This video from TED has made its way around via email, and is very worth watching for anyone who has not seen it yet. Harvard brain scientist Jill Bolte Taylor suffered a massive stroke and stayed conscious through most of it. It took her 8 years to recover and she now spends her time spreading the message about the experience. The stroke was confined to the left hemisphere of her brain which meant she lost language and her sense of identity, but retained her ability to experience everything happening around her from a sensory perspective.
She presents insights about brain recovery that would be enormously helpful to anyone who has suffered or knows somebody suffering from mental illness. And anybody could benefit from her insights about the capacity within each of us to live more from the place of freedom, expansiveness and oneness that she describes.
She has written a book called "My Stroke of Insight" and was recently interviewed for Oprah's Soul Series. I was riveted by the 4 part interview. It transformed the way I think of who I am in relation to other people. She describes her time in the hospital when she did not understand who she was or what people who came into her room were saying or doing, but she knew if they were there to support her recovery, bring her positive energy, respect her and love her. It is the most straightforward explanation I've heard yet of why and how who we are being, not what we are doing, in the world makes all the difference. I highly recommend it for anyone interested. All of this can be found on Jill Bolte Taylor's website.
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