Friday, January 11, 2013

Choosing moment by moment who and how we want to be

Let's turn to Jill Bolte Taylor for some good ideas for today. How shall we view and nurture our brains today? Dr. Taylor cites Einstein: "I must be willing to give up what I am, in order to become what I will be." Taylor writes,
Cell by beautiful cell, circuit by neurocircuit, the consciousness I experience within my brain is the collective awareness established by those marvelous little entities as they weave together the web I call my mind. Thanks to their neural plasticity, their ability to shift and change their connections with other cells, you and I walk the earth with the ability to be flexible in our thinking, adaptable to our environment, and capable of choosing who and how we want to be in the world. Fortunately, how we choose to be today is not predetermined by how we were yesterday.
I believe God has entrusted each of us to tend what Taylor refers to as "the garden of my mind." We can choose to nurture those circuits we want to grow, and
consciously prune back those circuits I prefer to live without. Although it is easier for me to nip a weed when it is just a sprouting bud, with determination and perseverance, even the gnarliest of vines, when deprived of fuel, will eventually lose its strength and fall to the side.
Do we need to self-medicate ourselves with illicit drugs and alcohol? Dr. Taylor, in her book My Stroke of Insight, hopes we will not keep making those kind of choices. She reminds us
Your body is the life force power of some fifty trillion molecular geniuses. You and you alone choose moment by moment who and how you want to be in the world. I encourage you to pay attention to what is going on inside your brain. Own your power and show up for your life. Beam bright!

No comments: