Power of Addiction & Addiction to Power TEDx Gabor Maté | We Can’t Wait for Those in Power to Make Changes

I’ve taken notes and paraphrased Gabor Maté’s speech. The Power of Addiction and The Addiction to Power: Gabor Maté at TEDxRio+20

Gabor Maté, an erudite doctor, describes in his TEDx talk in Rio the reasons for addiction.

Gabor Maté speaks about the Power of Addiction and Addiction fo Power at a TEDx in Rio de Janeiro

What are the addicts getting from their addictions? Calmness, soothing, a sense of control.

Many of these addictive substances are pain killers, taking away pain.

Why the pain?

He states that Keith Richard’s in his autobiography – a long time heroin addict – mentions the contortions that we go through just to avoid being ourselves for a few hours.

Gabor mentions that the psychiatrist R.D. Laing states:

There are three main things people are afraid of: death, other people and their own minds.

Both brilliant and unconventional, RD Laing pioneered the humane treatment of the mentally ill. But as a father, clinically depressed and alcoholic, Laing bequeathed his 10 children and his two wives a more chequered legacy.

Maté mentions his own previous addiction to shopping. Like any addict, he would lie about it.

His definition of addiction is any behavior that gives you temporary relief and temporary pleasure, yet in the long term causes negative consequences which one can’t give up.

There are many different types of addictions: the addictions to drugs, the addiction to consumerism, sex, the internet, shopping, food.

The Buddhists have the idea of the ‘hungry ghosts’; creatures with large empty bellies and small scrawny necks and tiny little mouths, so they can never get enough. They can never fill this emptiness inside of themselves.

We are all hungry ghosts. And so many of us are trying to fill that emptiness, from the outside.

Gabor Maté is a Hungarian-born Canadian physician

When you are looking at the emptiness of people, you can’t look at the genetics but you have to look at it from the outside.

It is very clear why many addicts are in pain. They’ve been abused all their lives. Hundreds of his patients had been physically or sexually abused, abandoned, emotionally hurt over and over again.

Don’t look for the people in power to change things, in terms of environmental degradation, global warming, the pollution of the oceans, rivers and skies. Don’t look to the people in power to change the immigration and social injustices. The people in power are very often the emptiest people in the world, suffering from their addiction to power. We have to do this ourselves. We have to find that light within ourselves. We have to find that light within communities. We have to begin being an active democracy of the commons; with our own wisdom and creativity. We can’t wait for the people in power to make things better for us because they are never going to. Not unless we make them. They say that human nature is competitive, aggressive and selfish. In fact it’s the opposite. Human nature is cooperative, generous and community minded. TED talks are examples of human nature, people committed to learning and contributing to a better world. If we find that light within, we will be kinder to ourselves, kinder to other people and kinder to nature.

The human brain develops an interaction with the environment. The kind of interaction a child has with the environment can shape the development of the brain. Dopamine is the incentive, motivation chemical. Dopamine flows whenever we are motivated, excited, curious, vital, vibrant. Without the dopamine, we have no motivation.

The addict gets a hit of dopamine in the brain. Drugs are not by themselves addictive? Drugs are not by themselves addictive. Some people become addictive to drugs, but many do not. Food is not addictive, but to some people it is. Shopping is not in itself addictive, but to some people it is. Television is not addictive, but to some people it is.

Why the susceptibility? Genetically the receptors, chemical binding sites in the brain for endorphins, morphine like substances, that make possible the feeling of love and attachment to the parent.

Heroine and morphine act on the endorphin system. For abused children, those circuits don’t develop. When you don’t have love and connection in your life when you are very young, you don’t develop those receptors.

As a baby of Jewish parents in an Eastern European country as Hitler was gaining power – the speaker Gabor Maté was picking up on the stresses and terrors of his mother, which were shaping the child’s brain. Children get the message that ‘my mother must not want me’ if she is not happy around the child.

So he becomes a workaholic because if his mother doesn’t want me, then he wants to be needed. Yet because he’s responding in this way by working so much and not being available for his own children, his children receive the same message, that the parent must not want him.

In this way humans pass on the trauma and unconscious patterns from one generation to the next.

Each person feels the emptiness in a different way, stemming back to when they are very small.

