+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

I am still in the middle of traveling (went 4-wheeling and horse back riding today), and leave northern Minnesota tomorrow morning for a night’s stay at my son’s in Grand Forks, ND and then back down to my daughter’s in Fargo for another ten days before heading ‘home’ to Alaska to see my brothers and the land.

I could write volumes about my experiences thus far, but there’s only one thing I really want to mention right now.  My youngest sister generously sent me a copy of a book she was reading on her Kindle when I visited her in Seattle recently, My Stroke of Insight: A Brain Scientist’s Personal Journey by Ph.D., Jill Bolte Taylor.  I want to mention it here so that any of you who might find her book of value will have time to get a copy to read before I finally get a chance (after my travels) to write here about my own perception of the value of this book.

Although I highly recommend Jill’s book, because of the specific issues I present on this blog regarding the life long consequences of early severe child abuse as it affects — and alters — the development of the young brain, I suggest that readers might wish to actually begin their reading of “My Stroke of Insight” with Chapter 15 that begins on page 138.  Of course it would be preferrable to begin at the beginning, but the information that the author presents beginning on the page I mention here is most specifically related to “our” topic.

I have never read in any single book so many clear and helpfully identified suggestions about how to manage one’s BRAIN and therefore one’s quality of life!  Jill’s descriptions about how the two hemispheres of the brain operate cannot be matched!  As you read this book you will come to understand how hard-won her suggestions about how to live a ‘better’ life are.  Yet while it is not my intention to in any way demean, belittle or criticize Jill’s perspectives, I do wish to urge this blog’s readers to practice what I call the ‘cautionary’ approach to her statements about her experience with healing her own brain post-stroke. 

Reading the latter chapters in Jill’s book provide an excellent experience in finding the middle road between what people might be able to know and understand about their brains when those brains were formed under benovolent conditions (as Jill’s seems to have been pre-stroke damage), and what those of us whose brains formed under malevolent severe child abuse and neglect conditions need to learn and understand about our altered brain and how to heal it.

Interestingly, Jill’s professional life as a neuroanatomist is intimately connected to Harvard, the same educational and research ‘facility’ that birthed the concept that those of us who were severely abused as children have a changed (‘evolutionarily altered’) brain as a result of our development under extremely adverse conditions.  While there is much in Jill’s writing that I can see as being of value to me (on the middle road) I do not get the sense that she knows about the ‘Martin Teicher’s Group’s’ research about child abuse and how it changes brain development.  Jill’s book does, however, give an impressive jump-start opportunity to learn valuable information about healing a wounded brain – and a wounded self – and that certainly includes me/us.

I won’t go into any more detail at the moment, but I wanted to get this information onto the blog about this book with the hopes that readers will take a little time to pop on over to amazon.com (at least) and explore the value of this book for themselves.  It is a very reasonably priced book and is worth much more for the dime than any book I could possibly recommend!!

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

I am far from feeling comfortable using other people’s computers, so will wait for a better  and more appropriate time  to activate those parts of my own brain and being that wait for a future date — when my current play-visit-self-expansion-challenge time has drawn to a close.  I wish you all the very best — and suggest that you read My Stroke of Insight: A Brain Scientist’s Personal Journey by Ph.D., Jill Bolte Taylor as soon as you can get your hands on a copy!!  I promise — you will be glad that you did!  Rarely, in my opinion, does a book appear that more than carries its own weight in VALUE such as this one does!! 

Be sure to post your comments here about what you think of Jill’s book once you read it!!

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

 Who’s Mother of the Year? 

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

 

Step-up to Prevent Child Abuse!Promising Practices for Preventing Child Abuse and Neglect