This Harvard researcher had a stroke that changed her life - in a really good way!

Isn’t it extraordinary how often things happen to people who have studied the very occurrence? In this case, Dr. Jill Bolte Taylor, a researcher from Harvard University and a trained neuroanatomist, had a stroke. Taylor, who had studied the brain, now had huge challenges in her own brain. Her stroke meant she lost half of everything she had learned. As hard as it was, Taylor had not just recovered but had to learn about her own brain and understand what had happened to it.


Her story is an inspiring one. Taylor lost the ‘left’ side of her brain which is the more thinking brain. She kept the right side, the more visual brain. She learned to differentiate between left and right brain activities, consciously. She says this is something we never do. We use our brains without thinking. Taylor had to start ‘thinking’ each time she used her brain, and what her thoughts led her to was a new consciousness.


By having her visual brain only, her world became fairly silent. It also becomes less critical. It was whole and beautiful, without interrupted thought patterns. It was one of mindfulness and beauty, an almost meditative space. Taylor speaks about Eastern religions where a state of consciousness is achieved through silence. She felt she had achieved this state, without working at it.


Of course, Taylor wanted her brain back, she wanted to get back to a life of normality. She wanted language and thought and learning. She underwent a huge rehabilitation process and today she is back studying, learning and teaching, but through her own stroke she learned about the left and right brain, thought processes, the beauty of the visual left side of the brain, and how to achieve a state of peace, calm and mindfulness.