Coaching article: You have three ‘brains’, here’s how to use them to make better decisions
I use the term ‘brain’, but what I’m really saying is we have 3 large hubs in our central nervous system that take in information that help with intelligent decision making. We could also refer to these areas as minds, though every cell in your body has a mind. These three ‘brain’s’ are the ~3 lbs lump of cells in your skull we typical call the brain, your heart, and your gut or enteric nervous system.
What are the three ‘brain’s’ functions?
The brain
The brain in your skull helps to regulate processes such as thinking, perception, and cognition. It recognizes things, makes meaning of them, creates narratives and regulates language
The heart
The second is the heart. The heart is a central area where we feel emotions. Here lies our values, along with the process of emoting, the process of valuing and the way we feel about relationships.
The gut (enteric nervous system)
the gut takes care of self-preservation, fear, anxiety, mobility and action and many intuitive and instinctive functions
Ideally we should strive for coherence among these 3 systems, if we only listen to what sounds good, without trusting our emotions and intuition we are not using the full potential of our nervous system to make intelligent decisions.
How to listen to your mind, heart, and body
The brain, heart, and gut are known as biological oscillators, meaning that they are central hubs that regulate many biological processes and have a role in information exchange, they work best when they are all in coherence with each other. This is the optimal way of thinking, feeling, and being. To tune your biological oscillator you can use breathwork, Qigong, Yoga, and other breathing practices help to increase the coherence among these systems.
When making a decision, step away from story. The story we tell ourselves is in our head, by tuning into our bodies and our sensations we can make better decisions.
Ask yourself ‘is this in alignment?’ Does this align with my rationality? Does this align with my values and feelings? Does this align with my instincts that are felt in the body?
When we learn to tune into our mind, emotion, and body we train ourselves to act in alignment with our highest self, and we make better decisions.
– ZK Coaching
zkcoaching.ca 