Blog : Integration

Why I think essential oils are rad! Part I
Integrative Counsel

Why I think essential oils are rad! Part I

I was an essential oil skeptic. I thought, “How in the world can smelling something pretty help me emotionally – let alone physically.” I went to one of those parties dead-set not to buy a thing. After trying them, I bought a set. Soon, I was staying up way too late to read about the science behind these mysterious oils. Now, I have a full-on collection.

With copious amounts of research, I began to understand what comprises an essential oil. Yes, they often smell good, but they are also so much more!

There are a few different ways to use essential oils, including aromatically, topically and internally*.

Additionally, they support multiple health domains – physical, emotional and spiritual.

Let’s begin, in the first article in a 3-part series, with their typical association, how they smell.

Aromatic/olfactory

Humans are ten thousand times more capable of smelling than tasting, and we experience scent long before it reaches our cognitive brains. In fact, scent is the only sense (of the five senses) that relays messages directly to the limbic system of the brain – the “emotional and memory center” – and bypasses the slower cortex.

This is why the brain establishes a strong emotional connection between certain smells and memories, and why scent can access the unconscious (what we typically term that which is less accessible by the cortex) and can conjure almost visceral imagery and associations.

Brain tidbit: Smell stimulates the olfactory bulb, which converts the information into a neural code. This code is then, in turn, relayed to the limbic system of the brain (emotional center), the hippocampus (short-term memory center), the hypothalamus (long-term memory), the pituitary gland (master gland) and other endocrine glands. These glands secrete hormones in response, which can restore hormonal balance depending on the initial code, aka the scent, inputted into the system. In short, essential oils have the capacity to alter chemical messages, relayed within the limbic system of the brain!

The Brand I Trust

Rarely do I promote a specific product. However, I going to make an exception here. I use and, can highly recommend, doTERRA for multiple reasons, but my top 3 are:

1) Quality (you can rest assured these oils are not adulterated – aka “cut” – to reduce costs),

2) Sustainable and ethical harvesting through their co-impact sourcing, and

3) A corporate culture of caring with numerous initiatives underway (doTERRA Healing Hands Foundation, a non-profit seeking to free the world of disease and poverty and “ultimately empower impoverished communities with the tools needed to become self-reliant”).

And, one more for good measure – their science is extremely impressive! And, you know I like that!

To learn more, feel free to contact me or click here.

Stay tuned for our next article that explores the science behind topical usage.

 

*Sign Up for our free 9 Essential Ingredients To Court Your Creativity PDF. Learn nine crucial skills you can implement RIGHT NOW to increase your creativity by stepping back into your right brain! Click here to sign up.

Dayna Wood Creative Life Coach

Dayna Wood, EdS, LMHC, NBCC, REAT

Dayna is the founder of Integrative Counsel, where she shows stressed-out professionals how to reignite their innate creative wisdom and spark new meaning and adventure in their lives through the power of brain science. She delights in combining out-of-the-box thinking with solid scientific research, so her clients get the best of both worlds. 

Down the Rabbit Hole
Integrative Counsel

Down the Rabbit Hole

In the previous article, I did not outline the stages of alchemy as I wanted to present a broad overview of its spiritual importance. It is very easy to get lost in the many rich contours and symbolic crevices that is the alchemical “map”– as many have before us. However, in this article, I invite you down the rabbit hole. Go on an adventure with me for the next few minutes. I promise; I’ll bring us out the other side.

Alchemy does not shy away from the muck and mire, the putrid and fermenting. In fact, it is sought after as this is where transformation takes place. In the alchemical process, there is always a death before a rebirth. They are inseparable and to transmute, or to change our nature into a higher-order one, the former must be shed; rarely, an easy process.

Again, be reminded that the stages below are not necessarily linear. Nor, is it agreed upon in exactly which order they arrive. That is why I’ve represented them within a spiral. In fact, I believe it is possible to be in multiple phases simultaneously in various spheres of our lives. Furthermore, remember that this is ultimately about awakening consciousness, or the unconscious being made conscious. (Don’t give up on me now though. It will make more sense in just a few lines.)

