[To listen to an audio version of this blog post please click here: https://www.buzzsprout.com/1396123/8354445 and to watch a video please click here: https://youtu.be/RKOcuZtfCto]

“The Man with Two Brains,” is a comedy movie starring Steve Martin and the voice of Kathleen Turner, released in 1983. It’s silly but fun.

Last week, I finally got down to reading a book a friend had loaned me a long time ago. It’s called, “Turbo Success,” and was published in 1993. To be honest, I didn’t read it until last week because I’m tired of Self-Help ‘Success’ books. Why? Because, I may be a special case, but they don’t seem to work for me!

This one had something different and reminded me of us having two brains (at least!) Ron Holland, the author, focuses very much on the Verbal Brain and the Visual Brain. His assertion is that our positive intentions – our dreams and ambitions – have to enlist the help of both brains. If we have positive affirmations, that takes care of the Verbal Brain. But if what we are seeing with the mind’s eye doesn’t match what we are saying, he says the mental pictures will take precedence.

This could be nonsense! However, it did highlight that I wasn’t investing time in imagining the better future I often talk about. In fact, my images of the future have been pretty grim! It’s been great to begin to change what I’d unwittingly been visualising.

Bluntly, when one is feeling low, having ‘positive’ people round can be… irritating! I’d like to be upbeat today without being overwhelmingly or unrealistically positive. Let’s think in terms of ‘possibilities’ instead.

One of the possible changes I’d like in the future is to have a home of my own that I own – debt free. The affirmation just rolls off my tongue now, but there was no visualisation. That was easy to change. A couple of years ago, we stayed in my dream house – Pengwyn near Tintagel. I took some photos! It’s been a simple matter to go back and revisit those images. The key, Ron says, is to see yourself in the visualisation. Just looking at the pictures is too passive – we need to be acting in our own visualisations. In response, I’ve been imagining opening the gate, walking down the steps, entering the front door, sitting at the kitchen table… you get the picture! If it never works, it’s been lovely to imagine and to remember.

Does it work? Time will tell, but it does make sense for all of us to think that we have two brains, and that when they work together, we get better results faster than when they are at odds with one another. If you’d like a happier future – what does that look like? I’ll close with a great quote I saw in a Garden Centre: “If you have a library and a garden, you have everything you need,” Marcus Tullius Cicero. Guess what else I’ve been visualising!

Lex

A Moodscope member.