"Whole Brain Living"

Jill Bolte Taylor offers a more dynamic framework for understanding our personalities, but the numbering system for the four characters doesn't lend itself to MBTI style populization.

• The TED talk “My Stroke of Insight” that I gave in Monterey, California, was the first to ever go viral on the Internet. As a result TED and I became globally famous simultaneously.
• * it was fascinating for me to watch my brain systematically break down, through the eyes of a neuroscientist. The damage to the left hemisphere of my brain was so traumatic that I predictably lost the ability to speak and understand language. In addition, the chattering “monkey mind” of my left brain went silent. With that internal dialogue circuitry shut off, I sat in the center of a completely silent brain for five full weeks. I even lost that little voice of my left-brain ego-self that could say, “I am an individual, separate from the whole. I am Dr. Jill Bolte Taylor.” In the absence of my chatty and linear-thinking left brain, I stepped into the awe-inspiring experiential sensations of the present moment, and it was beautiful there... Instead of a physical being, I experienced myself to be an energy ball that was as big as the universe. Shifted into this consciousness of my right brain, I perceived the essence of myself as enormous and expansive, and my spirit soared free, like a great whale gliding through a sea of silent euphoria.
• * the realization that we have the power to turn our emotional circuitry on and off by choice. In fact, the same principle underlying our bodies’ neurological reflexes.. Of course, we can either consciously or unconsciously choose to rethink the thought that triggered the emotional circuit to run and stay hurt, angry, sad, or whatever for longer than 90 seconds. ... If there is no repeated trigger, the emotional circuit will run its course and stop after the 90 seconds that it takes for the chemistry to neutralize.
• This journey we will take into your brain is reminiscent of Joseph Campbell’s classic monomyth that describes the steps a hero must take to fulfill his Hero’s Journey. In the language of the brain, the hero must step out of his own ego-based left-brain consciousness into the realm of his right brain’s unconsciousness.
• * I learned the hard way that we each have four distinctive groups of cells, divided between our two brain hemispheres, that generate four consistent and predictable personalities. Neuroanatomically these four groups of cells make up the left and right thinking centers of our higher cerebral cortex, as well as our left and right emotional centers of our lower limbic system. Collectively, I call these personalities the Four Characters.
• The major structures of the limbic system are mirrored in each hemisphere such that we have two amygdalae, two hippocampi, and two anterior cingulate gyri, among others. This means we have two separate modules for emotional processing (Characters 2 and 3).
• At a neuroanatomical level, when we experience conflicting feelings it is because we have two emotional groups of cells that are completely separate from one another in that they do not share any cell bodies.<> Equally important, these two emotional modules of cells process incoming information in predictably different ways. Providing we understand that our left brain processes information linearly and in sequence, we will see in detail how our left-brain emotional module is designed to bring in information about the present moment and then compare that to any emotional experience we have had in the past. As a result, our left-brain emotional Character 2 is programmed to protect us from anything that has a history of hurting us.
• Our right-brain emotional Character 3 is exactly the opposite in that it processes present-moment experiences in the present moment.
• * Myers-Briggs: This profile, labeled by psychologist and temperament-typing expert David Keirsey as the Scientist, clearly depicted a character inside of me, but I was that character only part of the time. When hanging out with my friends, I was an ESFP Performer type—Extroverted, Sensing, Feeling, and Perceiving... The Myers-Briggs did not accommodate for different life scenarios,.. This sparked in me a lifelong curiosity and drive to find a psychological typing system that was more anatomically accurate.
• At any moment in time, both hemispheres have cells that are active, but opposing hemisphere cell groups dance between dominance and inhibition. <> In this way, one hemisphere has the power to inhibit the function of the comparable cells in the opposite hemisphere, dominating the function of that particular group of cells. For example, when we are focused on the words and meaning of what someone is saying (left brain), we tend to not be so focused on the inflection of their voice or the emotional content (right brain)
• Unfortunately, in response to the left-brain/right-brain craze, the strategy that many parents took to help their children get ahead was to expose them to programming that fit their natural dominance. .. over the last 40 years we have skewed our abilities toward the two extremes.
• the book Of Two Minds by Dr. Fredric Schiffer is a real eye-opener. It even addresses how our two hemisphere characters are so different that each may actually manifest unique aches and pains that the other does not acknowledge or exhibit.
