Right Vs. Left Brain

Right vs. Left Brain

Guest Writer: Lara Patriquin

Our brilliant minds have evolved over millennia, allowing us to tackle increasingly complex tasks in our modern world. From booking flights on our phones to filing taxes, the left brain, responsible for logic, language, and critical thinking, has developed exponentially since our ancestors roamed caves. It enables us to analyze data, create to-do lists, perform intricate calculations, and operate advanced technology.

But while our left brain hungers for logic and analysis, the right brain holds the key to creativity, intuition, and holistic thinking. Success in life isn’t just about being left-brain “smart.” Anyone leading a company or practicing medicine knows that intuition, big-picture thinking, and creativity—right-brain functions—are equally essential. Often, it is our “secret sauce.” 

The left brain may help us achieve success, but does living solely in that space make life fun? 

Awe, inspiration, joy, and love all flow from the right brain. You can live a “successful” life by external standards, but the magic of the right brain truly makes life worth living.

So, take time today to nourish your right brain. You can strengthen it through activities like:

• Creative Arts: Painting, drawing, sculpting, and other forms of visual expression.

• Music and Rhythm: Playing instruments, composing, singing, and dancing.

• Imagination-Based Tasks: Creative writing, storytelling, and visualization exercises.

• Emotional Expression: Understanding and expressing emotions through art, music, or dance.

• Spatial Awareness: Engaging in puzzles or designs that require spatial reasoning.

• Holistic Thinking: Recognizing patterns and connecting seemingly unrelated ideas.

• Intuition: Trusting gut feelings and making decisions based on instinct.

Soooo....get off your computers and phones and play a game, walk in the woods, watch a movie, listen to music, or just hang out. 

You will feel more like yourself, more creative, and connected. 

With plenty of right-brain love,

Lara Patriquin

Joanna Seibert joannaseibert.com https://www.joannaseibert.com/

God Moments as We Live in the Present Moment

Finding God in the Present Moment

Living in the Present Moment of Langley’s First Christmas

“I search for the Spirit as I take out the trash. The sacred is revealed in brilliant light only rarely, in the flash of some great unexpected insight, but much more than this, the holy is to be discovered in our daily lives when we are simply being ourselves. Putting the kids to bed, working in the garden, sitting on the porch in the evening: the beauty of eternity is that it hides in plain sight all around us. We are all prophets of the predictable pattern, witnesses to the wonder of the average day.”—Bishop Steven Charleston, Daily Facebook Page.

 The God of my understanding uses every bit of our lives to call us to God’s love. I remember walking around my block one morning when I noticed all the trash bins in front of houses. On this walk, I realized that many of the spiritual disciplines we practice are simply to clear our minds—literally taking out the trash so we can hear God speak to our lives.

Bishop Charleston reminds us again of Brother Lawrence’s experience in The Practice of the Presence of God, seeking and seeing God in every aspect of our lives. He tells us we don’t have to live in a monastery to find and live this kind of life. He believes we can know God’s presence more in our daily routine than in some St. Paul-like, blinding, falling-off-our-horse, spectacular event.

Bishop Charleston also practices the family system’s axiom of being the less anxious presence in the world around him. He is looking around with awe at the ever-changing beauty of God’s immanence in the vastness of nature, and he is transformed by what he sees. He actively seeks Christ in every place and every person he encounters. This is the spiritual discipline of living in the present moment.

Joanna     https://www.joannaseibert.com/

Thoreau: Avoiding the Superficial Life

Thoreau: Avoiding the Superficial Life

“When our life ceases to be inward and private, conversation degenerates into mere gossip. Sometimes, we meet a man who can only tell us the news he has read in a newspaper or been told by his neighbor. As our inward life fails, we may constantly and desperately go to the post office. You may depend on it, that the poor fellow who walks away with the greatest number of letters, proud of his extensive correspondence, has not heard from himself this long while.”—Henry David Thoreau.

My spiritual friend, Bridget, sent this to me. Most of us do not go to the post office, and letter writing is becoming a lost art. But we are now judged by how many Facebook friends we have! I have a Facebook page to keep informed about family and friends, and one as an author. However, a Facebook message differs from a phone call, visit, or conversation over a meal. When we are face-to-face, we can share what is truly going on with us. Then, we may bare our souls and look for the Christ in our friend, hoping that the Christ within us will guide us. Meeting with spiritual friends is not optional for the inner life, the life of the soul. It is mandatory.

Even better is meeting over a meal. Replenishing our bodies mysteriously opens up our minds to nourish the soul. Here is where we see Christ in each other and maybe even get a brief glimpse of the Christ in ourselves. 

I have previously written about a pediatric radiology medical group I was a part of for over thirty years. We each had our own agenda and areas of expertise. We were having difficulty making decisions and seeing the importance of each other’s plans. We decided to meet for lunch once a week and simply talk about what was going on in our lives. It took a while, but miracles happened. We began to look at each other’s ideas in a better light. The mysterious result of meeting, talking, and regularly sharing a meal was that the food and conversation nourished us into forming a genuine community.

Being unable to meet with friends, especially over a meal, during this pandemic took its toll on our spiritual life as we knew it in community. Zoom meetings, FaceTime, Google Meet, Live streaming, and many other ways to see and talk with each other helped only minimally. We learned and accepted new technology. We also learned to stay connected more closely to a small core of people for strength and support.

People are also connecting more to nature, walking, gardening, and spending more time outside. I connect daily to the downy and red-bellied woodpeckers who come to the feeder near my window. I watch them feed each other while the trees outside, where they vertically climb and rapidly peck, remain steady, their green leaves daily photosynthesizing my soul.

Joanna   https://www.joannaseibert.com/