Book Reviews

The Power of Your Other Hand

The Power of Your Other Hand:
A Course in Channeling the Inner Wisdom of the Right Brain  
by Lucia Capacchione
New Page Books

 

Writing with your right hand isn’t always best. Consider writing with what’s left! Of course, if you’re a “lefty,” then you should consider what’s right. Confused? Read this engaging work by Lucia Capacchione and all will become clear.

The author tells us that our “inner child” is always with us. Through the experiences of growing up and learning what society expects, we push our inner child deep within ourselves as more adult behavioral patterns take over. Keeping the inner child repressed can result in illness, both physical and mental, as well as a feeling of something lacking in our lives.

Lucia believes our repressed inner child can find expression through writing with the non-dominant hand. As a therapist, she field-tested the book’s writing and drawing exercises which are designed to help us deal with feelings in a safe and healthy way, uncover hidden artistic talents, heal and improve relationships, and discover our higher self.

This book is a well-written guide to help us find our authentic selves by cutting through the personalities we wear like masks to conceal who we really are from others as well as ourselves.

An early chapter gives a biological and cultural explanation for the preference of one hand over the other, giving emphasis to the prejudice against the use of the left hand.

The remaining chapters discuss how the author discovered the power that lies within the non-dominate hand through her search to cure herself from a debilitating illness, as well as exercises to free the artist and healer within each of us. The last chapter, a beautiful work, deals with finding our divinity.

I felt some hesitation when it came to doing the exercises. However, I tried many and found unexpected insights into why I act and feel the way I do. The most perceptive exercises deal with a dialogue, the dominant hand writing with a logical, authoritative voice while the non-dominant hand answers with simple child-like statements based in love and fear.

I finished the book feeling more whole than when I began, knowing that the logical and the spiritual reside “hand in hand” within me and that by allowing the expression of each I will face life with a newer, more confident, self.

JON GILBERT

RATING: 4 Broomsticks


» Originally appeared in newWitch #02

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