Now many thinkers on this topic, far brighter than me, believe that to unite the self and the transcendent it takes going through this entire (aka “spiral”) process three times. Enlightened figures of history, such as Siddhartha, are examples of this ultimate transmutation – changing a given substance into a higher one (aka “enlightenment”). The first unites the unconscious and conscious. The second makes the union permanent, and the third unites matter and spirit.

Now, now don’t become disheartened. Even though you and I will likely never reach this state in this life, the guide that is alchemy can provide comfort – no matter where you are in the process there is a way through and something else inevitably comes next, if we are open to the change.

Let’s begin. And, as you can guess, it doesn’t start with levity in alchemy. The process is ignited by fire (calcinatio, mortificato). With this burning and decomposing, comes the breaking down of the parts of us that are prohibiting our own progress. (I’m sure we can all think of a few of these.)

After the fire, water is added (solutio) and there is a dissolution of our once identified persona. Air is next (separatio). With air, refinement begins. We become more aware of our authentic selves. This might sound like the first stage where we get a bit of a breather, but don’t be fooled. Uncovering our shadow is a part of this work and shadow work is, again, rarely easy.

At this point in the transformation process is when we have to dig deep and bring to light that which we have pushed away and repressed. These are sometimes powerful parts of us as well as parts that we haven’t wanted to look at fully. In this stage, it is time to bring them into the air and shed light on what was once dark.

After burning, dissolving and unburying, there is a coming back together of what remains (conjunctio). However, the alchemical process is far from complete. The dark night of the soul waits, just on the other side of this stage. Another type of death and rebirth – a fermentation of sorts (putrefactio) – is about to take place. It is the shedding of the cocoon that had once been secure but is now confining. Within this stage of rebirth is not only the shedding but alas also the rising (sublimato) to see the world anew.

Distilling and integrating these new understandings into our lives so that they can become a part of our daily way of being is the 6th stage of this process. At this point, the process can – and often does – begin again, or is “multiplied”. That is why it is sometimes termed “multiplicatio”.

The final stage in this great work (magnum opus), before one reaches the “philosopher’s stone” where opposing forces are united and spirit is manifested in material form, is to coagulate (coagulatio) – or to stop the bleeding. The prima materia, the formless base matter essential for the creation of the stone, is finally found here. All has been stripped away that is no longer necessary – vital for the coming together of what was once considered opposites.

Now that we’ve found your way through the alchemical stages, let’s return to why this is important.

Ultimately, this is about awakening consciousness. And, through the act of making the unconscious conscious, we are creating meaning and affecting change not only within our own psyche but that can influence the whole of creation. Because as opposites unite, we come to understand that “inner and outer” is a false dived. It is fundamental to do both our inner work and to live out that purpose in our outer lives. That is how the inner and practical, personal and communal, unite.

To close, it is wise to remember that as we allow ourselves to fall down the rabbit hole that is alchemy, there is always a rebirth that comes after the labor of shedding, but it rarely presents itself as we expect.

If you enjoyed this article and want a firsthand encounter with your inner alchemist, click here.

 

*Sign Up for our free 9 Essential Ingredients To Court Your Creativity PDF. Learn nine crucial skills you can implement RIGHT NOW to increase your creativity by stepping back into your right brain! Click here to sign up.

 

Dayna Wood Creative Life Coach

Dayna Wood, EdS, REAT

Dayna is the founder of Integrative Counsel, where she shows stressed-out professionals how to reignite their innate creative wisdom and spark new meaning and adventure in their lives through the power of brain science.

Why Alchemy?
Integrative Counsel

Why Alchemy?

Thoughts of alchemy might stir in you images of deluded men during the Middle Ages who tinkered with dangerous substances, such as mercury and sulfur, trying to create gold from lead. You might then wonder why in the world I’m writing about alchemy.

