Whole Brain Living

The Anatomy of Choice and the Four Characters That Drive Our Life

The New York Times best-selling author of My Stroke of Insight blends neuroanatomy with psychology to show how we can short-circuit emotional reactivity and find our way to peace.

For half a century we have been trained to believe that our right brain hemisphere is our emotional brain, while our left brain houses our rational thinking. Now neuroscience shows that it's not that simple: in fact, our emotional limbic tissue is evenly divided between our two hemispheres. Consequently, each hemisphere has both an emotional brain and a thinking brain. In this groundbreaking new book, Dr. Jill Bolte Taylor presents these four distinct modules of cells as four characters that make up who we are: Character 1, Left Thinking; Character 2, Left Emotion; Character 3, Right Emotion; and Character 4, Right Thinking.

Everything we think, feel, or do is dependent upon brain cells to perform that function. Since each of the Four Characters stems from specific groups of cells that feel unique inside of our body, they each display particular skills, feel specific emotions, or think distinctive thoughts. In Whole Brain Living, Dr. Taylor shows us how to get acquainted with our own Four Characters, observe how they show up in our daily life, and learn to identify and relate to them in others as well. And she introduces a practice called the Brain Huddle--a tool for bringing our Four Characters into conversation with one another so we can tap their respective strengths and choose which one to embody in any situation.

The more we become familiar with each of the characters in ourselves and others, the more power we gain over our thoughts, our feelings, our relationships, and our lives. Indeed, we discover that we have the power to choose who and how we want to be in every moment. And when our Four Characters work together and balance one another as a whole brain, we gain a radical new road map to deep inner peace. This audio product contains a PDF with supporting material, and the PDF is available to download.

Listen all the way through.

This is an important book to listen to of you want to have more flexibility in dealing with your world.

wonderful

what an incredible journey jill taylor took me on! i can thank her enough for the beautiful insights and truths tthis book teaches in such a fun and loving way. please read it!

Most pivotal book of the decade

Having steeped in the material of this book at a very deep level I am convinced it is the pathway out of our current global crisis. Start with integrating the four characters of the brain into your own life and you will see the ripple effect and possibilities of living a fully human life in peach and harmony with ourselves and one another.

the answer finally

this needs to be read/listened to by every human alive... freshman psych should have this mandatory in curriculum

A loving path to acceptance and integration

I found Jill’s book incredibly insightful and very healing. I highly recommend it. The process of the brain huddle is clear and extremely effective.