Brain Balancing
By Dr. Ron Perry
Our bodies are an expression of how our brains are working.
As different parts of our brain work well or not so well there are characteristic patterns of physical posturing and movement ability that reflect the various levels of brain functioning in the various areas of the body. Becoming familiar with these and then adept at noticing the external indicators allows you to track your influencing of someone with tremendous power and precision, as you observe their brain reconfiguring.
Just to give you an example, let’s start with the frontal lobe of the cerebral cortex.
The frontal lobe is the most conscious area of the brain. It is the part of our brain that becomes more active as we make plans, set goals, make decisions about whether we will act on an impulse or not act because it is contrary to one or more of our beliefs or values. People with poor frontal lobe activation are said to not think well or to have poor impulse control such that they are erratic and frequently act out - by saying or doing things that are not in their long term self interest. A great deal of therapeutic change work (such as NLP) is done by increasing and re-sequencing frontal brain activity.
One of the typically unconscious activities that the frontal brain does is to inhibit the contraction of the muscles that flex a person forward, towards the extreme of the fetal position. Typically the more flexed a person is, the less well their frontal brain is working. The most familiar examples are “old” people who are quite commonly no longer first class thinkers, who are prone to emotional outbursts. Although it is important to remember that lesser functioning is compared to how well they used their frontal brains to start with. Someone who was really brilliant may still be smart, while someone who was not so bright to start with may be quite “out of it”.
Someone suffering from a major stroke demonstrates what I am describing on only one side of the body. One side may be in spasm in the flexors of one arm, one leg on the same side and all of the flexors on that side. In addition they may lose the associated brain functions of that hemisphere. Whether or not the actual site of injury is in the frontal lobe, for example; when the signals to move an arm do not move that arm the expressions of the frontal lobe are being blocked.
We can observe this dynamic at much lower levels of blockage. Whenever there are consistent differences in flexor tone on one side of the body when compared to the other side the outputs from the corresponding hemisphere of the frontal lobe are not the same. One side functioning poorly while the other over functions diminishes the overall output. The two sides are meant to assist each other in healthy functioning.
Dr. Richard Bandler’s first phobia cure involved tossing a tennis ball from hand to hand, thus alternately activating each hemisphere, in order to create more balance in the activity levels. He has said publicly that when you do successful change work then the client becomes more symmetrical. This is because a more symmetrical brain is a better functioning brain, one that plans better and acts in ways that are more in accord with their values, beliefs, and long term self interest. It also creates a more energetic and feeling good condition.
If you use our Finger Magic technique on one hand you will induce a perking up of the opposite frontal lobe, this can be either good or bad. The key to creating beneficial change is to notice which side has more flexor tension to start with and using the technique there. This will create more balance between the two sides and result in improved brain functioning. Start checking which eye appears more open, which shoulder seems more rolled forward, or which elbow has more bend as the person’s arms are at their sides. There are a whole body full of clues so that as you become sensitized to them the progression of change becomes very obvious as you interact either verbally or nonverbally. The ability to change the client into a more functionally resourceful condition by simple physical maneuvers makes any kind of change work much easier and more powerful. Or you may find that after balancing their brain activity their “problem” is no longer a problem at all.