It is true; there were many charlatans promising riches and eternal life while creating hydrochloric and nitric acid in the process. However, what is less well-known is the spiritual foundation at the core of alchemy.

Alchemy is the art of transmutation, or the transformation of a given substance into a higher one – whether it be lead to gold or higher states of consciousness. It dates back thousands of years and evolved independently in multiple advanced civilizations, including China, India, and Greece and became a discipline of scholarly study in Ancient Egypt.

Throughout its history, alchemy could be roughly divided into two branches – “the practical” and “the inner”. The practical sometimes referred to as “puffers and blowers”, were concerned with creating physical wealth and healing elixirs.

The inner alchemists concentrated on the transformation of the self and facilitation of divine truths. The transformation inner alchemists were actually describing was one of awakening consciousness. They believed that the work of the individual alchemist had the power to inform and influence the whole of creation.

Carl Jung brought alchemy back into Western canon. In his book, Mysterium Coniunctionis, he helped elucidate the spiritual and psychological underpinnings of these ancient and esoteric teachings. Jung emphasized that symbolic expressions of states of consciousness can be made manifest through dreams, creativity, and active imagination. And, through the act of making the unconscious conscious, we are creating meaning and affecting change within the psyche.

Both alchemy and Jung speak extensively about the union of opposites within the psyche. For example, Jung termed the male and female parts of the psyche, within each of us, anima and animus. Further “opposites” to be integrated include shadow and light, young and old and the conscious and unconscious.

In alchemy, the first “conjunction” is to unite the conscious and unconscious. However, the ultimate goal is to join spirit and matter, generating the “philosopher’s stone” or magnum opus. Enlightened figures such as the Buddha and Jesus Christ are thought to have reached this final stage of the inner alchemical process.

An everlasting advantage of alchemy is that it can be understood as “a map” of spiritual development. However, this is not without caution. It is very easy to get “lost in the sauce”. Many brilliant minds have debated “the stages” of alchemy and which steps come first, second and last. And, the debate endures, even today.

It is my opinion that the stages are not linear, and I believe it is possible to experience multiple stages simultaneously in various areas of our lives. This is not meant to mystify the process, but rather to provide reassurance that there is a way through, but it might not be what we expect.

Furthermore, I contend that the separation between practical and inner alchemy is a false divide. It is fundamental to do both our inner work and to live out that purpose in our outer lives. That is how the inner and practical, personal and communal, unite.

If you enjoyed this article and want a firsthand encounter with your inner alchemist, click here.

 

*Sign Up for our free 9 Essential Ingredients To Court Your Creativity PDF. Learn nine crucial skills you can implement RIGHT NOW to increase your creativity by stepping back into your right brain! Click here to sign up.

 

Dayna Wood Creative Life Coach

Dayna Wood, EdS, REAT

Dayna is the founder of Integrative Counsel, where she shows stressed-out professionals how to reignite their innate creative wisdom and spark new meaning and adventure in their lives through the power of brain science.

The Pain of Gratitude
Integrative Counsel

The Pain of Gratitude

There is something fundamentally challenging about gratitude that goes beyond remembering to practice it. If I truly admit how damn fortunate I am, I usually experience a myriad of feelings: pure love, then guilt, and then sheer terror.

Guilt and terror? That might surprise you. After all, we practice gratitude to help us become more positive and serene, and more appreciative of the good things in our lives. But sometimes, when I’m thinking about how grateful I am for the people, places and things in my life, I can become paralyzed by the thought of all of it just…vanishing. And that’s a terrifying thought indeed.

I don’t believe this stems from a fear of abandonment, or an attachment disorder issue. Rather, it comes from a deep understanding that everything is temporary. My four-year old daughter, jumping up and down naked on the bed, laughing with pure glee, will soon be a memory. My almost-seventeen-year-old cat, who likes to snuggle in the mornings, will also be gone. As will my partner someday.

So, the question becomes: how do I allow myself to fully open and experience the absolute love and gratitude that abounds in these moments, while also fully comprehending that it will never be the same again?

