Change As a Dimmer

Last week I was working with my mentor and struggling to understand why putting a cotton ball in one nostril or one ear or covering up one eye could help a person sense one side of their body better. Doesn’t that just make it harder to smell, hear, or see?

Then I realized: these inhibitions of sense are not on/off switches; they’re dimmers. Dialing down a more dominant right eye can make you more aware of your left peripheral vision. Dialing down a wider right nostril can encourage you to breathe through the left.

The same goes for all of the asymmetrical movement I share in this newsletter and in my group classes and private training. We need to dim down the more dominant side - whether that’s a muscle or a sense organ - in order to give the less dominant side a chance to work.

If we’re really good at using our quadriceps on the front of the legs to do all leg-based work, our brain will use the path of least resistance to achieve the goal. As a result, hamstrings on the backs of the legs never really get a chance to jump in and help out. The first step of getting the brain to use the new pathway is to inhibit the quadriceps from being able to take over. Then the hamstrings can be facilitated and build a stronger neural pathway.

But that inhibition of dominance has to come first. I’ve been translating this into my daily habits as well - what do I do all the time just because it’s easy or what I’ve always done? How can I inhibit that dominant pattern in order to give new habits a chance to take hold? Can I learn to envision change not as an on/off switch but as a dimmer that dials down what’s already dominant and dials up what can blossom in its place?