cc2011:21 Right and Left sides

i am preparing for a self-exploration project and i am using Visual Journaling as my tool. I plan to post pics so ~ i'd like to say "stay tuned" but look at how i have followed through in the last couple of months with this blogging thing.. it really is much harder than what it looks :)

i'd like to share with you something that really gives me a new understanding of why in therapy i will sit for sessions exploring what it is that is truly transpiring in regards to our "feeling" about something.. rather than ask how do you feel and then move on.. as if whatever it is that i or others say is a distilled truth.

let me ~ hopefully ~ explain.

our brain had two sides, right and left. simplified ~ right is our emotion and left is our logic.

i have just learned that our right side doesn't discern "right from wrong" in terms of judgement, but rather just a general good and bad feeling. the bad feeling i compare to the gut feeling of something isn't quite right.

the left on the other hand is the judgement ~ the interpretation, the verbal translation. when i am telling you how i feel it is actually my left brain taking its best attempt towards preforming an inventory on the really abstract going's on of the right side.

have you ever had that moment when ... someone is asking ~ how it is that you are feeling about something, you say it but the moment it leaves your mouth there is this internal response of 'no, that's not it either ~ but i can't really put my finger on it, so - yea, i guess that's it."

i have felt at times ~ hookey or silly about really leading in session, stepping all around the topic just to more fully understand the true reflection. all the while trying to seem . . . in the flow ~ i guess. ahhh.. as the left side fails me :)

i have always had a hard time helping someone identify feelings, or at least label their feelings as sad, glad, or mad. at some intuitive level i just knew it was more. i mean, if 10 of us stood in line ~ 10 of us would represent sad in 10 unique ways.

i think ~ i know ~ deep down ♥ when we are able to discover and know ourselves more we will become more compassionate with self and others.

so... all of us could benefit from a exploration of our emotions. why? because how easy would it have been growing up to have a feeling inside labeled as angry, but really it was fear, frustration or hurt?

an illustration ~ perhaps we can allow ourselves to become more open to the many shades of ourselves ~ the shades of our wisdom just waiting to be poured out ♥

visual journaling is a technique that allows the right side to be placed on paper before the left side gather's intel. i am a believer of bringing things into the light so that an examination ~ an exploration can take place.

cc22011:18 Waves

so i was thinking today... as most will experience~ i have, on the one hand ~ the light at the end of the tunnel, but on the other ~ it is always darkest before the dawn (smile).

like waves ~ high tide and low tide ~ we can see it, or better we can know waves & in fact crashing waves will come closer and closer before they begin to settle and resend.

so i have known since the beginning of this semester when all the syllabi were handed out that i would be responsible for many papers/projects at the end. of course. i'd like to add also ~ the most creative thinking in order to accomplish these tasks.

to be creative i must be positive. it is just the way the brain works, although.. now that i write that i wonder about my season of being the tragic artist journal'ing away my despair and sorrows. to this day i still believe those pieces to have been some of my best work. perhaps because writing has been a coping strategy ~ while in the mist of those pages i was actually looking ahead & perhaps that was where my creativity sprung.

so we know.. this ~ today ~ will not be my best work. it is - though - out of commitment i am here.

i actually have lots of things i need to be doing... i found an interesting list in my reading this morning. those psychological things that accompany stress, let me list a few: increased procrastination, feeling powerless, inability to organize oneself, inability to reach a decision, decreased ability to perform different tasks, and inability to concentrate.

isn't that a cruel reality??

i have a lot to do, and because i care deeply about the quality of my work ~ perhaps i carry a bit more stress & so in return i get . . . barriers??

so what am i to do. get started. yep. that's it. once i begin to complete the project, i will begin to look up & feel the ease of momentum.

so that's where i am. needing to get started.

guess you know what that means :)

until our minds meet again!!

♥

cc2011:? Where am I

Greetings.

though the Monday's passed and i felt the sting ~ still i sat silent. i am debating on how I will go about the missing Monday's. i think I will likely go back and place an * asterisk * by my title just so we can, i can feel somewhat redeemed and within my own standard of integrity.

writing a blog ... is a very revealing, open process. or is it? i think when i thought of putting this project out i thought of education centered along this one focus ~ compassion. as i put my toe into the vast basin i became covered with the idea that i wanted my compassion to spill over. i am no great scholar or instrument of instruction, just someone learning and applying to life. so what may have been originally a very neat & kept idea became more. . .

so. i am pretty private - and when things were swimming along i felt open and revealing. when life became uncertain and truly reflective i retreated.

intimacy is this amazing little jewel. despite the fact we have friends there are few we can truly be vulnerable with. i am blessed and thankful beyond measure for what has been formed between my mentor and i. for 50 minute hours i am the focus. my emotions, my concerns, my whatever comes to my mind.

i have become comfortable being the center of that conversation and lately i have become mindful of how little i, we? explore with others. in the race to keep up with our children, our jobs, our passions ~ true reflection in the mist of another is so . . . difficult to come by.

i guess i wasn't willing to be out there - just processing though what i was struggling with - for all those who pass by to read. i wasn't willing either - to just write for writing sake. i have been suffering in ways that the notion of setting all of it aside in order to accomplish this task every Monday seemed . . . i don't know ~ incongruent with me and this project.

baby. baby. baby. boundaries. and that is ~ what i suppose i had ~ just the other day i was talking to someone about commitments we made prior to full knowledge and understanding. we make commitments & we hold on to them despite our suffering, sometimes for the good and sometimes to our detriment ~ time is our truth teller.


signing off & glad to have checked in.

ps. i am super excited about a project i have planned for myself for the summer. i am going to do some visual journaling ~ 6 weeks. curious of the insight that will come.

♥ peace ♥