W.H. Auden, The Age of Anxiety
“We cannot underestimate how even a change for the better is a searing passage, a death of another understanding, and its gradual replacement by something larger still.” – James Hollis, Finding Meaning in the Second Half of Life
Lately I’ve been challenged to think again about how I respond to various situations. I love learning about new ways of doing and being, but can’t say I love actually changing my ways (change is difficult, as the quotes above suggest). Still, if it can bring us to a “larger” place, maybe change is worth the effort?
I’ve been challenged to change, and to “choose wisely” my thoughts as I’ve read about Jill Bolte Taylor, a Harvard-trained neuroscientist, who at the age of 37 experienced a massive stroke when a blood vessel exploded in the left side of her brain. In A Stroke of Insight, she tells of her experience of intense right-brain predominance when a blood clot the size of a golf ball induced loss of left-brain orientation association areas and thus absence of a sense of physical boundaries, along with loss of language centers and time perception which contributed to her feeling expansive and in the present moment, and much more. She comments, “My spirit beamed free, enormous, and peaceful...I loved the feeling of deep inner peace that flooded the core of my very being.”
As she gradually healed over eight years, she gained back her left brain function, but learned that many of the left brain responses can be noticed, modulated, and not allowed to dominate her thinking as it had pre-stroke. She writes, “I don’t have to think thoughts that bring me pain…I have the ability to choose a peaceful and loving mind, whatever my physical or mental circumstances, by deciding to step to the right and bring my thoughts back to the present moment.”
And Jill shares this 90 second tidbit: “Although there are certain limbic systems (emotional) programs that can be triggered automatically, it takes less than 90 seconds for one of these programs to be triggered, surge through our body, and then be completely flushed out of our blood stream. My anger response, for example, is a programmed response that can be set off automatically. Once triggered, the chemical released by my brain surges through my body and I have a physiological experience. Within 90 seconds from the initial trigger, the chemical component of my anger has completely dissipated from my blood and my automatic response is over. If, however, I remain angry after those 90 seconds have passed, then it is because I have chosen to let that circuit continue to run... By paying attention to the choices my automatic circuitry is making, I own my power and make more choices consciously. In the long run, I take responsibility for what I attract into my life.”
May this new year bring us to new choices in ways of thinking and appreciation for the many capacities bestowed upon us with our marvelous brains!
“Forget the former things; do not dwell on the past. See, I am doing a new thing!” Isaiah 43:18-19
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