“Your body is the life force power of some fifty trillion molecular geniuses [cells]. You and you alone choose moment by moment who and how you want to be in the world. I encourage you to pay attention to what is going on in your brain.”
Jill Bolte Taylor, PhD teaches us what to pay attention to by telling the story of her experience having a stroke. She vividly describes sensory losses, and cognitive impairments like losing the ability to read and do math. But with determination and good care she’s recovered so well she’s capable of writing a compelling autobiography. That story is now available.
“I take you on a very unusual journey into the step-by-step deterioration of my cognitive abilities, as viewed through the eyes of a scientist. As the hemorrhage in my brain grew
larger and larger, I relate the cognitive deficits I was experiencing to the underlying biology. As a neuroanatomist, I must say that I learned as much about my brain and how it functions during that stroke, as I had in all my years of academia.”
My Stroke of Insight: A Brain Scientist’s Personal Journey is an entertaining recount of how she learned to live without the abilities of her left hemisphere, and with peace she found on the right. “Step to the right” became a reminder to tap into those right hemispheric perceptions, to feel “fluid” and temporally still, as she regained cognitive skills like reading. Basic lessons relearned tempered with her academics gave her unusual insight into the brain’s processes. In My Stoke of Insight, she explains “simple science” that makes the book accessible to a wide audience, but without skimping on important details.
Stroke patients and their caregivers may benefit most from this book, with tips on treatment and considerations for the person now in an “infant” state. With detailed depictions of her symptoms as she experienced a stroke, this book will teach all readers the warning signs in an inspiring memoir likely to stay in memory.
She also passes along a catchy phone number to remember: 1-800-BrainBank, and the lyrics to a jingle she wrote and performed as its spokesperson, the Singin’ Scientist. Call to donate yours!
(4 votes, average: 3.75 out of 5)
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5 Comments to
“Stroke of Insight”
I read “My Stroke of Insight” in one sitting - I couldn’t put it down. I laughed. I cried. It was a fantastic book (I heard it’s a NYTimes Bestseller and I can see why!), but I also think it will be the start of a new, transformative Movement! No one wants to have a stroke as Jill Bolte Taylor did, but her experience can teach us all how to live better lives. Her TED.com speech was one of the most incredibly moving, stimulating, wonderful videos I’ve ever seen. Her Oprah Soul Series interviews were fascinating. They should make a movie of her life so everyone sees it. This is the Real Deal and gives me hope for humanity.
Thank you for that. Jill Bolte Taylor’s My Stroke of Insight is one of the most incredible stories I’ve heard in a long time. Her TEDTalk video blew my mind wide open to new possibilities. On the one hand, there’s what she went through and how she emerged from it. On the other hand, there’s what she can teach all of us.
I saw the 4 part Oprah interview on Oprah dot com Soul Series and I did learn a lot from that, but I’d like to find our more of how to do what Dr. Taylor did, without having a stroke of course!
Thin how many of us are living too much in the head, and not the heart. And of course, you can’t get more left brain than a Harvard Brain Scientist. Isn’t it ironic that she should be the one to have the stroke and transform from the quintessential left brainer into this “”seen the light”" disciple of finding inner peace?
I hope this movement keeps going. Maybe there will be My Stroke of Insight classes where we can practice what Jill Bolte Taylor is preaching.
The New York Times Sunday Newspaper on May 25 had a great two page article on Jill Bolte Taylor and her book, “MY STROKE OF INSIGHT”. Her book is a must read and this NY Times article - called “A Superhighway to bliss” is worth checking out too.
Please don’t publish my full name. I have learned that there are opinionated nuts out there, and have no desire to hear from them.
What I can tell you is that Dr. Jill Bolte Taylor’s book resonated with me and I decided in an instant to try what she recommended. All I can say is that I experienced the best two weeks I’ve had in the last ten years, after making the effort to silence the left brain inclinations. I felt happy and peaceful despite the fact that not one of my (currently troublesome) life circumstances changed one iota.
Note to others who might make the same trial: I hit a ‘bump’ in the road of life after those two wonderfuls weeks and could almost feel myself choose to buy into the negativity. Have found it difficult to get back into the mode of refusing to ruminate over hard times. However, I know with full clarity that I don’t HAVE to continue, and will return to the choice of more peaceful moments soon.
Don’t care what others have to say about the ‘reality’ of what Dr. Taylor experienced. Know that she has something wonderful to share with the world, and am delighted she is.
I am glad so many people seem to get inspiration from Dr. Taylor’s experience. I see her story not as one of inspirational recovery, but as one of rank insanity. By her own account, her stroke left her in a place of feeling perfect bliss and union with the entire universe - what most of us would consider heaven. Negative feelings and emotions were absolutely gone. She apparently achieved what so many millions of spiritual seekers have tried for centuries to find, and she chose to turn her back on what she had found to return to this world of misery, suffering, hatred and despair. I may be alone on this one, but I am not feeling inspired.
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Last reviewed: By John M. Grohol, Psy.D. on 29 Oct 2006
