Why reassurance and advice-giving don't help us heal

Hello reader,

Often when we feel scared, angry, overwhelmed, we tell ourselves "it's OK. It's going to be ok."

When our children are upset we often say, "don't worry, you're fine." We respond to partners, friends, ourselves with soothing words: "don't worry, it'll be over soon." or, we try to give advice: "it sounds like you need a new job!"

This are all very warm attempts to help. They are sweet, tender ways of trying to help ourselves and others to calm down, and trying to help.

And on the surface, it might look like it's working!

But neurobiologically-speaking, NOTHING calms humans down more than actually being understood. Not even the best advice in the world :)

Reassurance and advice-giving aren't understanding, they are distraction. they are soothing. They are avoidance. They are pats on the hands that say, "this too shall pass" without having actually acknowledged the thing that is supposedly going to pass.

For our actual bodies, messages of reassurance do not actually change us.

We might feel slightly better for a moment, but there is no significant relaxation, and our brains are left inherently unchanged.

This cartoon I made for one of my workshops explains it -- do you see what I mean?

Our emotions (and the deep longings underneath them) carry important information about what truly matters to us, and if we only turn toward ourselves with reassurance, our bodies do not get to deliver their deep messages!

When our bodies cannot deliver these important messages, our bodies do not relax, and the messages stay stuck in our hearts, stomachs, throats and faces – almost like a snapshot of the emotional world we were living in at the moment of a challenging experience of trauma.

It might be a surprise to know that humans are bodies built of longings.

But the more time we spend experiencing and offering right hemisphere, resonant language to each other, the more we catch glimpses of this essential truth.

So, how do we offer more than just warm reassurance?

We need to add right hemispheric, resonant language.

And we need to stop fixing and giving advice, and instead just learn to be with each other, to accompany each other.

Being with body sensations, feelings and needs is an important step in the possible journey of reclaiming access to the wisdom and longings of our deeply feeling bodies.

The next step is to begin to see the ways we habitually use left-hemispheric language to navigate our relationships (to self, other, and world).

Warmth is important, but resonant understanding takes us out of recurrent memories and blocked life energy into full-on living.

This means that there is a world of difference between making reassuring statements, like "You’re going to be all right," and asking resonant questions, like "Were you really worried about whether you were going to make it through this?"

Here's a little diagram of how the left and right hemispheres differ in how they inhabit the world:

We can see that living from the left hemisphere takes us away from relationship into "getting things done".

Instrumental language is the language of the left-hemisphere: the home of "doing", where we might encourage ourselves to look on "the bright side" and simply ignore what's not working, or corral ourselves into feeling better using "comparison gratitude," (you should feel lucky because you are not as bad off as that person...)

Reclaiming our capacity for right-hemipsheric living allows us to move toward relationship, timelessness, warmth and fluidity.

Our language centers are in the left hemisphere. This means that whenever we open our mouths, we shift left, automatically moving toward doing, rather than being!

When we learn how to use language in a way that is relational, instead of instrumental, we begin to support ourselves and others to shift into resonance.

Resonant language is a menu of sorts that help us awaken our right hemisphere into a nice place to be, instead of a jungle of unheld trauma, fear and disappointments.

Some of these Resonant Language tools can be helpful for those of us who have numbness or resistance to feeling too closely the sensations of our bodies:

The more we understand about resonant language, the less we interrupt the process of healing that begins automatically for brains when they are held in resonant space. Brains are meant to heal from trauma, but we stop them with our use of left hemisphere, instrumental language.

If you'd like to explore and practice how to use resonance with self and others, please consider my online study course, Introduction to Resonant Language!

Once we learn the skills of shifting our language and presence out of the left hemisphere into the relational and understanding right hemisphere, we’re supporting the long-term health and well-being of our brains, bodies and our connections with fellow beings, including humans, animals, and nature.

Cortisol rates decline, hearts become healthier, sleep becomes deeper and life feels richer.

Resonance Changes EVERYTHING.