Emotional brain
Are you left or right brain dominant?
I have talked a lot about how our emotions are impacted by our physical, mental, and spiritual wellbeing. This is the beginning of a series of posts specifically talking about how our body function can change our emotional landscape.
Whole brain, Right brain, Left brain. Our brain is split into two harmonious brains, the right and left hemispheres. They talk to each other via a bridge, the corpus callosum.
As little people we start out as right brain dominant, as we create connections with people and understand what is safe and not safe. Around age two to three, our left brains start to fire up, which is when language really kicks in and we start exploring the world.
Ideally, as an adult, your brain functions with both Right and Left hemispheres doing their thing. Balanced. In this modern world Left brain functioning is prized. If you have the magical left-brain dominance, you will be good at being neat, organised, saving money, and following things sequentially to the end. You likely will be methodical, academic... and so on.
A right-brain dominant person would be disorganised, great with ideas, not so good with finishing things, social, and the classic creative.
So what does this have to do with emotions? If one side of your brain is dominant, the other side is delayed or deficit- it's asleep! Then the balance is off and we have trouble. This can show in what type of emotions we express and experience.
A right-brain dominant person will tend to worry about being embarrassed, shamed or failing to connect to the group properly. As a result, they can be oversensitive to others’ opinions, be afraid of being embarrassed, and have fears and phobias. If they have Obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), it will be focused around safety, closing the doors etc. You may be overly sensitive to others’ emotions and be empathetic more than others. Being motivated can be an issue with concerns of "what's the point".
A left-brain dominant person will tend to be generally emotionally neutral and then explode with anger or at other times get the giggles (imagine giggling little girls). They can lack moderation emotionally. A left-brain dominant can hold grudges and have dark thoughts. A left-brain dominant person will know no fear, with the tendency to take risks and explore, which is great for fighting in wars or hunting down dinner. Having said that, panic attacks can be the prevue of an excessive left brain. OCD for this brain is ritualistic and their habits just don't register. The right hemisphere is the boss for emotions so when it's not doing its job well, responses to situations can be skewed.
Do you see yourself in either of these emotional patterns? Ideally you don't! A well balanced brain will have both sides in check and you will be neatly coordinated within and respond to situations with both brains a blazing!
Looking at meridians with acupuncture, you will find that Right brain is well presented with the Water meridians, Kidney and Bladder. Their primary emotions are of fear, impending doom, and feeling paralysed. The Earth meridians also represent the overactive right brain with emotions of worry, distrust, and not being good enough. The left dominant brain emotions are more Wood meridians, with Liver and Gall bladder, Anger, resentment, and bitterness.
I would love to hear what you think of yourself in light of this information. And don't forget to subscribe to get informed of my next blog post.
xx Mary-Anne
P.S this is another gorgeous art work from Tracy Rose.
If you would like some more information on the right brain style of thinking Linda Silverman really exploded this in the early 1980's with her book Upside down Brilliance Here is a small PDF from 2005 ( so a little out of date) but a nice read.
