Monday, January 21, 2008

Kayaking on the Right Side of the Brain


A book by Betty Edwards' called Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain changed many things for me when I discovered that the little voice in my head coming from my brain's left side was actually a controlling demon telling me all the things I couldn't do. I'm sure you've heard it too! It's also at work when we paddle, telling us the boat is too tippy, the waves too big, and roll too difficult, the headland too far...

This past October Dubside put up a nylon belt a few feet off the ground during the Delmarva Retreat and many of us tried to walk along its length. We talked about why our legs went into a sideways shaking movement whenever we got on to make the attempt to walk it. He pointed out it was just a natural feedback loop working in our brain. If a person focused, he or she could stop the looping action and successfully walk along the belt. It was exactly like dealing with that little voice on the left side of my brain! What I needed to do was to shut the voice off and focus on breaking that shaking feedback loop action going on in my head. It was another example of the struggle between both halves of my brain.

Kayaking has many of these little feedback loops in it. The trick is usually to deal with the little voice, focus and keep moving!

1 comment:

Silbs said...

That was the book that first gave me insight into my way of thinking and helped me understand myself better.