This is not a rhetorical, philosophical question. Really, how do we receive and embrace the good, when we know it can’t last?

I’m reminded of a Carl Jung quote regarding dichotomy (the division between two mutually exclusive or contradictory situations): “But there is no energy unless there is a tension of opposites…”

When I practice tools that help me become more comfortable with dichotomy, I’m better able to sit with this tension without reacting. These reactions typically take the form of any number of distractions and unproductive behavior, including negativity.

While our brains are wired for negativity and, as I mentioned in a previous post, it kept our ancestors alive, we now know we can actually rewire our brains. Ironically, gratitude is one of the best ways to accomplish this. (See Rick Hanson’s work for more on the brain’s negativity bias).

However, if the experience of gratitude can be painful, then where does that leave us?

There are a few mind/brain hacks you can use to hold dichotomy or, as I call it, brain integration. To give an oversimplified description, our brains have two hemispheres, the left and the right, and they quite literally understand the world differently. The left hemisphere sees things in black and white, yes or no, one way or the other. But the right hemisphere allows for a multitude of shades and colors. It can tolerate the tension of division, and can begin to detect webs, or patterns, that are impossible to see when viewed only in a linear fashion (e.g., yes/no, right/wrong, good/bad, etc.).

So how do we facilitate the integration of these two parts of our brains? Well, we have to start by flexing the hemisphere that is most atrophied, which is – unsurprisingly – the right hemisphere. When we have an awareness that these right-brain experiences are 1. available, and 2. valuable, we can bring back the subtle, yet powerful, knowledge of the right hemisphere into our everyday experiences.

How do we begin to “listen” to the vast amount of information offered to us from the right-hemisphere?

First, we have to listen in a different way, as the messages we receive will “sound” different from what we’re used to. For instance, our bodies speak volumes and are directly connected to the right hemisphere. We can start to become aware of the ways our bodies “talk” to us. You might feel queasy when you’re about to give a presentation at work. Or you get goosebumps when watching a scary movie.

Our intuition is also talking to us all the time. Intuition has gotten a bad rap over the years, with many people feeling it’s “airy fairy” or “woo-woo”. However, our intuition is actually “the ability to understand something immediately”. It’s a sense of knowing. And it’s the way the right hemisphere works: by instantly taking in and comprehending the whole picture. Think about the feeling you get when you know someone is lying to you. You might not have proof, but you just know. Or when you get a really good “feeling” about an interview candidate. Eureka moments are possible in this state!

I’m not suggesting that analysis and mental dissection, which are classic left-hemisphere attributes, are not valuable. They absolutely are. However, we tend to get “stuck” in this way of knowing without allowing or acknowledging input from the right hemisphere. As a result, we miss out on the opportunity to understand the situation from a different perspective; one in which the whole (or gestalt) can be understood.

The right hemisphere doesn’t use everyday language (which is housed in the left hemisphere) to communicate. It usually “speaks” without words – you get a gut feeling, or an image or diagram pops into your head seemingly out of nowhere. So, we have to listen in different ways:

  • Making art

  • Creativity (crafting, cooking, gardening, etc.)

  • Spending time in nature

  • Stepping back to see the whole picture – what I call “zooming out”

  • Being embodied (practicing yoga, dancing, etc.)

  • Listening to music

These are just a few ways you can practice tuning into your brain’s right hemisphere.

Bringing this information into our daily lives does take a certain amount of trust. However, when we begin to consciously listen and make the effort to become familiar with what might at first feel very foreign, uncomfortable, and maybe even undefined or wishy-washy, and then implement this knowledge, more will follow.

The right brain can become a storehouse of valuable wisdom. And, it can be really fun (humor and wit are also right-brain attributes!). With a bit of practice, we can become more familiar and comfortable with the opaque and the dichotomous. And getting comfortable operating from this place can feel like coming home.

