Finding Inner Peace After Divorce

Today, Dr. Jill Bolte Taylor and I are discussing “A Roadmap To Deep Inner Peace Using The Four Characters In Your Brain.” We are exploring Jill’s concept that our brain has “four characters.” She shares the role (dare I say personality) of each of these characters. She also shares a powerful tool she has created called the Brain Huddle. This tool guides us to consciously invite all our characters into conversation with one another. We can then tap into their respective strengths and choose which one to be led by in any given situation.

Dr. Jill was a brain scientist at Harvard when she experienced a severe stroke that wiped out the left hemisphere of her brain. It took eight years for her to completely recover and her new book Whole Brain Living is what she learned from that experience. You might recognize her as the author of My Stroke of Insight - her TED talk on the topic was the first to ever go viral.

If you would like to join us on a call with author Jill Bolte Taylor, PhD, grab your spot HERE.

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Listen to the Podcast here

Finding Inner Peace After Divorce

Welcome Dr. Jill Bolte Taylor.

I'm so happy to be with you, Karen. Thank you.

The Four Characters Of The Brain

This conversation I've been so excited to have. I know that it's going to bring a whole new dimension of support, information, and understanding to our clients. As I mentioned, our readers and our clients are typically dealing with a lot of conflict, a lot of internal and external chaos and while the coaches at Journey Beyond Divorce support readers and clients to understand what's going on. You're bringing a whole other level of what that looks like. You talked about the four characters in the brain, and I know you have a new book out about it. Let's just dive right into you explaining to us what goes on in our brain and how we can start looking at it differently and using it to our benefit.

I am all about whole brain living. Whole brain living is using what's going on in the right brain and what's going on in the left brain. Beyond that, we have two emotional systems one in each hemisphere. We have two thinking modules of cells one in each hemisphere. The fundamental difference between what's going on in the right brain and the left brain. Think about right brain right here, right now. Right here in present moment. In the present moment, I'm being bombarded with all of this information coming in through my sensory systems and then I'm having an experience of what that feels like.

The emotional system of the present moment is one of experience. What happens in the left brain is, information comes in from the present moment and it goes into that group of cells of the emotional limbic system in the left brain but the left brain is all about me, the individual and I have linearity across time. We have two completely different ways of looking at the world. One is right here, right now, where I don't perceive the boundaries of where I begin and I'm just as big as the universe having an experience.

In the left-brain emotion, I have an identity and an ego. I am Jill Bolte Taylor and here's all this information about me but then I have emotions from the past and about the future. There's that separation for the emotions but then there's also the thinking tissue. The right-thinking tissue is all about the present moment experience, where I am as big as the universe connected to all that is. It exists in a state of gratitude where the left thinking brain is my rational brain. That is me the individual as I relate to the external world.

We end up with these four very different modules of cells that each of those groups of cells results in very specific skill sets. Those skill sets have character profiles and personalities. In a typical moment, we can be passing the microphone between each of these voices talking to us inside of our head and we're experiencing all of them. If we cannot differentiate who's who inside of our head, then we're just confused or conflicted or overpowered or overpowering.

That’s a lot going on. I love the right brain now,. So whether it's the emotional or the thinking, the logical. It's very present moment. The left brain is on left linear.

It's left linear and it's got me, the individual. My ego in anything that has to do with me, my past or my future. That's all going to be left brain.

When we start looking at all of the chaotic thoughts that go on between our head, especially when we're dealing with conflict or transition or uncertainty. All of those are lighting up, which I would imagine just adds to the chaos if you don't know what's going on or how to how to work with those four different characters.

Anything that has to do with some time other than now. Let’s go directly to your interest, divorce. Even the mere concept of divorce, if you're married, is somewhere in the future. With that, comes a perception of loss and lack or pain or anxiety or discomfort or anger and all kinds of fear. If I look at the past then and I remember and we tend to often remember the positive things, then there's a longing, lacking, desire, and a real sense of less than and lost because I want that. I did that and I wanted it. I don't want the worst but I want the best.

