58 Quotes by Jill Bolte Taylor

To be compassionate is to move into the right here, right now with an open heart consciousness and a willingness to be supportive.

We actually do generate some new cells, some new neurons. So in the case of trauma there is the potential for there to be some new neural development which gives the person the chance to create new circuitry.

For many of us, once we have made a decision, then we are attached to that decision forever. I have found that often the last thing a really dominating left hemisphere wants is to share its limited cranial space with an open-minded right counterpart!

Learning to read again was by far the hardest thing I had to do. I don’t know if those cells in my brain had died or what, but I had no recollection that reading was something I had ever done before, and I thought the concept was ridiculous.

Yelling louder does not help me understand you any better! Don’t be afraid of me. Come closer to me. Bring me your gentle spirit. Speak more slowly. Enunciate more clearly. Again! Please, try again. S-l-o-w down. Be kind to me. Be a safe place for me. See that I am a wounded animal, not a stupid animal. I am vulnerable and confused. Whatever my age, whatever my credentials, reach for me. Respect me. I am in here. Come find me.

Then it crosses my mind, ‘But I’m a very busy woman! I don’t have time for a stroke!’

At the most elementary level of information processing, stimulation is energy, and my brain needed to be protected, and isolated from obnoxious sensory stimulation, which it perceived as noise.

I need to remember, however, that there are enormous gaps between what I know and what I think I know. I learned that I need to be very wary of my storyteller’s potential for stirring up drama and trauma.

To experience pain may not be a choice, but to suffer is a cognitive decision.