Ultimately, we’ll be able to more easily manage the sometimes terrifying feelings that can come up when practicing gratitude. And that’s something we can be truly thankful for.

 

*Sign Up for our free 9 Essential Ingredients To Court Your Creativity PDF. Learn nine crucial skills you can implement RIGHT NOW to increase your creativity by stepping back into your right brain! Click here to sign up.

 

Dayna-Wood-Blog-Post

Dayna Wood, EdS, REAT

Dayna is the founder of Integrative Counsel, where she shows stressed out professionals how to reignite their creativity and spark new meaning and adventure in their lives through the power of brain science.

How are Purpose, Universal Flow and Dirt Related?
Integrative Counsel

How are Purpose, Universal Flow and Dirt Related?

I recently watched an excellent documentary on dirt – or soil, to be more precise – called Symphony of the Soil. The film offers a different way to think about agriculture, challenging the “rules” of the past 7,000 years and presenting a true paradigm shift. It was definitely worth the watch!

The film got me thinking about all the ways that humans have devised to dominate, engineer and take from the land. Farming is one example. The Industrial Revolution is another. In short, we’ve lived with this paradigm of dominating and taking for a very long time.

So it’s no wonder that many of us, if not most, came to believe that in order to get what we wanted out of life we had to “take it”. Follow the rules. Climb the ladder. But do we really feel happy and fulfilled as a result?

Study after study shows that happiness and fulfillment are not a result of unlimited wealth and health. Rather, they are the byproduct when our focus is elsewhere – on a broader empathetic attention on things we care about.

In Symphony of the Soil, they suggest that if life as we know it is to continue, we must stop behaving in the ways we’ve been conditioned to behave.

For example, farmers could choose to cultivate their crops in ways that are actually sustainable and healthy for the soil. One way to do this is to “give back” to the soil, in forms such as compost. Similarly, if we want to live truly happy lives, we must make a mental shift in order to go from a life of dominating and taking to one of giving back.

Our entire universe is a web of interconnectedness. It makes no sense for us to impose our desires on nature without taking nature into account. In embracing a cooperative role, rather than a ruling or dominating one, we will, as Flow author Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi so beautifully states, “feel the relief of the exile who is finally returning home.”

So then…what if happiness is actually a dichotomy? What if it’s the delicate balance between reflection and focused attention, and the immersion in a chosen set of goals? And if, as suggested by Csikszentmihalyi, those goals are truly aligned with our purpose, then we can actually merge with the universal flow. It’s in this “sweet spot” that we find focus, as well as openness and the ability to be fully present.

Therefore, consider the idea that happiness and fulfillment are a result of experiencing life right now, of growing and learning and giving back. This is the vow of the bodhisattva.

If you’re curious about how you can get back in touch with – or discover – your purpose, and how you can live from your sweet spot, join us for our Imagination Intensive! From October 13 -16th, we’ll lead you through a transformational weekend on Anna Maria Island, filled with activities, exercises and meditations to help you reconnect with your intuition and creativity, and get clear on your authentic purpose. And there will be plenty of beach time, too! Visit www.ImaginationRetreats.com to learn more and register.

 

*Sign Up for our free 9 Essential Ingredients To Court Your Creativity PDF. Learn nine crucial skills you can implement RIGHT NOW to increase your creativity by stepping back into your right brain! Click here to sign up.

Dayna-Wood-Blog-Post

Dayna Wood, EdS, REAT

Dayna is the founder of Integrative Counsel, where she shows stressed out professionals how to reignite their creativity and spark new meaning and adventure in their lives through the power of brain science.

How Distracted Am I?
Integrative Counsel

How Distracted Am I?

In modern Western society, we often find ourselves in a permanent state of unfulfilled desire. We are offered continuous distractions and stimulations that mimic reality, such as mass leisure, mass culture, and mass media.

Constant intrusions and interruptions – now the norm in our culture – drive up stress, deplete mental and emotional reserves and shrink our attention spans.

