Makes Sense - with Dr. JC Doornick - Making Sense of Whole Brain Living? With Dr. Jill Bolte Taylor - Episode 83

Starting point is 00:00:00 Great morning world, I have a special treat for you. Every once in a while, a story comes along that fundamentally shifts how we understand the human mind. Imagine losing all sense of your past and future, being stripped of language, logic, and identity. Imagine drifting into a state where that endless mental chatter disappears, and all that remains is the raw, undeniable presence of the present moment. Huh, sounds nice, no? Well, this is exactly what happened to our guest today, Dr. Jill Boltey Taylor, a Harvard-trained neuroanatomist, best-selling author, and one of Time Magazine's 100 most influential people in the entire world. At just 37 years old, a catastrophic stroke shut down the left hemisphere of her brain,

Starting point is 00:00:51 forcing her into an extraordinary journey of survival, recovery, and insight. As a scientist, she had the rare opportunity to study her brain from the inside out, providing an unparalleled perspective on consciousness itself. This perspective is Dr. Jill's gift to the world, but Dr. Taylor's story isn't just about survival. It's about transformation. Over the course of eight years after the incident, she not only regained cognitive abilities, but emerged with a new understanding of the brain and how we engage with it. Her book, My Stroke of Insight, became a global phenomenon, and her famous TED Talk remains one of the most viewed of all time, forever changing how we think about left brain and right brain dynamics.

Starting point is 00:01:37 In fact, any rational mind could possibly credit Dr. Jill with being a primary reason that TED Talks has become what it is today. She continues to push the boundaries of neuroscience with her book Whole Brain Living, where she introduces the revolutionary concept of the four characters, distinct neural networks within our left and right hemispheres that influence the way we think, feel, and behave. Pertinent to our show and my work with the Interface Response System, she presents the brain huddle, which is a practice designed to help us understand and embrace and integrate all four of those characters in real time, allowing us to consciously choose our preferred response

Starting point is 00:02:20 to life's challenges rather than being ruled by programmed and conditioned reactions. Beyond her research, Dr. Taylor is also a passionate advocate for mental health, an artist and an educator who helps people understand how to live more intentionally through the power of neuroplasticity. She shares her time between scientific research, speaking engagements, and her creative work, which is living proof that a balanced brain leads to a balanced life. In today's conversation, we're going to dive deep into her groundbreaking insights and explore how her work aligns with the conscious decision-making framework of my work with the interface response system. Can we learn to choose which part of our brain that we engage within each

Starting point is 00:03:04 moment? Can we override our pre-programmed emotional responses and instead step into awareness, peace, and clarity? And if we can, how do we practice this in our daily lives for a more optimal experience? Well, let's find out. Join me as I sit down with Dr. Jill Bolte-Taylor, consider a personal friend now for a conversation that will challenge and change the way you think about thinking itself let's get into it welcome to the make sense with dr jc podcast this podcast covers topics that expand human consciousness and performance on the make sense podcast we acknowledge that it's who you are that determines how well what you do works and that perception is a subjective and acquired taste. When you change the way that you look at things, the things that you

Starting point is 00:04:00 look at begin to change. The Make Sense podcast is sponsored and primarily funded by the Make Sense Academy. Our private community, where open and curious seekers of growth and expansion, apply the make sense principles and systems to move from simply going through life to growing through life. So check out the Make Sense Academy, risk-free, for less than you'll spend today on shit that you don't need. Welcome, my friends, to the uprising of the sleepwalking masses. Welcome to the Make Sense with Dr. J.C. Dornick podcast. First and foremost, I just want to welcome you to the Makes Sense podcast. And once again, it's just an honor and a privilege on behalf of me and the listeners to have somebody that embodies all of the work that you've done. And just, you know, your story is

Starting point is 00:04:47 amazing. And we're going to get into some of those things. Where I'd like to start, I'm always very, very curious about the backstory, not just the incident that happened, but there's so many other pieces that fall into place. And your journey to study the brain stemmed, pun intended. But from this experience that you had growing up with your brother, just so you know, my wife is a mental health therapist and, you know, a sex therapist as well. So this is a big part of our discussion in here is people that struggle in different ways. And I believe it was schizophrenia. friendia. So this is kind of where your interest was born. Tell us a little bit about that. Why that intrigued you to create a career out of it. Well, it just kind of fell into line naturally. My brother

Starting point is 00:05:36 is only 18 months older than I. So we were constant companions. Everywhere we went, we went together. You know how kids are. We ran in the pack. And my brother, I have two older brother, the middle child, I'm the baby. He was different. It was as though our oldest brother, was so far more developed because he was 18 months more developed than my brother was schizophrenia. Brother two could not compete with Brother I, so he decided to compete with Child 3, and he didn't care that I was a girl. And he was really a rough competitor. And everywhere we went, as I said, we went together.

Starting point is 00:06:13 So we did everything together. And it was as though I lived in his bubble, in his own mind. I was born to be of service to him. And that just didn't make any sense to me whatsoever. I just was a little happy child. I was doing my thing. I didn't want to go get him this. And I didn't want to give him the best food on my plate.

Starting point is 00:06:34 And I didn't want to. And I didn't want to. And I didn't want to. And then I realized he's really having a completely different perception of the real world than I am. And I didn't know if children don't know about abnormalities or mental illness. know is different. And I knew he was different from me. And as I grew older, I didn't know which one of us was not typical. Interesting. And it was very interesting. It really wasn't until his later teenage years where it became more clear that he was behaving in in ways that didn't fit into society and mom and dad were

Starting point is 00:07:12 starting to really get concerned about this, that I really got that. But I'll tell you, I threw a party when I turn 35 because for women, males generally will acquire these, the schizophrenia in particular will come out between 15 and 25. But for women, it comes out a good decade later than that. So by 35, I thought, okay, the brain has cooked. It is what it is. But two years later, I had my own little problem. This is so fascinating. You're bringing up an interesting topic because what we're recognizing is that your brother, his challenges were only in the face of conforming to society. But you're you're You know, when you hear Down syndrome and all sorts of different things, you know, I'm always questioning like, maybe we're abnormal, but we've just figured out how to fit in, you know, so it's an interesting topic. I think that we are all abnormal, but we have made an agreement with one another that as long as we fit in the normal bell curve of, you know, and we fit into that box of society norm, then we can see ourselves as normal.

Starting point is 00:08:15 We're biological creatures. I mean, we are far from a perfect model. Yeah. I mean, I'm very proud of my abnormalities. What's strange about that is how it's your abnormalities and your unique qualities that actually propel you forward in this world. I heard you say something that I just thought was delightful. And I want to make sure I get it right. You said, nothing brings me more joy than helping people better understand the tool that they have to live their lives on purpose. Tell me what that means. Because anybody that I have exposed to you or your book or and specifically anybody that gets to watch you speak. I always say, what do you think of her? And they just always, I mean, you're fun, but they always remark on your extremely transparent love for helping people. Because this is probably what was birthed from the education and everything.

