HEALTH WEEK
26 Obiter Dicta
Whole-brain
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competition from superior substitutes. Here, the
cost of change is less than the cost associated
with remaining on the same course. However, the
psychological burden of change displaces the value of
scientific data — chiefly through defense mechanisms
such as denial about the viability of the new path and
rationalization that old paths involve less hardship, so
as to compensate for the anxiety of transitioning to an
unfamiliar product, service, or process.
Examples include the prominence of billable
hours as a revenue tool, in place of flat fees or fee
stages; oversaturation of legal services in urban
centers relative to rural areas; underuse of diversion
programs for young offenders where appropriate;
and so on. For these reasons, rising above the mental
habits that make it difficult to adapt and innovate is a
crucial skill that law students would do well to learn
in tandem with the law itself.
What Is Life Skills Education?
The first lesson, among many, is in learning to quiet
the mind. The latest neuroscience research tells us
that deep relaxation is a prerequisite for rewiring
pathways in the brain, for making lasting changes
in our lives — whether related to improving mental
health, reducing chronic pain, recovering from
addictions, or developing the capacity for objectivity.
That’s why it’s important to learn to suspend our
active thinking through practices such as meditation,
and engage in activities that foster deep reflection.
It also explains the findings of environmental
psychologists — that students perform better in math
and science when time in nature and creative pursuits
are part of the curriculum.
Such cultural habits were commonplace
when we were a society of farmers who worked
the land, practitioners whose faith necessitated
regular pilgrimage to sacred spaces, or crafters
and tradespersons of any kind. Silence, reflection,
time alone, and rest were built into and around the
work of life. In the span of fifty years, those habits
have shifted away from solitude and toward time
spent hunched over electronic devices, in a state of
perpetual alert — practices that are the least conducive
to depth of awareness, character, and social impact.
But we don’t need more research to tell us that — we
need only to listen to our intuition and pay attention
to our own experience, which are valid methods of
inquiry despite not been subject to placebo controlled
double-blind randomized trails.
While the field of neuroscience is relatively new,
the cognitive capacities it aspires to illuminate have
always been part of the human brain. The term selfactualization, for example, might also be understood
as the cultivation of neuroplasticity through a
combination of sustained contemplative practices and
the will to act on the awareness that emerges through
those practices. This conceptual pairing of silence and
growth is shared not only by yogi’s walking the eightlimb path or transcendentalists such as Emerson and
Thoreau, but by legal philosophers as well.
Socrates, father of the Socratic method so
venerated in the profession, was also an advocate
of whole brain education. For Socrates, the power
of constant inquiry lay not in testing students’
capacity for memorization or left brain gymnastics,
but in facilitating the systematic undoing of defense
mec hanisms that cloud human judgment, so that,
ê Photo credit: Shutterstock.com
t humbs UP
Halloween shenanigans.
in the words of Jacob Needleman, the ‘inward work
of democracy’ could begin. For both Socrates and
later Plato, to be a philosopher or lover of wisdom
was to achieve the inner freedom to move between
hemispheres of the brain, drawing on the precise
interplay of epistemologies necessary in any given
moment, to identify and act on the truth.
Right Brain Education Is Not A Luxury.
Rather than a privilege of those without the weight
of systemic oppression bearing down on them,
self-discovery is the right of every person, as is its
corollary, self-care. By self-care, I do not mean worklife balance, or the fantasy of a life lived in perfect
ratio. I mean doing what you need to be doing to
nurture your relationship with your deepest self, on
a daily basis and in the midst of all the wonderful
and catastrophic happenings around you. Finally,
contemplative practices are not an opiate encouraging
legal professionals to accept the community
breakdown, environmental destruction, and wealth
polarization we might otherwise mobilize to rectify,
but the wellspring of resilience that sustains such
work.
Who Is Life Skills Education For?
Do you ever find yourself thinking one thing and
saying or doing another? If you answered yes, it’s for
you. Acknowledging the need to learn how to better
navigate our emotional lives, so as to realize our full
potential as human beings — is an opportunity for
growth, not a failure. There is no shame in developing
your whole brain. There is only the tragedy of living
half a life.
Where To Find Whole Brain Curricula?
The Canadian and Ontario Bar Associations offer a
robust set of counseling and mental health supports
to their members, as do many law schools. That’s