"Response ability"

Far and away the most valuable book to me that I have read in the last several years is Dr. Jill Bolte Taylor's My Stroke of Insight. As a brain scientist, Dr. Taylor thought she knew something about the brain, until she suffered a stroke and lost the functioning of the left hemisphere of her brain. Over an eight-year period, she slowly recovered the functioning of her left hemisphere. During that time, with the right hemisphere dominating, she realized how natural it was to be compassionate, joyful, and grateful. She also realized that many negative qualities of her personality had vanished with the loss of the left brain. She determined to get back the functioning of the left brain, but to keep an appropriate balance between the left and right hemispheres, thereby not allowing the negative features of the left brain to dominate, as had been the case before she suffered the stroke. 

She writes about the obsessive qualities of the left brain's storyteller function, and how draining it can be emotionally. She defines responsibility as "response ability." That is, we can choose how we respond to stimuli. If another person approaches us with anger or frustration, we can choose whether we respond to that person with anger and frustration of our own, or "step to the right" (brain) with loving empathy and compassion.

We can choose whether to hang on to negative emotions, even though they chemically remain in our bloodstream less than 90 seconds, or we can choose to let them go and enjoy the present moment, be compassionate to others and good to ourselves. It's a matter of being aware of choices, and making healthy ones.

Scientists are finding that our brains are much more malleable than they previously thought. We can choose to let our left brain obsess with fear, anxiety, anger, or other negative thoughts, or we can choose to let them run their physiological course of less than 90 seconds and return to peaceful and loving thoughts. Can you see how revolutionary this process can be? I read and re-read excerpts from Dr. Taylor's book every day, and it has been a huge help to me.