Starting point is 00:09:07 You know, tell me what that means to just be in love with that. So, well, because I've had an ongoing relationship with the subject of brain my whole life, beginning with my brother, beginning to being exposed to that. Part of that becomes an awareness. I become aware of my processing, my thoughts, my emotions, my behavior, my output. And I'm observing him, and I'm recognizing that we're very different in the way we're processing this information and having an experience. So I become fascinated with this because, you know, why wouldn't I become fascinated?

Starting point is 00:09:43 I have to figure out how do I survive inside of his bubble. and at the same time fit into normal society and function on my own independence as a little happy person. So I became aware very early, very young. And what I've realized is that a lot of people, they don't think about thinking. They don't think about emotions. They don't think about their own biology. They don't have this awe and fascination for what they are as this conglomeration of 50 trillion beautiful molecular genius. that make them up as the human. And so for me, that awareness, that spark of awareness and willingness

Starting point is 00:10:24 to be aware of one's own self in relationship to self and others. To me, that's kind of the starting point. And I find nothing more exciting or fascinating than helping people realize that the world that they have created, if they perceive all about how do I take myself and fit myself into the external world. Well, that's a tiny piece of who I am, but what about this vast and amazing internal world? So just absolutely thrills me to help people recognize this magnificent tool that they have inside of their own head. Yeah, it's so fascinating. It's almost like you're paying it forward. Well, I'm living in the present. I'm living in the present, taking what I have and saying, how do I take what I am and what I have and what I have learned from the past and

Starting point is 00:11:10 explode that into the present moment so that my impact becomes whatever it is that I really am. You know, when you've been down the road, I've been down, authenticity is all there is. And I'm totally aware. I'm a realist. I was a brain scientist forever. And I know inside of that normal curve, there's going to be some people who have brains far to the left that will think Jill Bolte Taylor and not get me at all. Well, they're not my audience. If I can help the 35% to 40% of left brain who are open to possibility, open to learning and growth, and then the right hemisphere people, they get me because that's what we all share that value. Then that's my impact on the world.

Starting point is 00:11:56 So I don't, I don't worry about criticism. I'm just not, I don't have time for that. And I understand which part of their brain they're hooked into in order to have that perspective and I can have compassion and love for them, but they're generally not my audience. I'm not here to persuade or convince. I'm here to help people wake up to the magnificence of what they are. I love that. And what's interesting about the not my audience people is I just believe that anybody can become part of my audience. I can't persuade them to. That's what I think you're really saying. If I'm an open and curious person, which is probably why I very much resonate with you, I didn't

Starting point is 00:12:35 used to be an open and curious person, right? Some life, life events have unfolded in a certain way. But I believe anybody, unfortunately, and we're going to get into a little bit of your story, life happens, and very often it opens you up to things. For anybody that ends up watching this and says, yeah, I think I'm not one of her people. Give it a second. Give it a second. Or maybe wait till next week, you know. This is a really funny discussion that we have in our mastermind that have all read your book and I asked them, what would you ask her? And it was funny because we're people that are very much into consciousness and things like that. And when we look at your story, this thing that happened to you that ended up happening for you, we've actually determined that it's what we call

Starting point is 00:13:18 an unfair advantage that you have. And I'll circle back to that at some point. But anybody that is anybody probably has come across your story and, you know, read your books. Tell us briefly what it was like. I've heard you talk about this, but I want the listeners to hear this. What it was like to lose your left and just experience your right. And then another aspect that I would love to hit on after that, and I'll remind you, if you forget, is have you ever pondered what the outcome would have been, had it been your right side, not your left? So take us down a little bit of the background story and what that was like.

Starting point is 00:13:55 Okay. So I was teaching and performing research at Harvard Medical School. And my area of expertise was how does our brain create our perception of reality? And I was fascinated by that because my brother's perception of reality was completely different than mine. And yet he is the closest thing to me that exists at a biological level in the universe. So it had to be the cells. It had to be the way the brain cells communicate with one another.

Starting point is 00:14:21 So I was just fascinated with neuroanatomy at a cellular level. And so that's what I was teaching and performing research about. Then I woke up one day at the age of 37 and I was having a major hemorrhage in the left half of my brain. And over the course of four hours, I watched my own brain completely deteriorate in its ability to process all information. When I woke up later that afternoon, I could not walk, talk, read, write, or recall any of my life. I was an infant in a woman's body. My left hemisphere was completely non-functional. However, my right hemisphere was still available.

Starting point is 00:14:59 that's all I had. So I learned quickly what were the skill sets that shut down in the left hemisphere and what did I gain in the absence of having that inhibition from that left hemisphere onto my right hemisphere? What I lost on that morning was the part of our brain that takes the big picture of everything that is in the present moment. Well, let's begin with the right hemisphere. What did I gain? I gained that I am a big energy ball. And I, I am this mass of 50 trillion beautiful molecular geniuses. They're all differentiated into their own function. So I have liver cells that filter and I have kidney cells that filter.

Starting point is 00:15:41 I have brain cells that process and half of them are missing. But what the right hemisphere does is it's right here right now. Everything is pixelated. Everything is enormous. It is a collective whole. There are no physical boundaries between anything and all I have is I am a ball of energy of life radiating from these cells. And the left hemisphere then comes in and it says, okay, that's the information coming in. Now let's create categories and let's organize and let's

Starting point is 00:16:12 figure out how to control people, places and things and myself and time so that I can have language and I can know where I begin and where I end as a physical entity and take myself and relate myself now to an external world, which defines the society. normal. So then the left hemisphere's job is to fit me into the societal norm. So on the morning of the stroke, I lost me, the individual, I, my identity, Joe Malti Taylor, that girl died that day, that character profile. And I had no access to her. And I also lost the group of cells that define the boundaries of where I begin and where I end. I lost all language. So I had no absolutely a silent brain, an absolutely silent brain. No language, no little question.

Starting point is 00:16:59 Nothing, just silent, present moment, biggest universe. And it was lovely there. It was beautiful. It was magnificent. It was peaceful. Imagine what it would be like to not have your job and all the stress or your relationships and all the stress and just the stress of trying to keep track of your bills. I mean, life has so much going on out there in the external world that we are so preoccupied as that. we see our identity as that. So take all that away. And what do you have? You have, oh my gosh, the present moment. You have open possibility. You have entrepreneurialism or creative and whatever. But it's all, it's all just two very different ways of processing information. And without all the stress, all I had was this sense of love and excitement. And I was exhausted because I had taken this

Starting point is 00:17:53 this hit to my left brain. But other than that, when I was awake, it just felt like this peaceful, beautiful connection to the universe. So that was really nice. And then in the other part of your question, have I considered what it would be like if I had lost the right hemisphere and just had the left hemisphere? Absolutely. What would I have lost? I would have lost the big picture of possibility and openness and present moment. And we love in the present. We pray in the present. We grieve in the present. We have all this magnificent, these things that happen in the present, but so many of us in the left brain spend a whole lot of time in the past, a whole lot of time in the future, because that machine of that left brain has linearity across time. Now, just consider

