My Stroke of Insight: A Brain Scientist's Personal Journey

By Ph.D., Jill Bolte Taylor

• The book expounds on her experience while having the stroke and her subsequent recovery. It was amazing on many levels:
  (1) She gives a 1st person narrative of her experience of the stroke and recovery but she doesn't portray it as something we should all pity and feel sorry for. Instead, she lays it out not unlike an explorer discovering new territory, full of suspense and wonder.
  
  (2) She gives incredible tips on how to communicate with and care for stroke victims. For e.g., some people would yell at her after they saw she didn't understand what they were saying. However, she wasn't deaf. She could only process one word at a time. If those people would have spoken more slowly rather than loudly, she would have been able to understand them. This is something that would never have occurred to me if I hadn't read this book.
  
  (3) She takes us on a tour of the 'mystical' right side of her brain which little is known about and whose capabilities in today's world seem to be dismissed. She says the right side of the brain is the gateway to enlightenment and nirvana. She shares tips on how to 'tend the garden of your mind' and to interrupt or stop those stories we all tell ourselves over and over again (usually about how we are deficient, not good enough, etc.). She calls them loops.
  
  Dr. Taylor's tips about how we can all achieve nirvana by accessing the right side of the brain as a conscious process is worth the price of the book many times over. We all have a "loop of deep inner peace" wired into our neurological circuitry in our right brain and we can consciously choose to run this loop whenever we wish.
  
  Closely related to this topic are books by Ariel & Shya Kane. They've written three outstanding books: Working on Yourself Doesn't Work: The 3 Simple Ideas That Will Instantaneously Transform Your Life, How to Create a Magical Relationship: The 3 Simple Ideas that Will Instantaneously Transform Your Love Life & Being Here: Modern Day Tales of Enlightenment. The Kanes have been teaching about accessing the magic of the right-side of the brain for over 20 years and their book is chock full of tips, and stories on how to recognize those loops Dr. Taylor talks about and how to bypass them. If you're serious about getting enlightened, get Dr. Taylor's and the Kanes' books NOW!
  
  This book is unique because the person who had the stroke was a Neuroscientist, Neuroanatomist or brain scientist. Taylor was able to thus relate the cognitive deficits she was experiencing to the underlying biology.