Meet my Whole Brain Living
Four Characters
Left Thinking Character 1
“Helen”
Character 1 = Left Thinking: this is the part of our brain that thinks rationally and would be characterized as our Type A Personality. It thinks linearly across time, informing us that we need to put our socks on before we put our shoes on. Our Left Thinking Character 1 analyzes, organizes, categorizes, plans, and relates our inner-self to the external world, caring that we fit ourselves into the social norms of right/wrong and good/bad. This part of our brain is all about ME, as it is our ego-centered consciousness that defines each of us as individuals.
The Character 1 Left Thinking part of our brain uses language to communicate with others, as it knows how to speak, read, and write. It is the part of our brain that defines the physical boundaries of where we begin and end, so we can perceive ourselves as an individual that is separate from those around us. This Left Thinking Character 1 part of our brain is considered psychologically to be the ‘conscious’ part of our brain, and in the language of Carl Jung, this is our ‘persona’.
This part of our brain focuses on the differences between everything, and by focusing on details, details, and more details about those details, it becomes a master of functionality and to-do lists.
So tell me, do you recognize this part of yourself? If so, I encourage you to give it a name. Although the perfectionist in you might resist choosing a name, because it might not be the ‘right’ name, don’t worry, you can always change it later.
I call my Left Thinking Character 1 Helen – which is short for “Hell on wheels…she gets it done”!
Helen is my left rational thinking personality that went completely off-line on the morning of the stroke. It took eight years for me to rebuild this circuitry and when she did come back on-line, she wanted to take over and be the boss inside my head again!
Although I completely value this part of who I am, as I cannot live a functional life without her, I want Helen to be ON my team, not in charge of it. Since the stroke, my brain has become a democracy of four equal characters, and thanks to Whole Brain Living and the practice of the BRAIN Huddle, I now live my best life on purpose.
I thrive in the external world because of my Left Thinking skills of organizing details, creating structure, planning, directing, leading, and taking control of people, places, things, as well as time. I know that without Helen my life (starting with my drawers and garage) would be chaotic, so I proudly say…Go Helen Go! on a regular basis. Because of Helen, my brain totally rocks as a successful professional in the world, and I was completely nonfunctional without her.
Here are some photos of Helen in action…she’s the only part of me that wears earrings!
Left Emotional Character 2
“Abby”
Character 2 = Left Emotion: this is the ego-based ‘Me and Mine’ mentality of our deepest emotions, including all of our pain from the past, our anxiety about the future, and our emotional reactivity in the present. In addition, this is where we store our addictions and our ability to crave (insular cortex). In Carl Jung’s language, this part of our brain represents the ‘shadow’ self.
The Left Emotional Character 2 tissue of our brain is the home of our fight/flight/freeze brain circuitry that is designed to save our life, based on our past experiences. This Character 2 group of cells never matures, making it one of our two inner children. Our Left Emotional Character 2 cells perform the most miraculous task of stepping out of the temporality of the present moment, and then it compares whatever is going on in the present moment with our past experiences. It is the part of our brain that reacts with fear, anger, resentment, and anxiety to whatever is going on around us, and it chooses for us to either move toward the present moment and its stimulation, or push away from it by saying ‘no’.
These cells of our Character 2 Left Emotional tissue, when treated with kindness and respect, offer us the power to reflect upon, listen to, hold, and ultimately heal our pain from the past. Without these cells we would not be able to learn or grow as human beings, thus our mental health is 100% dependent on our ability to establish healthy relationships between the Character 2 emotionally reactive part of our brain with the other three parts that are cognitively and experientially stable. Our ability to heal our pain from the past using the other three parts of our brain is the fundamental work of Whole Brain Living. The tool we master to do this is the practice of the BRAIN Huddle.
Do you recognize this part of yourself? I encourage you to give it name so you can give it the grace of its own identity.
I call my Left Emotional Character 2 little Abby – which is short for Abandonment. This module of cells in my brain became fully functional the moment I was ejected from my mother’s womb, and like most of us, I started wailing. In many ways, I’m still wailing. Most of us are – we just dress it up differently. Some of us lash out and rage – we make ourselves big and ugly and try to scare that which we fear away. Some of us run and hide. Some of us bully others because we don’t feel heard or understood. Some of us become desperate and end our lives.
These cells of our Character 2 often get a bad rap because they are our immature responses to a world that does not feel compassionate. We may lash out with anger, blame, jealously, or violence, or we may internalize that energy as shame, guilt, fear, or self-loathing. Because we live in a society that values what we do rather than who we are as living beings, it’s hard to feel connected. But when we understand that it was these exact same cells that stepped out of the cosmic consciousness of the universe so we could save our own lives, it’s easier to self-soothe and be more compassionate to ourselves and others.