I'm somewhere else thinking thoughts that have nothing to do with the right here, right now. The left emotional cells are the pain from the past and the fear of the future. There's also memories of pleasure in the past and pride and all that. Again, anxiety, as it relates to an unknown future. That left brain is where our craving is, our urges are, and our addictions are. That's just not happening in the right here, right now, present moment. When we have these moments of clarity of based on A, B, C, D, E, F, and G. The thinking rational character one can come in and say, “These are all the reasons why this relationship needs to determinate.”

The right brain is saying, “I love this person, but I love me. I am about life. What's best for me and, and the relationship of the present moment. Where my piece of heart and mind is in the present moment.” The key to finding your peace during this journey is the constantly bring yourself back to, “In this moment, I'm fine.” I can project all kinds of fears or anxieties or angers from past and future in that left brain but the piece is right here, right now.

The key to finding peace during this journey is to constantly bring yourself back to, 'In this moment, I'm fine.'

In the right here, right now, again, it's not about me, the loss, the other, or my relationships at all. It's about the fact that, “I have one life. I have one amazing life. I am alive. I don't know if my life's going to last five minutes or another five years or another 50 years but right now, I'm alive and there's opportunity in the fact that I'm alive that is very different than if I'm not alive.”

This is fascinating. One might say to you, “My right now sucks because I'm in the midst of this change. He or she is awful. Already dating. I've got the kids. I don't have enough finances. I don't know what’s going to happen.”

Listen to what you're saying, “I, I, he, they, and me.” That's not the right here, right now. That is not the present moment. The present moment is being willing to show up and say, “I exist here in this living presence and there's possibility in the present moment that doesn't compare to my past or my future.” Everything that you just said was the left brain coming in and saying, “My right here, right now is just not good because compared to my past. It's not what I wanted to be and I'm looking at my future. It's not what I wanted to be.” You're not right here, right now.

You're in that left brain. You're analyzing and processing from the entity of you. You happen to be on this journey of life but at the same time, you can take yourself out of the equation and be in the present moment. That's when we get lost in the flow. This is when we do things. Take a walk in the woods and allow your mind to not be about everything that you just said, “My present isn't very good.” Maybe if you get out of your own left-brain and be in the magnificence of the presence that is there.

This is why we'll go to a ball game. Let's say we're divorced now or in the process, and we go to a ballgame and for two hours I didn't think about it. Why? Why were those two hours a great way out of your pain from the past and your fear of the future? It’s because you came to the present moment and you watched the ballgame. You were engaged in the present moment with everything that was happening.

That left brain was temporarily muted.

It's always right there. We can pick up our pain in an instant. The question is, how do we purposely and mindfully bring our mind to the present more often? I live in the woods and I'm looking out my back windows at the woods and the colors that are there. Watching the movement of the leaves and just being in the magnificence of the fact that I'm in the woods and leaves are dancing. The energy that is lifting that and allowing myself to be in the present moment.

This is why it's so important that as healthy people, we have crafts or some form of art or woodworking or something that we get lost and over time just flies by, something that we love. I do stone sculpture and glass work. It's like, if I'm not feeling healthy and strong because my mind is somewhere I'd rather it wasn't. I go to what brings me instantaneous pleasure and it's pleasure because it brings me into the present moment and I get to step out of the pain.

The more we run any circuitry, the stronger that circuitry becomes and the more it begins to run on automatic. If I just spend all of my time in my past about my spouse and I'm talking about that in my present, while I'm going to be alienating the present moment because I'm just bringing all the pain from my past into the present. Who wants to hang out with that? Maybe other people who are also in that part of their character.

If I spend all of my time thinking about my past with my spouse and talking about it in the present, I will be alienating the present moment by bringing all the pain from my past into it.

