Provision #747: It's Not All In Our Heads
Laser Provision
There's a lot of research and writing these days concerning brain functioning as
it relates to human happiness and peak performance. That's because it's gotten a
whole lot easier in the past two decades, with the advent of functional Magnetic
Resonance Imaging (or fMRI) scanners and other technologies, to actually study
the brain as it experiences different internal events. What is happening in the
brain, for example, at the moment of insight? What can we learn about the power
of focused attention that may inform our approach to coaching and leadership?
How does the brain connect with the rest of the body? One thing is clear: the
brain is not all in our heads. It's distributed throughout the body such that we
feel things on deep, visceral levels. Sound intriguing? Read on.!
LifeTrek Provision
I know I said I wasn't going to start another Provision series, while I work on
a couple of books, but I thought I might turn Provisions into a kind of
literature review that would serve both me and you as I work my way through the
material on coaching and leadership. We'll see how this goes, and I may still
revert to my material on
Optimal
Wellness at some point, but for right now I am intrigued that Provisions
will serve me well as a placeholder for the reading I will be doing as part of my
writing on the book.
And the area that interests me most right now is the literature on brain
functioning as it relates to human happiness and peak performance. With the advent
of functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (or fMRI) scanners in the early 1990s,
neuroscience has been able to make tremendous strides in understanding not only
how the brain works but also how to help the brain work better.
That's the connection that most interests me in my work on coaching and
leadership. When my wife, Megan, and I wrote
Evocative Coaching, we
were aware of this research and we incorporated some of it into the book itself.
Given how often people have commented on how interesting and helpful that makes
the book, I wish we had done even more to connect the dots between our coaching
model and the neuroscientific literature. This Provision series and the two
books I am working on will pick up some of that slack.
You may even be able to help me with this project. If you are interested in this
line of research yourself, and if you have a favorite article or book, let me
know. I will be happy to give it a spin and maybe include a review, along with
my remarks, in this Provisions series. That would make this the first
co-constructed Provisions series, which sounds like a lot of fun and a lot less
work to me.
Ironically, one of you already started to help out in this way, even before the
call went out. I spent more than two hours running today, a standard practice of
mine on Saturdays, thinking about this Provision. The piece that kept coming
back to me, over and over again, was the danger of interpreting fMRI information
as though it was all happening in our heads. That's a byproduct of the Western
approach to studying phenomena in discreet units. When we are able to isolate
something, like those fMRI scans of the brain, we can lose a sense of connection
to the whole.
That's especially true when it comes to the brain. The bulk of it may be in our
heads, and I'm not even sure of that, but it's certainly not all in our heads.
The brain in our heads is but an extension of a nervous system that courses
through every cell in our bodies. In some respects, our brains and our bodies
are indistinguishable. The flow of information is multidirectional and
instantaneous. We are metastatic bundles of energy, and learning how to work
with that energy is what coaching and leadership are all about.
Cognitive neuroscience sometimes overlooks this fundamental truth, with its
increasingly precise tools for measuring the brain in the head. But the brain
goes far deeper than even an fMRI can scan. Several years ago I wrote about our
Triune Brain,
made famous by Dr. Paul MacLean. This may be far more fundamental than the old
notion of left and right brains.
- At the top of the evolutionary food chain is the Cerebral Cortex.
That is the large, folded grey matter, unique to mammals, that controls
cognition, short-term memory, attention, perceptual awareness, thought,
language, and consciousness. That part of the brain really is all in our
head. The neocortex was the last part of the cerebral cortex to develop,
from an evolutionary point of view, and it is what makes us uniquely human
because of its size (90% of the cerebral cortex is neocortex in human beings)
and functionality. It's job is to think and to dream
- The mid-brain structures that feed information to the cerebral cortex
are known as the Limbic System. These structures include the
thalamus, hypothalamus, hippocampus, amygdala, and basal ganglia. This part
of the brain, also shared with most other mammals, is responsible for
emotions, long-term memory, preferences, and even a sense of personal
identity. It's job is to avoid pain and to seek pleasure. And here we get
our first taste of the brain outside of the head. All sensory information
comes into the brain through the limbic system. When we look into someone's
eyes or whisper into their ears, we really are looking into and stimulating
their brains.
- At the base of the whole operation is the Reptilian Complex, so
named because it is shared with reptiles and most other vertebrates. This complex, which came along first from an evolutionary point of
view, includes the brainstem and the cerebellum – but it doesn't stop there.
The reptilian complex includes the spinal cord and the various autonomic
nervous systems, including the sympathetic nervous system (responsible for
survival with the "fight or flight" response), the parasympathetic nervous
system (responsible for recovery from the "fight or flight" response), and
the enteric nervous system (responsible for digestion and other activities
of the gut).
It is a mistake to think of the brain in our head, let alone the neocortex
itself, as controlling the whole operation. It just doesn't work that way. The
whole system, from head to toe, is in continuous and instantaneous metastasis.
That may sound like an odd word choice, since metastasis is commonly used for
cancer when it spreads to other parts of the body. But the root meaning of the
word comes from the Greek, meta stasis, or changed state. And that's the
way the brain works: it is constantly processing and shifting different types of information to
facilitate survival, satisfaction, and significance.
Those tasks are whole-body experiences, whether we recognize them as such or
not. That is why fMRI scans reveal the influence of not only thoughts but also
of emotional stimulations and physical sensations. Everyone knows that deep,
rhythmic breathing calms the mind, for example. But that's because the nervous
system that controls the lungs is part of the mind. It's not that the lungs are
doing something to the brain in the head. It's that the lungs are part of the
brain in the body. Researchers would do well to conceptualize and study the
brain in just that way.
