(I strongly recommend buying and reading the whole book, but this chapter bowls me right over. All bold text is my emphasis) Stroke of Insight/Jill Bolte Taylor
"My Stroke of Insight" - Chapter 15: continued....
"This
is not to say, of course, that I believe I exhibit multiple personality
disorder. That is much more complicated than what I have observed.
Traditionally, it has been difficult, if not impossible, for us to distinguish
between our right and left mind characters simply because we experience
ourselves as a single person with a single consciousness. However, with very
little guidance, most people find it easy to identify these same two characters
within if not themselves, then at least their parents or significant other. It
is my goal to help you find a hemispheric home for each of your characters so
that we can honor their identities and perhaps have more say in how we want to
be in the world. By recognizing who is who inside our cranium, we can take a
more balanced-brain approach to how we lead our
lives.
"It appears that many of us struggle regularly with polar
opposite characters holding court inside our heads. In fact, just about
everyone I speak with is keenly aware that they have conflicting parts of their
personality. Many of us speak about how our head (left hemisphere) is telling
us to do one thing while our heart (right hemisphere) is telling us to do the
exact opposite. Some of us distinguish between what we think (left hemisphere)
and what we feel (right hemisphere). Others communicate about our mind
consciousness (left hemisphere) versus our body's instinctive consciousness
(right hemisphere). Some of us talk about our small ego mind (left hemisphere)
compared with our capital ego mind (right hemisphere), or our small self (left
hemisphere) versus our inner or authentic self (right hemisphere). Some of us
delineate between our work mind (left hemisphere) and our vacation mind
(right hemisphere), while others refer to their researcher mind (left
hemisphere) versus their diplomatic mind (right hemisphere). And of course
there is our masculine mind (left hemisphere) versus our feminine mind (right
hemisphere), and our yang consciousness (left hemisphere) countered by our yin
consciousness (right hemisphere). And if you are a Carl Jung fan, then there's
our sensing mind (left hemisphere) versus our intuitive mind (right
hemisphere), and our judging mind (left hemisphere) versus our perceiving mind
(right hemisphere). Whatever language you use to describe your two parts,
based upon my experience, I believe they stem anatomically from the two very
distinct hemispheres inside your head.
"My goal during this process of recovery has been not only
to find a healthy balance between the functional abilities of my two
hemispheres, but also to have more say about which character dominates my
perspective at any given moment. I find this to be important because the most
fundamental traits of my right hemisphere personality are deep
inner peace and loving compassion. I believe the more time we spend
running our inner peace/compassion circuitry, then the more peace/compassion we
will project into the world, and ultimately the more peace/compassion we will
have on the planet. As a result, the clearer we are about which side of our brain
is processing what types of information, the more choice we have in how we
think, feel, and behave not just as individuals, but as collaborating members
of the human family.
"From a neuroanatomical perspective, I gained access to the
experience of deep inner peace in the consciousness of my right mind when the
language and orientation association areas in the left hemisphere of my brain
became nonfunctional. The brain research performed by Drs. Andrew Newberg and
the late Eugene DAquili (footnote 15) earlier this decade have helped me
understand exactly what was going on in my brain. Using SPECT technology
(single photon emission computed tomography), these
scientists identified the neuroanatomy underlying our ability to have a
religious or spiritual (mystical) experience. They wanted to understand which regions
of the brain were involved in our capacity to undergo a shift in
consciousness—away from being an individual to feeling that we are at one with the universe (God,
Nirvana, euphoria).
"Tibetan meditators and Franciscan nuns were invited to
meditate or pray inside the SPECT machine. They were instructed to tug on a
cotton twine when they reached either their meditative climax or felt united
with God. These experiments identified shifts in neurological activity in very
specific regions in the brain. First, there was a decrease in the activity of
the left hemisphere language centers resulting in a silencing of their brain
chatter. Second, there was a decrease in activity in the orientation
association area, located in the posterior parietal gyrus of the left
hemisphere. This region of our left brain helps us identify our personal
physical boundaries. When this area is inhibited or displays decreased input
from our sensory systems, we lose sight of where we begin and where we end
relative to the space around us.
Thanks
to this recent research, it makes good neurological sense that when my left
language centers were silenced and my left orientation association area was
interrupted from its normal sensory input, my consciousness shifted away from
feeling like a solid, to a perception of myself as a fluid—at one with
the universe.
15. Why God Won't Go Away (NY: Ballantine, 2001).
"So who are we? We are the life force power of the universe, with
manual dexterity and two cognitive minds. And we have the power to choose,
moment by moment, who and how we want to be in the world. Right here right now,
I can step into the consciousness of my right hemisphere where we are -- I am
-- the life force power of the universe, and the life force power of the 50
trillion beautiful molecular genius cells that make up my form. I can choose to
be at one with all that is, or I can choose to step into the consciousness of
my left hemisphere, where I become a single individual, a solid, separate from
the flow, separate from you, an ego, where I am Dr. Jill Bolte Taylor, an
intellectual neuroanatomist. These are the ‘we’ inside of me.
Which would you choose? Which do you choose? And when? I believe that
the more time we spend choosing to run the deep inner peace circuitry of our
right hemispheres, the more peace we will project into the world and the more
peaceful our planet will be. That is an idea worth spreading." ~ Jill
Bolte Taylor
Shared with love and deep reflection,
Rev Alison Longstaff
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