Starting point is 00:18:40 what a biological phenomenon this is. This is like a miracle. A little group of cells in the emotional portion of the left hemisphere say, I am willing to stay. I am willing to stay. I am willing to out of the blissful euphoria of the present moment experience, and I'm willing to step into a time we're going to call the past. And we're going to do that so that we can accumulate all this data, all this material, so that I don't have to relearn the wheel every moment of my life living in the present moment. So this left hemisphere comes online with this magnificent linearity across time, and with that comes me, an individual. I, Jill, Bolte, Taylor, tiny little group of cells about the size of a peanut sitting in my left hemisphere,

Starting point is 00:19:25 says this is who I am, this is my name, this is my address, this is my phone number, this are the colors I like to wear, these are the people I like in my relationships, and it builds me, my world. So to the left brain, my existence revolves around me, the individual, where in the right hemisphere, me, the individual doesn't exist. And so I'm simply here big as the universe in the present moment. So if I lose the big, picture of the present moment. And all I have is Jill Boltey Taylor. Jill Boltey Taylor, she's about right and wrong and good and bad and everything about the societal norm that I have to fit myself into. And so it becomes very black and white. It becomes very factual. It becomes very detailed.

Starting point is 00:20:07 It becomes details, details and more details about those details on every level, personally, as well as scholastically, or as my life goes. So I have had a lot of people write to me and say, I saw your TED talk and, you know, I had the exact opposite impact. And many of them say to me, this is what they say, which I think is most interesting, I cannot find God. I cannot find God. I used to be able to find God. And their perception now is detail, detail. And what happens when we have the experience of being in the presence of something greater than we are, you have to get out of the details of that left hemisphere ego center that needs to quiet down. And then in the absence of that, the right hemisphere can merely be experienced. It's always there. It's always running. It's always turned on and available.

Starting point is 00:20:56 But the left brain, that language center, that ego center gets so loud that oftentimes we can't find that peaceful euphoria that we're all wired with. Here's an interesting question. This is what I'm thinking on. And by the way, I just had this epiphany that because we know that the right and the left hemispheres are connected and they interface with each other through this thing called the corpus colossum. And I just realized in this moment, I don't know which character figured this out, that, like, I'm kind of the Corpus Colossum connecting you to my listeners. Isn't that kind of interesting? Welcome to the Corpus Collasum podcast.

Starting point is 00:21:32 Hey, take it. It's yours. It's yours. Here's a question. When you share that story, and I'm trying to make sense, that's part of the unfair advantage, is that don't know what you got till it's gone. You, unlike many, many people have experienced right break. and created a value system because I know that when you came back online after surgery and things

Starting point is 00:21:54 like that and you started to wire together and the left brain's like, hey, we're back and you're like, well, we're going to renegotiate now. So here's my question. When this event happened, you explained it as if you were aware that you lost something and gained something. Isn't that a left brain thing? No, so think about. I'm just wondering to what degree it was still online perhaps. I don't night. Well, the awareness of me as a life form as a human, that was all still there. I mean, let's say you're going to learn to dissect a human body, right? That's what I did. So I'm going to use that as an example. Although I lost all the details of the three different parts of the stomach and the names of those parts, which is terminology, left brain, let's take a thing and

Starting point is 00:22:40 divide it up and talk about all the different pieces, I could have sculpted for you an entire abdomen because I'd had, what, a decade more than a decade of cadaver lab, teaching cadaver lab. So I could have sculpted that for you, but I didn't have the terminology and the differentiation of the different parts. I had the whole. What does an abdomen look like? What? So the right hemisphere is experiential. So my experiential learning from the past, that was still online. What I lost was the language and how to talk about it as an academic. I lost. I lost. that terminology. So when I went back to relearn my anatomy and my physiology and my biochemistry and my neuroanatomy, I learned very easily because I already had the three-dimensional understanding of

Starting point is 00:23:28 these things. What I didn't have was the detailed language. And so when you think about learning, do you learn better with pictures? Do you learn better auditory? Do you learn better the language? Are you really good at learning with language? Or do you need a lot of repetition in order to get the language crammed in there on top of a picture. Some people don't have the picture. I'll give you a quick example. My mother was very different from me. And when she would read, we'd go on vacation together and we would read novels.

Starting point is 00:23:58 And when she would read a novel, and this was a brilliant woman. I mean, this was history and philosophy and science of mathematics. I mean, she was a college professor, blah, blah, blah. But she would read a novel and she'd put it down. And she didn't, her brain did not create a story. It didn't create a movie. But I would create a movie. And so because I create the movie, I had the whole picture, and she'd put it down, and she'd say,

Starting point is 00:24:23 here, read this one. This one's pretty good. And then I would ask her questions about it. And she was on her third novel after that. And she had no idea what I was talking about because she didn't build information in the same way. So we learn in different ways. We store information in different ways. We process information in different ways.

Starting point is 00:24:41 And we're all unique and yet we're all the same. It's just different in the volume and the amount of which groups of cells are communicating during our learning process. So fascinating. There's so much undiscovered stuff about the brain. And you have this different vantage point. In our community, and I very much teach people the science behind making sense of things, hence the name of the podcast. And we have found that, and we're going to get into the four characters, we've found that your experience, which is a big part of the four characters, because it's what unveiled it.

Starting point is 00:25:15 We refer to it as a tool to have in our belt, you know, the brain huddle and to just give us a new vantage point and perspective. So I'd like to move into a different space now. So you had this incident. And if you look at a lot of people that have this incident, the outcome is not the same as yours. Have you ever determined why you were able to come back online and why you lived? I don't know why I live.

Starting point is 00:25:39 I can't answer that. I think I live because before the stroke, I was 90 over 60 blood pressure. If I was any higher than that normally, I would have bled out quicker. I was literally on the doorstep of Mass General Hospital in an ambulance when everything went offline and I went unconscious. So, I mean, I was seconds from death. I mean, really, I was all but dead.

Starting point is 00:26:02 So I don't know, made for a great story. However, I don't have an opinion about any predetermined storyline. But I did live. I do believe that no question in. my mind, I used the tools of my right brain and what it understood to rebuild circuit by circuit the skill sets of the left hemisphere. You know, one of the first things I went, it went and did was I opened up a book and a picture book of the brain to determine, well, what are the things that I had learned? What I had lost. Well, I had lost language. Language speaking, when you have

Starting point is 00:26:36 no sound at all in your brain, it's an impossibility because it's like that whole possibility doesn't exist. Okay, so numbers. Numbers didn't come online for four years. Those cells were so wounded that either it took four years for them to recover an ability to even have a comprehension of what a number is, or other cells in the opposite hemisphere comparable positioning took over my numbers. I don't know which one. And I didn't have the boundaries of where I began and ended. I literally saw myself, perceived myself, and everyone else's big energy balls. We were all connected. Everything around us is energy. If we could visualize the air between us, we would see atoms and molecules in space,

Starting point is 00:27:19 like moving around like you can if you put a little smoke in the realm. And that was my perception. And in that perception of the right hemisphere, everything is connected. If everything is connected and I view myself that way and I'm open to all possibility and I'm realizing and understanding which cells in my brain are the next natural cells to come online, based on what I can now do. You don't tell someone who's in a vegetative condition to sit up, right? You don't do that.

