Letting Go of the Left

I recently had the wonderful opportunity to go to a Passion Party. And before you fall into the gutter and get your mind all dirty, it wasn't that kind of party. It’s a gathering for people to discover and clarify what they are passionate about. I went into this party thinking I knew exactly what my passions were. That was my first mistake. Walking in confidently with my homework in tote (a list of 10 things I love to be and do), I was like “I’ve got this. If there is one thing I know its personal development, I’ve read enough books on the subject to start my own self-help bookstore." The party began and the facilitator handed out a worksheet – thinking “this is my kind of party!”- I decided to jump ahead on the worksheet a little, save some time, and maybe even impress the facilitator with my very insightful passions.

I very logically (and cleverly if I do say so myself) went through and combined my ten passions into about four. “Ha!” I arrogantly thought, I’m so efficient I don’t even need the fifth space. That’s right about when the facilitator began going through the instructions for the next step. I was way off, because apparently, thinking is the polar opposite of passion. She wanted us to use an intuitive process where we get in touch with our feelings. Now, I just want to say I value feelings, probably even more than the average person, but this threw me for a loop. I had a really hard time turning my mind off so I could listen to my feelings. As I looked around the room, others were also having this problem. It seems that every day American life is fueled and propelled by our thoughts and logical problem solving skills, to the point where we just can’t hear the intuitional alarms coming from the right side of our brains. Our culture emphasizes the thinking and logic of our left brains to the detriment of our creative and intuitive right brains. For me and my fellow party-goers the domineering left sides just did not want to relinquish control, even when we were consciously trying. This is such a sad thing, because it was truly transformational for me to finally move logic aside and really feel each of the passions on my list. It turns out my list based on feelings was completely different and much more authentic than the one I pumped out of the left side of my brain.

My very first and most important passion turned out to be laughing with my children. Now, I’ve always known this was important, but I had no idea it was the most important thing in my heart. As I moved down the list of things I love – this one beat out all the others. Because each time I would imagine life without my children’s laughter my heart would sink. Their laughter lifts and lightens my heart in dark times. That is something we could all use right now. So, the next time the left side of your brain goes into overdrive to solve all of the world’s problems (which is so easy to do in these times) allow your right brain to step in and imagine the people you love laughing, and see if your own heart doesn’t lighten up and smile just a little.