We may all point the finger to the ‘addicts’, yet look at what we’re doing to the earth? We are injecting all of these terrible things into the earth, the environment, the air, water.

A man was killed in Brazil for protecting the rain forest. As in Brazil, many of the indigenous people in Canada are the ones who are heavily addicted after suffering the trauma of losing their land, being side-lined and disregarded.

The people on the opposite side of this, who are crushing the Native American territories and destroying pristine nature, are those addicted to wealth and power.

Many of the historical figures who were extremely addicted to power, Stalin, Napoleon, were people of physically small stature. They were outsiders, coming from a population outside of the mainstream. Their sense of insecurity and inferiority came from emptiness they were trying to fill from the outside.

In each of the stories of Buddha and Jesus, both were tempted by the devil for power. Each said no, because they had the power within themselves. They wanted to teach people through soft words, wisdom and their actions.

Jesus: “The power is within. The kingdom of god is within.”

Buddha: “Don’t mourn me and don’t worship me. Find the lamp inside yourself. Find the light within.”

I’m bringing up his point twice, because it is so vital. “Don’t look for the people in power to change things, in terms of environmental degradation, global warming, the pollution of the oceans, rivers and skies. Don’t look to the people in power to change the immigration and social injustices. The people in power are very often the emptiest people in the world, suffering from their addiction to power. We have to do this ourselves. We have to find that light within ourselves. We have to find that light within communities. We have to begin being an active democracy of the commons; with our own wisdom and creativity. We can’t wait for the people in power to make things better for us because they are never going to. Not unless we make them. They say that human nature is competitive, aggressive and selfish. In fact it’s the opposite. Human nature is cooperative, generous and community minded. TED talks are examples of human nature, people committed to learning and contributing to a better world. If we find that light within, we will be kinder to ourselves, kinder to other people and kinder to nature.”

Carol Keiter aka nomadbeatz welcomes donations for her writing, photography, illustrations, eBook & music composition

Carol Keiter aka nomadbeatz welcomes donations for her writing, photography, illustrations, eBook & music composition

Carol Keiter le_blogger, writer & illustrator, musician & composer

Sovereignty of Consciousness | Psychoactive Plants as Guides | Graham Hancock TED talk | Rupert Sheldrake TED talk

Graham Hancock’s banned TED Talk on The War on Consciousness deserved all of the applause that it received. He talks of human consciousness as emerging through ancient and sacred visionary psychoactive plants, as teachers in themselves. Yes, the plants as the guides, that have been used throughout history, including among indigenous populations around the world today, as sacred vehicles to discovering our own human dimension of consciousness.

Graham Hancock – The War on Consciousness Message of Mother Ayahuasca plant

“By demonizing whole areas of consciousness, we deny ourselves the possibility of our own human evolution. We can’t claim to be free, until along with the right to freedom of speech, we demand the right of adult sovereignty over consciousness. We have the right to make sovereign decisions with respect to our own consciousness, including the responsible use of ancient and sacred visionary (psychoactive ) plants.”

Graham Hancock – The War on Consciousness various ancient traditions use of psychoactives Soma of the Vedas

I see that Graham Hancock has written numerous books, which is revealed in his website. He declares that
ayahuasca is not alone, but part of an ancient worldwide system of targeted, careful, deliberate, responsible alteration of consciousness. Kykeon used in the Eleusinian mysteries of ancient Greece, Soma was a beverage used in the Vedas of India, perhaps a psychoactive fungus, the Amanita muscaria, DMT, the Lotus used by ancient Egyptians in their “Tree of Life” belief system and shamans of indigenous peoples presently use various mind altering substances such as ayahuasca and peyote or psilocybin mushrooms…to create a relationship of what the ancient Egyptians called ‘Ma’at‘, balanced harmony with the universe.

Maat ancient Egyptian goddess of truth, Maat or Ma’at was the ancient Egyptian concept of truth, balance, order, harmony, law, morality, and justice

 

I participated in a peyote ceremony while residing in Taos, New Mexico. The sacred ritual took place in a tee pee from dusk to dawn on the reservation of the Taos Pueblo.

the peyote ceremony took place in a Teepee – Tipis are typical of the Plains Indians

I was invited by a young Native American girl whom I had gotten to know. I knew of these ceremonies years earlier, and perhaps was motivated to attend one more for recreational reasons. The opportunity didn’t arrive until after a I experienced being in an automobile accident which dramatically caused me to reassess my life. It was only then that the possibility arose. It is said, you don’t choose the peyote, the peyote chooses you.

