My Stroke of Insight: A Brain Scientist's Personal Journey (20 page)

As biological creatures, we are profoundly powerful people. Because our neural networks are made up of neurons communicating with other neurons in circuits, their behavior becomes quite predictable. The more conscious attention we pay to any particular circuit, or the more time we spend thinking specific thoughts, the more impetus those circuits or thought patterns have to run again with minimal external stimulation.

In addition, our minds are highly sophisticated "seek and ye shall find" instruments. We are designed to focus in on whatever we are looking for. If I seek red in the world then I will find it everywhere. Perhaps just a little in the beginning, but the longer I stay focused on looking for red, then before you know it, I will see red everywhere.

My two hemispheric personalities not only think about things differently, but they process emotions and carry my body in easily distinguishable ways. At this point, even my friends are capable of recognizing who's walking into the room by how I'm holding my shoulders and what's going on with that furrow in my brow. My right hemisphere is all about
right here, right now.
It bounces around with unbridled enthusiasm and does not have a care in the world. It smiles a lot and is extremely friendly. In contrast, my left hemisphere is preoccupied with details and runs my life on a tight schedule. It is my more serious side. It clenches my jaw and makes decisions based upon what it learned in the past. It defines boundaries and judges everything as right/wrong or good/bad. And oh yes, it does that thing with my brow.

My right mind is all about the richness of this present moment. It is filled with gratitude for my life and everyone and everything in it. It is content, compassionate, nurturing, and eternally optimistic. To my right mind character, there is no judgment of good/bad or right/wrong, so everything exists on a continuum of relativity. It takes things as they are and acknowledges what is in the present. The temperature is cooler today than yesterday. It doesn't care. Today it will rain. It makes no difference. It may observe that one person is taller than another person, or this person has more money than that person, but these observations are made without judgment. To my right mind, we are all equal members of the human family. My right mind does not perceive or give heed to territories or artificial boundaries like race or religion.

One of the greatest blessings I received as a result of this hemorrhage is that I had the chance to rejuvenate and strengthen my neurocircuits of innocence and inner joy. Thanks to this stroke, I have become free to explore the world again with childlike curiosity. In the absence of obvious and immediate danger, I feel safe in the world and walk the earth as though it is my backyard. In the consciousness of my right mind, we are laced together as the universal tapestry of human potential, and life is good and we are all beautiful -just the way we are.

My right mind character is adventurous, celebrative of abundance, and socially adept. It is sensitive to nonverbal communication, empathic, and accurately decodes emotion. My right mind is open to the eternal flow whereby I exist at
one
with the universe. It is the seat of my divine mind, the knower, the wise woman, and the observer. It is my intuition and higher consciousness. My right mind is ever present and gets lost in time.

One of the natural functions of my right mind is to bring me new insight in this moment so I can update old files that contain outdated information. For example, throughout my childhood I would not eat squash. Thanks to my right hemisphere, I was willing to give squash a second chance and now I love it. Many of us make judgments with our left hemisphere and then are not willing to
step to the right
(that is, into the consciousness of our right hemisphere) for a file update. For many of us, once we have made a decision, then we are attached to that decision forever. I have found that often the last thing a really dominating left hemisphere wants is to share its limited cranial space with an open-minded right counterpart!

My right mind is open to new possibilities and thinks out of the box. It is not limited by the rules and regulations established by my left mind that created that box. Consequently, my right mind is highly creative in its willingness to try something new. It appreciates that chaos is the first step in the creative process. It is kinesthetic, agile, and loves my body's ability to move fluidly into the world. It is tuned in to the subtle messages my cells communicate via gut feelings, and it learns through touch and experience.

My right mind celebrates its freedom in the universe and is not bogged down by my past or fearful of what the future may or may not bring. It honors my life and the health of all my cells. And it doesn't just care about my body; it cares about the fitness of your body, our mental health as a society, and our relationship with Mother Earth.

The consciousness of our right mind appreciates that every cell in our bodies (except for the red blood cells) contains the exact same molecular genius as the original zygote cell that was created when our mother's egg cell combined with our father's sperm cell. My right mind understands that I am the life force power of the fifty trillion molecular geniuses crafting my form! (And it bursts into song about that on a regular basis!) It understands that we are all connected to one another in an intricate fabric of the cosmos, and it enthusiastically marches to the beat of its own drum.

Freed from all perception of boundaries, my right mind proclaims, "I am a part of it all. We are brothers and sisters on this planet. We are here to help make this world a more peaceful and kinder place." My right mind sees unity among all living entities, and I am hopeful that you are intimately aware of this character within yourself.

As much as I obviously adore the attitude, openness, and enthusiasm with which my right mind embraces life, my left mind is equally amazing. Please remember that this is the character I just spent the better part of a decade resurrecting. My left mind is responsible for taking all of that energy, all of that information about the present moment, and all of those magnificent possibilities perceived by my right mind, and shaping them into something manageable.

My left mind is the tool I use to communicate with the external world. Just as my right mind thinks in collages of images, my left mind thinks in language and speaks to me constantly. Through the use of brain chatter, it not only keeps me abreast of my life, but also manifests my identity. Via my left brain language center's ability to say, "I am," I become an independent entity separate from the eternal flow. As such, I become a single, a solid, separate from the whole.

