I know the whole left/right brain theory got very popular a while ago.  Most of us found ourselves self-analyzing and firmly setting ourselves in one category or the other.

But the truth is we are whole brained humans. 

And the fastest way to increase intelligence, problem solving capacities, focus and creativity is to support the connections between both of your hemispheres.  When your left brain and right brain are really good communicators, your mental capacities and creative capacities strengthen all around.

Here are 3 simple ways you can help your brain become whole and help each of it’s sides become super social with each other! 

These are great ideas for kids too- who also need their growing brain to develop as a whole.

1.  Crossover Movements

Imagine your body having a line down the center separating your right side from your left.  Any time you make a movement that crosses that center line you are engaging the corpus callosum (the bundle of neural fibers that connect the two hemispheres of your brain).  And the more often these neural fibers are engaged and activated, the stronger the pathways between the two parts of your brain become.

So a simple movement I do often is the cross march.  Standing in place, begin an exaggerated march lifting your knees up in the air while moving your arms in opposite rhythm.  Be sure to cross your arms over toward the opposite knee (you can even gently touch the opposite knee with your hands).  Continue this for about 2-3 minutes.  Excellent to do first thing in the morning to get your hemisphere’s talking (not to mention get your energies moving in the right patterns!)

2.  Alternate Nostril Breathing

3.  Rotate Activity Types

Throughout our busy task-oriented days, we can often get bogged down with a lot of linear, logical kinds of tasks.  Most of us tend to spend most of our time in the frontal lobe parts of our brain, collecting information and trying to make logical decisions and come up with right solutions to the complexities of our days. 

This kind of thinking follows neural pathways all through the frontal lobes of your brain that mimic super highways.  They are direct and fast.  And because we spend a lot of time there, they are well patterned and carved out. 

The problem happens when there is not a proper balance between this kind of linear, logical thinking and the looser, abstract, free flow thought that come from activities that feel more like play than productivity.

When we are in a zone of down regulation, different parts of our brain begin to light up.  And they look different.  Unlike the super highways of data processing, they are more like the dirt backroads.  Slower, less direct, meandering.

These kinds of neural pathways can use data in very different ways.  You can begin to connect the dots, crossover ideas, generate creative and out of the box solutions that you wouldn’t have made before.

In our modern culture we have to make intentional space for the latter of these kinds of activities.  The times when we feel our thinking brains can be quieted and our perspective brains can have a go at things.

The activities that encourage this kind of brain activity could be creative in nature or rhythmic in nature (like doodling in a sketch book or folding laundry). 

Or they can be intensely enjoyable or adventurous (like laughing with a friend over coffee or hiking through the woods). 

Or they can be activities which engage your sense of beauty or tap into your inner spirit (like strolling through an art museum or watching the sunset or spending time in meditation or prayer).

What our brains need in our day are times of both superhighways and meandering backroads. 

And we can help get there by rotating the kinds of activities and tasks we do throughout the day. 

So the next time you feel you are hitting a brick wall and your focus and productivity is plummeting- shift gears and begin to do something that engages a different brain route.  I promise when you come back to your to-do list you will be refreshed and far more efficient than before!

Where do you spend most of your day? On the superhighway or the dirt backroads?

No way around it.  This mothering stuff is not for the faint of heart.  And there is no insulating yourself from being knocked off center sometimes.   I had one of those days last week.

Part of my re-centering was having a good long (ugly) cry with a dear soul sister friend who held space for me to just be cared for and work it through a bit. 

As we were sitting on her steps, I brilliantly recalled a little bumper sticker wisdom.  Have you heard of the saying,

“Thermometers react to the temperature, thermostats control the temperature.  Which are you?” 

It’s a good one, huh?  But here’s the thing.  There’s a lot more meat here than first meets the eye- particularly for parenting.

Let’s start with kids.

Kids are supposed to be thermometers.  It’s how they are wired from the start.  They don’t have the capacity to regulate their outer environment very well.  But they are experts at receiving the energy, tone and “temperature” from those around them.  In fact they are constantly trying to figure out what they are supposed to be doing by watching, modeling and exploring their reactions to the world around them.

So thermometers are reactionary and they have no internal regulation system. 

Think about what happens when kids are in tense or anxiety filled situations.   Or when they are tired or hungry or it is just too hot outside.  They are receiving the temperature around them and when we are keyed into their reactions we can tell that they need support in cooling off because they can’t do it themselves.

