Left Brain Words, Right Brain Words

Words are more important than you might think... When talking with your friends, pay more attention to the types of words that are used. Some communication is in the form of perceptive reality and some is in the form of actual reality. When you say, "I had pizza for lunch today." This is an actual reality because it is falsifiable. When you say "I had 2 big slices of pizza for lunch today," the comment becomes relative and is perceptive. Left brain words are words that create internal images. For instance think pizza, tree, shoe. In some way you perceived an internal representation of these external impressions. Right brain words are words that are interpreted energetically. Think love, hunger, tired. These are the words you want to pay attention to in order to accurately connect with the ideas we convey to one another. Lastly notice the difference between doing something "alone" and doing something "by myself."

The beginning of low self esteem...

I was watching my little brother's soccer game when I was distracted by a lady yelling at her son behind me. She was acting hostile and belittling him. When she couldn't think of anything better to do she sent this kid off to stand by the car. Politely, I said to her "I heard what was going on with you and your son and I know that you are coming from a place of love because you want your son to succeed in life and getting good grades is a huge part of that." Embarrassed, she apologized and agreed. "The reason I brought this up was to let you know what was really going on in that scene. You didn't understand why your son was acting that way, and instead of finding out his reason, you made up your own reason that made sense to you... you might have thought he's just being rebellious, or he's acting like he doesn't hear me. Because of your reason you became upset and projected anger on to his consciousness. Let me tell you a little bit about anger and how it is received. When anger is used to communicate a message from adult to child it may activate the fight or flight response. When you were asking him questions, he was already in a state of anxiety, which is why his answers weren't making sense. He was not allowed to fight or flight because this would make matters worse. Not knowing how to calm himself down also prevented him from coming up with ways to calm you down. He was put in a state of helplessness... when this situation repeats it leads to low self-esteem or depression. Another way to approach this situation might be to ask him kindly why he didn't want to do his homework. Maybe he was really smart and he didn't want to be teased by the other kids for being a nerd which means social rejection for life." The mom admitted her son was in an advanced program and she had heard the other kids make fun of him. I asked her to sit down with the family and talk about what's going on. To interview each person and appreciate them for what they add to the team. Perhaps one person is an artist and the other is an athlete and the other is a genius. Each of them would be able to appreciate each other more if they knew that they were appreciated and didn't just hear it.