When I arrived at the designated time and place, she was not to be found. I was nevertheless accepted. I accompanied a woman to her kitchen while she prepared for the ceremony cutting corn husks which had been blessed. These rectangles were then rolled with tobacco, which were each smoked at the onset of the ceremony, as our individual and collective prayers were carried by the rising curls of smoke. The ceremony was conducted by the Elders, to heal someone in the tribe who had asked for this to take place. We each directed our thoughts – prayers – towards this person’s healing as well as our own.

I talk about this in my blog Burning The Man: A Utopian Requiem describing that the ceremony was steeped in ritual movements. I had been assigned to an individual next to whom I sat in the circle, to ensure that my movements would not alter the Feng Shui deliberacy. Instructed to simply bow forward if I needed to regurgitate, that the fire-keeper would take care of this, as he methodically fed the fire in the center of the human circle for the duration; raking the coals and shaping the burning embers from a thin crescent moon in the beginning, to a full circle by its’ end 12 hours later.

Graham Hancock implores offers that “We have no right to go around the world imposing our version of democracy, while we nourish this rot within the heart of our own society. It may even be that we are denying ourselves in the most vital step in our own consciousness.”

Graham Hancock – The War on Consciousness Tree of Life of Ancient Eqyptians and use of DMT

Hancock mentions that the Amazon is a horrific example of neglect; where the lungs of the planet are being dismantled; clearing the forest to grow soybean to feed cattle, so that we can eat hamburgers. “It’s an insane global state of consciousness, an abomination.”

Graham Hancock – The War on Consciousness Amazon rainforest – the lungs of the earth – cleared to plant industrial soybean to feed cattle to make hamburgers.

The rot he’s speaking of is witnessed through alienation, separation, a disconnect to nature and other life forms in addition to other humans. As witnessed by gun violence, wars, in a culture in which there are more lawyers, psychiatrists and pharmaceutical companies prescribing drugs to tame a whole host of modern so-called psychiatric dis orders, which themselves are as much attributed to the alienation that our society, consumed with material acquisition, competition through material appendages and the material interpretation through the sciences of the world around us. The need for weapons, protection, which the pharmaceutical military industrial complex insights, and the disintegration of relationships and recognition of the interrelatedness of all species and awe and respect of all life, is feeding the ego and enforcing competition rather than cooperation.

Graham Hancock – The War on Consciousness by demonizing areas of consciousness we deny our own evolution

He mentions the slew of drugs that are accepted in this culture, stimulants like teas, coffee and the sloppiness of alcohol, yet visionary plants that have been used in religious ritual for eons and which are part of the emergence of human consciousness, are suspect and illegal.

 

Rupert Sheldrake is a biologist and author. He proposes that “everything depends on evolving habits, not on fixed laws. His hypothesis of ‘Morphic Resonance’, is that everything in nature has a collective memory; resonances are based on similarity – even crystals have a collective memory.”

Rupert Sheldrake on Morphic Resonance – Self-organizing systems inherit a memory from previous similar systems

He elaborates on the reasoning behind this lack of comprehension, talking about the The Science Delusion. Sheldrake approaches the subject by questioning the authority of the tenets of science, turning the basic scientific materialism-based dogmas into questions.

He proposes that this is the default worldview worldwide, of educated people….and proceeds to demonstrate how utterly non-factual these rules are.

