|
THE HUMAN BRAIN
Katherine Benziger, Ph.D., Sue Holmes
The human brain is a complex, elegantly wired machine that is designed to help us live, negotiate reality and ultimately to thrive. How well our brain does this is a function of two very different but inter-related processes: our internal communication with ourselves, in which we do or do not "listen" and respond respectfully to our brain's evaluation of and signals concerning what we are experiencing or doing; and external pressures exerted by our environment (e.g. climate) and by the dominant social, economic and work patterns, which differentially use or reward specific capabilities. Thus, although fundamentally the human brain is designed to respond to many, many "problems" or "situations" appropriately - utilizing those capabilities that match the situation - in practice our reality often leads over time to diminished flexibility.
1. The structure of the Human Brain
For the purposes of this discussion, it is useful to view the human brain as comprised of 3 categories of neuronal structures, each with specific responsibilities and functions:
- The older or deeper structures, sometimes referred to as the primal brain is comprised of the reticular activation system which mediates our arousal level; the reptilian core which manages our autonomic processes and crisis response patterns; and the limbic structures which mediate emotion and facilitate the formation and accessing of memory. The processes performed by these structures are ones that are "done for us" as it were. As such, they do not involve our conscious thinking.
- The next set of neuronal structures form what has been referred to as the new brain - or cortex. Significantly, this cortex is itself divided into 4 highly specialized chunks: in the back, the left and right sections of the posterior cortical convexity; in the front, the left and right frontal lobes. Each of these four areas has it's own specialized screens that cause it to perceive only what it needs to perceive to do it's job; as well as highly specialized processing modes that use the information it perceives to accomplish tasks that contribute to one of four Generalized Life Tasks: Establishing and Maintaining Productive Foundations; Establishing and Maintaining Peaceful Foundations; Adapting; and Directing (e.g. evaluating current reality and determining the best response). More specifically:
The left side of the posterior cortical convexity sees mostly bounded shapes or masses that it: (1) labels with the words it hears and uses; and (2) grasps or handles in order to produce a product or service. Moreover, this area of the cortex specialized in sequencing. As a result it excels at performing routine physical tasks that are the basis for the production of man's food, shelter, clothing - especially in our highly automated society. This is the area which uses divisions and lines to process information: divisions of labor or class, line of command, either/or, black or white thinking. It breaks things down, side-by-step, bit-by-bit. This mode can appear to be objectively detached, or gain control through it's use of rules, orders, structures and systems. It has been pushed very hard by men and science.
The right side of the posterior cortical convexity is also very immediate and concrete. However, it perceives very different elements of it's environment nonetheless. Specifically, it perceives the presence or absence of harmonic relationships - auditory, visual and tactile or kinesthetic - in it's environment. Moreover, it's inbuilt specialized processing enables it to act to establish harmony and connection where it is missing. As a result, this area excels at building good will, trust and loyalty - the basis for peace, cooperation and collaboration.
In comparison to both posterior or basal areas, our frontal lobes are abstract and conceptual. Yet, again what they each perceive and how they process what they perceive differs dramatically.
The right frontal lobe for example perceives abstract patterns and relationships. Where the first mode sees largely a bounded shape (e.g. a person's head), and the second mode sees the concrete relationships within spaces (e.g. the face, it's expressions, the eyes and their expressions), this third mode perceives the abstraction or caricature of the face. In practice, the most useful abstract patterns this area perceives are what we call trends, whether in statistical data or long term macro economic activities. These trends, meaningless to the "producer" and "bonder", signal change and trigger this region to use it's internal processes - the imagination - to invent a successful response to the change it has noticed: a new product, a new service, a new strategy. As a result this third specialized area is superbly suited to help us adapt to change.
The fourth area, the left frontal lobe is structured to perceive function and functional relationships: what supports what; with what degree of tolerance; what contributes what; what stimulates what; what blocks what. Moreover, given it's gift for logical analysis, it can calculate, evaluate, diagnose and prescribe very effectively. As a result, this region excels at directing, prioritizing and strategizing how to accomplish it's own or a group's goals.
Again, all four cortical areas can be used consciously - they are our primary tools for "thinking and deciding". And, taken together, they perceive both the detailed and the long view of our reality in a holistic manner that if leveraged can lead to success.