Instead of directing our energy towards personal growth and achieving complex goals, we instead focus on the activities above, which absorb mental energy without providing anything substantive in return. This behavior can leave you feeling even more depleted and disheartened.

Bottom-up attention, in which something or someone other than you dictates what you focus on, is part of our brain’s survival apparatus. It alerts us to potential danger in our surroundings; for example, when you hear a siren or a car backfire.

Bottom-up attention kept our ancestors alive. It instantly shifts our focus to a potential threat. This issue is when our attention is continuously hijacked by these types of alerts (such as the “ding” on your phone when you receive a message).

Can you relate to this? And are you wondering what the alternative could be?

“Top-down” attention is when you set the terms of engagement. In this scenario, you are in control of where you direct your attention, and you’re able to focus on a specific, chosen set of stimuli. This is also known as concentration!

The opposite of distraction is the ability to align your thoughts, intentions, and feelings towards the same goal. This produces an experience of harmony and flow. To do this, though, you must be able to concentrate and “order your consciousness”.

Each one of us has the power to decide whether mental order will come from the outside (bottom-up, with little control) or the inside (top-down, making conscious choices based on personal skill and knowledge).

A complex self is one that succeeds in the type of mental resilience that enables one to switch between bottom-up to top-down attention. This can be achieved with training.

We all have the ability, and in my opinion the responsibility, to create ourselves. We are a direct result of how we invest our mental energy. Understanding how to create ourselves is our most important skill!

That’s why it’s vital to ask yourself, “How distracted am I?” With the ever-growing onslaught of disturbances, both digital and physical, it’s more important than ever to determine the answer to that question.

To assess your current level of distraction, download the infographic here!

 

*Sign Up for our free 9 Essential Ingredients To Court Your Creativity PDF. Learn nine crucial skills you can implement RIGHT NOW to increase your creativity by stepping back into your right brain! Click here to sign up.

Dayna-Wood-Blog-Post

Dayna Wood, EdS, REAT

Dayna is the founder of Integrative Counsel, where she shows stressed out professionals how to reignite their creativity and spark new meaning and adventure in their lives through the power of brain science.

Stop spinning round and round
Integrative Counsel

Stop spinning round and round

Living under old belief systems that keep us stuck can be automatic for us. Mindfulness practice and other tools that assist you in accessing the power of your whole-brain can help you identify these destructive thought patterns so you can move forward instead of just spinning in place. When we become aware of them and their cause we can shed light on these ineffective thoughts, release them and jump off the carousel. From there you can replace them with constructive systems and continue onto the path you are craving to be on.

Here are a few steps to help you:

1st Step:  Quiet and Gentle check-in with your thoughts

Sit in a quiet place GENTLY notice where your mind takes you.  Being gentle and non-judgmental is important because any judgmental “thoughts of your thoughts” is going to feed the hurtful cycle. I know that sometimes the thought of being alone with our thoughts is intimidating in itself but trust me that much power lies in this quiet practice. Journaling, sharing them with a friend, and/or joining a supportive mindfulness group are great ways to practice this awareness process.

2nd Step: Reality Check

It’s AMAZING how untrue our thoughts can be.  Whether it’s an ingrained message from our childhood OR an irrational belief we hold of ourselves, or both, it can be quite life changing to recognize what thoughts we play over and over that aren’t even true.  Again, a professional along with support can really help you become aware of and confront these destructive patterns in a safe and structured environment. Individual counseling and groups with a mindfulness focus give you time and space to do exactly that.

 3rd Step:  Soft and Immediate Replacement

Now that you know what thoughts you don’t need, you need something more to interrupt the cycle. The next time those heavy, destructive thoughts creep in, try replacing them with one of these “ARTS of DISTRACTION.”

Deep Breath.  A Song. Affirmation/Mantra/Grateful thought. Engaging Your Senses (Which are all the right brain tools you can find in the creative brain challenge.)

