Our Remarkable Brain! Are You Aware of Our Human Brain Capacity?

The human brain is truly remarkable! Do you know the full human brain capacity?

What I’m about to describe is going to sound bizarre, but it is an apt demonstration of the power that lies in all of us. Our brain is truly remarkable, and we as a species are not tapping into the enormity of its capacity. I hope these videos help you to come to grips with the power that lies in your brain.

How I  Learnt About Our Human Brain Capacity

This happened on my latest self-repatterning retreat. Every three months, I spend five days in silent contemplation and meditation, using a technique that enriches the communication between my two brain hemispheres.

Each time I do this, I get remarkable breakthroughs. And this time was no different. I should preface this by saying that the breakthrough I am looking to get this time is on my marketing message.

As I sat applying the tool to bring about whole-brain thinking, I got a message that I heard as a voice in my head. The voice said, “Go and change the conversation from one of dichotomy to one of paradox.

Our Brain Capacity and Our Left Brain

Now let me try to quickly explain in a few words the enormity of what my subconscious was directing me to do. Our left brain perceives the world in terms of a dichotomy. Our left hemisphere perceives everything in terms of either/or — either this or the opposite of this. This is why so many people are invested in trying to determine what is true. This is also why we perceive our emotions as either positive or negative, why we make distinctions between good and evil, or right values and wrong values. In reality, of course, things are much more nuanced than this, but our left-hemisphere, because it doesn’t have access to context, likes to think that the world is easily divisible into two sides of one whole.

A paradox, on the other hand, comes about as a result of using the whole brain. I define a paradox as two seemingly opposing truths, which exist simultaneously in the same space, at the same time. Our left brain struggles to understand the paradox that the whole brain makes possible. But consider that our right hemisphere has access to the holistic perspective because its awareness is one of everything in its immediate environment, but it lacks the language centre to communicate this holistic point of view. This holistic understanding is there all the time, and it sits beneath the left-hemispheres partial perspective.

So what the left brain tells us is an easy divide between right and wrong, black and white, truth or fiction, the right hemisphere is able, when we can tune in, to provide the needed context. When we do tune in, we can easily see the dichotomy that is sitting on top of the whole. The result is a paradox, and it is built right into the structure of our brain.

Okay, now back to my story.

So I am sitting in a deep state of surrender, repatterning my stuckness around my marketing message, and I hear this internal voice telling me that I must change the conversation from a dichotomy to a paradox.

And I am ANNOYED!

Yes, that’s right, I’m pissed because I understand the enormity of this request. So when the hour ended, I got up and immediately headed out for a walk.

Now the other thing you need to know is that this Airbnb is in the middle of an apple orchard. I am walking within rows and rows of apple trees, twelve acres of apple trees, to be exact.

And as I said, I am annoyed, and so I find myself talking to myself.

‘Why don’t you go pick on someone your own size”. I express aloud. “I am fifty-eight years old! Change the conversation from dichotomy to paradox. You’ve got to be kidding me?! ME – change a conversation that is at least 2,500 years old, if not more? Hah! Again, go pick on someone else!”

I am stomping up and down the rows – angry and annoyed.

Now, as I said, what I am about to sound next is going to sound bizarre. It isn’t – rather, it is an apt demonstration of the remarkable capacity of our brain when it is functioning optimally.

My feet began walking me. The subconscious regions of my brain took over, and I felt compelled to walk to the centre of the orchard. I wasn’t choosing to go that way. I was being pushed that way by something that felt like it was moving through me.

The orchard has at its centre a large flat-topped hill that slopes down on all sides. From this vantage point at the top of this flat hill, I could see the entire orchard,

So I get to the top, and I’m standing there.

Now I’m still ticked off. I’m still annoyed and irritated by the enormity of this task. It just seems outrageously huge to me, and me way too small to carry it out.

So in an irritated tone, I say, “Okay, you got me here, now what?

And my subconscious again takes charge, and I feel myself turning around in a slow circle. And I see that surrounding this entire orchard, circling every inch of it, are these enormous trees – truly majestic trees. These trees are towering over the orchard, protecting it.

“Okay”, I say, softening slightly but still quite irritated. “Okay, I get it. I’m not alone”.

“So is that it? Is that all you have to show me?”

I know I’m behaving like a petulant child, but that’s how I felt at the time.

And no, that’s not all there is. In the corner of the orchard, the rows stop, and a windy path begins. It is as if the person mowing the lawn got bored and started to have a little fun. Here the lawn-mower path is windy and loops in and around the apple trees. I feel my feet begin to move me in the direction of that windy path.

Now, there is something else you will need to know about this orchard. Two things, actually. First, it has been hit with a late frost. Frost killed all the flowers in late spring and with it all the potential apples. There are no apples anywhere in this orchard, and I know this because I have been looking for signs of apples for the last three days. The other thing you need to know is that tent caterpillars are dripping from every tree. This year in Ontario, where I live, there is an infestation of tent caterpillars, and they are eating every leaf in sight.

So back to my story. Here I am now off the straight rows and following this winding path, and suddenly, I find myself come to a full stop in front of one particular individual tree. To me, it looks like all the other thousand trees I have passed, so I say, “okay, what’s so special about this tree?”.