• * the neurons in our left brain function linearly: they take an idea, compare that idea to the next idea, and then compare the by-product of those ideas to the next idea. Therefore our left brain has the ability to think sequentially... manifests for us temporality, the linear sense of time whereby we can separate past, present, and future.... our right hemisphere functions like a parallel processor, bringing in multiple streams of data that simultaneously reveal a single complex moment of experience. Our right brain manifests a rich composite of the right here, right now
• But just as a strict and productive Character 1 came back online with my left-brain thinking tissue, a pained and cautious Character 2 came back online with my left-brain emotional cellular network... If we want to evolve into our best selves and live our best lives, we must create a healthy relationship with our left-brain Character 2. We grow and thrive when we are brave enough to stand in the center of our own pain and listen to what it is trying to communicate.
• The ultimate goal is for your Four Characters to become so familiar with one another that they create healthy relationships among themselves... Teammates in any situation—like a sports team on the field or a team of colleagues at work—will call a quick “huddle” to assess a situation and strategize their next moves.
• Breathe / Recognize / Appreciate / Inquire / Navigate : to help you quickly remember the steps when the pressure is on and your Character 2’s stress circuitry is running on overdrive. In moments like those, when you can barely think because the chemicals of anxiety or fear are flooding through your bloodstream and overwhelming your circuitry, this B-R-A-I-N acronym can beam like a bright neon light,
• * it is worth noting that the Four Characters coincide distinctly with Carl Jung’s four major archetypes of the unconscious mind: Character 1—the Persona; Character 2—the Shadow; Character 3—the Animus/Anima; and Character 4—the True Self.
• But once the hero chooses to shed the rational, ego-based individuality of his left brain, he enters into the realm of his unconscious right brain, where he will meet the Anima/Animus, the androgynous nature of his soul. The hero cannot be both characters—his individual and collective selves—in the same moment. He must lay down the justice-demanding judgment of his dominating left brain (Characters 1 and 2) if he is to embody the merciful characters of his compassionate right brain (Characters 3 and 4).
• It is said that in that moment when the hero lays down the sword of his left-brain righteousness and ego, he is emancipated from his left-brain individuality, dissolving back into the cosmic consciousness of the universe from which he originated. Like the droplet returning to the sea, the hero is instantly enveloped by the blissful euphoria of the eternal love that his soul once knew before he was born.
• our left brain focuses on the details that distinguish one thing from another thing (trees), while our right brain focuses on the pixels that have no distinguishing characteristics and move as one (forest), as a part of the cosmic flow.
• I have named my recovered Left Thinking Character 1 “Helen” because she is hell on wheels and she gets stuff done.
• With this shift of focus toward our relationship with the external world as separate from ourselves, the consciousness of the eternal flow remains, but shifts into the background.
• Everything a Character 1 does is deliberate because if something is worth doing, it is worth doing well. Time has value, so Character 1s are not only punctual but often arrive a few minutes early.
• if we are brought up in an environment where our emotional alarm is routinely triggered, our Character 1 gets trained to be a Hard 1. If you are willing to explore the motivators underlying your Character 1, you may find that you are a Soft 1. But if your Character 1 has grown out of the stress and anxiety circuitry of your Character 2, your Character 1 may be more of a commander in chief than a team leader.
• Lurking just beyond success is the ominous sense of What’s next? And when a Hard 1 fails, they fail hard. <> Hard 1 workers, like Hard 1 leaders, function well in a highly organized environment.
• this part of our brain is specifically designed to create order out of the disorder in the world around us. In its most pure form, our Character 1 is not designed to express emotions. Instead, as we discussed in Part 1, our left-brain thinking tissue Character 1 has been added on top of the left-brain emotional tissue specifically to refine and temper our potentially disgruntled Character 2. As a result, our Character 1 can often be found parenting, supporting, or even disciplining our own Character 2.
• My left-brain emotional Character 2, on the other hand, was wiped clean like a motherboard and never recovered. Consequently, the trauma of the stroke forever stripped me of my emotional past.
• the primary distinction between the brain of the human versus other mammals is the addition of the thinking tissue of both our left-brain Character 1 and our right-brain Character 4.
• From a psychological perspective, our reptilian structures are all about our instinctual survival, and many of these circuits operate like on/off switches. Because these functions are necessary for our survival, the reptilian part of our brain is both rigid and compulsive, in that once a circuit is turned on, it will stay on until it is either satiated or exhausted.