- Finally the third set of neuronal fibers comprise what is called the corpus collosum - a bundle of 200,00 to 300,000 neurons which serves as a hard-wired communication conduit between the right and left posterior cortical convexity and the left and right frontal lobes. An interesting fact is that, the female corpus collosum is almost 1/3 larger and fires significantly faster than the male corpus collosum. This fact of life accounts for women's habit of simultaneous multiple processing or their ability and tendency to track several things, tasks or ideas at one time. Possibly more important are two other facts:
- that there are no 'bridges' linking our brain's diagonal areas (i.e. the posterior left and frontal right; the posterior right and frontal left)
- that to get from back to front appears to require a person to talk or take action
Viewed as a single system the human brain appears to be perfectly structures to succeed - in life and business: it is able to produce a product dependably; build good will; creatively adapt as needed; and evaluate it's current reality to decide what combination of functions will constellate "the best response". Truly, the human brain is a reservoir of diverse flexible strength.
2. The Dynamics of the Human Brain:
Two very different sets of inner forces guide us to insure our success: (1) our emotional response system; and (2) our brain's innate preference for one of the cortex's four modes. When we pay attention to and act on the feedback we receive from each of these systems, we find ourselves naturally happy and naturally functioning as a "team player". When we ignore either or both of these guidance systems, we invite trouble.
- As the "seat " of our emotional response to life - our "yes" or our "no" - portions of this primal brain serve as our guide constantly informing us about the pain (discomfort, danger, threat) or pleasure (comfort, enthusiasm, joy, ecstasy) a given environment or task creates within us.
If and as we allow this feedback to guide us, follow it's "advice", we find ourselves in healthy places, doing things that are personally rewarding and meaningful. Moreover, the more we are in situations which are validating, which honor and use our gifts, the more enthusiastic we become about life and others. It is the life experience we know as "my cup runneth over" - similar in some way to how we all feel when we are in love or feel ourselves to be loved - from abundance of validation comes positive self-esteem and joy, we naturally reach out and give to other.
If on the other hand we cut ourselves off from our brain (mind-body)'s inner communication, if we ignore or override it, we are more likely to find our enthusiasm waning, our frustration, fatigue and fear growing. What's more, it is probable that our interest in true collaboration and our ability to function on a team are significantly diminished as our anger and/or fear cuts us off from others.
- Additionally, although all of us can learn to use any and all of the four cortical modes, it is almost always true that one of the four modes is naturally easier for us to use. This natural preference for one of the four cortical modes seems to be the result of that one mode enjoying a naturally lower level of electrical resistance in comparison to the other modes. Thus, each of us is more naturally interested in, motivated by and adept at using our preferred mode; as well as less interested in, less motivated by and less adept at tasks or activities utilizing our other three modes. In other words, we are all naturally, "biased" in what we find energizing and meaningful. In other words, like the tools and machines we build and use, each of us is specialized in what we do efficiently and hence well.
Significantly, from a system's perspective, this bias within each of us, not only contributes to our individuality, it also establishes us as social beings who need each other. Moreover, when we use our two guidance systems in a context that recognizes, values and uses the contributions of all modes, we are naturally energetic about life and work, as well as accepting, helpful and compassionate to the people who surround us.
3. Habituation of the Brain and Cultural Differences in Response to Climate:
In practice, however, our ability to access and use the full range of our diversified strength is often limited by historic and contextual factors, such as climate. In the North Central areas of Europe, for example, where there is land to grow crops, but there is also a hard winter, using the posterior left to plant and harvest in a dependable manner is critical, as is using the frontal left to evaluate the environment to know when each must be done, to insure sufficient food for everyone during the winter.
As a result, is can be argued the Germanic or Allamanic cultures have, overtime, rewarded those who develop and use both left modes - thereby shaping a culture, known for it's focus on and valuing of precision, dependability and order.
By contrast, the Mediterranean cultures, which have the land to grow crops, as well as a year round growing season, have no such left tilt. In fact, one might argue that, overtime, their environment has led to the lack of appreciation for and deficiency in more left brained skills or competencies, such that most Mediterranean cultures appear to lead with one or both right modes.
4. Habituation of the Brain also Occurs in Response to a Societal Commitment to a Given Set of Economic Practices:
In countries which embrace technology, automation, and assembly line manufacturing, for example, a clear pattern of educating and rewarding the brain's left capabilities evolves. In fact, to be more precise, in response to over 500 years of increased technological development culminating in 100+ years of heavy automation, the economies of Europe and the United States have shaped their respective cultures to produce a small percentage of 'real leaders' with Frontal Left skill and training and (as was required by their industrial infrastructure) a workforce comprising 80% of the population trained almost exclusively in posterior left skills.
Thus, the social impact of automation on the human being has been to:
- build a large foundation of production workers highly skilled at performing routine procedures, but only minimally skilled at critical thinking, ingenuity and collaborative harmonizing
- create a man-made environment with few opportunities or rewards for either right mode, in which fewer and fewer shapes, colors, relationships and communication patterns are easily perceived by either right mode
5. In Other Words, Automation has cut us off from 1/2 our Diverse Flexible Resource - Perceptive Capabilities and Processing Competencies we need if we are to:
- achieve true practical peace, both locally and globally
- be creative enough to solve the global economic and environmental crisis our own actions have brought on
The good news is that habituation is just that: a learned set of responses, not a genetic recasting of the human brain. Our full diverse resources are still available.
The bad news is that the result of this habituation in combination with our having learned to disconnect from or ignore both of our inner guidance systems which have been telling us this left bias was not healthy, has been a rise in the level of stress, fatigue and illness, especially in people with gifts or preferences in one of the right modes. Indeed, evidence suggests that the cost of adaptation for people forced by environmental factors to develop and use competencies in a mode other than their natural lead is shockingly high - enough to significantly compromise the natural 20:80 oxygen utilization balance between the brain and body, setting the stage for illness. Moreover, surrounded by object and environmental elements they don't easily perceive - life becomes meaningless.
These twin horrors - exhaustion and meaninglessness - can and often do lead to increased failure of the system as it is; as well as outbreaks of anger and violence. In such contexts, our powerful capabilities, our diverse flexible strength and our natural enthusiasm for life and other people, deteriorate into chaotic raging violence, wars and death
Fortunately, knowledge of ourselves and how we've created this reality can also help us reshape it, make it whole and balanced, set it right.
PART II: THE HEALING PROCESS AND THE WHEEL OF CHANGE
6. Changing the Way we do Things - listening to and respecting both our emotional responses to life and our innate need to be using our gifts (our preferred mode) - can Transform our Work Environments in to Highly Energetic, Exciting and Rewarding Places to be. It can also Open the Doors for us to Progress as People, to Grow and Blossom as Thriving, Loving Individuals.
- Listening to Our Emotional Response System:
The starting point is to make sure that our patterns of response listen to and value our emotions as signals. We need to welcome rather than deny our feelings. They must be included in our thinking and decision-making processes. We are human beings who care about ourselves, other and the future of the world, as well as computer-like processors of information.
On one level, this "noticing and valuing" of our two inner guidance systems will be easy - for indeed, once you know what to listen for, once you understand that the tension and fatigue you are feeling or the difficulty you have experienced in concentrating is telling you you are doing the wrong job for your brain - telling you to change to doing something that energizes and charges you, you will be surprised you lived so long ignoring the signals. So easy are they to read.
On another level, this including of our emotions may be difficult for a time, in that the human brain stores up unexpressed emotions and experiences of chronic invalidation and non-use of one's preferences as not merely threatening (e.g. making us angry or frightened) but as overwhelmingly hopeless (e.g. making us depressed).
To be healthy, the energy of the emotional response has to flow. We have to express our grief, our fear, our anger, as well as our enthusiasm and compassion. All four emotions are essential to our well-being. Each is an appropriate response to particular life experiences. Anger tells us we are meeting resistance and activates us to "defend ourselves and our family", to move through that resistance. As it is a signal preparing us to stand up to the resistance, anger adds tension to our bodies by preparing our muscles to act. Compassion tells us we are experiencing our own fullness, as well as seeing the humanity in another person, especially one who may not be living in the same fullness. It also activates us to reach out, to connect in love, to uplift the other person. As such compassion is healing or relaxing for the giver, as well as the receiver.
By contrast, fear and grief cause us to withdraw and tend to separate us from people. Yet each is valid. Each has a message. Fear tells us we are meeting resistance that may be too big for us to take on directly. As such, it signals our need to check our information and possibly consider ways of getting gout of the situation without damage. If we reevaluate a frightening situation and determine it is not a danger, we will feel relief and joy. If on reevaluating we confirm it is a danger to us, but manage to get out of the situation unharmed, we will also feel these uplifting energizing emotions. When we listen to fear and act appropriately and successfully, we return to comfort. Grief, an even more overwhelming emotion, is also an important signal for us. It tells us that our situation is hopeless and that we need to change the situation, if possible. When we are sad and depressed, often our emotions may be telling us we are in a job or situation that shames or devalues our gifts. Here, we can act (change jobs for example) to select a job which will validate and use our gifts. When our grief is from the death of a friend or family member, changing the situation is not possible - but grieving is - and with grieving comes release of the pain of loss.