…revealing in his TED talk that in fact the opposite is true, to what is proposed, that:

1. nature is mechanical and machine like – nature, animals & plants are like machines, brains are genetically programmed computers

2. matter is unconscious- no consciousness in stars, galaxies, animals and plants

3. the laws of nature and constants of nature are fixed; they will be the same forever

4. the total amount of matter and energy is always the same – it never changes in quantity – the big bang, everything sprang up out of nothing

5. nature is purposeless; there are no purposes in nature and the evolutionary process is completely purposeless

6. biological heredity is material; everything is inherited form the genes

7. memories are stored in side your brain as material traces; everything you remember is in your brain, modified proteins

8. your mind is inside your head; all consciousness is the activity of your brain and nothing more

9. psychic phenomena like telepathy are impossible; your thoughts and intentions can not have any effect at a distance because everything is inside your head. therefore, all psychic phenomena is illusory; people are deceived by coincidences or wishful thinking

10.mechanistic medicine is the only kind that works; complimentary and alternative therapies can’t possibly work (due to the placebo effect)

In my digesthis blog, presently I write about food sovereignty.

Carol Keiter aka nomadbeatz ~ As an avid blogger who is presently picking up where I left off with my eBook to complete it and and beginning again to compose music, I ask you rather unambiguously and unabashedly to please donate, if you are able. !-))

A letter to my Mother | Berlin sights | Festival of Lights

Hello Mother and Daddy – I know my recently deceased father is present –

I’ve started writing you a letter, that has evolved into a blog. I’ll send it now, and work on the blog. This is a multi dimensional letter that covers a lot of info, that should keep you busy for a while!! I will try skyping you when i get home in the evening. As now, I have internet 24/7 in my room. I decided to send it to siblings as well, in case they feel like reading it.

Berlin Festival of Lights official video by Matthias Makarinus and Jan Hübel

First, I moved to a new place on Monday. It was a reaction to the former place. I felt that some of the people were not only unfriendly, but becoming hostile. So, I sent out the word to friends here in Berlin (using the internet of course) and within the same day I had responses. Some responded to my S.O.S. about abruptly needing to replace my power adapter for my Mac. Another responded to my realization that if in fact, as I pretty much blatantly sensed was true, someone had tampered with/exchanged my adapter for their faulty one, it might be a pretty good idea to get out of there as quickly as physically possible. I did – later that evening – realizing that it would NOT be in my best interest to stay there even one more night.

Jah of York collective Euromerican

Jay is an American male friend of mine, who is a singer born and raised in NYC, who has created a band and is working hard on putting his music out there. Jay, also calls himself Jah, short for his real name Jaheed, is a singer just like my friend Saudia, who is also here in Berlin, born and raised in NYC, and making her mark with her music. Both of them have African American roots, both of them came to my rescue. Jah, with the housing, Saudia with the adapter. I met Jah at the bearpit karaoke in Mauerpark in 2010, when i approached him among the entire crowd of people, and asked if he wanted to sing a male part of the song I was about to go onto the stage and sing. We’ve been continuously in touch with each other ever since. He has put together a band and put on a lot of performances, as well as starting an ‘open stage/ open mic’ jam session at a bar in one neighborhood here. He’s a very solid guy, very kind, positive and spiritual. An uplifting person to be around. In the meantime, Saudia has saved the day not only with forwarding me information about work, insights on how to stabilize here in Berlin, and she’s also a bright, spirited person who is uplifting with her humor and hard working. She and I met when we were each peripherally involved in an English speaking play several years ago. We’ve remained in touch when each have bounced back and forth from the USA. She recently absolutely ‘saved the day’ by having an extra Mac adapter cable, which tend to be constructed to ‘deconstruct’ within a certain time frame. (I’m thinking of gathering names/people who have also had this particular Powerbook power adapter cable problem (the tiny cable severing itself) to start another ‘class action law suit against Apple’ to impel them to replace these cheaply made gadgets that are expensive and proprietary to the point that these are irrevocably necessary in order to turn your machine on! Saudia not only sings, but also recently relaunched her accessories line Rose&Young (earrings, necklaces, makeup bags, cuffs, iPhone bags, eyeglass cases and custom orders). The main materials are leather and wool felt. She’s another pleasant optimistic and talented friend to have.

Saudia Young – Dark Kabaret

The circumstances is that I mentioned that I would prefer to immediately leave my place, and he responded by email, you can stay at my place. He also offered to help me move. I went to his place, parked my bicycle among the others in his courtyard. We chatted for a while, then went together on the train and moved my stuff out in one trip. He had just applied for a job as a camp counselor for a YMCA camp in Spain, and received notice the day before that he could take it. It is not permanent, but the timing was perfect.

