Have you ever found yourself in a trade that later you wondered, “who was controlling my mouse? This happens because there are other “parts” of us that can emerge and they lurk in either side of our brains. As you probably know, we have two brain hemispheres that make up what can be termed “the dual brain.” The dual brain has two distinct brain systems in which one analyzes piece-by-piece, detailing changes and the other makes an overall update and applies it until the next change. This dual function might well have offered a greater advantage: A) That there would be redundancy in checking conclusions about the nature of events and plans for possible action. And, B) Two very specialized ways to deal with the world.
Brain development is like city development, often, early growth was without a plan; it developed as result of water, or a spur from a train, or where most people laid their roots. Consequently, brain growth like that of the city can be haphazard and lack organization which promotes smooth processing and can greatly impact your analysis of the price action.
Below is a list if conventional wisdom’s hemispheric attributes
LEFT (Analytic) RIGHT (Global)
Successive Hemispheric Style Simultaneous Hemispheric Style
- Verbal 1. Visual, tactual, kinesthetic
- Responds to word meaning 2. Responds to word pitch, feeling
- Sequential 3. Random
- Processes information linearly 4. Processes information in chunks
- Responds to logic 5. Responds to emotion
- Plans ahead 6. Spontaneous
- Recalls people’s names 7. Recalls people’s faces
- Speaks with few gestures 8. Gestures when speaking
- Punctual 9. Less punctual
- Prefers formal study design 10. Prefers sound/music background
- Prefers bright lights while studying 11. Prefers frequent mobility while studying
Now that we have taken a look at some of the functions of the left and right brain and the general importance of each to your trading success, let’s take a look at one of the right brain’s most powerful tools to healing and change—metaphor.
Metaphor is the language of the right brain and it permeates our lives. In order to get something done we “step up to the plate.” With difficult choices, we’re “doing heavy lifting.” We “grab the bull by the horns” to “break the ice.” The lexicon is replete with metaphor, and it is powerful. Metaphor can be riveting, motivating, captivating, enticing, mesmerizing, elegant, simple, elaborate, and highly effective. Emotions are activated on unconscious levels through metaphor due to the rich symbolic association with concepts, both painful and pleasurable, in our subconscious. Metaphors tie into the images of our unconscious and solicit hopes, fears, and longings.
Carl Jung spoke of the strength of the archetype. In Jung’s psychological framework, archetypes are innate, universal prototypes for ideas and may be used to interpret observations. A group of memories and interpretations associated with an archetype are a complex, e.g. a mother complex associated with the mother archetype. Jung treated the archetypes as psychological organs, analogous to physical ones in that both are morphological givens that arose through evolution. Milton Erickson, the grandfather of clinical hypnosis in the US used metaphor and stories to speak directly to his patients’ subconscious and initiate unconscious resources to bear on issues that presented obstacles to them. His storytelling manor both relaxed and put at ease patients’ conscious mind as he began to engage them on an unconscious level.
Metaphors can be life affirming or a denying metaphor that would present as a mental/psychic structure that embodies the individual’s rules for living, and for our purposes, her rules of trading. As in “the market’s out to get me.” Also, to create substantive change, it’s important to identify and reframe/restructure/redefine and alter the underlying metaphors that drive our stories about what’s going on in the price action. As discussed in earlier chapters, we have in our MAPs, paradigms and mental models symbols that embody rich and complex structures of metaphor. For example, when we think of things like love, war, birth, death, success, marriage or money, the dynamic is multi-varied with associations and cross associations relating both directly and indirectly to our sense of self, relationship to others, familial bonds, fears of success, and fears of failure. And, through the global interconnectedness of the markets, when we participate, we are putting and pitting all of the psychological and cultural variables that impact upon our psyche as a “trading persona” against it. Furthermore, as we move and shift our paradigms surrounding these underlying metaphors that are not working for us, it is important to identify and then transfer the cultural/organizational/personal lessons, and this happens most steadfastly through metaphor modifications. For example, “I am a loser if I don’t make money on this trade.” Metaphors establish the door to creativity as in pictures, sounds, physical feelings, tastes and smells, which can be woven together or individually focused as metaphor or symbols that define who we are and what we do.
Right-brain mediated exercises help with strengthening intuition, development of right brain analysis and communication between the two brain/minds. Some of these exercises are:
- Role play
- Letter writing
- Dance
- Poetry
- Ritual
- Trance
- Hypnosis
- Guided imagery
Change comes from facing fears, and doing things differently. Using old and ineffective strategies to address new challenges is like using your old boxcar to go on the freeway. Identify a state—like the state of intense focus, or the state of relaxed detachment but fully present, or the state of curious fun as in doing a crossword or playing chess—one that is new or novel and like that of having taken a test when you received a very high grade. You embodied a relaxed focus and you were tuned into the flow of the questions in such a way that it was pleasurable but aligned. Begin to research and study trading patterns in this state. Develop a routine with a set of steps that does not waiver. Ensure that this state is nurtured and used for “every” period of study and paper trading by shifting gears consciously for each trade simulation and actual trade. Repeat until it seems out-of-the-ordinary not to do it. Old habits and patterns must not only be interrupted but also replaced with new patterns that have been reinforced through repetition. In this way you bring the power of “both” sides to your trading.
Woody's Wisdom 