Starting point is 00:27:50 You touch them and you see if you can get some kind of focus and some kind of response. But if I'm going to try to sit up, I've got to rock my body first, which means I have to know I have a body and that this is mine, and that I am actually connected between my neurons in my head and the neurons in the rest of my body, and I can actually move this mass that feels like a ton of lead. Eventually, I get a little bit of oomph going, and then I kind of work it, and it's exhausting.

Starting point is 00:28:14 I mean, recovery is an exhausting process, which needs to be balanced with equal amounts of sleep and rest. And that's so critical, because most of us, we give up if we try and we can't. No, you've got to try a thousand times a day as long as it takes in order to make that connection in order to do it if you really want to get it back. Oh, what else was I going to do, right? I had time on my hands. I wasn't working anymore.

Starting point is 00:28:37 No one had any expectation that I would ever recover anything. So it was like, okay, well, I'm going to be. try. But that was also a decision that I had to make a thousand times a day. And then I still had the visual picture of the circuits inside of my brain because I've been teaching neuroanatomy for a decade. So that visual helped me. I did have an advantage. I had an understanding of brain cells, of body cells. Cells were my thing before. I love cells. Cells are beautiful. I can speak because I have cells. I can wiggle my fingers because I have cells. I can mobilize because I have cells. I mean, I think we are this magnificent masterpiece.

Starting point is 00:29:15 And when you focus on yourself as this magnificent masterpiece, it gets excited because it's being appreciated. And it's like, okay, well, what's next? What's next? It took me eight years to consciously rebuild my brain, left brain, circuit by circuit by circuit. And then after that eight year period of time, that's when that rational thinking part of my brain woke up again and said, wow, great job, cells. Now I want to be the boss again. And, you know, I had eight years of not having that character. And it's value structure, which is very different than the values of the right hemisphere.

Starting point is 00:29:51 It wanted to be the boss. And the rest of us are going, no, no, no, we're so glad you're back. But no, we're a democracy in here. And we are going to function as a democracy. And you're a part of the team. Very important part of the team. But you're a part of the team. See, this is that unfair advantage that we've talked about it.

Starting point is 00:30:10 Well, I mean, I don't want anyone to have to have a stroke to realize this. And you know, you and I were having a little bit of a brief discussion about a lot of the stuff people are doing like psychedelics and all of that stuff. And if you think about it, somebody that's not been through what you've been through is trying to experience that in some ways, in unhealthy ways very often. What I came up with is that I think one of the biggest challenges humans face among many is to just simply follow through with what you were going to do. You know, you say you're going to do something and they follow through. And the reason why we don't is because we get caught up and we get distracted and things like that. And we don't and we also don't live in the present moment. So you were forced to experience

Starting point is 00:30:55 the present moment. That is where that value system came on. So this, this is. Can I address that? Yeah, totally. I mean, you make sense, right? Well, you say I was forced to live in the present moment. And to me, it was a sacrifice to come back into the left hemisphere. Interesting. Because the left hemisphere is where our pain is. My pain is not in the present moment. But you had a choice.

Starting point is 00:31:19 Like you got there was that bifurcation when you came back online. You're like, hmm, actually, we're going to make some changes here. Because you just spent eight years remodeling and somebody wants to come in and put a new kitchen counter in and you're like, no, we're staying with the marble. I love that example. Yeah, no, that's absolutely right. That's absolutely right. However, because a brain science, now, I don't bring any new science to this conversation. Let's be clear on that. Ian McGillcrest, if you're fascinated by the hemispheres and the differences, go look up Ian McGillcrest, the master in his emissary. Beautiful, beautiful work. Frederick Schiffer is doing amazing work with using light or using visual information to purposely stimulate. the left hemisphere or the right hemis. Amazing science going on. I bring no science into that conversation. What I bring in is a experience of someone who was an expert in that subject material. And then the experience of a brain scientist is losing, watching over the course of four hours, the deterioration

Starting point is 00:32:24 of the skill sets in the left hemisphere, including me by I am Joe Bolton P. Taylor. She was gone that day. And in the absence of that, I had this magnificent experience of the right hemisphere that lasted eight full years. It was an eight year process of learning and recovery. It was very deliberate. It was very conscious. But if you ask the medical community by definition of consciousness, I was unconscious because the left thinking, rational thinking part of my brain was offline. And because that part was offline, I was not classified as conscious. Well, I was perfectly conscious. I was just differently conscious. I didn't have those cells and those skill sets. So what I gained was what is actually going on in the other parts of the brain without the

Starting point is 00:33:10 inhibition from that personality, that dominating part of who we are. We live and eschewed to the left hemisphere society and its values and the value of me, the individual. But in the absence of that, I was still perfect and whole and beautiful as far as I was concerned. And like, was this magnificent experience and I was filled with an incredible sense of joy and love and nurturing and all that. So then as I rebuild that left hemisphere, the circuitry in order to get those skill sets functional again, when those skill sets of the left emotion and the left thinking tissue came back online, those personalities came back online. So all I bring to the table is what does it feel like what is actually going on? What are those skill sets? How can I find my way into those

Starting point is 00:34:03 skill sets of that right hemisphere more quickly? So I kind of bring a roadmap to whole brain living. And it's what we think is delicious. It's yummy, isn't it? It is. It's yummy because sometimes we just need to be able to look at things differently. I created a system called the Interface Response System that is like just so nicely marries a lot of your work and I'll share it with you some other time. But what it's basically doing is it's a four-step system to help people change the way they look at things. So that as Wayne Dyer used to always say, the things that they look at change. You experienced that whole remodel. Let's move now.

Starting point is 00:34:41 I'm looking at my notes here and I just want anybody that's listening to this to realize that like if I had my way, I would like somehow acquire you for four hours. Well, because there's so many, there's so many interesting questions. One quick one before we get into the characters and whole brain living. Is your brain more efficient now, or is it just more supportive of a better life? I think that it's better balanced. Because it's better balanced, it's more efficient because now it's purposeful. Yeah.

Starting point is 00:35:15 And so if I'm procrastinating or being a lazy bum, I recognize that I have. need to procrastinate and be a lazy bum. I recognize the value of that. And if I'm in my right brain right here right now, kind of doing nothing, then I'm actually doing something. And as I focus in that portion of my brain, the other portions of my brain get a rest. And sometimes that's really important. But I'm also very good now at this negotiation between these four different parts. And that's huge. You know, it's kind of like I describe it like this. When we have a hand, when we're born with a hand, we're little people and we're born with a hand and we're flopping around and hands are flailing about. And all of those movements are really important because they're feeding information back to the brain

Starting point is 00:35:57 about whatever they're doing. If you're going to swaddle your children, I will throw this out. Don't swaddle for too long because it's information to the brain. Movement is information to the brain so that the brain can create order out of all this disorder. And it takes a whole lot of input to be able to do that. So as I have a hand and eventually the infant looks and figures out, oh my gosh, I, that's a part of me. I have some relationship with it. I have some control of that thing. And it's like, okay, now I can differentiate.

