Charly Hill's Blog – October 2009 Archive (4)

People tend to think of their cognitive brain as the source of their intelligence. Our society has devised highly structured IQ tests to measure "intelligence" and our educational systems focus pretty much on left brain thinking. Perhaps emphasis is on the superiority of logical thought because it can be manipulated more easily than emotional intuition. Or maybe the reason most people believe that logic is more important than emotion is that we don't understand the connection between the… Continue

I recently wrote about the way our tenacious holding onto a belief or story about ourselves determines how we create our reality. My perspective on this was coming from my observations as a therapist and a coach, and I was delighted to come upon some additional insight in Temple Grandin's book, Animals in Translation. She wrote, "Normal people have an interpreter in their left brain that takes all the random, contradictory details of whatever they are doing or remembering at the moment… Continue

One of the more interesting experiences I have had involved witnessing a man literally bounce off walls. I was working in an inpatient addiction rehabilitation program and had the task of informing a client that his father had just died. We were alone in my office when I told him the sad news and he stood up from his chair and ran into a wall, bounced off, did it again with another wall, and again, and again, and again. I remember noting with surprise that the phrase "bouncing off the walls"… Continue

Someone recently wrote me about the impact of "failed situations" on their life. I invited a shift in perspective suggesting that there are no failures, only lessons. I truly believe that all of our experiences contribute to our education and growth, especially the ones that don't turn out the way we want as they offer the biggest opportunities to evolve, to know ourselves, and to learn something new. "There are no mistakes, only lessons. Growth is a process of trial and error; experimentation.… Continue