Our left brain and right brain have very different jobs. This is explained in the below video by one of my heroes, the inspirational and devastatingly passionate intellectual Jill Bolte Taylor. If you haven't heard of her, she is a neuroscientist who had a stroke, and so she was able to study and understand what was happening to the brain from first hand experience. If you like Alan Watts you will immediately understand and embrace Jill Bolte Taylor.
My own experience with the concussion I had a couple years ago was milder, but had many similar features. I am sharing this video because it really reminded me about this phenomenon of the left and right brain, and how they are so very different that they have wholly different personalities in a way.
The Left Brain...logical, planning, identity
Our left brain has evolved , especially in Western culture, to be the captain of the ship. We need this thing to function in the current society because it helps us drive around running errands and checking all the boxes. but a lot of us creative misfit types seek escape from its linear, logical, worrying, planning, thinking, ego. People crave the wholistic, empathetic, peaceful understanding that lives in the right brain.
The left brain has such a loud voice and such a strong role in current society that I get lost in its logic sometimes. When that happens I start to become less happy with my life.
The video really explains it better than I can. When I had my concussion, my inner narrator turned off for I think about 4 months.
The Right brain...wholistic..oneness....awareness...expansive...
Like Jill Bolte Taylor, I experienced an awareness of my connection to the universe, that was so deeply beautiful and enlightening....I had very visual thoughts, dreams, multiverses......and as I healed, I literally saw with my inner eye, a portal closing. I actually had to grieve this as you might grieve any deep loss. The sensation of a portal closing took a few weeks, and so I could feel it going a little bit more every day. I became very depressed. But I needed this process to happen. Unfortunately, I also was incredibly sensitive to light and sound, my short term memory was a joke, and had all kinds of other effects that made my day to day difficult. I needed to become more linear because I wanted my normal life back.
Coming back
When my left brain narration came back online, I realized what a distracting and overstimulating drag it can be for me, and how it was tied to my anxiety issues. This realization changed my life for the better.
But I forget
And yet, even though I learned this profound lesson through months of direct experience, the grind of our culture and society sucks me back in, and I STILL forget, and I begin to believe that left brain voice is 100% me. And I become kind of overrun by it. Seeing this video today really helped me remember how deeply important it is to remember to go to the creative place. To meditate. To leave language behind sometimes.
Human Connection ....a key to the right brain portal???
What if that quest to connect and love is an instinctual knowledge that via that connection we have more access to the "higher self" or the "higher selves who connect" which is a nexus of love, support, beauty , and release from logic and anxiety? The feelings we give each other when we share support and affection activate dopamine receptors and other pleasure processes. So maybe that is a function of being social beings. We need each other, we need human interconnection to help us stay open and awake to a higher purpose, even if that just means love, acceptance, joy, and living in the present. Or thats my theory today !
Ok so watch this video!! Because she says way more than what I am saying here. And her video will help contextualize what I wrote.
Plus there's a real brain in this video so come on, its super nerdy. Let me know your thoughts in the comments! I would love to have a discussion about this video.
CLICK HERE TO WATCH VIDEO, I don't know how to embed it
xo
p.s.
I dont have my footer game on very well these days but I want to say thank you and acknowledge the following groups I belong to! Look them up if you haven't heard of them!!
Minnow Support Network
Peace Abundance and Liberty Discord
Team Girl Powa
Helpie
MSP Waves
The Virtue Circle
Steem on!