How experiencing a stroke helped a neuroanatomist understand reality and connectedness

Nothing brings me more joy than helping people better understand the tool they have to live

their life on purpose. We have this magnificent brain and it has different predictable parts and

the better we get to know those different parts, then we have more power over who and how we want

to be in any moment. The brain does not have to be such a mystery. We can actually understand it

differentiate ourselves and then behave in ways that bring us less anxiety and more peace

It thrills me. I love brains. I am Dr. Jill Bolte-Taylor. I'm a neuroanatomist and the author of My Stroke of Insight and Whole

brain living. I'm a neuroanatomist. I study the anatomy of the brain. So I can visualize in my

brain the circuits of how all the information comes in, in order for me to be able to have a

perception of reality. When we look at the human brain, it has emotional tissue in the right

hemisphere and the left hemisphere, and it has thinking tissue in both the right hemisphere and

in the left hemisphere. So we end up with these four very specific groups of cells, modules of

cells that result in very specific skill sets, resulting in very specific personalities that we

all exhibit. So we have left thinking that is structured and organized, and it's what we call

our rational thinking brain. It categorizes and organizes. It has language, the ability to create

sound and then another group of cells places meaning on top of that. I know when I'm being

ytical and I'm being structured and organized and I'm planning things for the future or I'm

counting one plus one equals two, I know that that's my left thinking portion of my brain

The left emotional part of our brain has miraculously stepped out of the present moment consciousness and given us the ability to remember things from our past or to project ideas into the future Now with that I can create an individuation as well as

the linearity across time and now because I have linearity across time I can learn from my past

experiences. The right emotional part of my brain is then how does it feel to be in my body in the

present moment? What does it feel like when I dive into the water and I feel the pressure push against

my body? What does it feel like to feel water as wet? I'm not on the clock. I'm lost in the flow

I've got this excitement and I have a level of curiosity. And then my right thinking tissue

is simply the consciousness of me, big as the universe, connected to all it is

and this immense sense of gratitude that I exist at all. Oh my gosh, I'm alive

We are living creatures made up of these magnificent cells, and there's an awe and a wonder in this deep sense of gratitude

Once you start realizing the four different characters inside of yourself and being able to recognize those in others, you can't not see it anymore

And once you understand it, it's like, I have so much more power over what's going on inside of my brain

than anybody ever taught me. Wow. And it's beautiful. So I grew up to study the brain because I have a brother who's diagnosed with a brain disorder, schizophrenia

So my focus was on how does our brain create our perception of reality

because my brother's perception of reality was so different from mine. And so I was teaching and performing research at Harvard Medical School

And at the age of 37, I woke up one morning and I had a major hemorrhage happening in the left hemisphere of my brain

My brain says, oh my gosh, I'm having a stroke. I'm having a stroke. And then another part of my brain is saying, wow, this is so cool

I'm having a stroke. How many brain scientists have the opportunity to study their own brain from the inside out like this

And then when I awoke later that afternoon the left hemisphere was completely shut down I no longer had me the individual I didn know where I began and where I ended Jill Bolte Taylor died that day

And I was literally laying in this bed and felt like a ton of lead in the present moment

And when you're in the right here right now, and you have this expansive openness

big as the universe experience, then you see how everything is interrelated and energetically impacted

So I still had those portions of my brain functioning, but me, the individual, I was gone

And we really had no idea, even following surgery, what I would get back

or if I would have any ability to have any recognition or recollection of the identity that I had had for 37 years

so what the stroke gave me was this new introduction to the depth of these emotions

however my sadness my grief grief is is a whole body whole envelopment and and it takes you to

your knees and it takes you to the floor and you just flood with this incredible emotion and wow

I feel this because I love. This is the beauty of being alive

but it's not designed to be a lifestyle. It's designed to be information

that I can then learn from and hold onto and find meaning in my world

The emotions, the power of the emotions are so beautiful, so rich, so everything

that without them, we would be one plus one equals two and who really cares? It took eight years for me to completely recover all function. I knew that I

had completely recovered when that organizational part of me came back online and said, now I want

to be the boss again. And the rest of my brain went, we are so glad you're back because we need

your skill sets to be a functional human being in our society. But no, we are not going to live

based on the values of the left hemisphere. We are now going to live as a collective democracy inside of our own head I have to have that left hemisphere in order to be a functional human being But even though my ego center is in my left hemisphere my left hemisphere

is not who I am. I am a left hemisphere and a right hemisphere. If we are hooked into the emotional

part of our left hemisphere that says, I don't like that, it's not familiar, I don't feel safe

that clamps me down and I become constricted and I can fuel that by sharing those biases with those

whom I am familiar with then we all become more constricted we all become more rigid we all become

more we versus they yet we have the capacity to say I am a part of a magnificent collective whole

in relationship to a magnificent world. And as we engage with the world in a healthier way

the world becomes healthier. We have the capacity to understand and have a healthy relationship

with all the different parts of who we are. And when we look at the anatomy of the brain

when we get that streamlined activity between the two thinking parts of our brain

the two emotional parts of our brain, and we're having a whole brand life, wow, things change

I think the first thing we need to do is be willing and open to explore what's going on inside of our own head

Get to know who you are. Get to know your four characters

Get to know how they engage in your life. who they have relationships with, how they feel inside of your body

how much time do you want to spend in each of these four different parts

Once you know that, then you can create a negotiation. And to me, that's personal freedom, to be able to know

I have the power to choose moment by moment who and how I want to be, regardless of my external circumstance

And it's a wonderful, wonderful way of being