The Whole-Brain Child

wanted to focus on.
As Tina explained to him, in giving all of his attention to these
few fearful rim points, Josh was excluding many other rim points
he could integrate into his perspective on the world. That left him
spending all of his time working and studying and practicing and
worrying, when he could have been paying attention to other,
more productive rim points, like his conɹdence in his musical
ability, his belief that he was smart, and his desire to just relax and
have fun from time to time. Tina explained to Josh the importance
of integrating the diʃerent parts of himself, the unique aspects of
who he is, so that a few of them didn’t completely dominate all of
the others. It was ɹne, she told him, to pay attention to the rim
points that pushed him to achieve and excel. These were good and
even healthy parts of himself. But those points needed to be
integrated with the others so that he didn’t forsake the other parts
of himself, which were also good and healthy.
So Josh started working on directing his focus toward points that
didn’t necessarily lead to perfectionism. He began paying special
attention to the part of himself that loves just hanging out with his
friends after school, even if that meant giving up some study time.
He focused on his newly formed belief that he didn’t have to be the
leading scorer in every game. And he used his self-talk to remind
himself how good he feels when he plays his saxophone just for
pleasure, not worrying about hitting every note perfectly. He didn’t
have to stop wanting to achieve and succeed. He just needed to put
those rim points into context with the others, to integrate them so
that they were just a few various parts of a much greater whole, a
much bigger Josh than the one who would criticize himself for
every little mistake.
Learning about mindsight and the wheel of awareness didn’t, of
course, immediately alleviate Josh’s drive toward perfectionism.
But it did help him begin to accept that he didn’t have to stay