Thanks to Abby, I have the capacity to feel these overwhelmingly deep emotions that add the richness of both happiness and the depth of despair to my life. Sometimes life is hard and Abby wants to be loud and take over my life, yet I remain grateful for her willingness to explore my deepest fears, anxiety, and pain with all four of my characters so I can continue to grow and heal.
Little Abby when emotionally triggered:
“Pain is a tool. Sometimes when we find ourselves in the deepest darkness of our despair, we need to surrender to it and dive into its depths. When we understand that pain is an invitation for growth, we can choose to reflect upon it, nurture ourselves through it, and actually heal it. It is so important that we keep in mind that our deep emotional pain is designed to be a lesson – not a lifestyle.”
Right Emotional Character 3
“PigPen”
Character 3 = Right Emotion: this is the collective-whole ‘WE’ consciousness that I express in the world when I am feeling open, playful, creative, innovative, completely in the right here, right now, present moment. Our Character 3 is friendly, inclusive, curious, adventurous, entrepreneurial, explosive, impulsive, musical, athletic, and artistic. To Carl Jung this is our “anima/animus” because it has no assigned gender. Can you pick a name for this part of you?
I call this Character 3 part of my brain PigPen, after the Charles Schulz Peanuts character who is always covered with dust and making a mess. The first stage of the creative process is chaos, and our Character 3 steps out of our left hemispheres’ box of preconceived expectation, order, planning, and need to be proper, and steps into the world of endless possibilties.
PigPen lives enthusiastically to the beat of her own drum. Although my left-thinking Helen respects the social norms of right/wrong and good/bad, PigPen is completely tuned in to the present moment and open to whatever and everything. PigPen is creative in my art, innovative in how I live on a boat, entrepreneurial with how I run my business, musical as a singer-songwriter, athletic in all things water, emotionally available, kind, playful, spontaneous, and radiant with deep inner joy. She is the bouncy experiential part of my being, who thrives when lost in the flow of whatever it is I am doing. She also likes to get into mischief and could land me in jail if I’m not careful.
Here is PigPen at play:
Right Thinking Character 4
“Queen Toad”
Character 4 = Right Thinking: this is our present moment, expansive, open, big-as-the universe consciousness. It is our loving, supportive, and nurturing divine-self that is connected to all that is. It is our capacity to experience a feeling of connectedness with the unseen yet deeply known eternal peace. Our Character 4 surfaces as our wonder that we exist at all and the awe that we feel when we see a rainbow, a dolphin, or a newborn baby. We express our Character 4 as our gratitude, and Carl Jung refers to this consciousness as our ‘self’.
Within four hours of experiencing that stroke, I could not walk, talk, read, write, or recall any of my life. I had become an infant in a woman’s body. I was so disabled that on post-stroke day 3, my mother described me as ‘a breathing body in the bed’. Characters 1, 2 and 3 were completely off-line and non-functional, I was barely alive, and my body felt like a ton of lead that I could not begin to budge.
When the stroke happened, Character 1 Helen was swimming in a pool of blood, so I lost all of her social knowledge and book education. Eventually, I went back to academia to relearn all of her left-brain terminology-based details, so I could function again in my professional world. Although I retained the visual and experiential aspects of anatomy, physiology and neuroanatomy, I had to relearn language.
At the same time, wonder of all wonders, little Abby lost all of her emotional pain from the past, and, as you might imagine, this proved to be one heck of a blessing. Although I eventually could remember experiences that I had, those memories were void of any emotional content. About a month after the stroke, little Abby started feeling emotions again, but like a newborn she had no idea what they were or how to interpret what she was feeling. I was fortunate that Abby had not survived the morning of the stroke or I would have had a completely different experience than the one I had which was more a sense of blissful euphoria.
Little PigPen, my Character 3, also disappeared on the morning of the stroke, as I was all but dead and my body felt like a ton of lead. When I had no energy available for action, engagement, or experience, I was left resting in the consciousness of the present moment – which I experienced as a state of love and eternal bliss.
Enveloped within this sense of deep inner peace, I was simply thrilled that I was still alive, and in awe that I could exist at all. What a miracle that our universe can organize particles in space to create life. The mere concept seemed unfathomable.
So there I was, cradled in the comfort of a kind and generous universe. Within the depths of my own Right Thinking Character 4, I existed in the absence of my Characters 1, 2, and 3, and I call this part of my brain Queen Toad.
This part of my consciousness is literally as big as the universe and at ONE with all that is. Queen Toad captains my life on an 80’ riverboat called BrainWaves, out in a beautiful private cove where I live with God in the form of the great blue heron, turtles, beavers, bobcats, lions, bears, eagles, and deer. Queen Toad has made peace with the venomous and nonvenomous snakes, and shares her deep inner peace with all the world through her teachings in Whole Brain Living.
Queen Toad knows 'Peace is Just a Thought Away'…