Starting point is 00:36:28 I have a hand. And so now I just start flopping things around and I slap and I make water splash and I'm doing stuff. And it's like, oh my God, how exciting. All these different parts of me. And it's like, wow, I'm defining me. So I'm differentiating a relationship with my hands and my body parts. So that's kind of what we have right now, a relationship.

Starting point is 00:36:48 with our brain. Well, no, we have our brain. There's all these interesting things. You kind of need one in order to function well. You want to like nurture it and figure out how to make it healthy so that life becomes interesting and fun and how do I, how do I choose that? But once I get older and I begin to differentiate my finger, then it's like, oh, whole new level of manual dexterity, whole new level of relationship between my hand and now the external world. And as soon as that happens, boom, I have so much more power over my digits. It's kind of like once you learn the different parts of your brain, and you recognize these different personalities that each of these different cellular groups,

Starting point is 00:37:31 modules of cells, doing skill sets result as these four personalities, as soon as you recognize that in yourself, wow. Now all of a sudden you're on a whole new level of function and your internal world becomes so much more clear. and life becomes rich and more by choice. And to me, that choice is the roadmap to freedom, personal freedom. Game on. Game on.

Starting point is 00:37:55 And we can game on every day. So let's get into this idea behind the book, Whole Brain Living and the four characters. Because when I first learned about that, we don't know what we don't know. And sometimes we don't even know if we're online in one aspect or what's offline. Can I ask you a question? Yeah, sure. Would you like me to call you? Do I call you J.C.? Or do I call you the dragon? Well, here's my question to you is just taking a guess. What character do you think the dragon is?

Starting point is 00:38:27 Well, because you are wearing comfortable clothing and a ball cap and indoors. And glasses with no lenses. But those are tools. And, you know, this is a podcast can be a very fun thing where it can be like a very stiff thing or some combination of the two. So I'm guessing that this is a combination of your character one. You showed up on time. You did everything you needed to get all your system going, right? You're there. I'm here. We got glasses on. We're character one. We're comfortable. And character one is never comfortable. Character one is always trying to achieve more, more, more. So I'm going to say that's your little character three. And I don't think you would do this if it were not fun. And who goes by the dragon? I mean, the dragons,

Starting point is 00:39:14 there's a story there, right? So that's going to be the fun boy. And my guess is that you're doing this because you care about humanity. So you care about the bigger picture of how can you use your voice in combining conversations with other voices in order to help other people think about who they are and what they are and how to be in the world in a more comfortable way. So I'm guessing that's your character for. So I'm guessing unless I really make you mad, I'm not going to see your character too today. But I think one, three, and four are working together in you. I think you're more of a whole brain kind of guy. Yeah. Well, you got that right. So by choice, my democracy is run by character four, I guess you could say. But it works very, very well with character one. Definitely transcend character two.

Starting point is 00:40:03 And I would assume that I, when I'm on the dance floor, character three is there sometimes, you know, as well. We hope so. That's right. One of the members in our group this morning asked a question, and she was talking about, ask her what the strategy is, if we have not experienced the unfair advantage of living a whole brain life. And you're going to explain that now. We came to the conclusion that just simply becoming aware of the four characters is invaluable because it's like it adds options. So let's talk about that. What is whole brain living? When you look at the anatomy of the brain, and we're just

Starting point is 00:40:40 of the neuroanatomy, anatomy of the brain. The mammalian nervous system develops from the bottom up, and let's say you have a sophistication level of a spinal cord or some kind of a creature that has segmentation. Then on top of that, new tissue gets added on top, and that would be adding a medulla. We've heard of a medulla, and the medulla then essentially becomes the brain of the tissue before. And then the kinks get worked out, and that streamlines. And then a system might say, let's create a new species. we add on a ponds and a cerebellum, and now we're going to have reptiles. And reptiles are going to be pretty much on-off switches. I'm hungry.

Starting point is 00:41:19 I eat. I'm done with that. I want a mate. I'm done with that. And so then that gets streamlined into these different little reptiles. And then new tissue gets added on top. And that's the difference between the reptile and the mammal. And the mammal has the new added-on tissue called the limbic tissue.

Starting point is 00:41:37 And this is going to be a new higher level of information processing of what's down below. So we then streamline between that limbic or emotional tissue. And then the human adds on thinking tissue on top, our higher cerebral cortex. So our higher cerebral cortex tissue is designed to regulate and modulate the tissue below it, which is the emotion of that hemisphere. So the right hemisphere is going to be bringing. in, it's part of the fight or flight system, the emotional limbic tissue is fight or flight. Do I see it as a threat? Do I see it as a danger? If so, what is my response? And I think it's really important

Starting point is 00:42:18 that people recognize and think about what is your response when you reach trigger? If you move into emotional trigger, do you make yourself big and loud and or do you shrink away? Do you hide? Or do you just freeze or do you run away? What do you do? And I think it's really important to think about that because that brings awareness to that level of I'm emotionally triggered, boom, what do I do? But it's important to recognize that cells run in circuits. And once a circuit gets triggered, then it's going to run its loop. But from the beginning of an emotional loop to the end of that emotional loop, it's literally less than 90 seconds. So as you're observing yourself and when you get become emotionally triggered, think about your own natural patterning because that's patterned in

Starting point is 00:43:07 yourself. And we can actually become really aware of that and then raise the threshold higher to what is actually going to hit that trigger in order for me to have my emotional reactivity. Anyway, so as we look at these two modules of cells of the emotion, the right hemisphere emotion is going to be right here right now. So it's going to be, what does it feel like to be in the present moment. What does it feel like right now? What is the temperature of the air? What does it feel like to have my clothes on? What does it feel like to have my glasses on my face? What does it feel like to be me in this moment? What does it feel like when I dive into water and I feel the pressure of the water against my body? Most of us don't even think about the pressure against the body, but unless you're sensitive,

Starting point is 00:43:51 hyper-sensitive to it, or aware of it. What does it feel like to have that pressure? What is the temperature of the water, maybe deep versus maybe high. What does it feel like to be wet? Wetness is a feeling in the present moment. What does it feel like to be wet? So that's the right here right now, limbic tissue of the right hemisphere. The left hemisphere is going to take all that information. It's also alarm, alarm, alert, alert, but it's going to bring that information in from the present moment, step into our past experience and say, does this feel familiar at all? And is this something that I see is safe and I can move toward, or do I see it as alarm, alarm, alert, alert, it's a threat, it's a danger, I got to fight or flee. So that's that circuitry.

