Turning your picture upside down

In a post on Dave Pollard's How to Save the World blog (which I found on a wild ride from Syndic8 to blogshares.com and on to the blogs of Dewayne Mikkelson, Aum Pa (Bernard Wisser), and Ming the Mechanic) I found an interesting discussion of the way our left brain (linear) can get in the way of our right brain (creative).

Dave's post, referring to Edward de Bono's Serious Creativity, is about opening up more of our creativity by getting the left brain out of the way. He talks about how the left brain sorts the things we see into shorthand icons, while the right brain sees in abstractions.

The result is that creative action (e.g., drawing) is often stifled by an over-active left brain. If our analytical left brain overshadows the creative right, when we try to draw something, we end up trying to replicate what the left brain sees - the shorthand icons - not what's actually there. And so we get frustrated. Something just doesn't match up.

The post gives some suggestions on getting out of that left brained space and opening up the door to creative perceptions. For example:

• Find a line drawing that you like. It can be the work of a master, a cartoon, anything.


• Turn it upside down.


• Now, without turning the page right-side up, draw what you see, trying to ignore the subject and focusing strictly on the lines, shades, spaces and proportions of the original. You're disabling your left-brain, which can't see or handle such abstractions, and allowing your right-brain to do all the work.

No doubt you'll be shocked to hear that I saw an immediate parallel to finding one's Occupational Adventure.

Just as an over-developed left brain can limit our creativity, our over-defined perceptions of ourselves, the future, possibilities, etc. can get in the way of creating the career we really want. We create icons to describe what we need to be like, what our choices are, what career is all about, etc. And that won't allow for the nuances of what we really could be.

Try turning your picture of "career" upside down for a minute. Take a look at the shades, and the lines, and the shadows. What is there if you're not trying to force it into the shorthand of what you think it "ought" to be? What could you get out of it if you weren't focused on the preconceived notions of what your career needs to look like? What if you threw out all the notions you have of what we need to "achieve" in our careers, and just ask yourself, "what would feel good?"

It's not about giving up the "icons" completely - in a balanced world, they're an important part of how we see. It's about letting ALL of you show up, so you can create your career based on the full spectrum of information.

Comments

[Ken]

I've been trying so so hard to gain control of my left brain, which simply refuses to give up any CPU time for its brother. Disabling the left brain has many therapeutic effects, e.g. eliminating stress, anxiety, be more attuned to the surrounding environment, more attentive, etc. Zen meditation gives similar effects. But I want to be able to disable the left in any situation, not just when alone and quiet.