It is in their nature to siphon from us the tone and energy of their world.  Ever feel like kids suck you dry?  Well, it’s because they do literally. (And incidentally, that’s their job.)  They don’t have an internal locus of control yet and they are feeding directly off of whoever is in their world.

Now shift to the adults.

One of the things that I believe we are meant to do for our children is to help them develop and strengthen their internal locus of control.  Kids are meant to grow from thermometers to thermostats as part of a healthy developmental pattern.

But here’s the rub.  We as parents can’t support this healthy development in our children if WE haven’t crossed over from a thermometer to a thermostat.  And for many adults, we simply weren’t taught how to establish a strong, resilient, healthy internal locus of control – particularly when we are in high stress situations.  

That’s where this gets sticky.  See, no one can be a thermostat when they are stressed out internally.  So the key to being a thermostat in today’s stress-crazed culture is to learn how to maintain an inner calm amidst the storm. 

Many of us are adults functioning as a thermometers and reacting to the world around us with an outer locus of control.

I know, for myself, it felt like I regressed back to thermometer level once I became a mom and the waters of my life started to boil over day after day after day.

My life as a mom added more stress than I had ever experienced before.  And this stress hit deeper and more intensely than I’d experienced before. 

And a stressed body and mind CAN NOT function as a thermostat.  It’s impossible.  In fact you can toggle back and forth between thermometer and thermostat depending on whether you are in a calm state or stressed state. 

I believe that as a mother the most crucial skill we can learn is stress resiliency- how to live and mother from inner calm, deep reserves and robust resiliency – even when the waters around her feel turbulent and choppy.

So how do we do that exactly? 

Especially when it feels like we are being asked to fix the plane while it is in mid-flight?

Oh, I’m thrilled you asked!  It’s really the crux of the work I do, of what transformed my own life (and still is). 

Remember my thermometer melt down I talked about earlier?

I’ll never promise you you won’t get off center, you will- it’s a guarantee.  But I am seeing the radical difference in my own life of what happens when I have strong supports in place to keep me course correcting before I spiral so far out of control that it can takes weeks or months or years to pull myself back together. 

Whereas before I wasn’t equipped when the warning signs hit.  This time it felt different.

• I spend time with a close friend that is 100% there for my best interest- I felt safe, I felt heard and I felt cared for.

• I made sure I didn’t give in to caffeine or excess sugar- which I know adds to my anxiety and inner chaos. Instead I went for the calming foods that I know work for me.

• I gave myself full permission to cry it all out when I needed to.  I spent time outside in the fresh air. I brought in some stress-reducing mind/body/breath exercises which turn on the calm from the inside out.

• The next day I opted for a long walk after a heart to heart talk with my husband.

• I paid attention to what was really happening in my internal conversation, what triggers were set off and how much of that was baggage from my own past and not the truth of the situation.

• I tried to speak kindly to myself and reminded myself over and over again (with the help of my husband) we are just muddling our way through this parenting thing like everyone else, stepping out in faith and doing our very best.

And it lifted.  And I’m feeling a whole lot better.  I feel more equipped to get back in the saddle and regain my thermostat status. 

That is the power of self care to me. 

It’s why I feel it’s non-negotiable for every mother to be equipped with simple, effective tools to care for and protect her sacred core.  In fact who we are (at the core) is all we ever really have to offer ourselves, our spouses, our children and our world.

Now onto the booty.

And that’s also why I’m thrilled to offer this week’s giveaway!

Leave a comment below telling me what your most effective self care practice is and you could win a copy of the beautifully illustrated, award winning book The Mother’s Guide to Self-Renewal: How to Reclaim, Rejuvenate and Re-Balance Your Life from nationally recognized life balance expert, Renee Peterson Trudeau as well as a free teleclass with Renee on The Transformative Power of Self-Care (meet Renee here). (*I’ll choose the winner at random Noontime EST this Friday 5/11)

GIVEAWAY IS OVER!  Thank you to everyone who participated!

As we head into Mother’s Day weekend my deepest wish for every mother around the world is that she find her way back home to herself and be surrounded by tremendous supports of love so she can live out her best and brightest life. 

Now remember to comment below in order to enter the giveaway! {and please share this with others, too}

There used to be a whole lotta hurt feelings and guilt around gift giving with Mike and me.

We aren’t “naturally” compatible around gift giving.  I may be a touch difficult to please and he isn’t wired to put a lot of time into what to buy me.  And with three little ones keeping us perpetually spinning we can find ourselves running against the clock trying to get something for each other that feels meaningful and special.

