No matter who you are, you’re likely to share a common problem with most other people: you’re head-brain dominant. I can relate to this, as I am too.
Here’s the thing: a lot of us aren’t aware or focused on what goes on below the neck on a daily basis, hour by hour. It makes sense, doesn’t it, that we’ve become accustomed to being in our heads. With the exception of sports, our schools are focused on what the head-brain can do. When we get into university and/or employment, we’re valued for our thinking or our knowledge application, or the basic skills that only a head-brain can generate.
We love our head-brains, they’re amazing, and of course we are going to want to keep using them, they’re kinda essential!!
And, there are some downsides to doing this at the exclusion of the rest of ourselves. If all our attention and focus is in our heads and on our thoughts and we’re solely relying on our thoughts to guide us, then we are going to run into problems. Some of these are:
- Cycling or looping thoughts that don’t lead to solutions
- Getting stuck in your head – indecision
- Overthinking and under-action
- Rumination – which can lead into depression
- Negative self-talk, which feels bad and can also lead to and/or exacerbate depression/anxiety/stress/low self-esteem
- Overwork / overload / burn out
- Sleeping issues as can’t switch head off
- Lack of emotional awareness or emotional numbness
- Lack of emotional regulation – overblown stressful emotions or under-felt pleasant emotions
What’s the solution?
Relying on your head-brain to work everything out is like buying a top of the line coffee machine, and only ever using the one basic setting. You’ve got the equipment in there, now let’s work out how to use it!
Modern neuroscience can now demonstrate that we have complex and adaptive neurological centres, not just in your head-brain, which is the biggest of course, but also in your HEART and in your GUT. There are reasons why we have in-built phrases referring to these intelligence centres, which have been handed down to us through the ages:
What does your gut tell you?
I had my heart set on it!
I can’t get my head around it….
We’ve always been aware on one level, and now we have the technology to scan the human body and confirm exactly what activity goes on and where. Here’s what we know:
- Head: Cephalic brain: 50 – 100 billion neurons. Competencies are: cognitive perception; meaning making; thinking.
- Heart: Cardiac brain: 30 – 120 thousand neurons. Competencies are: emoting; values; relational affect.
- Gut: Enteric brain: 200 – 500 million neurons. Competencies are: core-identity; self-preservation; mobilasation (action).
On a more spiritual level, it’s believed that all three of your intelligences have a “highest expression” – meaning that when these brains are balanced and working at their best, they enable you to have access to specific resources, which you don’t have access to when they’re out of balance and misaligned. They are:
- Head – it’s highest expression is CREATIVITY
- Heart – it’s highest expression is COMPASSION
- Gut – it’s highest expression is COURAGE
(Source: mBraining.)
Who couldn’t do with a little more creativity, compassion and courage in their lives?!
Personally, I have found so much value in very consciously taking my focus away from what’s in my head, and placing it into my heart. Parenting is a GREAT example for me. My head can tell me all kinds of stories about how hard it is (I mean, it IS hard, but it doesn’t mean I need talk to myself about that all day). At the end of the day for me, the way to embrace parenting, is understanding that it’s a heart-led process, guided by love.
If YOU can learn how to acknowledge, connect to and balance out all THREE of your intelligence centres, you can start to solve problems, make decisions and process emotions more EFFICIENTLY, because you have THREE engines available to do the work for you, together, rather than burning out that one engine at the top. Imagine being able to let go of all that thinking, and allow your body to do some of the work for you? If you value efficiency as much as I do, it’s worth some discovery!
In this workshop – Use Your Body To Solve A Problem – you come with a specific life-challenge in mind, and we teach you how to access and align all three intelligent parts of you to get them working together, to process your problem. The aligned yoga postures help the body process this, and tap into your energy centres too.
You’re allowing your body to DO THE WORK FOR YOU.
Now, the question is, is your head-brain curious enough to come along and test it out?