Starting point is 00:44:35 And also in that left emotional tissue are all our deep emotions from our past, which means all our pain from our past, all our trauma from the past is going to be in that left hemisphere group of cells, as well as our craving. So addictions are in that group of cells. may have them go offline and you don't have any drive anymore in order to pursue an addiction. So these two groups of cells, these two emotional groups of cells are similar anatomically, but very different in what they process. And then the thinking tissue in the right here, right now, right hemisphere, it's open, it's in the present, it's big as the universe, it's connected to all that is.

Starting point is 00:45:18 I don't begin and end at the, am I where my skin meets air? I'm literally as big as universe, atoms and molecules connected to the atoms and molecules everywhere. And in the absence of the left hemisphere that's all about right, wrong, and good and bad, and language and fixation on things, I'm just open to the possibility of. And I have this sense of awe and glee that, oh, my God, I'm alive. Oh, my God. Look at these collection of cells.

Starting point is 00:45:47 Oh, my God. What a wonder. I mean, this is a wonder. And if you can't connect to the one. wonder what you are and live with that as a part of who you are, you're really missing a magnificent part of the essence of being human because it's just thrilled that you're alive at all. So that's what's going on in the right thinking. It feels like love. It feels and it's nurturing and it's open to possibility and it's connected. It's the humanity of what we are. We are one human family because it

Starting point is 00:46:15 doesn't see those boundaries. And then the left hemisphere thinking rational part comes online and it says, okay, I have to take this bundle of what I am as an organic masterpiece and I have to relate it to the external world because I don't live alone here and I have needs and I have relationships and I need to figure out with language. How do I communicate what's going on? What am I thinking? What am I feeling? What's important to me internally so that I can interrelate myself with that external world. I can fit myself inside of the social norm. I can have relationships with other people. and I can get married and have children and be a positive contributing member of society. So we have these four very distinctive groups of cells that each have very specific personalities.

Starting point is 00:47:04 You've got me taking notes here. We're going to be able to edit this. I almost would leave this here because, you know, I just forgot that I was involved in this podcast for a second because I was just taking notes. Quick question. Considering the science that says that technically, were supposedly, we have 95% of our brain operates on a subconscious level and 5% conscious. So if we just consider that, that we're primarily running some sort of regularly scheduled

Starting point is 00:47:32 program, which is where the difficulty lies in accomplishing all of these things, because consciousness has a lot to do with mindfulness and present moment thinking. Have you ever considered if our right brain plays a bigger role in consciousness than your left brain? I think that there are four very specific types of conscious. And each of the four modules of cells, they're good at something. So if I'm in the part of my, and I would say, I would say instead of 95% is conscious, I'd say 75% is unconscious, because 25% is going to be that left thinking module of cells that science believes is consciousness. As far as the medical world was concerned, I was not conscious because I had no language and I had no functional ability to communicate with the external world. Well, I was

Starting point is 00:48:21 communicating with the external world. They just didn't know how to read my sign. But if I'm burying my head underneath my sheets when they turn on the light, I think there's a message there. So are they being conscious enough to pick up, oh, every time we turn on the light, she buries her head. It must not feel comfortable. So if 25% of our brain, that left thinking rational portion of our brain is the conscious part, and this is, this goes back to Carl Young, And we look at the four primary archetypes. That character one, part of who I am as self, that was the conscious part. But in order for the self to decide that it was going to take the hero's journey,

Starting point is 00:48:59 then it had to let go of that part of who it was. And as it quieted that ego part of me and my life and all that I am and all that I have, as we shift, then we face the monsters. And the monsters are in that left hemisphere emotional system, because it says, oh my God, you set me down, I'm going to die. And kind of, I am going to die because that's where I exist. I'm a tiny little group of cells inside of that. And it's like all this fear about, I got to protect myself.

Starting point is 00:49:28 I can't do that. I can't. I can't. I can't. I can't. I can't. I don't want to. I don't want to.

Starting point is 00:49:32 I don't know all that. Then as we quiet that and we calm that as we step out of that left hemisphere consciousness, then we go through what I went through more or less with the stroke. The left hemisphere quietes down, goes offline. And then the right hemisphere, cells have a completely different way of being. They're also consciousness. But that what I call Character 3 being of the right emotional limbic group of cells is experiential. So it's the part of me that wants to use my hands. It wants to be creative. It wants to be artistic. I'm a whole thing. I'm

Starting point is 00:50:03 not a part. And I do. And I want to do it with you because we're all the part of the collective whole. It's more fun when you share. That is a level of consciousness. And then quiet that down because that's still in action. When you quiet, I had that down and you're on your deathbed and everything else has slipped away, what are you left with? And you're left with this piece of awareness that I was alive. Oh my gosh, I lived this life. I had time. I had time on this planet.

Starting point is 00:50:31 I had relationships. I had this massive conglomeration as an organic being. What a blessing this life was. And then it disappears. So all four of these consciousnesses are just vying for the microphone during normal. life. And if we can be conscious and aware enough to quiet what's going on in that left hemisphere, and we open into the present moment and really have the experience, there's just this beautiful pause. So I kind of see this relationship between the two hemispheres as the push

Starting point is 00:51:05 of the left brain, go, go, go, do, do, do, accomplish, accomplish, more, more, more. And then the pause is the right hemisphere breath that comes in and says, okay, I'm going to pause. I'm going to rejuvenate. I'm going to refuel. And in this present moment, I'm going to just have this pause, this awareness, this different form of consciousness. So I think that we have these four very different forms of consciousness and then we're dead. And that is a consciousness be in the absence of any of the biology. So that's how I think. Oh, is that the way you think about it? I was just thinking what it must have been like to just even date you, when you were in, you know, did you show up with a brain in your hand?

Starting point is 00:51:49 You know, what was that like? Talk about intimidating, you know. Yeah. You know, it's funny. My mom is a wildlife rehabilitator. So if you ever came over to my house, when I was young, like a pigeon would fly on your head. So, you know, that's really just wonder about that experience. Oh, I love that.

Starting point is 00:52:07 So your mom and I would be very good friends because I would say, if your animals don't make it, I'd love to look inside. Yeah, exactly. And that would be a first date. So just quickly on this, a couple of hot topics right now, gender identity. Also things like people that are experiencing bipolar. If we look at the breakdown of the four characters, and by the way, this is an opinion-free show. I never share my opinion.