4th Step:  Continual Practice

Like everything in life, practice makes better.  When you think uplifting and constructive thoughts, you have more energy, feel better and your mind feels clearer, fresher, like the Spring air. That renewal will free you from the past and take you to the place you’re longing to move into. It doesn’t happen overnight, but I promise it will become more and more natural each time you practice it.

 

*Sign Up for our free 9 Essential Ingredients To Court Your Creativity PDF. Learn nine crucial skills you can implement RIGHT NOW to increase your creativity by stepping back into your right brain! Click here to sign up.

Jennifer Carey EdS, LMHC

Jennifer Carey Ed.S., LMHC

Jennifer has been teaching and counseling individuals and groups for over a decade. Her counseling background combined with certificate as a Reiki Master Practitioner provides a strong foundation in helping others learn, heal and grow through mindfulness practices.

 

Beyond Black & White
Integrative Counsel

Beyond Black & White

Judging ourselves. Others. It’s true. We all do it. A lot.

“That person is beautiful”.

“That person is mean”.

“I’m not good looking enough, rich enough or thin enough”.

“I’m right and you’re wrong”.

We can all relate to having these judgements and with little awareness find ourselves literally stuck in these belief systems/thought patterns. After all, we live in a society that’s built on laws, rules and many aspects of our lives are often seen as either black or white.

As you know from the recent blogs, there is a place for judgement in our thought process and our left brain sees to it that we understand things in that manner. There is a purpose for rules in society, for sure.

However, the real problem comes when we judge everything through a lens of black and white. These extreme outlooks can be a major cause for our discomfort and unbalance. Often the thought patterns aren’t factual, yet we treat everything is as if they are.

Learning to live more in the “gray” or in non-judgment can help us have a more healthy and balanced perspective. As a result, you can ease a lot of “extreme” stress, fear and sadness. It’s true.

So you ask: where and how can we access this place of gray thought and dichotomous perspective that brings us bliss? Our right brain. And the practice of mindfulness can help you access this powerful source in your right brain and bring you more balance, peace and contentment.

You will also find life more expansive and less limiting when you can think: “I’m right and so are you.” Or “there is a bigger picture than the specific problem I’m facing.” For me, this has been particularly helpful in my relationships. Both the relationship with myself and my relationships with others.

 

*Sign Up for our free 9 Essential Ingredients To Court Your Creativity PDF. Learn nine crucial skills you can implement RIGHT NOW to increase your creativity by stepping back into your right brain! Click here to sign up.

  Jennifer Carey EdS, LMHC

Jennifer Carey Ed.S., LMHC

Jennifer has been teaching and counseling individuals and groups for over a decade. Her counseling background combined with certificate as a Reiki Master Practitioner provides a strong foundation in helping others learn, heal and grow through mindfulness practices.

Imagination: From the Inside Out
Integrative Counsel

Imagination: From the Inside Out

Did you know that imagination is one of the most important attributes of the human brain?

Think about it. Without imagination, Steve Jobs wouldn’t have created the iPad. Picasso would never have created his dazzling works of art. Without imagination, we wouldn’t have anything that nature hasn’t already provided for us.

Wikipedia describes imagination – the faculty of imagining – as “the ability to form new images and sensations in the mind that are not perceived through senses such as sight, hearing, or other senses.”  Simply put, imagination is part of what makes us human.

With our increased research into how the brain functions, we’re getting closer to understanding how imagination works.

So what’s going on in our brains when we are imagining?

The brain is divided into two hemispheres: left and right. Though the hemispheres work in concert to create a unified sense of self and personality, each hemisphere actually attends to the world differently, and therefore processes information in distinctive ways. This provides us with great advantages, including the ability to understand a situation from many different perspectives.

Imagination is based on the creative power of opposition, and is a result of the synthesis between the right and left hemispheres.

The right hemisphere can take in new information from our surroundings, and see the “whole picture”. The left hemisphere is the great “unpacker” of that information; it breaks information down, sorting, categorizing and analyzing.

However, there is a big catch: the information has to go from the right to the left, and then BACK to the right in order to synthesize.