You can imagine my surprise and delight, then, when I got back from my run and
found that a friend had sent me a gift through the mail. The occasion, it turns
out, was the US holiday of Thanksgiving and the card communicated a beautiful
sentiment: "The lives you've touched include mine. Thank you."
The book is titled
Peak States
of Consciousness, Theory and Applications, Volume 1: Breakthrough Techniques for
Exceptional Quality of Life by Grant McFetridge. Now I have not read the
book and I am not able to speak to its claims regarding the release of negative
emotions as a pathway to healing from past traumas. But given the Provision I
was mulling over on my long run, you can imagine why I would turn first to
Chapter 5 on the states of consciousness of the Triune Brain. I find these
descriptions and comments to be helpful and right on target:
"How does the triune structure of the brain apply to our inner
experience? In everyday terms, we know these brains as the 'mind,' 'heart,'
and 'body.' Each brain has different biological functions and abilities:
- The 'mind,' or neocortex, is the part of ourselves we most often think
of as who we are. It perceives itself in the head, and it is the part of
ourselves that forms judgments, handles short-term memory, and does
abstractions like mathematics. One of its primary functions is handling
and manipulating audible sounds and language.
- The 'heart' is the limbic system in the brain, yet perceives itself
in the chest, probably because this is the area of its primary
biological responsibility and sensory awareness. It allows us to feel
emotions, and be either positively or negatively emotionally aware of
the presence of others. One of its primary functions is handling visual
imagery.
- Finally, the 'body' consciousness (or 'hara' in Japanese) is
composed of the tissues at the base of the skull, and probably other
distributed systems in our body. It experiences itself in the lower
belly, its area of major biological function. This brain gives us a sense
of time and our ability to feel sexuality. One of its primary functions
is handling physical sensations, and probably scent as well."
"The most difficult jump in
Dr.
MacLean's work is to realize that each of the brains is intelligently,
independently self-aware. Because we tend to assume that thinking requires
words, it's difficult for us to realize that each brain actually thinks. In
fact, unlike the mind, the heart thinks in sequences of feelings, and the
body thinks in gestalt sequences of body sensations (described as the 'felt
sense' in Eugene Gendlin's
Focusing)."
"Since each brain is so different, we might compare this situation to that
of a living stereo system. Imagine if the speakers (mind), tape deck
(heart), and receiver (body) were each self-aware, each trying to run the
show and puzzled because the other parts won't do what it wants them to do.
It would be hard to imagine how a stereo like this would ever manage to play
music! And unfortunately, this is fairly close to the mark." (pp. 84-85)
From that vantage point, then, we can imagine another sense in which the word
metastasis is appropriate: the brain is like a simmer pot with all of
its thoughts, feelings, and sensations. It's not easy to get all those entities
on the same page, and many times things break down. Things are forever changing,
and not always by design. To quote the early Christian
writer, Paul of Tarsus, "I do what I don't want to do, and I don't do what I
want to do." We've all been there, more than once.
The best brain research helps us to better understand, integrate, and manage our
thoughts, feelings, and sensations – our minds, hearts, and bodies – our
significance, satisfaction, and survival. My hope is to share some of that
research with you in the weeks and months to come. Please remember to send me the best of
the best, if you have any favorite articles or books. We'll be sure to enjoy the
process of learning together.
Coaching Inquiries: Which brain are you more aware of right now? Your mind, your
heart, or your body? What would help you to integrate those brains into a
peaceful and productive whole? How could you develop more cognitive, emotional,
and physiological awareness? What would you like to do with that awareness, now
that it's upon you?
To reply to this Provision, use our
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talk with us about coaching or consulting services for yourself or your
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programs,
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LifeTrek Readers' Forum (selected feedback
from the past week)
Editor's Note: The LifeTrek Readers' Forum contains selections from the comments
and materials sent in each week by the readers of LifeTrek Provisions. They do
not necessarily reflect the perspective of LifeTrek Coaching International. To
submit your comment, use our
Feedback Form or
Email Bob.
I like the idea you have for transforming your
leadership Provisions into a book. I wish
you great courage when you have to re-visit each Provision, and edit for book
purposes. The result will be taking something that was really good to start with
and making it really great.
I thought of a couple of additions as you requested. How about something
concerning "serendipity" or "happy accidents"? These are the times when
something valuable happens that can't really be explained or rationalized as
coming for deliberate actions. Maybe this concept is covered in an existing
Provision, but if it isn't, it could be a fun stand alone.
Congratulations on such an excellent series and completing this phase of your
process. I love the idea of the book and I think you should keep it all in one
book. I like the title,
The ABC's of Leadership, and think it would be great to have it all in one place,
sort of like a reference book on leadership quality. I've enjoyed reading this
series and Appreciate your effort and passion.
I suggest you consider publishing
The ABC's of Leadership as two books. I look
forward to reading the books. Cheers
I must admit first that I have not read all of the Provisions listed, so perhaps this word overlaps in another Provision, but I believe Compassion
Matters........... Top
May you be filled with goodness, peace, and joy.
Bob Tschannen-Moran
President, LifeTrek Coaching International,
www.LifeTrekCoaching.com
CEO & Co-Founder, Center for School
Transformation,
www.SchoolTransformation.com
Immediate Past President, International Association
of Coaching,
www.CertifiedCoach.org
Author, Evocative Coaching: Transforming Schools One Conversation at a Time,
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