From Ted.com:
“One morning, a blood vessel in Jill Bolte Taylor’s brain exploded. As a brain scientist, she realized she had a ringside seat to her own stroke. She watched as her brain functions shut down one by one: motion, speech, memory, self-awareness …
Amazed to find herself alive, Taylor spent eight years recovering her ability to think, walk and talk. She has become a spokesperson for stroke recovery and for the possibility of coming back from brain injury stronger than before. In her case, although the stroke damaged the left side of her brain, her recovery unleashed a torrent of creative energy from her right. From her home base in Indiana, she now travels the country on behalf of the Harvard Brain Bank as the “Singin’ Scientist.”
“How many brain scientists have been able to study the brain from the inside out? I’ve gotten as much out of this experience of losing my left mind as I have in my entire academic career.”
Jill Bolte Taylor
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What struck me here, more than anything, was the insight she gained of the way the two hemispheres of her brain worked. By experiencing the stroke from the inside out, she came to this conclusion:
“”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 to the world, and the more peaceful our world will be.”
I thought this was worth sharing with you. It will take about 20 minutes to watch.
Utterly amazing. Her experience must have changed her in unbelievable ways. I love how emotional she got, even though it was clear she’d given this talk before. I can’t even imagine what it must have been like. I’m not sure I’d want to go through a stroke just to feel that sense of oneness with the universe, though. If I can achieve it through meditation and ritual, I’ll go the slow and steady route.
What an amazing woman. What an amazing message.