I’m no neuroscientist but I do think understanding the brain and our development is fascinating. It is our right side of the brain that develops first. In fact we are heavily right brain dominant for the first 3 years of our lives.
The right brain connects us to our sense of being. It is the part of the brain that responds to physical connection and interaction. A baby/small child doesn’t have words to articulate who their main caregiver is but every time that person responds to them when they are hungry, or crying or need changing, the right brain makes the connection and they have a sense that they belong to that caregiver.
Babies and young children imitate their caregiver and they long for connection. This connection in the first few years of life is crucial for their brains to make pathways that give them a strong sense of who they are.
My son didn’t get the best start in life but thankfully the pathways we make in our brains aren’t set in stone. We can make new pathways thanks to something called brain plasticity. So I spent a lot of time connecting with him, so new pathways could be established. I quickly found his tickle spot, I did things that made him laugh and I did them over and over and over and over (get the idea) again! We played peekaboo, I read to him, I sang to him, I co-explored with him. I wasn’t the perfect parent (no-one is) but I do believe new pathways in his brain were established, yahoo!
It seems to me that we start with connection and interaction and that is how we know we are known and loved, that is how we get our sense of belonging. I feel like God has been challenging me recently that Christian discipleship in the main is very left brain focussed, receiving information and facts, processing them and putting language to them.
But maybe we need to be more right brain? Finding ways to connect with God in nature, using Lectio Divina to connect with God and hear what he is saying, spending time in silence, using breath and centring prayers. As it is in connecting with God we will find our identity and have a true sense of belonging.
Maybe this is what Jesus meant when he said we needed to receive the kingdom of God like little children? We need to first find connection and experience Gods presence through our right brain in order that we truly know and believe that we are loved children of God.