Accessing your Right Mind
You may find this a bit of a stretch for Make a Ripple Monday, but stay with me. Last week I had the absolute pleasure of attending the Power of Women conference in Toronto. I spent the day with fabulous speakers learning about positive self-talk, following your ambition, turning dreams into reality all while not forgetting to look around and see the people around you. Speakers included Leigh Anne Tuohy (Did you see The Blind Side? We’ll talk more about her Ripple later), Suzanne Somers, Ellen Degeneres and many others.
One of the women I was really intrigued to hear from was Jill Bolte Taylor – neuro-scientist. I’d seen her book My Stroke of Insight but hadn’t read it. If you haven’t heard of Bolte Taylor before, you’re in luck as I’ve attached the link to her TEDTalk below (just click on the picture and you’ll be taken to her 20min talk – well worth the time).
A brief introduction: Jill Bolte Taylor spent years studying the brain, and then she had a stroke. The amazing part? She was conscious through her stroke and able to understand what was happening inside her head while it was happening. As she puts it “how often does it happen that a neuro-scientist is able to study her own brain having a stroke from the inside out?“ Not that often.
What she experienced was each side of her brain working seperately. Since she was experiencing a hemerage on the left side of her brain, the left (more analytical side) would shut down entirely while the right (more sensory side) would process only the energy around her without any context. As she puts it, it was like she was an infant in a woman’s body.
So where’s the Ripple? Well, Dr. Bolte Taylor is now touring sharing her “Stroke of Insight” that we are able at any time to access either side of our brain. We can turn on the analytical side of our brain or we can turn on the nirvana side of our brain. How much more peaceful would the world be if we all got a little more in touch with our Right Hemisphere? When we are stressed, angry or worried, what if we could calm that worry by telling ourselves, “This is my Left Hemisphere talking, I am more than my Left Hemisphere. I am “50 trillion beautiful molecular geniuses that make up my form.”
As it was explained at the conference our Left Hemisphere strives to be right over being happy. Our Right Hemisphere strives to be happy over being right. So what would happen if more people watched Dr. Bolte Taylor’s talk? Would we all try to be a little happier? Would we all try, even for a day or a week to listen to our right hemisphere over our left just a little more?
What kind of Ripple would that make?
What do you think of Jill Bolte Taylor’s ”Stroke of Insight?”
Have you heard something recently that changed the way you look at the world?
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