I learned fast in our marriage that putting my head in the sand around the issue and wishing he could read my mind wasn’t working for either of us.  I’d feel disappointed, he’d feel guilty and no one won.

But we’ve come to a place where something does work for us. 

It’s a radical idea really- If one of us really wants something, we tell the other explicitly.   Mind blowing, huh?!

Now, of course, being surprised with a thoughtful gift from the heart is amazing…and we still get those too– but there are times when it is also nice to simply hear from each other what we’d really love and demystify the whole gift giving process now and again so that everyone wins with the least amount of stress.  And you know how I feel about stress, right?!

I’d like to give you a little head’s up that I’m going to have my first ever Mother’s Day Weekend Promotion for my signature course, Designed for Wellness.  Beginning this Friday and ending this Sunday, you can purchase the course for 50% off.

I figure there may be some of you who already know you want to take the course and this may be a fantastic chance to enroll at half the cost.  So I wanted to give you a bit of time to pass along the idea in case it could be a special Mother’s Day gift as well.

One more thing.  I haven’t announced this yet (you’ll hear more in the next couple of weeks) but I’m leading a live group run of the course this summer as well, and you’ll have full access to that). 

I can guarantee you this course will not be offered at a lower cost than this.  So if you know you’ve been wanting to make the investment in yourself- this weekend would be an awesome time to lock in the low price.

And if the course isn’t up your alley- I hope you’ll consider shifting your expectations on how the perfect gift needs to include supernatural mind reading and give a guy a little guidance now and then in how to delight you!

It’s a tricky thing talking about self care to mothers.  Something happens when we cross over the motherhood threshold that radically changes the terrain of our lives. 

It’s called sacrifice.

We enter a life of self-sacrifice like we have never known before.  Our lives are now tethered to another in a way that requires a level of self-sacrifice that most of us happily, willingly and completely sign up for.

As my children’s mother, I want to sacrifice for them.  But sacrifice has become a confusing issue for modern mothers.

On one hand we are culturally (and I believe genetically) designed to fully and whole-heartedly accept the walk of sacrifice in order to reap the tremendous benefits and joys of motherhood (not to mention the tremendous benefits of self growth).

On the other hand, we are chastised not to lose ourselves in the name of our mothering identity.  To reclaim a strong sense of our own self and personhood and prioritize our own self care as non-negotiable.

My take?

It’s a farce that self-sacrifice and self-care are pitted against one another.

We must learn to hold both of them at the same time in order to shift into our zone of thriving.  A mothering life rich in both self-sacrifice and self-care has built in harmony.  They are natural checks and balances for each other. 

It is when one becomes dominant to the other that things get radically off kilter.

When you’ve experienced an imbalance of far too much self-sacrifice with very little self care, you aren’t self-sacrificing any longer you are now firmly in the zone of self-neglect. 

And if you find yourself less sacrificial, less generous and less able to give deeply to the people in your life that matter the most to you, you aren’t experiencing self-care, you have now slipped into self-absorption.

Unfortunately many mothers find themselves toggling back and forth between self neglect and self absorption…never knowing how to find that sweet spot that honors both the deeply generous and sacrificial life we want to have for our family and the deeply self connected and nurtured life we want to extend to ourselves.

A vibrant mother’s balance is in the zone of both self sacrifice and self-care. 

And more specifically, in a place where one reinforces and enhances the other.  When self care is non- negotiable, restorative and prioritized in a mom’s life, she has the very best of herself to offer her family.  And as she offers her very best to her family, herself and the world…she models to her children how part of living with your well being intact is caring for yourself as you care for others.

So where on scale do you land?

self neglect  << self sacrifice <> self care >> self absorption

And if you aren’t in your zone of thriving what could you possibly do today to help steer your life toward your own center space?

Of all my programs, the one I have the hardest time talking about from the heart is my upcoming Cleanse Your Life program.

Whenever the time comes to open it up for the group live run I feel like I have a pebble in my shoe… or maybe it is more like a ‘walking on eggshells’ feeling.

There is so much false hope and misleading expectations that get ignited when health and nutrition information gets marketed. I see it all over – online, tv, magazines.

This noise encouraging us to flame a desire for the perfect body, a glowing complexion, the perfectly-ordered home; a flawless, smooth and pain-free life.

It feeds this belief that if I could just make my living room look like a pottery barn magazine, I’d finally feel good about myself. 

If I could just slide through my days smoothly with a highly coordinated and stress-free schedule, I could enjoy life more. 

If I could just have a thin, toned, tan and glowing body, I’d exude the joy I desperately yearn for.

