Left Hemisphere Quotes

“The left hemisphere prefers the impersonal to the personal, and that tendency would be in any case be instantiated in the fabric of a technologically driven and bureaucratically administered society. The impersonal would come to replace the personal. There would be a focus on material things at the expense of the living. Social cohesion, and the bonds between person and person, and just as importantly between person and place, the context in which each person belongs, would be neglected, perhaps actively disrupted, as both inconvenient and incomprehensible to the left hemisphere acting on its own. There would be a depersonalisation of the relationships between members of society, and in society’s relationship with its members. Exploitation rather than co-operation would be, explicitly or not, the default relationship between human individuals, and between humanity and the rest of the world. Resentment would lead to an emphasis on uniformity and equality, not as just one desirable to be balanced with others, but as the ultimate desirable, transcending all others. As a result individualities would be ironed out and identification would be by categories: socioeconomic groups, races, sexes, and so on, which would also feel themselves to be implicitly or explicitly in competition with, resentful of, one another. Paranoia and lack of trust would come to be the pervading stance within society both between individuals, and between such groups, and would be the stance of government towards its people.”
― Iain McGilchrist, The Master and His Emissary: The Divided Brain and the Making of the Western World

“I am not sure how we came to believe that we know more about what our people need than they do. A core, culturally supported assumption about their brokenness may have something to do with it, and so might our left-dominant culture and training that makes it more challenging to be present to anyone's implicit experience. Many it is equally about our inability to trust our own inner wisdom to guide us because no-one helped us listen when we were young. Without this trust, we may get frightened for our people and the process, and such feelings bring on the need to assert control ...

experiment with the pause, remembering that our rupture and repair are optimal, trust will grow as we and our 'patients' stumble together into the tentative, fluid process of attunement with one another that supports the awakening of the inherent wisdom and health.”
― Bonnie Badenoch

“integration of right-centric relatedness and left-centric understanding comes and goes for all of us, but it does seem to gain strength and reliability over time.”
― Bonnie Badenoch, The Heart of Trauma: Healing the Embodied Brain in the Context of Relationships

“As Gazzaniga put it, "these findings all suggest that the interpretive mechanism of the left hemisphere is always hard at work, seeking the meaning of events. It is constantly looking for order and reasons, even when there is none - which leads it continually to make mistakes.”
― David Eagleman, Incognito: The Secret Lives of the Brain

“We are so immersed in an acclimated to the experience of our fast-paced, digital lives that it is challenging to gain a sense of the traumas subtly embedding each day.”
― Bonnie Badenoch, The Heart of Trauma: Healing the Embodied Brain in the Context of Relationships

“When our SEEKING system is pulled into the service of only pursuing tasks, goals, solutions, and success, its primary purpose of maintaining connection is subverted to the point it eventually gives up and we fall into despair.”
― Bonnie Badenoch, The Heart of Trauma: Healing the Embodied Brain in the Context of Relationships

“When we talk about cultivating a nonjudgemental, agendaless space between, we might easily believe this means we are passively present. Quite the contrary. We are dynamically awake in the midst of the inner stillness and receptivity, attending to and following what is emerging in our people.”
― Bonnie Badenoch, The Heart of Trauma: Healing the Embodied Brain in the Context of Relationships

“let's ask our systems how they might let us know when we are taking that step into left-hemisphere dominance ...

Often, the respectful gesture of simply pausing to pose this curiosity is enough. Our systems will respond as and when they can.”
― Bonnie Badenoch, The Heart of Trauma: Healing the Embodied Brain in the Context of Relationships

“Forms used in many clinics ask patients to rate their status on a regular basis, hoping to see an ever-upward trend, and sometimes judging the efficacy of the therapist without regard for the complexity of the challenges they are holding together in the space between. All of this is well-intentioned with the primary goal being rapid reduction of suffering. However it is built on the assumptions of the left hemisphere.”
― Bonnie Badenoch

“How might language separate us or draw us together? If our words center around grasping, creating, using, knowing, efficiency, step-by-step procedures, problem-solving, interventions, tools, and a sense of good-better-best (an ever-upward trend), we are likely attending mostly from a left hemisphere that is operating more or less autonomously, without support from the right's perspective. There is often a sense of judgement and certainty, along with an intent to guide, shape or control another that arises from and is reflected in this way of speaking. Because the left hemisphere has a tendency toward either/or, good/bad distinctions, there is often the sense of preference or wanting to get rid of something in favor of something else (ie: getting rid of sadness in favor of happiness or peace).”
― Bonnie Badenoch, The Heart of Trauma: Healing the Embodied Brain in the Context of Relationships