Mental vs. Emotional--You and Your Brain Need Both!

Once more you find your balance. Emotions are not to be thought about. They are to be felt. Do not rush to your head to think about how you feel until you have felt. Do not become angry from the thought until the thought is complete. To truly feel, you must understand your being. To be clear in thought, you must be able to feel. Thought without feeling only clouds the vision. Feeling, without thought, is an empty feeling. They too are partners on the journey that you have chosen in this life. They are not to stop you or distract you, but to enhance you for fulfillment of your being.

            

Emotional intelligence has been a hot topic recently. It's taken scientists almost a century to figure out that intelligence might have an equally important partner called emotion. In actuality, most intelligence tests measure the language and reasoning functions of the dominant hemisphere in the brain. The other hemisphere regulates emotion. In actuality, each hemisphere handles what it does best with no competition from the other side. The two are joined by a structure called the corpus callosum that allows both sides to combine their efforts into a result that far exceeds what either would be alone.

            

How come my head and my heart, that is my emotions and my intellect, so often seem to be at odds with each other?

In actuality, what you are experiencing is how each side of your brain has a different way of being. The dominant side (for most of us, this is our left brain), loves to analyze everything. It breaks things down into little parts. Then it argues with itself about the logic involved that allowed it to take it apart in the first place. It loves the "step-by-step approach. In contrast, the minor side (usually the right hemisphere of the brain), sees the whole picture rather than the little parts. It has virtually no language. Thus, the world for the minor hemisphere is rich in the experiences of sounds, images, smells, skin sensations, and taste. The dominant side gives us the word “vanilla.” The minor side gives us the flavor of vanilla, the pleasantness, the warmth or cold of it, the feelings or memories it may invoke, a whole richness that far exceeds a few letters on a page or a few sounds turned into a mere word.

               

Challenge: The next time you drive your car at night, turn off the radio. Now, concentrate on driving without reading any signs. Clear your head of any verbal chatter. You are now experiencing your minor or right hemisphere's way of being. Next, focus your attention on where you are going. Read the signs along the way. Turn the radio on and concentrate on what is being said. You are now experiencing your dominant or left hemisphere's way of being. Yet, while you were focusing on the left, wasn't the right hemisphere still guiding your car safely down the road? Don't you need both to safely arrive at your destination?

            

Posted by Bernice Ross