Change Your Mind By Hand: Swipe Left

“Often the hands will solve a mystery that the intellect has struggled with in vain.”
— Carl Jung, psychologist

As we increase awareness of our thoughts to gain better control of them, we’ll invariably notice more negative ones and greater amounts of self-criticism. In addition to relying upon mindfulness to notice them and self-compassion to think more supportive thoughts, we can also make use of the mind-body connection and use gesture to spark a change.

A wide body of research shows the use of the hands “enhances cerebral capacity, elevates mood, and elicits creative thought.” Indeed, physical movement holds the potential to be a major part of stimulating the imagination and the brain for problem-solving and creative work. However, most exciting to me is one research finding that “body movements are involved not only in processing old ideas, but also in creating new ones.”

It turns out that gestures and thinking are far more connected than we realize. Susan Goldin-Meadow, a professor of Psychology at the University of Chicago and author of Hearing Gesture: How Our Hands Help Us Think, studies the effect of gestures on learning with children. What her research has revealed is absolutely fascinating.

First, gestures have a strong effect on our mindframe. Goldin-Meadow’s studies found that gestures reflect what is on our minds and often give a better indication of what we are thinking than what we say verbally. Second, the gestures that we see others do can change our minds: she found gestures that suggest information are almost as leading as verbally stating the same. Third, the gestures that we make can change our minds as well. And it gets even better: not only can we use gestures to change what we’re thinking, but we can also use gestures to activate deep-seated knowledge.

What Our Hands Can Tell Us About Our Minds TEDx talk

Finally, in addition to showing what’s on our minds or guiding it toward change, gestures enhance learning. Goldin-Meadow’s findings reveal that when children use gestures to accentuate concepts – either those taught to them or those they naturally create themselves – they learn better. Children who use gestures to learn math problems far outperform those who do not, and babies who learn gestures at fourteen months old have dramatically expanded vocabularies by fifty-four months old. Gesture, then, is an overlooked powerhouse of a tool.

As adults, our gestures are well-established and many of them already have strong mental associations. One very strong one that is the gesture of swiping to the left to signal subtraction or taking away. It’s easy to think that “swiping left” came into being with the development of swiping apps, but this gesture far precedes them. It’s been a part of human communication for a very long time, with almost universal common meaning. The motion of moving your hand in front your body to the left has long had the meaning of “Take it away/get rid of it,” “Go away,” “I don’t want it,” and even, “It’s not good enough.” The deeply established connection between this gesture and our brains is the perfect vehicle to lessen our self-criticism.

In our process of banishing the Inner Critic, we’re going to co-opt this already ingrained body-mind connection and put it to work to transform the power of our self-criticisms. That’s right: we’re going to use gesture to change our minds from being highly self-critical to becoming more approving of ourselves.

Creative Dose: Swipe Left

Purpose: To quickly delete negative thoughts

We can counter self-critical thoughts by “deleting” them. No, I’m not talking about trying to “not think” them – we’ve already discovered that thought-stopping doesn’t completely work. It’s only when we halt the process of turning thoughts and feelings into self-criticism, and also stop replaying the self-criticism that is already there, that we will start becoming less self-critical and more self-supportive.

To cease censoring our creative ideas, we will use our hands and mind together to censor self-critical thoughts and create new thought patterns. This exercise is so quick and easy that you can start using it right now.

Option 1: Delete

When you start going into a self-critical litany of how everything you create sucks, or any other toxic self-criticism, think or say “Delete” or “Cancel” and use the gesture of swiping left with two or three fingers in the air, the same way you would do on your smartphone to delete an email.

Doing so will leverage a strong association that already exists in your brain and start applying it to thoughts to help you delete them and move on.

Option 2: Delete and Replace

You can take this practice step further by creating or using a second gesture to anchor the positive thought that replaces the negative one. If your negative thought is “My work sucks,” first think or say “Delete” and swipe left.

Then think a new thought, such as “My work is constantly evolving and improving,” and combine with a nod yes, or even combine nodding yes and touching your hand to your heart.

This post is an excerpt from book Banish Your Inner Critic, under the chapter heading “Change Your Mind By Hand”. Reprinted with permission.