JIll Bolte Taylor, in her book My Stroke of Insight, refers to it as stepping to the right. Eben Alexander, in his book Proof of Heaven, refers to it as getting out of your own way. Martha Beck, in her book Finding Your Way In A Wild New World, writes about dropping into wordlessness.
While technically humans are whole-brain creatures, socially, culturally, and economically we have become literate people living in a left-brain, linear world of words, logic, reason, analysis, facts, proof. From day one at school we are overwhelmingly taught left-brain skills, while increasingly programs that have us using right-brain skills are being eliminated, effectively shutting down our ability to be creative, to visualize, to use our intuition, to daydream and to process information through these skills!! And skills not used gradually become less effective and more difficult to access.
Our lives have become dis-enchanted. We have lost touch with the skills that create magic in our lives!
Left-brain logic was perfect for surviving in the industrial age, for learning what we needed to know in order to thrive in a world of structure and stability. We could make plans for 5 years, 10 years, 15 years out into the future and knew that we could accomplish these goals because life 5, 10, 15 years out would be much the same as the present day. Our ability to earn an income would be safe, our skills would be relevant, our lives would be settled. We could generally count on having a certain level of personal, social and economic well-being for the rest of our lives.
Unfortunately the industrial era is well and truly over.
In today’s world of instability and chaos, it is far more the right-brain intuitive and creative skills than the left-brain logic skills that keep us moving forward through the everyday chaos, providing us with an acceptable level of personal, social and economic well-being. Strong, flexible right-brain skills what we need in order to become modern-day Wayfinders, finding our way through chaos, constant change, and uncertainty, so we can thrive in this wild new world.
When Jill Bolte Taylor talks about stepping to the right, or Eben Alexander writes about getting out of our own way, they are referring to reducing our left-brain activity, dropping into wordlessness, and increasing our right-brain activity. When we step away from left-brain skills, move away from words and logic, and drop into wordlessness, we begin to access truly amazing potentials and possibilities. We process information so much faster than when we just use words and logic, and, more importantly, we reconnect with our creativity, our intuition, our imagination, and we amp up our ability to daydream, to visualize, to connect with the world around us. Dropping into wordlessness allows us to live more fully in the moment, experiencing life through our senses as it is happening, right here, right now.
By dropping into wordlessness, we begin to re-enchant our lives. We begin to bring magic and wonder and awe back into our everyday life.
Try this experiment. It will only take a few minutes.
Sit still and quietly for a moment. Turn off your phone, and your TV, and ignore your computer. Close your eyes and just be. What is happening? What are you thinking? Are your thoughts dominated by a constant flow of words? What’s the content of these thoughts? Are they full of worry? Concern? Anxiety? Are they conversations with yourself about ‘What if?” or “If only?” Are they reminders or lists of what you need to remember to do, to buy, to finish? Does this chatter stop, slow down, or go quiet for even a second? What do you notice of the world around you? Or do you only focus on your thoughts?
Dropping into wordlessness reduces or stops this chatter and makes room for intuition, imagination, daydreaming, visualization, music, feelings, emotions, mindfulness, oneness…..to come through into our awareness, our consciousness. Without this wordless space, these weaker visual or sense-based messages are generally too soft to be noticed, too quiet to be heard.
Dropping into wordlessness allows us to re-enchant our lives, to bring magic back into our everyday.
Dropping into wordlessness also allows us to explore and answer two fundamental questions that have become extremely important in this day and age:
1) How the hell do I get there?*
2) What the hell should I do next?**
‘Till next time 🙂
Anne
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