Book 270 - A Year of Magical Learning (3/3)

Reflection Title: Why Not Both?

Book – My Stroke of Insight by Jill Bolte Taylor (Part 3 of 3)

Book Description:

On the morning of December 10, 1996 Jill Bolte Taylor, a 37-year-old Harvard-trained brain scientist experienced a massive stroke when a blood vessel exploded in the left side of her brain. A neuroanatomist by profession, she observed her own mind completely deteriorate to the point that she could not walk, talk, read, write, or recall any of her life, all within the space of four brief hours.

In My Stroke of Insight, Taylor shares her unique perspective on the brain and its capacity for recovery, and the sense of omniscient understanding she gained from this unusual and inspiring voyage out of the abyss of a wounded brain. It would take eight years for Taylor to heal completely. Because of her knowledge of how the brain works, her respect for the cells composing her human form, and most of all an amazing mother, Taylor completely repaired her mind and recalibrated her understanding of the world according to the insights gained from her right brain that morning of December 10th.

Today Taylor is convinced that the stroke was the best thing that could have happened to her. It has taught her that the feeling of nirvana is never more than a mere thought away. By stepping to the right of our left brains, we can all uncover the feelings of well-being and peace that are so often sidelined by our own brain chatter.

Reflection:

The reflection title is actually an inside joke with myself.

When I hear the words, “Why Not Both?”, I immediately think of those corny television commercials I used to see when I was a kid promoting IUPUI. For those of you that don’t know what that weird combination of letters mean, IUPUI stands for Indiana University, Purdue University, at Indianapolis. IUPUI is a collaborative effort between my home state’s 2 largest land grant universities housed in downtown Indianapolis.

Some genius created the tag line, “Why Not Both?” to promote the campus when I was a kid and it has been stuck in my head ever since. Well done marketer…well done indeed!

After reading this book, when I hear the words Why Not Both in the future, I will be no longer be thinking about some stupid IUPUI commercial, but I will be thinking about using both sides of my brain.

We live in a society dominated by our left brains.

Language, math, science, time, order, consistency, goals, and linear thinking are the traits we value more than anything in our modern world, at least where I am from. It is so prevalent that you would assume that is all that our brains know how to do. I’ve always been aware that we have a tilted prevalence toward left brain thinking, but I’ve never really understood just how unbalanced we are until after reading this book.

The author literally lost her ability to use the left side of her brain. One would probably think that if she can’t use the left side of her mind that she would be useless and unhappy, that couldn’t have been further from the truth. Our brains are insanely adaptable as she soon found out. When her left side went out, her right side shown through brighter than ever. What she found was a world of connectedness, oneness, peace, and fluidity. She literally found nirvana, as the Buddhists would call it. It was an accident, but she found it nonetheless and was in a constant state of peace in the early stages of her recovery after the stoke. She mentioned many a times in the book how much she missed that feeling of pure connectedness that she once had as her left side of her brain slowly came back on line and repaired itself over the course of the next 8 years after her stroke.

My mission in life is to seek a balanced existence and to help others to do the same if they find this way of living valuable or want to learn more.

While my comprehension of these concepts hasn’t happened with an extreme situation like the author experienced, I feel a very kindred spirit to her message as I’ve been living this way myself the past few years while on this journey. Through this quest, I have slowly felt the balance of my own mind tilting back toward a state of equally using both sides of my brain. Before Emilia, I was 95/5 in terms of left side vs. right side. I was a dominate left brain thinker, lived for order and categorization, and felt there was a logical answer to almost all life’s mysteries. My imagination, connectedness, and creativity were on life support.

I’m proud to say that is not the case at all anymore these days.

I feel I’m more balanced than ever in terms of using my whole brain than I have ever been in my life. I won’t put a number to it, but I feel it is right where it needs to be for me to live the life I want. I haven’t forgotten my left side, but I’m so much more in tune with my feelings and emotions, I have an incredibly strong sense of connectedness to the world around me and all the living things that call this universe home, and my imagination and creativity has been at a heightened and sustainable state since about 3 months after Emilia passed away, or the period I like to refer to as finding my way through the rubble of my life after the atomic blast that was her death.

Using my entire mind equally has helped me to find sustainable balance, meaning, and purpose in my life every day and I’ve never felt more fulfilled and at peace with my universe. Now my goal is to monitor and do my best to maintain this balance each and every day of my life while helping others on their own journey’s if this is a life they want.

I have a lifetime worth of work to do to continue finding the right mix for me, but I’m happy with the path I’m on. As we learned in The Lion Tracker’s Guide to Life, “I may not know where I’m going, but I know how I’ll get there!”

For me, why not both is no longer a question, it is the key to stay on the path to my purpose!

Question: What might your life looked like if you titled the balance of your thinking toward a more balanced state?

---

Links:

What is The Year of Magical Learning? An Introduction

YOML Podcast Discussion - Coming Soon

YOML Bookstore - My Stroke of Insight