grand collage; created through all the present moment material perceived, consciously, sub-consciously, and unconsciously, through all our bodily senses.
Of the Left Brain, Bolte Taylor goes on to state: `My left hemisphere is a very different place. Our left hemisphere thinks linearly and methodically. Our left hemisphere is all about the past, and it’s all about the future.
`Our left hemisphere is designed to take that enormous collage of the present moment. And it starts picking details and more details and more details about those details. It then categorizes and organizes all that information. Associates it with everything in the past we’ve ever learned and projects into the future, all of our possibilities.
` And our left hemisphere thinks in language. It’s that ongoing brain chatter that connects me and my internal world to my external world. It’s that little voice that says to me, “Hey, you got to remember to pick up bananas on your way home and eat them in the morning.” It’s that calculating intelligence that reminds me when I have to do my laundry. But perhaps most important, it’s that little voice that says to me, “I am. I am.” And as soon as my left hemisphere says to me “I am,” I become separate. I become a single solid individual separate from the energy flow around me and separate from you ´.
Shirzad Chamine, founder and CEO of executive-coaching program Positive Intelligence (PQ), locates the home of our fear-driven voices (Saboteurs) in the left cerebral hemisphere and that of the benign, life-affirming, so-called Sage Powers, in its right-hand counterpart.
Fear is an adaptive response to pain, essential for our survival. If not for fear, we would not be propelled to take immediate countermeasures to remove us from danger and bring us to safety. When we unintentionally place our hand on a hot stove, mere milliseconds of pain are sufficient to elicit the adaptive (fear) response which propels us to remove it before it gets badly burned.
Fear, in and of itself, therefore, is an essential component of the human experience. It awakens us to the necessity of taking action which will protect us from further harm. Without the intelligence of the left cerebral hemisphere, I would likely get knocked down on my way to the village to buy the newspaper! But when fear-fuelled thought patterns from early childhood become ingrained and self-sustaining, we run the risk of being hijacked by these even in situations in which such drastic reactions are neither warranted nor helpful. Our Saboteurs, if permitted, will begin to run the show.
Until we learn to consciously switch from the left cerebral hemisphere to the right, we will never make the necessary shift which will take us to peace of mind. But so many people struggle with this. We cannot think our way across the divide. It takes practice, practice, and more practice, which will gradually lead to mental fitness and inner strength.
To achieve Mental Fitness through PQ , we need to train three mental muscles throughout the day, each and every day. The first is the Saboteur Interceptor. Its role, as an early warning system, is to draw our attention to the latest wave of fear-based mental activity as it emerges, and to initiate countermeasures. Just as with the hot stove, a duration of milliseconds for any form of distress should be sufficient. Any other scenario is a clear indication that we have taken the initial impulse (emotional distress or physical pain) and, remaining in the Left Brain, have begun to generate further stress and suffering upon this foundation. This dynamic occurs unconsciously, because of existing, well-trodden, neural pathways laid down by decades of thinking patterns which have become automated and self-sustaining. The stronger the Saboteur Interceptor becomes, the more capable we become of even real-time interception.
The second mental muscle we need to train is the Sage Enhancer, a muscle which focuses our attention on the potential gift and opportunity of any given circumstance and its manifestation, using the (right cerebral hemisphere) Sage Powers of Empathise, Explore, Innovate, Navigate, and Activate. These capabilities may have become atrophied through years of Saboteur activity, and may need conscious rebuilding and cultivation through practice. Gratitude Lists, doing something new each day, consciously living each day as if it were our last day; these are all examples of simple yet powerful exercises in training the Sage Enhancer.
Finally, we have the muscle on which the entire system pivots: The Mind Command Muscle. When Einstein says that we cannot ever solve a problem with the same thinking we used when we created them, my interpretation is that Left Brain thinking, with all the ensuing distress and suffering, cannot be remedied by more of the same. We need to shift the locus of our neural activity to the right cerebral hemisphere. We have got to train the muscle which facilitates this shift from the Left Brain (Saboteur) to the Right Brain (Sage).
How do we go about strengthening this critical muscle? PQ provides an array of short, simple, body-based (kinaesthetic) guided exercises which help us come back, again and again, to the present moment. Whether it is focusing on the soles of our feet while walking, on our breathing while sitting in meditation, the sounds we hear in any given moment, the tactile signals we pick up when typing on the keyboard, the list could be extended ad infinitum.
The key issue here is the consistency of daily practice and the distribution of the exercises throughout each day. I view these exercises as a form of circuit-breaker for out continuous mind chatter, which is always focussed either on the past or the future. By mean of interruptions, even momentary ones, we begin to experience more and more of the present moment.
Not only are they effective; thanks to the fact that they are provided at regular intervals each day through an easy-to-use PQ App, they are very practicable. This is especially true for those of us who need help and encouragement in establishing and maintaining a vibrant and lasting daily practice.
This may sound too simple to those who have not engaged in this kind of Mental Fitness training. I have been practicing daily since the end of January 2022, so now have 18 months of experience. My experience shows that my levels of mental distress have fallen greatly, the frequency and volume of Saboteur hijacking has dramatically diminished, and, in cases where it does happen, the time required to return to a balanced steady state, has substantially decreased. More and more time is experienced in the present moment, living life on life’s terms, consciously on the look out for the gifts and opportunities, engaging the Powers of the Sage, feeling the life force of the universe flowing through. I am even beginning to experience evanescent flashes of true peace of mind.
Jill Bolte Taylor concludes her wonderful talk with the following observations:
` So who are we? We are the life force power of the universe, with manual dexterity and two cognitive minds. And we have the power to choose, moment by moment, who and how we want to be in the world. Right here right now, I can step into the consciousness of my right hemisphere where we are — I am — the life force power of the universe, and the life force power of the 50 trillion beautiful molecular geniuses that make up my form. At one with all that is.
` Or I can choose to step into the consciousness of my left hemisphere where I become a single individual, a solid, separate from the flow, separate from you. I am Dr Jill Bolte Taylor, intellectual, neuroanatomist. These are the “we” inside of me.
` Which would you choose? Which do you choose? And when? I believe that the more time we spend choosing to run the deep inner peace circuitry of our right hemispheres, the more peace we will project into the world and the more peaceful our planet will be. And I thought that was an idea worth spreading ´.
While recognising that both brains are necessary for human survival, I choose to operate more and more from the Sage Brain. The means which facilitate working towards this goal are available to us all in the PQ Mental Fitness Approach. This is definitely an idea that is worth spreading.