Our left brain truly is one of the finest tools in the universe when it comes to organizing information. My left hemisphere personality takes pride in its ability to categorize, organize, describe, judge, and critically analyze absolutely everything. It thrives in its constant contemplation and calculation. Regardless of whether or not my mouth is running, my left mind stays busy theorizing, rationalizing, and memorizing. It is a perfectionist and an amazing housekeeper of corporation or home. It constantly says, "Everything has a place and everything belongs in its place." Our right mind character values humanity, while our left mind character concerns itself with finances and economy.

On the scale of
doing,
my left mind is a magnificent multi-tasker and loves performing as many functions as it can at the same time. It is a true busy bee and partially measures its value by how many things it crosses off my daily to-do list. Because it thinks sequentially, it is great at mechanical manipulation. Its ability to focus on differences and distinguishing characteristics makes it a natural builder.

My left brain is particularly gifted at identifying patterns. As a result, it is adept at processing large volumes of information quickly. To keep up with life's experiences in the external world, my left mind processes information remarkably fast - much faster than my right hemisphere, which in comparison tends to hoe-de-doe along. At times my left mind may become manic, while my right mind has the potential to become lazy.

This difference in speed of thought, information processing, and output as thought, word or deed, between our two hemispheres, is in part linked to their unique abilities to process different types of sensory information. Our right brain perceives the longer wavelengths of light. As a result, the visual perception of our right mind is somewhat blended or softened. This lack of edge perception enables it to focus on the bigger picture of how things relate to one another. Similarly, our right mind tunes in to the lower frequencies of sound that are readily generated by our body gurgles and other natural tones. Consequently, our right mind is biologically designed to readily tune in to our physiology.

In contrast, our left brain perceives the shorter wavelengths of light, increasing its ability to clearly delineate sharp boundaries. As a result, our left mind is biologically adept at identifying separation lines between adjacent entities. At the same time, our left hemisphere language centers tune in to the higher frequencies of sound, which help them detect, discriminate, and interpret tones commonly associated with verbal language.

One of the most prominent characteristics of our left brain is its ability to weave stories. This story-teller portion of our left mind's language center is specifically designed to make sense of the world outside of us, based upon minimal amounts of information. It functions by taking whatever details it has to work with, and then weaves them together in the form of a story. Most impressively, our left brain is brilliant in its ability to make stuff up, and fill in the blanks when there are gaps in its factual data. In addition, during its process of generating a story line, our left mind is quite the genius in its ability to manufacture alternative scenarios. And if it's a subject you really feel passionate about, either good or awful, it's particularly effective at hooking into those circuits of emotion and exhausting all the "what if" possibilities.

As my left brain language centers recovered and became functional again, I spent a lot of time observing how my story-teller would draw conclusions based upon minimal information. For the longest time I found these antics of my story-teller to be rather comical. At least until I realized that my left mind full-heartedly expected the rest of my brain to believe the stories it was making up! Throughout this resurrection of my left mind's character and skills, it has been extremely important that I retain the understanding that my left brain is doing the best job it can with the information it has to work with. I need to remember, however, that there are enormous gaps between what I know and what I think I know. I learned that I need to be very wary of my storyteller's potential for stirring up drama and trauma.

In the same vein, as my left brain enthusiastically manufactured stories that it promoted as the truth, it had a tendency to be redundant - manifesting loops of thought patterns that reverberated through my mind, over and over again. For many of us, these loops of thought run rampant and we find ourselves habitually imagining devastating possibilities. Unfortunately, as a society, we do not teach our children that they need to
tend carefully the garden of their minds.
Without structure, censorship, or discipline, our thoughts run rampant on automatic. Because we have not learned how to more carefully manage what goes on inside our brains, we remain vulnerable to not only what other people think about us, but also to advertising and/or political manipulation.

The portion of my left mind that I chose not to recover was the part of my left hemisphere character that had the potential to be mean, worry incessantly, or be verbally abusive to either myself or others. Frankly, I just didn't like the way these attitudes felt physiologically inside my body. My chest felt tight, I could feel my blood pressure rise, and the tension in my brow would give me a headache. In addition, I wanted to leave behind any of my old emotional circuits that automatically stimulated the instant replay of painful memories. I have found life to be too short to be preoccupied with pain from the past.

During the process of recovery, I found that the portion of my character that was stubborn, arrogant, sarcastic, and/or jealous resided within the ego center of that wounded left brain. This portion of my ego mind held the capacity for me to be a sore loser, hold a grudge, tell lies, and even seek revenge. Reawakening these personality traits was very disturbing to the newly found innocence of my right mind. With lots of effort, I have consciously chosen to recover my left mind's ego center without giving renewed life to some of those old circuits.

I define responsibility (response-ability) as the ability to choose how we respond to stimulation coming in through our sensory systems at any moment in time. Although there are certain limbic system (emotional) programs that can be triggered automatically, it takes less than 90 seconds for one of these programs to be triggered, surge through our body, and then be completely flushed out of our blood stream. My anger response, for example, is a programmed response that can be set off automatically. Once triggered, the chemical released by my brain surges through my body and I have a physiological experience. Within 90 seconds from the initial trigger, the chemical component of my anger has completely dissipated from my blood and my automatic response is over. If, however, I remain angry after those 90 seconds have passed, then it is because I have
chosen
to let that circuit continue to run. Moment by moment, I make the choice to either hook into my neurocircuitry or move back into the present moment, allowing that reaction to melt away as fleeting physiology.