Vi Lyall Lyall itibaren Matta Kotuwa, Sri Lanka
Re-scheduled my morning in order to finish this incredible book. Taylor experienced a stroke that wiped out the left hemisphere of her brain, leaving her to eventually completely recover, with tremendous insight into how the two sides of our brain work together. There are a lot of bad reviews of this book on GoodReads. Some say it's poorly edited and repetitive. Some say it mixes personal ideas with scientific fact in a confusing way. Some say it puts too positive a spin on her recovery process. Okay, sure. But I found that the insights in this book transcended those concerns. If you're looking for a scientific analysis of brain anatomy, go elsewhere. But if you're looking for one person's retrospective view of stroke recovery, as if in a personal letter, then you won't be disappointed, and you'll surely learn meaningful information about stroke survivors. A couple excerpts: "Although I wanted to regain my left hemisphere skills, I must say that there were personality traits that tried to rise from the ashes of my left mind that, quite frankly, were no longer acceptable to my right hemispheric sense of who I now wanted to be." p131 "My goal during this process of recovery has been not only to find a healthy balance between the functional abilities of my two hemispheres, but also to have more say about which character dominates my perspective at any given moment." p134 "Sadly, the expression of compassion is often a rarity in our society. Many of us spend an inordinate amount of time and energy degrading, insulting, and criticizing ourselves (and others) for having made a "wrong" or "bad" decision. When you berate yourself, have you ever questioned: who inside you is doing the yelling, and at whom are you yelling? Have you ever noticed how these negative internal thought patterns have the tendency to generate increased levels of hostility and/or raised levels of anxiety? And to complicate matters even more, have you noticed how negative internal dialogue can negatively influence how you treat others and, thus, what you attract?"