the reality of human suffering and the reality of wholeness juxtapositions so that it is never possible to fully grasp both at the same time. sometimes we get stuck on one or the other… caught in suffering, we feel isolated, disconnected, grieved, and heavy with loss. in Judith Viorst’s book Necessary Losses, she highlights losses of all kinds, small and big. loss of wholeness/unity in the womb, loss of childhood omnipotence, loss of undivided love, and it appears that life can be a state of constant longing. like we came from some wholeness, that we know what it feels like, it seems more than just theoretical, but we cannot pinpoint when and how that was. the word fernweh is defined as a longing or ache for a place that we’ve never been to. yet this feels familiar because how would it be so potent, real and palpable if we never tasted it.
there are moments in life when we’re “there.” a sort of suspended consciousness… from bliss in meditation, being out in the woods, being in love… moments of nirvana right here and right now. and the magic is that we’re not “doing” anything… and therefore it is so hard to recreate. yet these moments seem more than just accidental. almost like with purpose and intentionality and discipline we could subtly string along more of these moments.
the thinking mind seems to stand back and allow flow.
i heard at a recent conference that the right brain is associated with “religious experiences”- the moments where we feel like there is something bigger that just us. we’re connected in oneness. but as Dr. Jill Bolte-Taylor writes, the left brain does the opposite. it defines and labels, thus separating. it is almost like we are not capable of hanging out in the right brain oneness connectivity very long without activating our left brain’s need to explain it and define it.
religion transformed from experience into the written word, from silent reverence to rules… as if we are trying to capture the moment and recreate it, and we want a formula. we want to share it with others, let them be a part of our heaven, and sometimes even become insistent and fundamentalist about demanding that others experience. yet that very act, contrived and imitating, seems to induce a loss of heaven. and we’re back in a state of loss, longing once again.
Dr. Jill Bolte Taylor, Harvard trained neuroanatomist, with the experience of a left brain stroke at the age of 37, speaks about the two sides of the brain and what that means about who we are. Dr. Taylor’s TED talk and her interview with Oprah are embedded below and most of the following is based off of what i learned from her talks and her book…
she listed that the left brain thinks in language, works with details, and is very liner/sequential. it references past and future, seeks differences/boundaries, analyses critically, and is judgmental about right and wrong. it is competitive, confrontational, has a sense of time, and is on the clock with a sense of urgency. currently our society is very left-brain dominant. we’re in a very fast paced world where we value boundaries and time, people are separate and disconnected, and we like to keep scores and be competitive. the left brain is very useful (of course!) as it helps us be productive and communicate, it helps us assess danger, and it provides contexts.
however as illustrated above by Dr. Taylor, the left brain cares more about being right than it does about being happy. it cares more about being right than about being connected and content. Dr. Taylor emphasizes that we have a choice, that we have emotional accountability and we are ACCOUNTABLE for our own emotions and states of mind.
the right brain on the other hand is non-verbal, and thinks in pictures. it is kinesthetic and present centered. the type of thinking here is holistic, and it seeks similarities and connection. it is compassionate and non-confrontational and content. its time orientation is that of being in the flow.
there is a lot of research and emphasis on being “whole brained” now. instead of polarizing expertise and personalities on one side or the other, can we be more integrated? Dr Taylor said that what has been happening for decades is that kids who are “left-brained” are in professions that are “left brained.” the benefit of specialization is there, but this social strategy creates a divide where art and science are separate and the scope of an individual is limited.
so the right brain is engaged at times when we are immersed or in flow of something, and we are not paying attention to time. when we feel connection and similarities to others, without being very aware of our differences, when we stop counting grievances and allow ourselves to feel at peace, and in the moment.
Dr Taylor discovered this experientially after having a stroke in her left brain. she could not speak, she could not distinguish form and background, but she described feeling like it was what has been described as “nirvana.” the voice that constantly reminded her of her to do lists, and the constant commentary that we experience inside our heads stopped for her. this was an extreme case of right-brained-ness, but how do we integrate more wholeness into everyday lives so that one side of our brain is not amplified on thinking-steroids?
for left-brain folks: meditation, yoga, art, music… are some ways in which we engage and enhance the parts of the brain that don’t work too well for us. when we feel disconnected and detached we can choose to spend more time being right brained. the right brain would rather be happy than right.
