The Side of the Brain Less Traveled

Your brain has two different ways to process information. While recent research suggests these functions aren't completely isolated to the separate hemispheres, we can generally refer to the left hemisphere as analytical and sequential. It involves math and language skills, organization, logic, reason, observation, and analysis. In contrast, your brain's right hemisphere in general involves creativity, emotions, spatial activities such as dance or athletics, and visualization. 

More to the point in bringing about change, your left-brain processes also include defense mechanisms built on logic and reason. But this logic is not an absolute truth. Your reasoning processes are the result of left-brain explaining, analyzing, and interpreting, which are likely to be received through the same filters that programmed your view of the world and narrowed your perceptions and possibilities.

For significant change to occur, then, it's often necessary to bypass the analytical mind and its defense mechanisms. When your left-brain efforts to solve problems don't work, that's an invitation to involve your more holistic, creative, spontaneous, nonverbal self. How do you do that? One way is to notice the stories, cartoons, dreams, movies, figures of speech that draw your attention and explore what they might symbolize about you.

For example, we all feel "stuck" at some point in our lives. What does being stuck mean to you? Are you "frozen," "mired in quicksand," "looking down a long tunnel with no light at the end," or something else?

Stay within the metaphor and let it lead you to a possibility you hadn't considered before. If you feel "mired in quicksand," for example, picture yourself looking around and let your imagination offer something, perhaps a strong tree branch that's low enough to pull yourself out. Let your own metaphor change in some way that promises positive movement.

(From Out of the Box Self-Coaching Workbook)