Jill Bolte Taylor, PhD.  gave a TED talk in 2008 that went viral. You can watch it HERE if you're interested (it's totally worth the 18 minutes). I watched it around the time it came out and kept thinking about what she said over the years. I knew she had written a book, but I never made a point of reading it until I came across a copy a couple of months ago. Wow. I wish I hadn't waited so long. This book is an incredible personal story of tragedy turned into opportunity.  It's also full of surprisingly accessible brain science. Most importantly, it's an invitation to take advantage of what we know about the human brain to make out lives better. 

On December 10th, 1996, Jill Bolte Taylor, a Harvard-trained brain scientist, woke up to a find that she was having a rare form of stroke in the left hemisphere of her brain. The books details her observations that morning as she loses the function of her left hemisphere and is overwhelmed by having, for the first time in her life, a primarily right-brained experience. She notices that the without the left brain she feels fully in the present moment. The boundaries of her body dissolve and she experiences herself as being at one with everything and the universe. As her left brain's logical capacities come in and out of focus she experiences first hand that the left brain is responsible for linear, logical thinking, while the right brain is responsible for a sense of peace, oneness, and presence. Ultimately she is brought to the hospital and begins a journey of recovery that takes eight years. As it turns out, living entirely in a right brained experience is not realistic in human society- and she finds herself conflicted at times about letting go of that expansive experience. Today, having fully recovered her pre-stroke capacities, she has dedicated her life to sharing the wonders of the two hemispheres of the brain and of using this knowledge to demonstrate how accessible peace and connection are to us if we just choose to quiet our left brain and listen to our right. 

This excerpt for the end of the book shares some of the insights Jill gathered from her experience of having the stroke, and of eight years of recovery. 

"Having taken this unexpected journey into the depths of my brain, I am grateful and amazed that I have completely recovered physically, cognitively, emotionally, and spiritually. Over the years, the recovery of my left hemisphere skills has been tremendously challenging for many different reasons. When I lost the function of my left brain's neurological networks, I lost not only function but also a variety of personality characteristics that were apparently associated with those circuits of aptitude. Recovering cells of function that were anatomically linked to a lifetime of emotional reactivity and negative thinking has been a mind-opening experience. Although I wanted to regain my left hemisphere skills, I must say that there were personality trains that tried to rise from the ashes of my left mind that, quite frankly, were no longer acceptable to my right hemispheric sense of who I now wanted to be. From both an neuroanatomical and psychological perspective, I have had a fascinating few years.

One day, as I was innocently browsing the internet for something I can't remember now, Jenny Lawson's blog popped up. I knew right away that I had come across something special. She's bold and at times crass. She is completely unafraid of offending you or of grossing you out. She's also incredibly funny and deeply honest about life in this crazy, hard and inspiring world we live in. If you want to read her blog, The Bloggess, click HERE. I ordered her memoir, Furiously Happy, to give her irreverent sense of humor a try, and I loved it. She writes about silly things, and serious things in the same breath. She's honest about her crippling experiences with depression and anxiety, and she is honest about the time she inadvertently crashed a funeral. She merges levity with depth in ways that will make you laugh and cry and feel less alone in your own wild and woolly life. 

Here's some advance praise for the book:

Here's an excerpt:
​
Dear reader,
   Right now you're holding this book in your hands and wondering if it's worth reading. It's probably not, but there's a $25 bill hidden in the binding so you should just buy it quickly before the clerk notices.
   You are welcome.
   Furiously Happy is the name of this book. It's also a little something that saved my life.
   My grandmother used to say, "Into everyone's life a little rain must fall- rain, assholes, and assorted bullshit." I'm paraphrasing. But she was right. We all get our share of tragedy or insanity or drama, but what we do with that horror is what makes all the difference.