Imagination, insight and creativity all require this integration of the left and right hemispheres.

Let’s break this down:

Brain integration follows a simple formula = R > L > R

Step 1: Right hemisphere (R): New information is attended to in the environment

Step 2: Left hemisphere (L): Analysis, or the “unpacking” of what was perceived by the right hemisphere

Step 3: Right hemisphere (R): Information is transferred back to the right hemisphere to be understood within the context of the whole

In modern society, we often get “stuck” in the left hemisphere and have difficulty finding ways to transfer information back to the right, thereby eliminating step 3. Sadly, that means that we miss out on significant benefits, including increased insight and imagination.

So, how do we “step back to the right” and get unstuck?

One simple place to start is to get into your body and into nature. The right hemisphere is directly linked to our bodies, and perceives and differentiates living things from mechanical things. Going for a walk outside, hiking in the woods, or simply sitting in the backyard listening to the birds sing can all help you get back “into your right mind”.

Today – maybe even right now! – take five minutes to notice your body (not just your head), and shift your attention to the sights and sounds of nature. Live in the city? No problem. Just looking at pictures of nature can make a difference. (Not sure about all this? See Rebecca Clay’s research.)

 

*Sign Up for our free 9 Essential Ingredients To Court Your Creativity PDF. Learn nine crucial skills you can implement RIGHT NOW to increase your creativity by stepping back into your right brain! Click here to sign up.

 

Dayna-Wood-Blog-Post

Dayna Wood, EdS, REAT

Dayna is the founder of Integrative Counsel, where she shows stressed out professionals how to reignite their creativity and spark new meaning and adventure in their lives through the power of brain science.

Why the Right-Brain Matters
Integrative Counsel

Why the Right-Brain Matters

Through patient and animal studies, it has been discovered that the two hemispheres of the brain see and respond to the world in divergent manners.

Why is it that an organ whose job it is to communicate divided?

The left hemisphere sees things narrowly and focused, while the right views the whole. This was advantageous to us as a species because it allowed us to break down tasks and learn complex sequences, while at the same time being aware of our surroundings.

Where you can begin to see hemispheric differences isn’t necessarily on an everyday level, where the brain works in concert for most functions, but over time in the dominant world view. It is akin to a large ship that shifts its course. Turning just a few degrees alters its direction dramatically over time.

You can mark throughout history which hemisphere took the lead (for instance, an expansion of the right brain’s way of being in the world during the Renaissance with a shifting towards the left during the Reformation and The Enlightenment).

There had, in the past, been a correcting force – like a pendulum that swings and arcs back in the other direction. However, something is amiss lately. There is no longer a system of negative feedback (the correcting mechanism that shifts the direction of the swinging pendulum).

Since the Industrial Revolution, we have been swinging further and further to the left, and the further we swing to the left, the less likely are we to find an “escape route.” This is because our external world, which used to have the capacity to return us to the right, is becoming more and more dominated by what is essentially “left.”

We are now living in a world that is a mirror of a left-reared society and notions associated with anything other than what is “left” are seen as trite and not-to-be-trusted (dare I say “intuition” should be trusted!).

How do we begin to reset the balance?

We begin by practicing returning information to the right-hemisphere, where it can again be viewed within context and a whole. And, yes, this might initially seem strange, silly and weird. It will certainly feel different.

Can we begin to relax our yearning for certainty, even just a little, so that we can sit with the necessary tension of dichotomies? Can we begin to find moments of pause and stillness so that we may receive that which is unsought? Can we dare to be courageous enough to be seen as naïve so we can alter the direction of where we are headed?

Thanks to Iain McGilchrist, The Master and his Emissary: The Divided Brain and the Making of the Western World, for inspiring this article.

 

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Dayna-Wood-Blog-Post

Dayna Wood, EdS, REAT

Dayna is the founder of Integrative Counsel, where she shows stressed out professionals how to reignite their creativity and spark new meaning and adventure in their lives through the power of brain science.