I just finished reading My Stroke of Insight, by Jill Bolte Taylor, Ph.D.. It is the remarkable story of a 37 year old brain scientist who suffered a stroke and through the experience and the recovery has a remarkable epiphany to share with her readers. The stroke occurred in the left hemisphere of her brain, leaving the right hemisphere to process consciousness by itself. As Dr. Taylor says, the right brain is about "right here, right now" while the left brain is about the past and the future. She describes her powerful experience of peace, joy, and oneness with the universe and maintains that all of us can know that experience. Moreover, she explains how we can "step to the right" when our left brain function is prompting us to feel anger, despair, grief, or any other negative emotion. She explains how the chemical released when the left brain is doing that will dissipate in about 90 seconds and we can choose to continue the release of the chemical and pursue the negative emotions or not. We can pursue discord, conflict, and polarization or we can pursue peace, compassion, and harmony. We have a choice. Dr. Taylor explains how we can learn to retrain our brains to make a better choice. And, we don't have to experience a stroke for that to happen!
As I reflect upon what she has to say, it occurs to me that the right brain experience she describes as Nirvana sounds a lot like Jesus' description of the Kingdom of God. And, the process of achieving a better balance between the left and right brains sounds to me a lot like "seek first the Kingdom of God..."
In any case, whether you read the book for the benefit of your spirituality, to help you be a better peacemaker, to understand what happens when a person has a stroke, or how to better respond to someone who has had a stroke, I highly recommend that you do read it. I promise it will be an epiphany for you.
You can find out more about Jill Bolte Taylor here. And you can view an 18 minute video presentation she gave last year at the TED Conference website.
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