That is so beautifully said. I was walking. I have an eleven-month-old puppy and we're having some family stray. As you're describing it, my left brain had the bike. I don't know which character yet, and then I kept saying, “Listen to the birds. Look at the beautiful blooms and the puppy who's delighted to be with you.” I found myself bouncing back and forth. All of a sudden, I'm in the story and the mic is in the left brain. What I hear you saying, which is important for our readers to know, is the more you practice consciously handing the mic to that right brain. You're building your building strength. When you build strength to think differently, is that what you're saying?

Yes. That becomes your automatic reactivity. The more you run a circuit, the stronger that circuit becomes. This is how we build habitual thinking. If I'm just routinizing and routinizing in my pain from the past, then that just gets stronger and stronger. Anything out there makes me go right back into that circuitry. Let's go through the four characters specifically, so that so that everybody can get to know their four then we're going to talk about the BRAIN huddle. This is the true power of what we are as an evolved human being. This is our power.

Let's dive right in.

I brought for you a model of the brain. Again, the right hemisphere right here, right now. Left hemisphere has a group of cells defining me, the individual so it has my ego. It's all about me. Left linear, I'm going to use that. I don't know why I never thought of that before. I've got right here, right now and left linear. As you look at that right hemisphere right here, right now and that left linear. I have you two amygdala one in each hemisphere, two hippocampi one in each hemisphere, and two anterior cingulate gyrus.

These are three of the major groups of cells that make up our emotional system. The difference between reptiles and mammals is this tissue. We have the brainstem region and that's what reptiles have. That's pretty much on-off switches, “I'm hungry. I eat. I stop being hungry. I'm thirsty. I drink and I stopped drinking. I need to mate. I mate. I'm not in the mood anymore.” All that. It's reptilian brain. We add on this beautiful limbic emotional tissue in each hemisphere. That's the alarm, alarm, alert, alert sympathetic nervous system.

The alarm, alarm, alert, alert is bringing information in from the present moment and how is it a threat. Am I safe? In the right hemisphere, it's bringing all the information right here, right now and am I safe? Yes. If there's a bus coming at me in the present moment, I need to be alerted to that. That's what that right hemisphere does and I need to get out of the way. The left hemisphere is phenomenal. This group of cells brings information in about the present moment and then it goes into this group of what I call character two, which is the left emotion.

This group of cells takes information about the present moment and immediately steps out of the consciousness of the present moment into my past. It asks the question, is there anything in the present moment that reminds me of my past that I need to push away from because it's a threat or a danger? Now, that's a whole different consciousness.

That's a whole different place for me to put my brain. I can be in the right here, right now, experiential of what I call characters three or I can be in every emotion I ever experienced in the past. Inside of this tissue is where our trauma from the past will be, our pain from the past, and our pleasure from the past. This is, as it relates to me, the individual and then I'm taking this information and I'm projecting it into the future and I have anxiety of the unknown.

The left is where so much of those connecting the dots and creating stories and creating fear. That's happening on our left side.

Yes. As human, we add neocortex. We add thinking tissue. In the human, we have two emotional groups of cells and we have two thinking groups of cells. The way that evolution of the mammal happens is that new tissue gets added on top of lower tissues. Consider this is the thinking and down here is the emotional. The thinking tissue has come into refine and differentiate what's going on below it. This is how we have evolved and then there's this corpus callosum, which is some 300 million acts on all fibers so the two thinking parts of our brain know what's going on.

There's a structure, the anterior commissure in the brain, so that the two amygdala and limbic systems knows what's going on. The evolution of humanity is for all of these four characters to be communicating with one another and then we get to put have the power to choose which of these we want to be at any moment in time. We do that through the structure called the BRAIN huddle.

Character One

Character one is left thinking. Left thinking is our rational organized brain. It is our relationship between me, the individual and the external world. How do I position myself in response to the social norms outside of me? It is organized. It likes to categorize and in control of people, places, and things. It likes to be the boss. It's got a group of cells right back here. Without these group of cells, this defines the boundaries of where I begin and where I am.

