54: My Stroke of Insight. A conversation with Jill Bolte Taylor.

The Sacred Speaks

Like many of you, I watched Dr. Jill Bolte Taylor’s TED talk back in 2008 with astonishment and excitement – so this conversation is a long time coming. Dr. Taylor’s personality is without pretense, and her gift of switching between a scientific worldview to the view of an experiencer sets her up as both an accomplished observer of the measurable and an excitably playful experiencer of the miraculous. She holds this tension well and I only wish that we had more time to talk. Thankfully, she agreed to share another conversation once her next book hits the bookstores. This conversation explores the evolution of Dr. Taylor’s thoughts following her stroke 20 years ago. She is currently working on her forthcoming book that is preparing her to speak about the more practical and theoretical application of how she views various archetypes that each relate to specific aspects of our brains. From Dr. Taylor’s perspective, we each possess 4 distinct characters within our psychological and neuroanatomical self, that are each capable of interacting with each other. At times this can be overwhelming and full of conflict, or we have the ability and power to source these personalities to support each other. She states that we can purposefully and intentionally transform and shift the patterns of our psychological, spiritual, behavioral, and relational lives. Bio: Dr. Jill Bolte Taylor is a trained and published neuroanatomist. Her research specialty was in the postmortem investigation of the human brain as it relates to schizophrenia and the severe mental illnesses. Because she has a brother who has been diagnosed with the brain disorder schizophrenia, Dr. Taylor served for three years on the Board of Directors of National NAMI (National Alliance on Mental Illness) between 1994-1997. On December 10, 1996, Dr. Taylor woke up to discover that she was experiencing a rare form of stroke, an arterio-venous malformation (AVM). Two and a half weeks later, on December 27, 1996, she underwent major brain surgery at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) to remove a golf ball size blood clot that was placing pressure on the language centers in the left hemisphere of her brain. It took eight years for Dr. Taylor to successfully rebuild her brain - from the inside out. In response to the swelling and trauma of the stroke, which placed pressure on her dominant left hemisphere, the functions of her right hemisphere blossomed. Among other things, she now creates and sells unique stained glass brains when commissioned to do so. In addition, she published a book about her recovery from stroke and the insights she gained into the workings of her brain. The New York Times bestselling memoir is titled My Stroke of Insight: A Brain Scientist's Personal Journey and spent 17 weeks on the NY Times Bestseller list. In February 2008, Dr. Taylor gave a presentation at the prestigious TED Conference. A video of that presentation was posted on the TED website which was immediately viewed by millions of people around the world. The response to the video launched Dr. Taylor into becoming a highly sought-after public speaker. She was chosen by TIME Magazine as one of the 100 Most Influential People in the World for 2008, and was the premiere guest on Oprah's Soul Series web-cast. In addition, she was interviewed by Oprah and Dr. Oz on The Oprah Winfrey Show in October, 2008. http://drjilltaylor.com https://www.ted.com/talks/jill_bolte_taylor_my_stroke_of_insight Band of the Week: HiFi Drowning Music Page: https://music.apple.com/us/album/rounds-the-rosa/1494697284 Theme music provided by: http://www.modernnationsmusic.com Website for The Sacred Speaks: http://www.thesacredspeaks.com Brought to you by: https://www.thecenterforhas.com Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thesacredspeaks/ @thesacredspeaks Twitter: https://twitter.com/thesacredspeaks Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thesacredspeaks/