Part I: Benefits of right brain and mindmapping for creative professionals

December 9, 2006 by Mary Wynne-Wynter 

I’m committed to making my change blog valuable with both content and daily updates but sometimes get impossibly stuck about getting it done.  I can fluctuate between feeling like I have nothing to say, and feeling like I have too much to say.  That can have a paralyzing effect.

Mind mapping helps me review my week from an integral perspective, taking the pressure and effort out of "choosing". I approach it this way: there are no accidents, only synchronicity, so have fun with it and see what comes up.

This past week, I’d been thinking a lot about social networking, so I thought I’d join zaadz.  Its a nice site but joining started to feel stressful – more steps to take, duplication of content, and the opportunity cost of belonging. 

I went through my news feeds for an inspiring topic, and came across some stunningly sad news that Ken Wilber is quite ill and has been suffering a lot this past year (with grace and grit, no doubt). His teachings and presence have been huge for me for twenty years.

I listened to the Voice of Knowledge audiobook and watched Goodnight, We Love You – The Life and Legend of Phyllis Diller (2004).  These wildly different sources greatly inspired me in similar ways.

Although I live in the city and probably won’t see anything, I resolved to  to go outside early tomorrow morning for the planetary alignment.  I even checked Free Will Astrology for my weekly horoscope, which was surprising.  And, I watched the Friday night news review and analysis TV shows..hoping for a ray of hope from the Iraq study, but getting the opposite.

So overall, although I was slowly recovering from a bad respiratory infection which had left me uncharacteristically weak and vulnerable, I had a great deal to work with but could not get clear about what to blog.

To get out of my head and unstuck, I mind mapped what strongly strongly affected me during the week. I relaxed, stopped pushing myself and let my right-brain find the connections and the synchronicity in the week’s events.  It looks like this (click to enlarge):
rs_blog_120906.gif

As I suspected, the value was in the connections, but my analytical left-brain could not see it or make sense of it. The mind map not only clarified but also led to simple actions that I can take (Part II).

Filed under: Consciousness, career, going solo
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