The Counselor's Bookshelf:
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The Counselor's Bookshelf:
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![]() 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. The question I faced over and over again was, Do I have to regain the affect, emotion, or personality trait that was neurologically linked to the memory or ability that I wanted to recover? For instance, would it be possible for me to recover my perception of my self, where I exist as a single, solid, separate from the whole, without recovering the cells associated with my egotism, intense desire to be argumentative, need to be right, or fear of separation and death?
Could I value money without hooking into the neurological lops of lack, greed, or selfishness? Could I regain my personal power in the world, play the game of hierarchy, and yet not lose my sense of compassion or perception of equality among all people? Could I reengage with my family and not hook into my issues related to being a little sister? Most important, could I retain my newfound sense of connection with the universe in the presence of my left hemisphere's individuality? I wondered how much of my newly found right hemisphere consciousness, set of values, and resultant personality I would have to sacrifice in order to recover the skills of my left mind. I didn't want to lose my connection to the universe. I didn't want to experience myself as a solid separate from everything. I didn't want my mind to spin so fast that I was no longer in touch with my authetic self. Frankly, I didn't want to give up Nirvana. What price would my right hemisphere consciousness have to pay so I could once again be judged as normal?
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The Counselor's Bookshelf:Sharing the books, articles, podcasts, and other resources I'm drawing from personally, and in my work as a counselor. Archives
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