A Stroke of Insight Part 2

Last month in the first part of this blog series we talked about the brilliant Dr. Jill Bolte Taylor and her stroke of insight. Dr. Taylor is a Harvard trained brain scientist that was named Time magazine’s 100 Most Influential People in the World in 2008. At the young age of 37 years old Dr. Taylor experienced a massive stroke that she claims is the best thing that ever happened to her because it finally allowed her more connected peaceful right side of her brain to move to the forefront because her left side analytical and judgmental brain had been incapacitated.

Well, the beauty of this story is that with a lot of help, Dr. Taylor did make a full recovery over her eight years of rehab. However, eight years later, she wasn’t the same Dr. Taylor that she had been in her previous life. During those eight years Dr. Taylor was very careful which parts of her left dominating hemisphere was allowed to be restored. She carefully selected what she wanted to reprogram in her mind. She did everything she could to not let judgment back in while she continued to focus on her right hemisphere connectedness with people. She saw us all dependent and interconnected with others in a free flowing form of energy. She didn’t ever want to let her left hemisphere’s judgment destroy that connectedness to herself and others again. Furthermore, she vowed to never let insecurity take up a permanent residence ever again in her brain.

           

Now, Dr. Taylor isn’t perfect and sometimes these negatives from her story-telling left hemisphere gets too chatty every once in a while. But, since her stroke, the difference now is that she can recognize the chatter and then silence it. And the good thing is that we too can learn to recognize the chatter and then silence it. We too can live a life of more peacefulness, and connectedness with others thanks to Dr. Taylor’s stoke of insight…

           

So what’s the lesson here? Well, I’d say it is for all of us to realize that we have much more control over our thoughts than we think we do. We don’t have to be a victim to our thoughts and the chatter in our brain anymore. Let’s do what Dr. Taylor did. Recognize the chatter and then silence it for a more peaceful, fulfilling way of life.

Daniel Blanchard is the award-winning author, speaker, and educator of the Granddaddy’s Secrets teen leadership book series. Find out more about Dan at: www.GranddaddysSecrets.com