As we were heading back on the move, he received an anticipated call, and this guy backed out, declined staying at his place. That left his apt open, with no one set up to move in. I had already gotten cash out of the bank and hadn’t paid the last people because the main renter (grumpy father there) was on a vacation. Because of the increasing hostility there, I withheld my rent (unconsciously and consciously), though I had gotten it out of the bank and was waiting to pay the main guy once he returned from his vacation. I was therefore able to offer Jay cash for the rest of this month (including the fact that he helped me move and was generous with his time and welcoming nature).

I now do not have to ‘watch my back’ and worry about my stuff. Jay left with his band to perform several concerts in Amsterdam over the next 5 days, will be back for 2 days, and his bags are already packed for Spain till the end of November. The place is perfect. Centrally located, handsome and clean flat. He has wireless internet and it is literally in exactly the neighborhood I’ve decided that I prefer. It is within a block of where Saudia just moved.

I just came across this article in the New York Times and am sharing it with you, because it encapsulates why Berlin has become such an attractive place for artists and musicians in the last years. Here’s the article!

It provokes me to want to work hard and be as inventive and flexible as possible, to stay here, at least for a while. Not just run away, but take on the challenge of finding income and making this opportunity. Here’s the article, simply single or double click on it. Then I have several additional links that you can click on if you want, regarding some of the people mentioned in the article, that I looked up and wanted to read about.

This is the beauty of the internet. The fact that the source of information doesn’t stop with that page, but can keep on expanding, as you can always use a search engine like ‘google’, to look up an additional topic, person’s name, place, etc.
For example, in the article, the writer mentioned these other names with whom I wasn’t familiar, so I googled them:

Itzhak Perlman
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0674221/bio

Simon Rattle
http://www.theguardian.com/music/2013/jan/10/simon-rattle-berliner-philharmoniker

Daniel Barenboim
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel_Barenboim

Khatia Buniatishvili

Khatia Buniatishvili pianist

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khatia_Buniatishvili

Khatia Buniatishvili at piano

I love you very much and look forward to skyping with you.

Below, I’m sending a link of this conference that I’m going to today, with a new American acquaintance, David, whom I met shortly after I arrived here at this ‘open house’ of the Kompakt music label together with Ableton who produce the music composing/performing software I’ve been using. David and I had an immediate connection because of the fact that I had created some songs incorporating whale and dolphin calls, and he has already literally recorded whale calls sitting on boats, and made recordings of whales, bird songs and cicadas, among other insects and recordings.

David Rothenberg music of nature

He’s also written books on the topics and has already given me some solid critical advice and direction as to the writing of my book. I have finally made the time to hang out with him and join him am looking forward to it. His work is described in his website. http://davidrothenberg.wordpress.com Here’s the link, in German, to the conference I’ve attended for the last two days. http://gs.udk-berlin.de/graduiertenschule-der-udk-berlin/graduale-13/
Forget about trying to read it, it’s in German and I couldn’t find the English, but the program is English. It’s put on by the ‘University of Arts’ in Berlin, and the topic is
PERCEPTION, EXPERIENCE, EXPERIMENT AND KNOWLEDGE Objectivity and Subjectivity in the Arts and Sciences.

We will go to the exhibition of this first day.

Yesterday, I bicycled to this office I remembered from years ago where they give advice to foreigners (from everywhere) who are trying to immigrate/relocate to Germany. I remembered the address, looked it up on the internet, found the address, and went there after hours, just to see if indeed the place is still there, and if they have their office hours printed on the door. The place was open, and indeed they still exist. I’m delighted, I’ll go there prior to going to the VISA office, so that I know ahead of time all the prerequisites, the right angle to approach the governmental office.

Sony Center cyberpunk corporate urban center

On the way back, I decided to swing by the Sony center, an elaborate architectural structure that draws a phenomenal amount of tourists. Above is a wikipedia link that not only shows pictures of this extravagant building and how it looks when it’s glowing in the evening, but also the history of what was there, a thriving community in the center of Berlin, before it was all bombed and leveled.

When I arrived in Berlin in 1995 the first time, this whole area was just a vast field of nothing, then eventually a huge gaping hole when the building construction had not yet begun. There were also eventually, literally hundreds of cranes there, so that around Christmas time, many of these were decorated with Christmas lights!

