Right-brained writing

I use the term “right-brained writing” to explain a style of communicating, expressing, and recording experiential, emotional, or metaphorical information. This style of recording information is often visual. Rather than words, right-brained writing involves using colors, symbols, textures, and lines to express or emulate the nature of an experience. Like writing, right-brained writing is both a process and an end product.

I refer to experiential maps as the visual representation and result of tracking and recording a series of experiences. Experiences can include “places” one visits on a journey or elements of a given system such as people, places, emotions, qualities, or aspects of a situation. Mapping experiences can be a useful tool for reflection, learning, and integration.

Systems sensing (Ritter & Zamierowski, 2021) can be a navigational tool to engage with uncertainty and create awareness of the relational dynamics with the people and context involved. By using creative, embodied, and intuitive ways of knowing, participants of the practice learn from the “deeper wisdom of a system that is often hidden from view” and gain new insights into relationships and dynamics within their system, be it an organization, a project, network, or other. Read more.

Compassionate Inquiry (CI) is a psychotherapeutic approach developed by Dr. Gabor Mate, author, and expert on trauma, stress, addiction, and childhood development. The CI approach explores the root of an issue or the stories that people may be telling themselves. Using the Compassionate Inquiry system, both the individual and therapist unveil the level of consciousness, mental climate, hidden assumptions, implicit memories, and body states that words both express and conceal. Read more.