The Time Is Now

“The   mind is never right but when it is at peace within itself.”
  ~ Seneca 

In my last newsletter I   talked about how author and spiritual teacher, Eckhart Tolle said that “life   is meant to be an adventure.” Well, I’m psyched because the adventure continues. Now that Oprah has concluded her 10-week course with Eckhart Tolle focusing on his book A New Earth: Awakening   to Your Life’s Power, she is continuing her Monday night webcasts with other well known teachers and scholars of conscious awareness ( Wayne Dyer, Jon Kabat-Zin,   Byron Katie, etc) and bringing her XM radio “Soul Series” to our computer screens. For the first interview in this series, beginning next Monday, May 12th, Oprah will be talking to Dr. Jill Bolte Taylor, a neuroanatomist, who, at the age of 37, experienced a massive stroke and lived to speak about it. Dr. Bolte Taylor has written a book entitled A Stroke of Insight. But, like many others, I first learned of Dr. Bolte Taylor through an amazing video in which she explains her experience. The video is one of the most articulate and appropriately emotion-filled explanations of awakening to consciousness and being in your “right mind” that I have heard. Her skill as a public speaker, her unique scientific perspective, her sense of humor, deep humility and, literally, mind-blowing insights make this video truly compelling and fascinating. It is fairly long (20 minutes), but, if you haven’t viewed it already, it is well worth the time.

The link is: TED  | Talks | Jill Bolte Taylor: My stroke of insight (video)

For Dr. Bolte Taylor, her stroke was an entry point to greater awareness. In the video, being the professional  scientist that she is, she begins by setting the ground work for her presentation with an explanation of the  differences between the right and left hemispheres of the brain and she uses a real brain as a prop no less. Simplistically, the theory of the brain is that the two different sides of the brain control different modes of thinking. The left brain is thought to be “logical, rational, analytical, objective, sequential, and looks at parts” while the right
brain is thought to be more “random, intuitive, creative, holistic, subjective, synthesizing and looks at whole picture (big picture)”.

Dr. Bolte Taylor then goes into a full description of her stroke beginning with “I realized I am having a stroke. How cool! How many brain scientists have the opportunity to study the brain from the inside out?” The deep insights come fast and furiously. As the left brain struggles to make sense of what’s happening to her and get help for herself, her right brain, stimulated by the stroke, gives her the expansive feeling of her spirit soaring. She describes in great detail experiencing what she calls “nirvana”. The feeling tone of this state of nirvana was profound peace and possibility. She experienced herself as the “life force power of the Universe” in a human body with manual dexterity and two cognitive minds that now understood that we have the power to choose moment by moment
how we want to BE in the world.

This was Dr. Bolte Taylor’s stroke of insight and it motivated her to recover—a process which took 8 years to complete. But her impassioned message is that, like her, we can all choose to step to the right of the left brain and find peace. She feels the consciousness of the left hemisphere of the brain is that we are individual, separate from the flow, separate from each other with a solid story of an “I”.  I am Max Wellspring…a woman, a certain age, a life coach, a mother, etc. Dr. Jill Bolte Taylor is a woman, an intellectual, a neuroanatomist. You get the idea. Dr. Bolte Taylor learned that right brain consciousness is a holistic awareness of the I AM which is inclusive and expansive. In our right minds we become aware that all that makes us human is at one with All That Is and that awakened awareness is the realization that everything is possible from a perspective of peace, flow and ease. This is the consciousness of the “peace that passeth understanding” that Eckhart Tolle referred to in the class with Oprah.

Dr. Bolte Taylor says that we all have these sub-personalities of the dual brain…right and left brain…what she calls “the we inside me.” My thought is that, ideally, we would want to be whole brained, balancing awakened, peaceful-beingness—that trusts the flow of the Universe—with inspired doing. And Dr. Bolte Taylor concludes her talk with a call to actions. She asks “what do you choose and when?”  Essentially, she is saying that the time is now to stop feeling separate and choose to step into the right-hemisphere consciousness of peace for yourself and the world.

~~ Here are some resources for staying in your “right mind” ~~

There are quite a few books on this subject, but besides Dr. Bolte Taylor’s book, you might explore:  1) A Whole New Mind…Why Right Brainers Will Rule The Future by Daniel
  H. Pink
  2) The Answer to How is Yes by Peter Block
  3) A Whack on the Side of the Head by Roger von Oech
  4) Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain by Betty EdwardsFrom a workshop entitled ”Bring Your Right Brain to Work” created by Michael C. Wagner, president of White Rabbit Group (a brand design company), there are some interesting exercises to stay in your right mind:To put pragmatism in it’s place:Stop censoring yourself with these statements:

Stop asking these questions up front:  1. How will you do it?
  2. How long will it take?
  3. How much will it cost?
  4. How will we get those people to change?
  5. How will you measure it?
  6. How are other people doing it successfully (stop comparing yourself to others)? For the business person,   try this in your next office meeting:
  Let your left brain answer these detail-oriented questions:  Who arrives late? 
  Who arrives early?
  Where do people sit? 
  Who runs the show? 
  Is it the same all the time?  Then ask your right-brain to find the patterns and ways to design positive changes.

This entry was posted on Thursday, May 8th, 2008 at 6:53 pm and is filed under Conscious Creation, Oprah / Tolle 2008 Event. You can subscribe via RSS 2.0 feed to this post's comments. You can comment below, or link to this permanent URL from your own site. Your comments will appear immediately, but I reserve the right to delete innapropriate comments.