Emotional responses can be very wide. Anger can be mild frustration or rage. Fear can be hesitancy or horror. Grief can be just a last look back as you say goodbye to a home you lived in for years, or the inconsolable loss of a child's death. And, compassion can range from a feeling of familiarity to being truly at one with another person.
Significantly, we learn in our family as children which emotions are "acceptable", as well as the proper or 'right' way to express our emotions. The result is that many of us have learned to not listen to and not to express all or some emotions.
As demonstrated by the work of the renowned 20th century German biologist, Konrad Lorenz, many mammals express anger, fear and grief. Apes are known to nurture their young and grieve if one dies. Elephants have been seen to go out of their way to encircle the grave of a dead herd member as if mourning. Dogs whose companion human or canine dies often lay grieving for days or weeks. Moreover, dogs and dolphins have both been known to act to help humans in danger.
But humans are the only animal that can reflect on and talk about emotions. Thus, we can notice we are sad or frightened and act to change our life. We can withdraw to consider our options and return with a new plan of action. We can also invite another person to share their views and subsequently change our own as a result of seeing another person's point of view.
If the emotional responses are not noted, shared, listened to and responded to in an individual's or group's decision-making process, those emotions will work against change and against the decisions. Things will not go according to plan, no matter how carefully thought out the plan. An individual's body will go on strike, like workers who have not been consulted about the changes their company wants to make.
When openness to the emotions is present, tension or anxiety can be released in tears, which includes tears of laughter and joy, as well as sadness. And, as with the situations mentioned earlier, when these are released and their messages heard, people return to their natural state of interest and enthusiasm, to the business of getting on with life and the living of it.
- Listening to Our Need and Society's Need to Utilize Our Preferences:
Here we are very fortunate for the troubles we experience around us, the pressure to develop more and better new ideas and products at work and in the world, as well as the pressure to find ways to manage morale and public relations problems before they turn into expensive law suits, walk outs or violence, is so great that we are all ready to make a change for the better. All we need to do is educate everyone that we simply need to make use of the innate, God-given gifts many of our employees have. We will dramatically improve our ability to respond to the interpersonal problems by including in our decision-making the advice of those with natural Basal Right gifts for harmonizing, building trust and getting along with others. Similarly, we will significantly improve our ability to respond creatively by making use of the natural Frontal Right gifts for inventiveness.
CONCLUSION
Thus, today we face an exciting challenge, the challenge to change the way we use our brains so that we think as we have been designed to think and do what we have been designed to do, using our innate sensitivity, our feelings to guide us as we act.
Existing corporate and government systems that have been built under a different set of assumptions that did not want or need the contributions of either right mode or the human emotions - will need to be effectively educated so that they get behind rather than resist the changes. However, in the end they will be won over. They will be transformed. For, not only are these changes natural and evolutionary, honoring God's and Nature's plan for each man, woman and child on earth to live a meaningful, contributing life full of joy and love - such changes will also transform our corporate and government organizations so that they are more productive as a result of their employees' collaborating more readily and effectively; having more flexible and agile thinking; making better decisions; and developing more and better creative solutions to the problems we all face.
SOURCES
Ageless Body, Timeless Mind. Deepak Chopra, M.D. Harmony Books, New York. 1993.
The Art of Using Your Whole Brain. Katherine Benziger, Ph.D. KBA Publishing, Rockwall, Texas. 1989.
Developing Positive Self Esteem. Katherine Benziger, Ph.D. KBA Publishing, Rockwall, Texas. 1990.
Cortical Gluclose Metabolic Rate Correlates of Abstract Reasoning and Attention. Richard Haier, Ph.D. Intelligence, June 1998.
Maximizing Individual and Team Effectiveness. Katherine Benziger, Ph.D. KBA Publishing, Rockwall, Texas. 1993.
Overcoming Depression. Katherine Benziger, Ph.D. KBA Publishing, Rockwall, Texas. 1993.
The Tangled Wing: Biological Constraints on the Human Spirit. Melvin Konner. Holt, Rinehart & Winston, New York. 1982.
Who Gets Sick? Blair Justice, Ph.D. Jeremy P. Tarcher, Inc., Los Angeles. 1987.
© 1996 Katherine Benziger, Ph.D. and Sue Holmes
|
|
Return
