Unlock your potential—by improving the connection between your brain’s hemispheres
Why not try the following: Bring your right elbow toward your left knee. Or, for a while, move the items on your desk from the left side to the right. What’s the point of that? Well, cross-body movements improve communication between the two halves of the brain. This blog post explores the potential of this targeted connection between the brain’s hemispheres.
Maja Storch—the founder of ZRM
In my last post, I had already described the wonderful potential of our right brain hemisphere. This is where the secret key lies to our innate resources and our holistic, more intuitive knowledge. Based on these insights, Gestalt therapist Maja Storch developed the so-called “Zurich Resource Model” (ZRM), which allows us to tap into our holistic knowledge and unconscious resources. Click here to visit Maja Storch’s ZRM website: https://zrm.ch/
Right and Left Hemispheres—A Great Team
As a reminder: The right hemisphere of the brain is responsible for the holistic perception of situations—if we compare it to what we learned in physics class, the right hemisphere is like a parallel circuit, while the more logical left hemisphere functions like a series circuit. At the same time, the right hemisphere connects us particularly closely to our highly individual set of needs. So, deep down, we already know what’s good for us and what we’re truly striving for. However, this knowledge is often insufficiently linked to our linguistic and logical abilities, which are primarily managed by the left hemisphere. Messages from the right hemisphere tend to be intuitive, nonverbal, and visual—both positive and negative. Everyone experiences this in their daily lives: Just think back to your last walk in the woods. What was it like when something suddenly rustled in the leaves and the hairs on the back of your neck stood on end? And do you remember the warm feeling in your stomach the last time you thought of something particularly beautiful?
Perceiving the Language of the Body
My appeal is this: Start listening more closely again to this very clear, unambiguous language of your body—because it comes from the superior right hemisphere of the brain! In all areas of life, but especially at work, it makes a great deal of sense for us to pay attention to this intuitive knowledge and incorporate it more fully into our thoughts and actions—in other words, to better integrate it with the left hemisphere of the brain. Because only when both work together can we arrive at sustainable, holistic solutions and successfully implement them.
Active Bridge-Building
But how exactly do we use the ZRM to activate our “hidden” knowledge stored in the right hemisphere of the brain and consciously connect the two hemispheres?
In one-on-one sessions using this method, I first offer my clients a wide variety of original ZRM images from a diverse range of life situations and worlds to choose from. Acting purely on instinct and without thinking about the “why,” the client selects individual images from this colorful collection. These images, in turn, serve as a source for a wide variety of word associations, which are then allowed to flow freely. From the distillation of this wealth of terms, we work together to filter out the central concepts and motifs and use them to formulate what is known as the “motto-goal.” The sentence created in this way often expresses very primal motives and needs of the person in question. It is therefore perhaps not surprising that such a motto-goal can sometimes seem childlike—at times almost kitschy—since the right hemisphere of the brain, from which these motifs largely spring, “tends” toward kitsch. Here is the motto-goal one of my clients recently came up with: “I’m hopping and waving my harvest basket.”
Feeding the Brain
To ensure the motto-goal has a lasting effect, it is now necessary to identify several triggers from this sentence—essentially as recognizable cues. These can be objects or colors that we encounter repeatedly in everyday life and that are intended to remind us—first consciously, then unconsciously—of the mental images and the formulated motto-goal. To stick with the example: a harvest basket, apples, or the color green. These triggers repeatedly steer our neurons along the same path—creating a new exit off our “thought highway.” This ability of the brain to form new connections (synapses) is called neuroplasticity. The newly created synapse enables new ways of thinking and acting—and through practice, it becomes firmly anchored in our repertoire of actions.
“Do unto others as you would have them do unto you”…
By the way, I tested this ZRM method on myself and was blown away by the results. Because, with the help of my internalized motto-goal, I was able to accomplish something one day that I thought I’d never be able to do: I sang in a solo performance in front of about 200 people. Instead of feeling fear and a racing heart—or even experiencing the dreaded moment of forgetting the lyrics—I enjoyed the moment with all my energy. Consciously and unconsciously, I had come to the conviction—one I truly felt—that at that very moment, I was in exactly the right place doing exactly the right thing.
Looking for quick results
The beauty of the ZRM method: As a rule, a single session lasting two to three hours is enough to develop the right motto-goal. The results are fascinating considering how little effort is required. ZRM is suitable for any situation where a little “chicken soup for the soul” is needed—whether in acute situations like exam or performance anxiety, in times of general low spirits, or even during a process of change to facilitate successful implementation. In short: whenever it’s a matter of achieving something through one’s own efforts. This is precisely where ZRM literally gives you wings—to put it in a bit of a cheesy way.