Although I’m still annoyed, I am starting to feel a little touch of curiosity, so I find myself wondering, “Why this tree? What’s special about this particular tree?” I start looking more carefully at the tree, and the first thing I notice is that there is a cluster of chrysalides attached to the trunk. I know that chrysalides are butterflies not formed by the caterpillars covering the trees, so I find this cluster of chrysalides interesting.

There is one that is still intact. The rest, maybe eight or so, have already broken open and have released their butterflies. ‘Alright, I say, cockily. Transformation, butterflies, I get it.

Now keep in mind I’m still annoyed at this point, so I’m a little harder to impress than I probably normally would have been.

So again, I ask sarcastically, “Is that it?”

I feel this overwhelmingly strong compulsion to keep searching. I am missing something. So about now, my irritation becomes replaced with curiosity. What is it I’m supposed to see here within these branches? so I start looking really, really closely, studying every single branch as I go down the tree. I and find it, it is just above my eye level; hidden amongst the branches are two baby apples.

Now think about that. These two baby apples are the only apples in this entire orchard, and somehow, without me knowing that fact, I am brought here to this one tree.

Now whatever this is, it has my full attention. All my annoyance is now gone.

And so I start thinking. What do I know about apples, about apple orchards? And the thing that comes to mind is the biblical story of Adam and Eve.

The Adam and Eve Story as a Metaphor of Our Left Brain Dominance 

Now, if you accept the bible as real, I ask that you forgive my latitude. My way of understanding biblical stories is to read them as metaphors. I used them to metaphorically explain historical events or human beings. And so, to me, the story of Adam and Eve read as a metaphor represents humanities move from being hunter-gatherers to becoming agricultural settlers. To me, it is a representation of the transition from nomadic tribes to farming the land.

Also, I see that this is also a way to represent the dichotomous view that the left-brain makes possible. As Adam and Eve ate from the tree of knowledge, they became aware of the difference between good and evil.

While before in the garden, they walked with God, now God and they were separated, representing, as I see it, the philosophical divide between the spiritual and the material worlds.

And all of this is a metaphor for the dominance of the left hemisphere and its usurping of the right hemisphere because the left hemisphere accepts an easy either/or divide, while the right hemisphere allows for context.

Our Human Brain Capacity and Dichotomy

The dichotomy and with it the divide into right and left also gave rise to patriarchy, And in patriarchy, women have been ripped out of their roots. The feminine values were also ripped apart, feminine values being those of relationships, nature, and the complexity of the whole, that is not so easy to divide into right and wrong, truth and fiction.

And so, dichotomy separates and divides, just as our left hemisphere does.

“Okay, I now willingly ask, “is that it?”

No — there is more.

I am compelled to start once again walking.

I come to the farthest corner of the orchard. And here, the lawn-mower has cut the grass into a half-circle that loops back to the path I am on. My feet start walking this loop, and I see at the farthest edge what from a distance looks like a fire pit. “What a strange place for a bonfire”, I think. But as I get closer, I see it is not a bonfire, and it is actually the roots of an enormous apple tree. The largest trunk I have seen so far is cut down to the ground. Insects have been eating away at the remains, and so what did remain of the trunk is now spread out, and hence my initial thought that this was a fire pit.

This sign was easy to read. The dichotomy is already dead. My job is, therefore, not to bring about a move to a paradox. It is to help people understand what is happening and why it is happening.

So let’s do that now.

Many people are looking at the divisions today and wondering what is going on. To comprehend, we need to see the changes in the world today as a result of the changes that are happening inside our brain.

Over generations, starting with humanities move from being a hunter-gather culture to farming communities, our brain has been instrumental in shaping our environment. As we shaped the environment, the environment also shaped our brain. As a result, the move from hunter-gather to farmer, set in motion an evolutionary shift to a prioritization of our left-hemisphere.

Our left hemisphere is not and never was designed to go it alone. The left brain relies heavily on the right brain for context. Only the right hemisphere of our brain has access to the whole picture, and so only our right hemisphere is able to bring context to our situations. And so the over-emphasis and over education on the left brain’s way of functioning has caused a terrible imbalance in the world.

And it is this that is the root of all of the problems we now face on this planet.

Our left-hemisphere has a markedly different experience of the world than our right-hemisphere does. To learn more about the difference between your two hemisphere’s there is a free video at www.adelespraggon.com that explains it.

For now, as a quick explanation, your left hemisphere divides and separates the world, and as it does it loses access to the bigger picture. The right brain is aware of the bigger picture but has no way to communicate what it knows because it doesn’t house the language centre. The way to understand the world through context is to bring about whole-brain thinking. When this happens, the left’s dichotomous world dissolves into a paradox given by the whole-brain and the two different perspectives given by the whole-brain.

When the brain does communicate freely, the left brain is much more comfortable. By itself, without the context of the right brain, our poor left brain is scared. Hence all the fear and anxiety that is prevalent today.

In Conclusion

And this is the conversation I am being invited to change. As always, my job is to be the messenger for my right brain, which is telling me that it is time to share what I know about whole-brain enlightened thinking. The invitation is for me to support people to transition to a new world philosophy that is already underway.

But that is a subject for next week.

As I said, to learn more about the hemispheres, just pop over to my website and watch the free introduction video.

Meanwhile, take care for now. See you soon.

Adele