It is also next to this memorial to the Jewish people who died because of the Nazi regime

It’s not far from all of the new government buildings that were constructed when the German government decided to relocate back to Berlin, from Bonn, in the West.

They literally had to build all of the buildings, along this canal, near the Haupt Bahn Hof/Main Train Station. Here is a link that provides you with a bunch of pictures of all of these new and old remaining government buildings Berlin.

What happened yesterday after I bicycled by this office in the late afternoon to make sure it’s still physically there, is I decided to swing back through the Sony Center, always swarming with tourists and illuminated by lights that change colors. Then as I was about to head home, I saw this unusually large crowd of people, naturally wandered over, then saw people straining to here some musicians. I made my way in a bit, and leaned over to ask these two young Indian guys if they knew what was going on, and in English, they answered back that they live right around the corner, and that this is the opening ceremony (about to begin) of Berlin’s annual “Festival of Lights”, which will be continuing until the 20th of October. http://festival-of-lights.de/en/

Berlin Fesitval of Lights 2013

That was only the beginning of my evening. I wound up bantering back and forth with these two, then going to park my bike at a post to get it out of the crowd and returned to them. We wound up talking for the next 6 hours. I’m going to write a blog about it, because i gathered an astounding amount of information. Both articulate, between active listening and contributing to all sorts of topics, the two of them expounded a great deal of information. One, Kuldeep (the talkative/business marketing oriented one) nicknamed ‘Sunny’, a diplomats son who was raised until 12th grade in Tokyo. He attended the schools of the Indian embassy there, then studied at a university in India (to get closer to his roots) and later worked for Deloitte, a consulting firm in New York city. However, not satisfied with having an abundance of wealth, he left this high paying job to travel on his own and rediscover his spiritual routes. Having then a deeper sense of what his priorities in life, he is now studying together with his friend at the same University and program. The Technical University of Berlin offers a program on Entrepreneurial Business together with computer technical training. The other, Vaibhav (more technically oriented and quiet, yet just as ready to offer pertinent information) nicknamed ‘Web’ is from Goa, India. He attended a technical university there, and now is also here in Berlin. The two of them met at a technical trade show in Canada a few years ago. We had such a resonance and rapport, that they invited me to join them for dinner at their student housing apartment just a few hundred yards away. Sunny cooked, and was extremely articulate. He speaks excellent English, Japanese, Hindi, in addition to several other Indian dialects. Vaibhav pronounced ‘Vibow’ brought up several TED talks, one echoing the subject of happiness that I mentioned I had blogged about.

http://www.ted.com/talks/michael_norton_how_to_buy_happiness.html

And another ‘TED talk’ presentation on robotics, given by an Indian man, Vijay Kumar, who is preeminent in the electronics industry.

This man was formerly a professor at University of Pennsylvania. (Vibow loves Philadelphia and wanted more than anything to attend this school, where Daddy and you met). Vijay Kumar has since been consulting with Barack Obama to council him on (probably the more weapons side) of robotics.

The White House hosted a Robotics hangout, ‘The Hangout’ will be moderated by Vijay Kumar, assistant director for robotics and cyberphysical systems,
http://spectrum.ieee.org/automaton/robotics/artificial-intelligence/white-house-to-host-robotics-hangout-on-friday

Vibow is very interested in robotics, and designs apps particularly for robotic hardware. Yeah, these two are exceedingly brilliant and very open to ideas, full of life and energy. I learned so much that I haven’t even begun to notate all that the two of them communicated to me, in terms of culture, business, marketing, language, Indian culture…. It all started because I stopped by this Apple repair one-man-business Freakin’ Mac Store whom I knew by word-of-mouth, and was a customer of for several years.

freakin Macstore repair and parts with a smile in Prenzlauer Berg Berlin

Sunny said that among the patents created by start-ups in Silicon Valley, CA between 2006 and 2013, 36% were created by Indians. (I may be misquoting this figure). In the last decades, their country devoted a massive amount of educational infrastructure to the computer/electronics industry, and now they are cranking out brilliant and excellence students, in a very competitive intellectual environment.

okay, i have to get ready to go out now.

love,

Carol

Happiness Addendum | Recommended Reading: My Stroke of Insight

I wrote this last blog about happiness on my digesthis site, http://digesthis.wordpress.com/2013/02/28/pursuit-of-happiness-the-happy-movie-my-stroke-of-insight/

http://www.thehappymovie.com/

Now I have more to add about this book which I’m finishing, “My Stroke of Insight“. Jill Bolte Taylor also has a TED talk on the subject.

