My Stroke Of Insight

My Stroke Of Insight teaches you how to calm yourself anytime by simply tuning into the inherent peacefulness of the right side of the brain.

You know from the beginning of this book that Taylor must have recovered reasonably well from her stroke. After all, she wrote a book! Yet it still feels surprising that anyone could survive, let alone thrive, with such a brain injury.

Luckily, most of us won’t face a stroke or similar in our lifetime. Still, there’s huge value in the simple observation that human brains can heal and change dramatically. Called “neuroplasticity,” this property means that from birth to death our brains are always changing and learning.

Better yet, how your brain changes and what it learns is largely up to you. At first, Taylor felt hesitant about leaving the experiences of her stroke-damaged mind behind to rejoin the regular world. But once she set her mind to it, her recovery proceeded quickly.

If people with literal brain damage can so often regain the abilities they’ve lost and even continue to develop new ones, imagine what you can do with a fully functioning, healthy brain.

You may have read in a textbook or heard in a lecture that the human brain has two separate and very different sides. The left side of our brains deals with language and numbers. It allows us to see patterns and perceive time in the world. The right brain is responsible for sensory perception and the big picture in the present moment.

But in the abstract, this whole two-sides stuff is hard to take seriously. And why does it even matter that our brains have two different sides?

Taylor’s experience with a one-sided brain injury drives the point home. With her left brain mostly out of function by the stroke, Taylor discovered that she felt calm and totally in touch with the world. Because her right side was in charge, she was now neither scared about the present, nor fearful for the future.

Most of us enjoy the luxury of a well-integrated brain. But, like Taylor, we must realize that our brains are actually complex entities, trying to fulfill a variety of hugely disparate goals. Evolution made the human brain this way, cobbling together lower and higher functions over time, and it shows.

Speaking of “mindfulness” like a character trait makes it seem like it’s a quality people either possess or lack. Meditation gurus have it, and everyone else doesn’t, right? Maybe, with enough practice, we can cultivate our measly powers of mindfulness into more robust ones. Well, Taylor’s stroke experience suggests a different way of looking at mindfulness. If a sense of peace, wholeness, and calm simply comes from…