• Your reflexive responses were a by-product of your reptilian brain and spinal cord connections that acted to swipe that creepy crawler off your body. Then almost immediately you probably felt an emotion like disdain flash through you. This is the ongoing one-two punch of these two different groups of circuits: the unconscious, automatic action of the brain stem immediately followed by an emotion that later infiltrates our consciousness.
• We do know that when the brain stem transfers its well-organized data up to the emotional tissue of our Characters 2 and 3, it is their job to modify and refine that data by streaming it through the filter of emotion. As we are feeling creatures who think, rather than thinking creatures who feel
• At a most basic level, it is the job of our amygdalae to conceptually ask moment by moment, “Am I safe?” This safety may be either physical or emotional... Because our two emotional systems simultaneously assess our external level of threat in opposite ways, we reap the combined benefits of both: the big picture of the right here, right now as well as our wisdom from past experience.
• * our right and left brains would forever evolve on separate yet parallel tracks of consciousness and exist in duality. Our right brain would evolve to be the home of our feminine, yin, and grace of the cosmic right here, right now, while our left brain would develop masculine, yang, and ego-centered traits based on our individuality and past experiences.
• * we are completely dependent on our emotional tissue, specifically the cells of our hippocampi (one in each hemisphere), to create memories. It is important to note that our amygdalae have an antagonistic relationship with our hippocampi, in that when our amygdalae sound the alarm, our hippocampi shut down and we are no longer capable of learning and memorizing new information because we are too busy managing an emergency. Imagine how impossible it would be for a child who is living with high stress (amygdala alert) to try to learn anything
• I like to think about our left-brain emotional Character 2 as our superhero because it was so mighty that it was willing to shift out of the known, away from the familiar, away from its connection with God, the Infinite Being, the cosmic consciousness—whatever you are comfortable calling it—to exist in a whole new realm of consciousness as an isolated individual. Our Character 2 sacrificed its own peace of heart so we could evolve.
• the cell bodies of our emotional brains are already in position and relatively well hooked up in circuits by the time we are born. As a result, we are wired to express ourselves emotionally as soon as we arrive in the external world. This is not true for our thinking cells. Although the cell bodies of our thinking characters have migrated into their position in the six-layer cortex by the time we are born, it will take years for those cells to interconnect. This is why it is so important that we purposefully stimulate the brains of our children with an enriched environment, early on.
• The ability of our brain to manufacture an experience of misery is a total art. We all hurt, and having the emotional capacity to experience true suffering is an amazing part of being alive. We just get into trouble when we spend too much time running that circuitry, believing that it is our truth, rather than realizing that it is simply a group of cells running a circuit. I feel pain. I am not the pain.
• * There is a mountain of neuroscience research that supports the idea that our left brain is the source of our happiness, and I agree with this completely. I do want to point out, however, that happiness is not the same as joy. Although both happiness and joy are positive emotions, they are very different psychologically and neuroanatomically. As many have observed, joy is cultivated from within. It comes when we make peace with who we are, why we are, and how we are, whereas happiness is contingent on external things, people, places, thoughts, and events.
• when our Character 2 is negatively triggered, because this is a part of our stress circuitry it tends to feel like a bolt of anxiety, fear, or emotional pain.
• Char 2: none of us came into this world with a manual about how to get it all right, and if we are to heal this part of ourselves, we must recognize when it shows up, love it in spite of itself, and use our other characters to listen to its needs and assure it that it is both valuable and safe.
• Our Character 2 is a part of our unconscious brain that may be unknown or outright rejected by our conscious Character 1. If you tend to keep your emotions under wraps, you may not recognize your Character 2 at all.
• Our Character 2 by nature is biased against people who are different from us. We feel safe around those who think and feel, and judge what is right and wrong, in the same way we do.
• Any fight between two Character 2s will never be resolved.
• Although our right brain might alert us to a danger, if we choose to listen to the louder rationalizing voice of our left-brain Character 1 instead, we may unwittingly step into trouble. A fabulous book on this subject is The Gift of Fear by Gavin de Becker.
• Character 3. It is not so much my emotions I am in touch with, as those are more the realm of my left-brain Character 2. My Character 3 is sensually experiential whether I am swimming in the thickness of water or swinging at a tennis ball with an expanded focus on all that is. <> I know I am in my right brain when I am feeling a sense of gratitude for anything at all,
• I believe that our right-brain emotional Character 3 is the same part of ourselves as Carl Jung’s archetype the Anima/Animus, which represents the inner femininity of males and the inner masculinity of females. According to Jung, all humans are energetically androgynous, and this part of ourselves serves as the primary source of communication with the collective consciousness of our species, independent of our gender.