Starting point is 00:52:36 I just like to observe things and point things out, not to look at anything as a superpower or a problem. What's going on there? In the brain, scientifically, from a neuroanatomist perspective, what's going on when somebody doesn't associate with what society would say they are? Or when somebody has like bipolar episodes, are they just getting stuck in one side without being able to transfer to the other? When you look at those types of things, how do you interpret that with the characters? So when you look at bipolar, you look at schizophrenia, you look at OCD, you have to go to the level of the cells and you have to say

Starting point is 00:53:17 which cells are communicating with which cells, with which chemicals, and in what quantities of those chemicals. And so let's say my brother's brain is wired in a way that his ability to experience hallucination is turned on. Hallucination is not turned on in the normal brain. It is not turned on in my brain. I don't hallucinate. The closest thing I do is I dream at night. And oftentimes, people with schizophrenia cannot distinguish between when they're dreaming and when they're awake, because the dreaming circuit, the ability to hallucinate is on and it doesn't, it's malfunctioning. The toggle switch isn't working, right? So he's actually wired differently than I am. In cases of OCD, so first of all, the cerebral cortex of the human is six layers

Starting point is 00:54:07 thick. We look at it, we see all those convolutions and we think, oh, that's the cerebral cortex. Yes. But it is not a single layer of cells. It's like six layers thick. In one area, it's normal for like the cells in layer four to go to the pyramidal cells in layer six of that specific area. But the cells back here in layer two may come in and inhibit that layer four. So it gets very complex. So that's why we have the mystery of the brain. It is so complex. But at a cellular level, cells wire together. If I'm OCD, then I'm not experienced the normal inhibition on the groups of cells that has those memories that makes me go back and have repetition, repetition, repetition. So that group of cells is overactive. And it's almost kind of like a seizure activity. Seizure

Starting point is 00:54:55 activity, when someone is experiencing seizure, a group of cells or individual focal cell has a really low level of threshold. And so, which means that it takes less stimulation to send that into action potential, which means stimulating its target tissue. And so if I get really excited, then the cells around me get really excited. And then the cells around those get really excited. And then we're having a grand mall before you know it. And everybody's in this experience of a seizure. So, so everything goes back to the cells. So whenever you look at any brain that is processing any information differently from normal, then you have to go to which cells are being stimulated by which chemicals and what quantities of those chemicals. And then medications are designed or

Starting point is 00:55:43 natural substances that can come in and more normalize that system to improve the outcome. I totally resonate with this. One thing that is just super fascinating to me right now to ponder is what's happening in the world right now is we have this advancement of technology and artificial intelligence. And I've had Donald Hoffman on my show. I've had this amazing guy, Rizwan Verk, who wrote the simulation hypothesis. So I always like to entertain the idea that none of this is even real, which helps me not take everything so serious, hence the shirt that says breaking news, I don't care, just for fun. But I want to hear your perspective on artificial intelligence because one of the things that's scaring everybody is that it will not only be able to

Starting point is 00:56:34 replicate performance-wise the human brain, but then, you know, supersede us and make us irrelevant. Do you think that the four characters could be duplicated or do you think that's what makes humans unduplicated and unique? Well, okay, I have a lot to say about all that. First of all, we exist in a state of mutation. We are not a finished form. Okay. That's important. The whole brain living is the biological goal of the brain, human brain. I do believe that. Because what that means is that each of the groups of cells will not only be distinguishable and differentiated to us, but they will be negotiating in conversation with one another and we will live a much more peaceful life because we know and we have a choice in which part of ourselves is going to be in any moment. Do I want to freak out

Starting point is 00:57:21 out of what all is going on in the political world? Or do I want to say, that's happening. I can't change that, but I don't, so I don't have to hook my heart into that, and I don't have to freak out, and I don't have to complain to the whole world about, well, la, la, la, la, and worry about it all. I don't want to run that circuitry inside of my brain. So I live a very peaceful life. I'm paying attention. Yes, I'm staying up on things, but I don't give it my power. Because as soon as I give that that, the character two part of me, as soon as that gets hooked in, then I'm in my little Jill and they win. So Whole Brain Living is my way to sanity and a really healthy life, no matter what is going on around. So now let's look at computers. So, and I'm of the age. I graduated in 77.

Starting point is 00:58:05 By the middle 90s, we were starting to use computers all the time. Everybody had the new big desktops. And now what we're doing is humanity is now we're creating a data storage bank of downloading each one of us. And then we all have one, right? We all have a computer. We all interfacing with this new brain type of thing that's very productive and very great. And then the internet comes online.

Starting point is 00:58:29 So it's not just what's going on inside of my brain, but now we're connecting our brain. So we're bringing in a whole new level of machine consciousness to our workforce. And up to that point, it's human driven because that's what we are doing. We are feeding it. We are taking from it. Okay. We are in the game changer.

Starting point is 00:58:50 And this game change in the AI conscious level is as different for humanity as learning how to read. Because as soon as learning how to read happened, I open up libraries of information into my brain instead of just living in the present moment, probably as a peasant in the world, functioning like whatever my life is right here right now. That's how big my world is. So as soon as reading came mainstream, and I didn't have to go to a priest, in order to be read to and to gain new information, now all of a sudden we're out of control, right? Oh, my God, it's the end of humanity. People are reading. So here we are. We're reading. We're stored because now we're actually taking all this information in for ourselves. So that's happening. And so here we are. And AI is now reaching a level of being able to scan information by the enormous volume. Fyfer that out, bring it together, filter it to a very specific question, and then it's creating something based on the information that it's given. So I'm excited. I think this is a fantastic time to be

Starting point is 00:59:56 alive. And it's really interesting because of the American politics that are going on right now. We are in this incredible state of upheaval. And my little character too, that left emotional tissue wants to just be petrified, but I'm not going to buy into that. What can I control? What do I want to do with myself during this period of time? Because this is the, it's like a new birth. What do I want me to be in 10 years? And so how do I make myself flexible and adaptable to what's coming at me now? Because that's the only dance I can do. You know, somebody said, probably lots of people have said, AI is not going to replace humans, but humans who master AI will replace humans who do not master AI. So it game on. It's like reading. If you don't know how to read,

Starting point is 01:00:50 how you're going to function in the world. Well, in this new world, you've got to figure out how to do the dance with AI. Don't be afraid of it. All my professor friends and my friends who are ill and they're going to be talking to, you know, AI docs, I say, bring it on. I would so much rather have an AI doctor, take in all my stats, because, oh my gosh, you know, and I teach medical school. And I say to my friends, you know, in every class, there's a doctor who's at the bottom of the class, right? I would rather have AI put its genius for my diagnostics, and then let's figure out with a human about how we're going to actually fix the situation.

Starting point is 01:01:26 So the fear that we're having around AI, yeah, you know, I live, I wake up every morning and I open my eyes and I look at my dogs and I think, oh, my God. nobody pushed the nuclear button. We made it. You know, I made it another day. I made it through the night. And so I can focus on the fact that, oh, my God, what's AI going to do? These robots are going to kill us.

Starting point is 01:01:47 And it's like, if they kill us, they kill us, right? So live your life now in a really healthy, happy way that is adaptable and flexible, and that's a choice. And how do I get that choice, in my opinion, is through whole brain living. because I know that part of me and I know I can I can choose that instead of my fear response. Not that my fear response isn't important. It is. But I don't want to give it the microphone and how I'm really going to live my life.

Starting point is 01:02:15 Give it the microphone. Well, nobody's getting out alive, right? Nobody's going to out alive. When you spend time worrying about something, you spend no time living, you know. And what I love about whole brain living is that it just reminds you that no matter what happens, including the day that we find out that Donald Hoffman is right, that this is just a game. If we reach any sort of a circumstance, we still have this blessing of being able to choose how we're going to lead the perception of it and the responses.