Nirvana is a mere hemisphere away; from the bustling, critical and judgmental ego centered left hemisphere !-)

I think the book should be required reading; not just for people who may know a stroke victim, but for all hospital staff, interns or any persons entering the medical profession who have contact with patients in general. In fact, it is very insightful for every one of us. The author discusses the ways in which our brains function anatomically, and how this translates to our consciousness and choices about how we perceive and operate in the world.

Rather than copying and pasting what I already wrote in the other blog, I welcome you to read it to get the gist of what the author describes after having witnessed having a stroke, from the point of view of a neuro-anatamist. I’ve taken notes on the book “My Stroke of Insight” and posted some here on the blog, along with the Appendix A & B, which contain important information about how to approach communicating with someone who has had a stroke and assessing to what degree they are able to communicate.

Here is some food for thought!

p 29 Left hemisphere is a serial processor and right hemisphere is a parallel processor

p134 Many speak about how our head (left hemisphere) is telling us something while our heart (right hemisphere) is telling us to do the exact opposite. Some of us distinguish between what we think (left h) and what we feel (right h). Others communicate about our mind consciousness (left h) versus our body’s instinctive consciousness (right h). Some of us talk about our small ego mind (left h) compared with our capital ego mind (right h), or our small self (left h) versus our inner or authentic self (right h). Some delineate between their researcher mind (left h) versus their diplomatic mind (right h). And of course there is our masculine mind (left h) versus our feminine mind (right h), and our yang consciousness (left h) countered by our yin consciousness (right h). And if you are familiar with Carl Jung, there is our sensing mind (left h) versus our intuitive mind (right h), and or judging mind (left h) versus our perceiving mind (right h). Whatever language or terminology you use to describe these two parts, they stem from anatomically two distinct hemispheres inside your head.

p149 Dr. Jerry Joseph “Peacefulness should be the place we begin rather than the place we try to achieve.” “dual interpenetrating awareness”

p150 The more aware you are of how you are influencing the energies around you, the more say you will have (control) in what comes your way. Sure, you can’t control everything that happens to you, but you can control how you choose to think and feel about those things. Even negative events can be perceived as valuable life lessons, and if you step to perceive things from the right hemisphere of your brain, you can choose to evaluate an experience or situation with compassion.

p151 You can become aware of the cognitive loops that are running in your brain, and focus on how these thought patterns are causing you to feel physiologically in your body. Neuronal loops (circuits) of fear, anxiety, or anger can be triggered by all sorts of different stimulation. But once they are triggered, these different emotions produce predictable physiological responses that you can train yourself to consciously observe, and then allow to dissipate in a matter of 90 seconds, that is, if you choose not to feed them!

p146 She defines responsibility (response ability) as the ability to choose how you will respond to simulation coming through your sensory systems at any time. Although there are certain limbic systems (emotional) programs that can be triggered automatically, it takes less than 90 seconds for these surges to arrive and then be flushed out of your bloodstream. If you remain angry….it is because you have chosen to let that circuit continue to run. Moment by moment you make the choice to either hook into your neurocircuitry, or to step back into the present moment with awareness, and allow the reaction to melt away as a fleeting physiology.

p155 Same thing goes with ‘negative’ thought patterns, or positive ones. It is vital to your own health, and to what kinds of vibes you put out to ripple to other people you directly or indirectly come into contact with. You can choose to hold onto joyful, happy, empathetic, playful and loving thought patterns, and send these physiologically through your body and into the electromagnetic field surrounding you to move onto other people.

p148 Feeling deep inner peace and sharing kindness is always a choice, for all of us!
-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-
Recommendations for Recovery: Ten Assessment Questions

