Interview With Author & Neuroanatomist Dr. Jill Bolte Taylor
This piece was published in Teen Ink’s monthly magazine.
Named one of Time magazine’s 100 Most Influential People in the World for 2008, Dr. Jill Bolte Taylor is a neurological researcher and the National Spokesperson for the Harvard Brain Tissue Resource Center, traversing the nation as the Singin’ Scientist. She suffered a stroke on the morning of December 10, 1996, and, remarkably, her medical acumen allowed her to be cognizant of her mind’s deterioration as it was happening. In her memoir, My Stroke of Insight: A Brain Scientist’s Personal Journey, Jill recounts, in detail, how she was able to orchestrate her rescue before her condition became even more precarious, and how she achieved nirvana by exercising only the right side of her brain. Due to the severity of the hemorrhage, Jill lost access to information stored in the left portion of her brain, and thus began a decade-long recovery process to relearn the most basic human functions and skills. More than just a stirring account of her stroke, Jill’s book is useful for anyone seeking to learn the science behind different types of strokes, needs of stroke survivors, and the feeling of peace attainable by blocking “brain chatter.” The following quotation by Einstein has become a pervading ethos in Dr. Jill’s life: “I must be willing to give up what I am in order to become what I will be.”
Q: Your New York Times bestseller, My Stroke of Insight, limns the morning of your stroke, your recovery process, and the insight that you gleaned into your right brain. What would be your advice to the pre-stroke Jill about finding deep inner peace?
A: I would encourage her to pay more attention to what joy feels like inside her body and encourage her to set herself up to have that feeling more often. I would also encourage her to pay attention to the thoughts going on inside her head and then pay attention to what emotional circuits those stimulated and how those felt inside her body. Then I would encourage her to pay very close attention to how stress feels in her body and then figure out what thoughts she was thinking that then stimulated that circuitry. And then I would let her know that it is all just cells talking to cells in circuitry and that she had the power to pick and choose the thoughts she wanted to dwell on and thus choose how she wanted to be in the world.
“Those little voices, that brain chatter that customarily kept me abreast of myself in relation to the world outside of me, were delightfully silent. And in their absence, my memories of the past and my dreams of the future evaporated. I was alone. In the moment, I was alone with nothing but the rhythmic pulse of my beating heart.”
- Excerpted from My Stroke of Insight by Jill Bolte Taylor
Q: You changed from being left-brain dominant to being right-brain dominant, but how do you suppose stroke survivors who transition from being right-brain dominant to left-brain dominant feel as they are recuperating? How might their recovery process be different from yours?
A: The right hemisphere is the big picture of our lives while the left hemisphere focuses on the details. I lost the details and was left with a very interesting and exciting big picture of the present moment. If I had lost my left hemisphere then I would have lost the big picture but retained the details. I would have gone to a concert and been able to hear the bass or lead guitar or vocals, but I would have lost the bigger experience of the whole. Recovery would have been very different since different functions would have been lost.
Q: What was the most formidable skill or task for you to relearn ensuing your period of debility?
A: Learning to read again was a painful experience for me. To think that these letters, which I saw as merely squiggles, had a sound and a name and a meaning was an absurd concept to me. It was a very difficult process for my brain to regain that level of abstract detail.
Q: You like to create stained-glass depictions of the human brain. In what ways has this hobby allowed you to reclaim part of who you were while simultaneously embracing who you are now? Are the stained-glass brains sold to the public?
A: Stained glass brains are fragile, artistic and beautiful – just like our real human brain. I think one is a metaphor of the other. I do sell them when commissioned to do so.
Q: As the National Spokesperson for the Harvard Brain Bank, you raise awareness about the importance of brain donations in furthering understanding of mental illnesses. Since the topic of brain donation may be an uncomfortable one for some people, you created the Brain Bank jingle to ease the tension in your audience. How did you come up with such a catchy tune and lyrics?
A: I was out walking with my dog one day, trying to figure out how to alleviate the tension in my brain bank presentation and the jingle just popped into my mind. I am a happy singer-songwriter so this is fun for me.
Q: Can you offer any last words of inspiration to those whose loved ones are recovering from stroke?
A: I believe in the ability of the brain to recover. We are still naïve in what we understand to be true about the brain and how to heal it, so keep your mind open and continue to try, try, try for many years after a trauma.
