Healing through the Right Side of the brain.
I have been thinking about how much of our lives we spend trying to make sense of everything. Planning, solving, organizing, holding it all together. Bullet journals, calendar reminders, sticky notes on our fridge. Alerts, pings, notifications…In many ways, we have had to live like this to be competitors in our socioeconomic landscape.
This patriarchal world has asked it of us.
But I want to remind you of something softer, something innate to you.
There is a part of you that does not need to figure anything out. A part that feels, imagines, senses, and creates. This is the right hemisphere of your brain, but it is also something more than that. It is your intuitive body. Your emotional language. Your inner creative.
Most of us are left-brain dominant.
Most of us live in our left-brain mode (logical, analytical, and problem-solving) while neglecting the right side of the brain, which governs creativity, intuition, and emotional processing. We are often taught to trust what can be explained in words. And the logical mind becomes our anchor, or at least it tries to.
But your emotional world does not speak in neat sentences. It speaks in images, in sensations, in colour, in movement. The hyperarousal of our left hemispheres have actually caused a weakening of our neural pathways on our right hemisphere. So when you sit down with a piece of paper and let your hand move without the logical brain present, it feels uncomfortable, forced, and foreign.
1. Understanding Left vs. Right Brain
Left brain: analytical, verbal, linear thinking
Right brain: trauma healing, creative, intuitive, visual, emotional
Modern life often overuses left-brain thinking (planning, schedules, multitasking) while ignoring emotional needs. Right-brain activation through art therapy helps you:
Feel emotions visually and somatically instead of verbally (Healing through Feeling)
Access intuition and subconscious feelings
Shift from a fight/flight state to a calm, “safe/social” nervous system (Polyvagal Theory)
2. Right-Brain Healing Calms the Nervous System
According to Polyvagal Theory:
Activating creativity engages the ventral vagal pathway
This signals the body that it is safe, lowering heart rate and stress
Activities like painting, sculpting, or freeform drawing encourage nervous system regulation naturally
Right-brain engagement is essentially a neuroscience-backed form of emotional self-soothing.
3. Boost Happy Chemicals Through Creative Flow
When you create with your right brain, your body releases neurochemicals associated with joy and relaxation:
Dopamine: reinforces creativity and motivation
Serotonin: enhances mood and emotional stability
Endorphins: relieve tension and provide a natural “high”
Oxytocin: boosts feelings of connection, especially in shared art therapy
This chemical cocktail helps you feel safe, happy, and grounded, supporting emotional healing from within.
4. Express Emotion Without Words
The right brain is nonverbal. This is powerful for emotional healing:
Drawing or painting feelings lets you process trauma, anxiety, or sadness safely
Visualization externalizes emotions, reducing overwhelm
Polyvagal Theory shows that expressing emotions in a safe, creative environment helps shift your nervous system to a calm state
Art becomes a mirror of the subconscious mind, helping you understand and release feelings you couldn’t otherwise articulate.
5. Mindfulness Through Right-Brain Art
Right-brain practices naturally cultivate mindfulness:
Focus on colour, texture, and movement keeps attention in the present
Mindful creation reduces rumination and stress
Increases new neural connections
Being fully engaged in creative flow stimulates happy chemicals while calming the nervous system
This combination of mindfulness + right-brain creativity is a powerful tool for emotional regulation.
6. Recommended Right-Brain Healing Exercises
Here’s a short list of activities you can explore, dip your toes in:
Freeform Drawing: Use colours and shapes to mirror your current emotions.
Collage Therapy: Cut and paste images or words that resonate with you.
Abstract Painting: Thin and pour, sculpt on the canvas, action paint through dance.
Clay or Sculpting Work: Mold shapes intuitively; feel your hands connect to your feelings.
Art Journaling: Combine colours, doodles, collage, and short phrases to process the day’s emotions.
Dance: Turn on any song that encourages you to sway and spin like no one is watching.
Poetry: Write a small poem. It doesn’t need to rhyme, it doesn’t need to flow. Play with combinations of words and metaphors that capture your current experience.
You do not have to live only in the part of you that works and solves and holds everything together.
There is another rhythm available to you that is slower, more intuitive, more you.
And you are allowed to return to it, again and again.
With so much care,
Robyn