Starting point is 01:02:50 So what I would say to anybody that learns about the four characters, just knowing about them, this podcast does not do it justice. And just reading the book doesn't do it justice. I just recommend that you get to know your characters. And then also, what's interesting about the characters is I found myself recognizing certain traits of each character that weren't necessarily mine because I had been programmed by my mother father, teacher, preacher, society, which is continuously going on, paying forward of evolution.

Starting point is 01:03:21 So that's another fun component of this is my favorite word in the world, which is a practice of cognitive distancing, which is how I move into my brain huddle, by the way, which is just one of the tools is no matter what happens, positive, negative, anything, including everything that you've said, I always respond, or I allow myself to respond by saying, hmm, and that is spelled by the way, HMM, which stands for, I haven't made up my mind yet. I hear you, but I'm going to have a huddle over here. I hope that you don't mind waiting for me right now. We're going to have a little bit of a chat and I'm going to make sure that four, you know, is in control here, you know, and two is in support or one is in support of it.

Starting point is 01:04:08 So it's kind of funny to look at it that way, but we do get to choose that, don't we? So we get to process it. And so many people will say, oh, no, no, there's just one me. And it's like, no, if you really analyze your response, your reactivity to different situations, you're going to see you're making, you're making unconscious decisions. That's right. And if you're going to make a decision, why not let it be a conscious decision? Can I say something about us being a game?

Starting point is 01:04:35 So this is how I believe that, and I'm an anatomist, a biologist, I'm an organic thinker, I say. To me, the whole meaning of life from the universe, let's say the universe is the universe, and it is what it is, and everything's in flow and it's blissful euphoria, it's that sense of love. It's all that it is, wonder of all that it is. And what it has done is it has created a semi-permeable membrane through which some things can pass from the universe in and some things can pass out. But because of that semi-permeable membrane, there's a differentiation now between the universe and the life of the cell.

Starting point is 01:05:20 And as soon as it does that, the life of the cell, that membrane has all these little receptors, stippled with all these receptors. so that it can stimulate and be stimulated by the universe. So to me, that's the point. The point of the universe, the purpose of life, is to stimulate and be stimulated by. But it wasn't satisfied as just being a little single cell. Then the cell got so big that it couldn't maintain life anymore,

Starting point is 01:05:49 so it figured out how could it multiply itself, divide the DNA, and repackage itself, and become a multicellular organism. And so then these tiny little multicellular organism started out. And so I look at us as humanity after eons of time. We are nothing more than more and more and more higher different levels of stimulation and differentiation. So by the time we are human beings, we have this perception of self in relationship to the external world. them because now we're so skewed to the left hemisphere consciousness that I, me, my ego is at the

Starting point is 01:06:29 center of the universe of the life I'm living. Well, in the absence of that, though, take that away, step to the right of that and recognize I am this biological masterpiece with all these cells that do all these things. And if to me, I can't do that and not feel the wonder and the awe and the gratitude that I exist at all. I love wonder and awe. It's interesting. interesting because it's the difference between observing and participating. It seems like when we go into right brain, we just become radically acceptant of the wonder and awe, and we don't need to label it and things like that. We don't judge it as right or wrong or good or bad. It simply is what it is. It just is. You mentioned this before that nothing is a thing. I always ask my daughter, I go,

Starting point is 01:07:18 you know what my favorite thing to do is? And she goes, what? I say no thing. I just love playing the game. So this has just been such a treat. And I love good conversation and you're just somebody that like if you ever need somebody to like clean up around the house or something, just let me know. I'd love to just spend some time with you and polish up your colorful things all over your house. I just think you're wonderful. And I think that we're very, very fortunate that you went through what you went through

Starting point is 01:07:46 because that's where this work comes from. What is next for you? First of all, you made TED Talks famous. sort of, right? And then, and then you... So now it's really, you know, because I'm looking at this time in particular, people are, it's at a whole new level of disruption of mental health, right? We don't even know what to do now.

Starting point is 01:08:07 When we were in the, in COVID, everybody just moved in their little character too, or not. And if we moved into our character too, we started drinking more, we started doing more things. We were, have all these levels of depression. We were engaging in bad behaviors. were hurtful to our beings because we were terrified. They were terrified because there's this bug out there that could kill us. So that's one thing.

Starting point is 01:08:28 But now, because of this enormous world-level political upheaval of the U.S. into the world and AI at the same time, same juncture, I'm a believer that everything they're doing at the level of our government is to bring AI into it in order to make it a different level of consciousness type of government. And if they achieve that, no question, whichever country does that first will lead the world. Now, it's not going to be a compassionate, open, loving, kind world, but it's going to be very, very efficient, which is what that left hemisphere does. So what I'm doing is I am bringing whole brain living into conversation everywhere and running courses. I'm just starting running courses.

Starting point is 01:09:16 It's a five-hour program. So it's five hours with me, 75 minutes a week for four weeks. and it's like, how do I master my own four characters so that I can live a life of peace and be adaptable and flexible and actually be happy? So that's what I'm doing, because the need is just so great. And you can clearly see, I love this material, and it excites me every time I talk about it, because I want us to become a healthier people. And we can be a healthier people no matter what is going on outside of ourselves. Because my world is inside of my own cranial vault.

Starting point is 01:09:52 So when I can master what's going on inside of my own head and you don't have the power to move me into my pain or my fear or my anger, then how do I bring the most healthy part of what I am as three quarters of my brain to live a really fulfilling life and make a positive contribution? That's what I'm doing. You know, I'm just going to threaten all the listeners right now, which I've never done before and say that if you don't like do something with this information, I'm going to come find you. Is this course out now? It's going to launch in June. What will it be called and how do we find it? It'll be called Whole Brain Living. It'll be called Whole Brain Living.

Starting point is 01:10:30 And I'm actually in the process of creating a process. If anybody's interested in this information, send me an email. I'm very friendly. Yeah. I'm at DRJLLL, Dr. Jill at Dr. Jill Taylor.com. I'll give you the information. Soon it'll be up on a new website, but you just caught me at this juncture of everything's in the moment.

Starting point is 01:10:51 of change. Awesome. Well, what a wonderful treat this. You're delightful. You're an interesting character. You know, you're open. You're open to possibilities. You're exploring new ideas. And it's like, okay, well, I'm willing to think, hmm. I'm willing to, hmm. And, you know, it's always fun for me when people are willing to home. Well, I didn't have a stroke, but I've, I've had my own version of going through some stuff that I care not to do anymore. And I learned my lesson, you know. Jill, thank you so much. much for being on the show. There's going to be so many valuable nuggets that come out of this. And, you know, what I always like to say to everybody is learning is just another form of distraction in the absence of action. So if you'll learn something today, give it away because

Starting point is 01:11:36 it's only then that it'll stay. You're like, do something with it. It's not a mistake that you heard this conversation today. So, Jill, thanks so much. And you have a wonderful day. Thank you. It's been a pleasure. Thank you, everybody.

Makes Sense - with Dr. JC Doornick - Making Sense of Whole Brain Living? With Dr. Jill Bolte Taylor - Episode 83

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