Hey, this is Andy Brown, so I wanted to talk for a second tonight about one of the reasons that I think counseling is so effective. And believe it or not, nobody ever talks about this. I’ve never heard a TED talk on this. I’ve never heard other counselors talk about this. And it’s something that I’ve just discovered through looking at some of the research and through some of my experience. And so one of the main things that we know through some of the research is that when we have certain emotions right, they light up different sides of our brain, positive emotions tend to light up the left side of our brain.
So we have lots of stuff going on over here on the left side of our brain. You know, that’s where the logical processing happens. That’s where things like writing and, you know, you’re doing your math problems. That happens on the left side of your brain. Right. People probably know that stuff that happens on the right side of your brain, however, is more the creative side. Well, guess where negative emotions light up the brain.
You’re right. Creative side. So what happens is when we have negative emotions, instead of being over here where they’re easy to access and the left side of the brain, they happen over here on the right side of the brain where we have all our creativity and all this stuff that happens throughout our day that doesn’t always register right on the front of our mind. And in order for us to process those negative emotions, they have to cross over from the right side of our brain through these pathways to the left side of our brain, get processed and then either come out of the mouth or maybe we’re just logically putting them in the right spot over here.
And so one of the reasons that counseling is effective is because among the other things that we do, we help people get that stuff out of the right side of their brain, where with all the creative energy and with all the other emotions that are over there and we help them organize it and put it in a logical fashion. And I talk about like, imagine if you had a huge pile of books in front of you. Right. And it was just massive.
Well, what are you going to do with that? Where are you going to start? What when are you going to read first? How are you going to find the one that you want to find until you take them out? You look at them and you’ll organize them and you put them where they go. And that’s what counseling helps us do. It helps us look at the book, decide what it’s for, decide what it tells us, and then put it where it goes.
And this is one of the things that that I talk to clients all the time about is that you can do this on your own, too. So if you’re when you do things like journaling, well, writing happens on the left side of your brain, right, left. Especially if you’re right handed. Right. You’re triggering more of the left side of your brain. So journaling can be helpful. Talking to a friend can be helpful. Those are some things you can do on your own in addition to counseling, to kind of help you process that stuff and kind of reach into that, you know, that dark, roiling pool of emotions and pull out that stuff that you really need to process and put it in the logical order where it goes.
So if you’ve got other questions about counseling related type stuff, feel free to hit me up either here on Facebook or my numbers here as well. I’m always happy to chat, answer questions and just hopefully be helpful in any way I can. Have a good night.