Heart Matters!

Studies about eye-to-eye contact/bonding in infancy reveals that many mammals in the animal kingdom and humans prefer to hold a baby on their left side or breast. They believe that this has to do with seeing with the left eye and the activation of the social engagement hemisphere prominent to the right side of brain. On the basis of our bioenergetic blueprint: The leftsided structures and functioning of the body (typically the domain of the right hemisphere of the brain, but something does change if one is predominately left handed) has to do more with our receiving, trusting and emotional processes, and is more associated with creativity and abstract constructs. The right-sided bodily features and performance (typically domain of the left hemisphere of the brain) have more connection with our doing, believing and rational or logical process, and is more associated with concrete thinking. Abstract thinking is the ability to think about objects, principles, and ideas that are not physically present. It is related to symbolic thinking, which uses the substitution of a symbol for an object or idea. Research has found that abstract thinkers are more likely than concrete thinkers to take risks. This may be partly due to the idea that concrete thinkers, more concerned with “how” to perform an action rather than “why,” might be dissuaded from starting a risky task because they’re more focused on the practical effort involved with the task, while the abstract thinker might be more occupied with considering the pros and cons of the risk. Concrete thinking is the opposite of abstract thinking. This type of processing focuses on what can be perceived through the five senses: smell, sight, sound, taste, and touch. The vast majority of people use a combination of concrete and abstract thinking to function in daily life, although some people may favor one mode over the other. Interestingly, I have read that most people’s right eye is bigger than their left eye. Naturally, I immediately scrambled off to the mirror and examined a myriad of photos to discern which of my eyes appeared bigger…no surprise to me…my left eye. I lean heavily on abstract thinking and emotional awareness. That is, until my husband unexpectely died and in an instant my whole world crumbled. Throughout the mourning process, I have noticed how my right eye appears bigger. Possibly, it reflects my seeking through my sensory processes to locate my former world and the persons central to that life, my husband and me. As well as, my ardent desire to to make sense of the illogical nature of his death and disparity between who I thought he was and how his life ended. In any case, it is a process to rebuild one's life after huge losses. In “The Grieving Brain” by Mary-Frances O'Connor something poignant about our reality construct can be learned from the neuroscientific view of what happens during loss, particularly one that absolutely forces a literal change to the day-to-day routines and reality that are no longer there, e.g. as one does when losing a mate. Fascinatingly, the brain has to learn to remap life and the author compared it to how we map out everything including how to navigate and locate the bathroom in the middle of the night without the aid of light. For any of you who have traveled staying in a succession of different lodgings, you might have experienced the disorienting feeling of getting back to your own home and momentarily forgetting where you are and immediately left-right sided issues manifest, such as which direction to head to the bathroom or which side to grab for the toilet paper or something like that! So, here is something interesting to think about: I asked a man today walking along the beach who happens to work in a neuro-field this: why did he think some people are more inclined to flow through change than others? In other words, why do some people feel relentlessly stuck while others seem to find ways of working through uncertainty and start the process to reinvent themselves when life-changing events happen or when the old ways and patterns of life simply are no longer working for them? It has been my observation with my clients that some folks have greater difficulty letting go and accepting that doing so will lead to good outcomes. For some, as desperately as they might want the change, it just feels impossible even if it is only one step away. The man mentioned about our attachment to our early formed neural patterns, which HeartMath Institute has done numerous studies and developed the techniques for us to upgrade our baseline reference patterns that our gatekeeper, the amygdala, carefully watches and guards. So, that was not hard for me to understand, but wasn’t quite the nuance of what I am curious to understand. Suddenly he shifted and looked at me, he asked me: “Are you a person who trusts the process?” It took me a nanosecond to know exactly at heart the answer… “Yes.” He then said, “That’s your answer. You basically are a person who trusts so you surrender to the process more easily than some others do.” Please understand, this is not a judgment, only an experiential observation of the differences. This is not a 'better than you' platform, but a sharing of something that we can all learn to cultivate into our unique styles of garnering and applying knowledge. Now I had a new burning question to explore...why do I typically trust change when I have had quite a lot of reasons in life not to do so. Later, as I was relaying this conversation to our friend in the chat, Jennifer, I was riffing about this, aka 'Shelly Audiobook Ramble'. In the retelling of this morning conversation, I started to connect some reasons why I think that I personally take more risks to trust unknown things. This thought will circle us back to one of our first discussions in the group chat when the bravehearted contributors had mentioned how fear and uncertainty can close down their creativity. I related that for me, I see life situations very much as I see my work…a field of energy or it could be said a field that contains all the pros and cons, the gamut of all possible outcomes for better or worse from one extremity to the other and the middle comfort zone within it. Being more predominately abstract thinker, I tend to relate as it comes to me in patterns. Using those patterns, I theorize how many Safety Valves v. Pitfalls are in it. Unworkable extremes are tossed out of the equation, just like in any model or evaluation where there are unusable variables because, let’s face it, that’s not an option, e.g. for me, being a Bible Student who is cultivating God's love, standards and principles, would exclude a lot of stuff. So, if there is identifiable safety measures (or resources) that I know I can access or create something to bridge the pitfall (any area of fear and danger), this process also clarifies to me my motivations and intentions, so typically I will go for it and start the surrender process of letting go of what stands in the way of progress. For clarification, I scale high for input both on sensory sensitivity and emotional empathic sensitivity. This translates to the fact that I download within me a lot of information that is more than the typical majority of population. There are downsides to this, but the upside is that I have a lot of material to play with to create a plan of action. Admittedly, this process can be laborious and time-consuming, requiring many outlets that help me to sort it and make any kind of sense out of it. In fact, recently, I was derogatorily accused of being a ‘hash and rehash’ person. I have decided to reframe that slight into a great compliment! Yes, in a way, it is true that I am. But, not in a repetitive, holding flight pattern way of thinking and definitely not to ruminate with no end game and hold it over someone else. No, I am using empathy to imagine as many variables that could be influencing the situation or person in comparison to how I am perceiving. Upon looking at everything from as many angles, dimensions and light as possible, personally, it helps me to see other options that can give new meaning or compassionate latitude to the problem at hand. It is as if I am rolling wine around in my mouth trying to discern every characteristic and flavor influencing the finality of how I feel about it.