1. Have you had my eyes and ears checked to make sure you know what I can see and hear?
2. Can I discriminate color?
3. Do I perceive three dimensions?
4. Do I have any sense of time?
5. Can I identify all of my body parts as mine?
6. Can I discriminate a voice from background noise?
7. Can I access my food? Can my hands open the containers? Do I have the strength and dexterity to feed myself?
8. Am I comfortable? Am I warm enough? Or thirsty? Or in pain?
9. Am I oversensitive to sensory stimulation (light or sound)? If so, bring me earplugs so I can sleep, and sunglasses so I can keep my eyes open.
10. Can I think linearly? Do I know what socks and shoes are? Do I know that my socks go on before my shoes?

40 Things A Stroke Survivor May Need

We would highly recommend Jill Bolte Taylor’s My Stroke of Insight,  the story of the author’s experience with her own stroke and recovery.  We particularly like the appendix section titled “Forty Things I Needed Most.”  In fact, immediately after a parent’s stroke, it may be difficult to find time to read any more than that.  But it is well worth it:  It tells you how you can be most helpful to your parent.  Below are Taylor’s 40 things she needed most.

1. I am not stupid, I am wounded.  Please respect me.
2. Come close, speak slowly, and enunciate clearly.
3. Repeat yourself – assume I know nothing and start from the beginning, over and over.
4. Be as patient with me the twentieth time you teach me something as you were the first.
5. Approach me with an open heart and slow your energy down.  Take your time.
6. Be aware of what your body language and facial expressions are communicating to me.
7. Make eye contact with me.  I am in here – come find me.  Encourage me.
8. Please don’t raise your voice – I’m not deaf, I’m wounded.
9. Touch me appropriately and connect with me.
10. Honor the healing power of sleep.
11. Protect my energy.  No talk radio, TV, or nervous visitors!  Keep visitation brief (five minutes).
12. Stimulate my brain when I have any energy to learn something new, but know that a small amount may wear me out quickly.
13. Use age-appropriate (toddler) educational toys and books to teach me.
14. Introduce me to the world kinesthetically.  Let me feel everything.  (I am an infant again.)
15. Teach me with monkey-see, monkey-do behavior.
16. Trust that I am trying – just not with your skill level or on your schedule.
17. Ask me multiple-choice questions.  Avoid Yes/No questions.
18. Ask me questions with specific answers.  Allow me time to hunt for an answer.
19. Do not assess my cognitive ability by how fast I can think.
20. Handle me gently, as you would handle a newborn.
21. Speak to me directly, not about me to others.
22. Cheer me on.  Expect me to recover completely, even if it takes twenty years!
23. Trust that my brain can always continue to learn.
24. Break all actions down into smaller steps of action.
25. Look for what obstacles prevent me from succeeding on a task.
26. Clarify for me what the next level or step is so I know what I am working toward.
27. Remember that I have to be proficient at one level of function before I can move on to the next level.
28. Celebrate all of my little successes.  They inspire me.
29. Please don’t finish my sentences for me or fill in words I can’t find.  I need to work my brain.
30. If I can’t find an old file, make it a point to create a new one.
31. I may want you to think I understand more than I really do.
32. Focus on what I can do rather than bemoan what I cannot do.
33. Introduce me to my old life.  Don’t assume that because I cannot play like I used to play that I won’t continue to enjoy music or an instrument, etc.
34. Remember that in the absence of some functions, I have gained other abilities.
35. Keep me familiar with my family, friends, and loving support.  Build a collage wall of cards and photos that I can see.  Label them so I can review them.
36. Call in the troops!  Create a healing team for me.  Send word out to everyone so they can send me love.  Keep them abreast of my condition and ask them to do specific things to support me – like visualize me being able to swallow with ease or rocking my body up into a sitting position.
37. Love me for who I am today.  Don’t hold me to being the person I was before.  I have a different brain now.
38. Be protective of me but do not stand in the way of my progress.
39. Show me old video footage of me doing things to remind me about how I spoke, walked, and gestured.
40. Remember that my medications probably make me feel tired, as well as mask my ability to know what it feels like to be me.

Read more: http://www.oprah.com/oprahradio/Jill-Bolte-Taylors-10-Assessment-Questions#ixzz2O6cmYKcf