• This alternate reality of our right brain whereby everything is related is an actual consciousness. But because we cannot define it, see it, touch it, smell it, taste it, or hear it, this parallel world of perception is often minimized, invalidated, and denied by our left-brain counterpart, which only believes in the external world. It is in this realm of the right-brain energetic flow where synchronicities commonly unfold.
• Our right-brain emotional Character 3 is like a puppy that is always watching every move you make, ready to pounce the moment you reach for the leash, toy, or food bowl.
• Welcome to our Character 4. I say our because this is the part of our consciousness, our right thinking brain that we share with one another, and all other life. I see the brain cells underlying our Character 4 as the portal through which the energy of the universe enters into and fuels every cell of our body... Our Character 4 is the all-knowing intelligence from which we came, and it is how we incarnate the consciousness of the universe.
• Our Character 4, like the viola, is the glue that balances the expression of our Four Characters.
• When we start processing information as our Characters 2 and 3, we become distracted away from the awareness and the more subtle and omnipotent consciousness of our Character 4... it is the Character 4 part of our brain that is a spiritual being having a physical experience.
• this is why the book and movie The Secret had such mass appeal. Energetically this relationship between us and the space around us is real. <> I hook into my Character 4’s consciousness that exists in the eternal flow when I shift my mind into the present moment, focus on my breath, and feel my heart expand to connect with the breeze that both brushes my face and simultaneously rustles the leaves on the trees.
• * I let myself expand, weaving my energy between the blades of wheat in that field over there, and I am in the movement of the grass and trees over here. Matthew 6:28 says, “Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow. They don’t toil, neither do they spin.” They simply are, and they trust that is exactly what they are meant to be and do... Our Character 4 is our mystic self. It is our knowing that we are not only held by nature but we are the crescendo of the insects as they perform their symphonic cacophony. We are the sunbeams when they explode as glory through the clouds, and it is my Character 4 that reads the Morse code in the surface ripples when they scatter across the water as a love note from our beloveds who are now out and beyond.
• I trust my BREATH implicitly, as it has always been with me like a comforting teddy bear, and it will stay with me for as long as I am alive. To the consciousness of my Character 4, the universe is the womb within which I am breathing, and I perceive that I am being breathed by the omnipotent consciousness of the eternal flow. The universe is breathing me, and I have life because it is there supporting my life.
• Through the eyes of an anatomist, I can’t help but recognize the similarity between the semipermeable membrane in my lungs that filters oxygen out of the air and the semipermeable membrane of that single cell that is attracted toward some things and repelled by others.
• * Only when I care enough to pay attention to RECOGNIZE which of the Four Characters you are inhabiting at any moment can I authentically connect with you. If I want to fully see you and validate you, I must first RECOGNIZE which character you have brought into our encounter. If you come in as a Character 1, you would probably rather receive a you did a good job affirmation than the you light up the world type of praise I might give your Character 4.
• Character 1 sees our body as a vehicle.
  Character 2 sees our body as a responsibility.
  Character 3 sees our body as a toy.
  Character 4 sees our body as a temple of the soul.
• The older Americans as well as the Boomers were similarly trained by an educational system that used left-brain teaching tools to teach left-brain skills, but because the older Americans still valued their right-brain creativity and quality relationships, they built a society and economy that was more balanced between the value structures of their left-brain Character 1 and their right-brain Character 4. The older Americans had built a world using their left-brain organizational skills, but they ran their communities and homes based on the values of their right-brain Character 4.
• * Biological systems function as a collection of negative feedback loops. For example, I feel hunger pangs in my belly, so I eat food and then the pangs go away. In this system I have a desire, I act on that desire, and when the desire is negated I feel satisfied and the system returns to rest. The beauty of a system that is based on negative feedback loops is that it can create and communicate a need, and then once that need is met the system can return to its own balance and homeostasis. While in homeostasis, the biological system can rest and refuel itself. Life thrives in health with these negative feedback loops because they use the minimal amount of energy to sound an alarm, ... Technology, on the other hand, is a positive feedback system that never pauses or stops. The more it runs—the more you play a game or browse—the more temptations there are set into the system to increase your clicks, time, and attention.