More Over There Than Over Here

i have been putting a HUGE amount of energy in over at Secret Women’s Business Network getting things up and running and putting my passion to video (no, not amateur pr0n!).

At the same time I have been reading in those down times when I need to rest. Just having finished Jill Bolte Taylor’s book My Stroke of Insight I am still turning over the ideas she presents in that book.

Firstly, I was very very pleased to see that her ordeal has led her to reach the same conclusions that I have about emotions, actions and choice. It took a stroke for her, and for me it took Al-Anon and being married to an alchoholic.

How you feel after 90 seconds of feeling an emotion, is your choice. The first 90 seconds are the physiological responses programmed into us in the most primitive part of our minds. After 90 seconds that has passed and if you are still feeling that feeling it is because you are choosing to.

This is the bit invariably when people will say “but I don’t choose to be like that, I just AM like that” and close their minds. In the past I tried so hard to help people realise that you can change, I know you can change because I have done it. I have seen my father do it. All it takes is a conscious choice and a lot of practice….and I mean a lot.

Jill Bolte Taylor learned how to do it because the part of her brain that would go into the negative aspects of emotions after the initial event, was damaged and so she  could not engage in the old thinking cycle that she once had (now she resurrected that part of her mind, but keeps it in check by choosing to think of other things when she wants to break the thinking cycle).

Now when people read this I know some will have turned off already. They fear change, but I loved Jill’s assertion that change and chaos is the first step in creativity. If you shy away from it, you will be denying yourself the opportunity to be better than you are now. To be happier than you are now.

I wish I could contact people who have gone through this process, so we can get together and talk about the amazing things that have happened since deciding to take control of how we think. I am inspired to write to Jill and applaud her in her efforts to both further the study into brains and mental illness, and her wish that we all see that we so have the majority of control in our lives. In driving the machine that is our brain, we can choose to put the brake on or to speed up, not it. We can choose to be as happy as we want, in any situation, at any time (apart from those 90 second periods when we regress to our most primitive selves).

Secondly I am becoming more and more fascinated with the brain itself. My hobby is turning into almost an obsession. I crave to really understand how the combination of chemicals and electrical impulses make us…us. My Multiple Sclerosis has done spots of damage in places in my brain. I am working hard to move those functions elsewhere, just as Jill did.

Never give up on anyone that has brain injury, when you read Jill’s book you will see how lucid she was at times during the stroke but was unable to communicate. The 40 points in the appendix on how to treat someone who has had a stroke or damage are telling, that pity on condescension has no place in treatment, only respect and compassion.

Look I could rave on and on about this because it really is the secret to happiness. Open your mind to the possibility that you just might be able to feel good at will. Read this book and others on how science is slowly seeing how the brain works. Make a decision to make a small change today….. see how it goes.