The New York Times best-selling author of My Stroke of Insight
blends neuroanatomy with psychology to show how we can short-circuit
emotional reactivity and find our way to peace.
For half a century we have been trained to believe that our right brain
hemisphere is our emotional brain, while our left brain houses our
rational thinking. Now neuroscience shows that it's not that simple: in
fact, our emotional limbic tissue is evenly divided between our two
hemispheres. Consequently, each hemisphere has both an emotional brain
and a thinking brain. In this groundbreaking new book, Dr. Jill Bolte
Taylor presents these four distinct modules of cells as four
characters that make up who we are: Character 1, Left Thinking;
Character 2, Left Emotion; Character 3, Right Emotion; and Character 4,
Right Thinking.
Everything we think, feel, or do is dependent upon brain cells to
perform that function. Since each of the Four Characters stems from
specific groups of cells that feel unique inside of our body, they each
display particular skills, feel specific emotions, or think distinctive
thoughts. In Whole Brain Living, Dr. Taylor shows us how to get
acquainted with our own Four Characters, observe how they show up in our
daily life, and learn to identify and relate to them in others as well.
And she introduces a practice called the Brain Huddle--a tool for
bringing our Four Characters into conversation with one another so we
can tap their respective strengths and choose which one to embody in any
situation.
The more we become familiar with each of the characters in ourselves and
others, the more power we gain over our thoughts, our feelings, our
relationships, and our lives. Indeed, we discover that we have the power
to choose who and how we want to be in every moment. And when our
Four Characters work together and balance one another as a whole brain,
we gain a radical new road map to deep inner peace.