i know that my staunchest left brain friends (you know who you are) and clients i work with dislike, no abhor, the proposition of not being “right.” the philosophy here is that it is not a choice between being right or wrong, my implication is that reality is not dualistic. reality is multi-faceted, and we select what we focus on, we choose which aspects of reality we will integrate and which parts we will ignore and leave out. the result often is an incomplete version of reality. so when the focus is on the differences, grievances, boundaries, competition, criticism, cynicism, and urgency, we enhance our ability to see those aspects of reality more because we work out those “muscles” in the brain more.
as far as we know, it is a simple case of amplifying areas used more often and atrophying areas that are not. just like a language that we practice is remembered and one that is not is forgotten. so when we meditate, it is scheduled brain workout, with the goal being to carry over that mindset throughout the day. however if one really enjoys and wants to continue a sense of separation, grievance and criticism, they can also meditate on that more systematically 😉 (it’s kind of what many of us do all day unconsciously anyways!)
John Ryan Haule, in his book Jung in the 21st Century presents the role of the brain in psychic process. He describes psyche as a process rather than a substance. Haule (2011) cites Jung saying “to regard the psyche… as a fluid stream of events which change kaleidoscopically under the alternating influence of different instincts.”
it is important to explore what dynamic or kaleidoscopic means. the brain and neural processes are dependent on structure, the matter of the brain: the cells, the neurophil, the neurotransmitters etc. yet that is only part of the whole. the alive brain, at any instant, is also activity: the electromagnetism, the waves, charges, etc. Haule describes that a present event in the brain only makes sense as a variation on everything that happened in the past. this statement is profound and described by Walter J. Freeman, who is a biologist, theoretical neuroscientist and philosopher at UCBerkley. Freeman studied neuro-biological processes and showed, through studying rabbit brains, that it is “not shaped by stimulus directly but by previous experience with those stimuli including emotional associations and neuromodulators, as well as sensory input.” When a rabbit reacts to a new odor, it does not react directly to the new odor, but to the difference in the background events and processes that were already occurring. He says “pattern depends on the history of rabbit’s exposure, nor merely to the odorant presently sensed.” Haule explains, “process is everything… a single stimulus does not result in identical pattern in every rabbit brain, but rather a pattern idiosyncratic to each individual rabbit. every brain responds against the history of its own variable patterning, and every emergent psyche is likewise defined by its own process.”
Rick Hanson and Richard Mendius in their book Buddha’s Brain discuss how structure and activity impact each other in the brain, and that it is a constant dynamic process. juggling for three months increase the size of certain areas in the brain (Haule), meditating for 3 months increases gray matter in the neurocortex of the brain, taxi drivers show increase in visual/spatial areas of the brain (hanson & mendius). the psyche is constantly evolving and changing based on our historic exposure, current exposure, and activity.
Freeman (2000) says that “the biology of meaning includes the entire brain and body, with the history built by experience into bones, muscles, endocrine glands, and neural connections. a meaningful state is an activity pattern of the nervous system and body that has a particular focus in the state space of the organism, not in the physical space of the brain.”Freeman refers to “state space” as experience made possible by transitions, the whole organism (bones, muscles, endocrine glands, neural connections) and that psyche is a series of state spaces experienced.
Haule writes, “psyche is both identity and possibility.”
i get excited about these descriptions and studies because i am very aware of the division between what is called empirical science and what is referred to as “new age crap.” i think Jung struggled with people calling him a mystic and “out there” while a lot of what he was referring to, and a lot of what the Eastern psychology referred to, is now being shown to be more accurate than they get credit for. the idea of the collective, the idea of being connected to all around us, the idea of being influenced by “waves,” of being able to be both particle and wave, the idea of our pasts being important parts of therapy, and the ideas of not having a fixed, solid, self are all reinforced by new findings in psychology, cellular biology, physics.
Consilience is when facts and theories from different disciplines point in the same direction, they implicitly support one another and jointly contribute to their mutual likelihood of being proven correct (Haule, 2011). i can see that the research is happening and people who are at the forefront of the research already know a lot and have published a lot, yet there seems to be a discrepancy in the dispersion of this knowledge. as we talk about transtheoretical and transdiagnostic movements in therapy, it becomes more and more important to understand the whole nervous system, and to incorporate that understanding into psychotherapy. the addition of yoga, biofeedback, massage therapies, histories, archetypes, philosophy, to psychotherapy is exciting and promising. allowing the psyche to be a complex and deep and ever-changing entity allows us to respect psychology and to be awed by it at the same time. i think it is not a time for reductionist principles, the consilience emerging points us to expand.
This post is inspired by and HEAVILY based on Chapter 6 of John Ryan Haule’s book Jung in the 21st Century (2011). I’d highly recommend everyone to read this book as it is a wealth of information on how we tick!
the paradox of being 