While it sounds a little over the top, isn’t that what most cleanses market us? The quick fix, the magic bullet, the sense that if we could just do a big long clean sweep and remove all the junk, weight and difficulty out of our lives in one fell swoop we would step into a magical smooth light, happy existence.

Its a beautiful promise, but underneath that marketing message there is a very specific story about your life.  And that story is that you are not enough- and even more so, you are a failure…that your body is not good enough, your home is not good enough, your life is not good enough.

Here is what I know – there is no way around the mess but through it.

We do not live in a bubble- and doing a short term cleanse that asks you to enter a bubble and then re-emerge into your life “magically” transformed because you spent a week in that bubble is a flat out lie.

There is something I bank on even more than the flashy sales tactics - I bank on knowing who I actually serve.

My programs serve smart, active, engaged and insightful women.

Ones that aren’t afraid to go below the surface and see things for what they are. Who are interested in the journey of living an authentic life from the inside out.

Women who can hold both the thrill of self growth and the wisdom of finding bliss smack dab in the middle of their imperfectly blessed life.

So where exactly does a cleanse program fit in here?

Of all my programs that I promote I sometimes feel cleanse your life is the hardest for me to express what makes my program different.

Yes it is a high-octane injection to fuel you in clear, compelling and confident ways toward more verve, energy and lightness in your life.

But it also sets you up to take what you learn and integrate it into your daily life.

You know, the one where you wake up more exhausted than when you fell asleep, the one where you caught yourself barking irritably at your kids 10 times before 8 am, the one where you can’t seem to break that 3pm visit to the candy isle and, honestly, some days it’s what you look forward to all day long.

I designed my cleanse program to support you in those kinds of days too.

This is a different program than my others. It’s shorter. It is concentrated and meant to be experienced as a jolt, a spark, a extra push when your ready to take off down the chute.

But it does provide a phenomenal guide to allow you to design a whole life cleanse that is perfectly suited for you and your needs.  And it does it in a way that builds a host of tools, skills and strategies that you can directly take into your everyday life to keep the momentum going and building.

Here’s the takeaway. 

I never would have had this insight if I didn’t sit with tension or discomfort and get curious and ask what is the story underneath the messages I hear that make me bristle.

I want you to start using this filter when you find yourself resisting a message, a claim, an offer, a suggestion…

Ask, what is the underlying story that this message is standing on?

In my example above, the underlying story I heard in the “cleanse as a magic bullet claim” is that I was a failure at life and instead of working on healthy growth by embracing my beautiful mess, I should try and run away from it and somehow “fix” it and try to attain some kind of “perfect”. 

So in that case, the message sucked.  And I needed to remind myself of my true story and then I better understood why I felt so irritated.

But it works both ways. Sometimes it is our story that needs readjusting.

There are many times when I feel irritated or skeptical about messages but when I look deeper I find the problem is in the story I am holding onto. 

Now it is your time to apply it.

Your lifework this week is to pay attention to the inner posture you take when you hear or see messages coming at you – in any form. 

This could be something a friend is telling you, a newscaster, a Facebook post or a looong email message. 

When you notice that sense of hesitation, that underlying retraction or irritation; pay attention.  Get curious and learn more clearly who you are, what you believe and the story you tell yourself in response. 

As always, I would love to hear your feedback and insight.  If you are reading this via email, hop over to the blog to leave a comment. 

And if you gained value from this, please share it with your community- there may be a woman or mother who could benefit as well!

Much love,

Lisa

p.s.  And I should probably remind you that the Cleanse Your Life program is beginning this Saturday (4/28).

What I want you to take away from this cleanse program is actual tools to use in your daily life.

When you learn about crafting your ideal whole body cleanse- you’ll also be learning about how you can use foods as a tool in any situation when you feel sluggish, overwhelmed with cravings, and cobwebby.

When you learn about self care, skin care and personal care products that refresh, cleanse and nourish your core detox, nervous and stress response systems- you will be able to make sustainable choices that carry through into your life every day.

When you learn about how to streamline your kitchen and pantry to best support your healthy cleanse week- you are going to learn principles that make healthy meal planning that much easier- week after week.

When you learn about the importance of your home flow and function and how your outer world impacts your inner world- you are going to start to see your surroundings in a completely new way. You’ll learn how to prioritize places in your home that need the most attention and you’ll begin to see how you and your family can get equipped with simple and effective ways to unclog places that feel stuck and cluttered.

It is going to be an incredible class with an already amazing group of women…if it is a right fit for you, I hope you’ll join me.