One bleak, typically New England winter day in 1996, Jill Bolte Taylor, Ph.D., a thirty-seven-year-old Harvard brain scientist and the star of the aforementioned video, woke up with a throbbing headache. Thinking that exercise would help alleviate the pain, she hopped onto her cardio glider. When that offered no relief she got into the shower. Stepping under what seemed to be a torrent of water, her sensory perception changed. She was struck by a sense of awe as the physical border of her body seemed to melt into her surroundings. “What a bizarre living being I am. Life! I am life! I am a sea of water bound inside this membranous pouch”.
She was having a stroke.
Strangely, she didn’t panic.
“How often does a brain scientist get to study her own brain from the inside out?” she asks in her now-famous lecture taped at the 2008 TED conference in California.
As she was “enfolded by a blanket of tranquil euiphoria”, the left side of her brain, the control center of logic, order, language, and “that constant chatter that had attached me to the details of my life”, began shutting down. Until that December day in 1996, she had been a work-focused, type-A scientists who spent a lifetime living in thoughts. But now, with the left side of her brain temporarily disabled, she awoke to the peace and grace and energy that reside in the right side of her brain. And her life was profoundly changed.
When you listen to Bolte Taylor speak, which I really hope you will do, you will be struck immediately by her sense of boundless energy. (You may also be struck by her almost spiritual sense of grace and wisdom and joy, but for now, let’s just focus on the energy part). Her message is clear: If you want that energy, and all the other wondrous feelings that go with it, you simply have to do more to exercise that often quiet right brain of yours.
HOW TO AWAKEN CREATIVE ENERGY
The good news is that you don’t have to actually go out and have a stroke to tap into the right side of your brain. You just have to work at quieting the left half, where past experiences and future worries can create the negative, judgmental voices that weigh us down, tire our spirit, and limit our potential. Once you learn to access the right hemisphere of your brain – crayons, anyone? – you can awaken creative energy and experience a deep sense of inner peace.
The right side of the brain is the part that lives only in the now. It’s not tired. It’s not fatigued. It’s not exhausted. It’s just in the now*. And one way to tap into the power of now is to reach back to your grade school days. Which brings me back to the crayons.
Pick up a pack of crayons and color your world periwinkle blue, pine green, or scarlet red. Don’t judge. Don’t analyze. Suspend logic. Let go. Vary the strokes and shades; let your imagination get carried away in Crayola. One you let your left brain nap, you can awaken the artist within. You may want to shift from crayons to charcoal or paint, or maybe your artistic medium is clay or straw. It doesn’t’ matter. By merely making an effort to quiet those limiting, negative inner voices and listening to your creative instinct, you can shift into a really positive energy zone.
The more you practice, the easier it will be to overcome stress, unlock your creative power, and live in the here and now.
Do that, and I guarantee you’ll feel energized.
