Today I talk about the book, Whole Brain Living by Dr. Jill Bolte Taylor, where she descries the four characters (or quadrants) of the brain:
So often, most people (but especially binge eaters), take their actions and behaviors so personally. They make their actions mean so much about who they are, about their soul, instead of just understanding that they have these other characters in their brain that are just being utilized in the wrong situation. So many binge eaters are all or nothing thinkers (attributed to their character 1 ego), so if they don’t feel like going to the gym that day, then see? They’re lazy. They’re weak. They’re not driven. They don’t care about their health. They have no ambition or drive. If they binge it means they’re totally out of control. They must like food too much. They must be gluttonous people who don’t know the value of hard work, self-control and determination. Or that they have no integrity. They can’t keep their promises. They’re flaky or unreliable. It’s truly just awful how we talk to ourselves. And then when they realize their negative self-talk, they ironically beat themselves up even more for not being nicer to themselves.
It's so painful. It’s exhausting. And it doesn’t serve them as they work to build a better relationship with themselves and heal their relationship with food.
So this whole brain approach is able to better untangle or separate our worthiness and value with our actions. We’re able to more clearly see that we’re not our thoughts, we’re not our feelings, we’re not our actions. If we binged, we likely just had our character 2 (fear) on center stage. And instead of doing a brain huddle and utilizing the traits and skills of each character, we just listened to and trusted our character 2. Who is, notoriously, not very trustworthy. And beating ourselves up after the binge, is still giving character 2 the spotlight.
The whole brain approach helps us disassociate our innate value and identity with our brains. So when we feel overwhelming, negative emotions, instead of trying to avoid them because they’re painful, or trying to logic our way out of them with thoughts like (“I shouldn’t be feeling this, this isn’t a big deal. This is fine. Everything is fine.), we can more easily recognize that maybe our character 1 Ego is giving something more significance than it should. Or maybe our character 2 (our Fear) just needs to throw a tantrum right now, and the rest of our characters can let it do that in a safe way, acknowledging that this part of its function, this is healthy. And when we stop judging our character 2, we can let it throw a fit, and then once it calms, begin the process of truly understanding what was at the heart of the reaction - ultimately, growing in our self-awareness and our resiliency. Whole Brain Living gives us the language to really know more about our subconscious thoughts, feelings and actions. We can notice things like “Oof, I’m getting hyper focused on details and nothing I do seems good enough right now. I wonder if my character 1 (ego) is taking over the rest of the team. How would my characters 3 (love) and 4 (soul) respond to this situation? What would that look like? How would that feel in my body? That question by the way, how does this feel in my body, is so effective because it immediately puts your character 4 (soul) back online.
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