How do I know that this face is my face but these glasses are not me? It's because there's a group of cells here that creates a holographic image of me. All of a sudden, in the right brain, I'm big as the Universe. I don't have the definition of me, the individual. Not even the boundaries of where I begin in because I'm an energy blob on top of this organic mass of some 50 trillion cells. That's the present moment processing.

It takes the left brain to know who am I and it has language, “I am Jill Bolte Taylor.” and all the details. “I have a doctorate in this, that, or the other. This is where I live. This is my phone number.” It has language so I can speak and I can understand when other speaks. Now, I can communicate out with others outside of myself. It defines what is right, wrong, good and bad. This part of our brain that character one is defining the social norm within which I need to function in order to be a functional human being in the world outside of myself.

This is the boss. This is the part of ourselves where it's punctual and it wants you to be punctual, too. I encourage people to name each of these four characters so that when you're thinking inside of your own head, “Who said that? That was Helen,” and this is my Helen, Hell on Wheels. She gets it done. My character one is called Helen. I encourage you, Karen, to name your character one.

That is that's amazing, though. Character one is also where we judge.

Yes, it judges what is right, wrong, good or bad and it defines what is right, wrong, good or bad because now that comes the construct within which the rest of the animal that is me needs to behave in a certain way in order to, 1) Stay out in jail. 2) Be rational and organized. 3) Have some control and order inside of my life so I can exist in a state other than chaos.

At the same time, I would imagine it also can lead us down a more difficult paths of like being judgmental or seeing things a certain way and then reacting to them. Maybe not to use positive and negative but in a productive way, it gives us structure. I love the whole concept of my glasses. Why do I know this is my cheek but I know that this isn't a part of me? It gives us that structure and organization and it can also give us that black and white thinking that doesn't serves us so much.

We have to have the black and white thinking in order to create order. In order to have linearity across time, we have to be able to know this is different from this and that. You have to have differentiation and specific in detail in order to be able to create that level of order.

Yours is Hell on Wheels. I love that.

Hellen, Hell on Wheels. She gets it done.

That's another one character and that’s left thinking because we have a left thinking, left emotional right thinking and right thinking and right emotional. What's our next character?

Character Two

Character two is going to be left emotion. Left brain is all about me, left linearity. All the filtering of the information coming in, as I said. It comes in and immediately goes to this character number two. It says, “Alarm, alarm. Alert, alert.” Give me a reason to look at what anything that's happening in the present moment to push away and say, “No, that's a threat.”

Does it scan the path to do that?

Yes. Let's say, when I was five years old and I was learning how to ride a bicycle. There was a dog in the neighborhood that kept nipping at my ankles like it was going to bite me and it terrified me. Years later, I see a dog like that dog. It's a different dog, but I see a dog like that and I automatically have a negative response because I was traumatized in the past. This is going to hold all that trauma so that I can bring in new information and realize that if I want to stay away from the trauma that I had from the past, anything that looked like trauma from the past, I need to now push away from.

When we talk to our clients about the relationships they get into and how the patterns and marriage might very much mirror their family of origin, and the patterns between mom and dad or them and their siblings. All of that is being connected and those thoughts are all coming from the left emotional brain.

Why is that? It’s because if information is coming in from the present moment and I see a dog that looks just like that dog when I was five. That goes into my character two, which scans my past and says, “That dog is dangerous,” or let's say energetically because we're not just chemical and physical beings. We're energy balls. Research was done and it's like put 100 people in room together and the alcoholics will find one another. The cocaine people will find one another. The Namastes will find one another and that's because we are also an energy being. We're all radiating a different frequency.

Wouldn't it be cool if we had some a meter that we could hold out for everybody? We do have that meter in that right brain. The right brain is right here, right now. It's scanning for familiarity, so exactly what you're saying. Why is it that that I my dad was an alcoholic? It's familiar. Familiar feel safe to that left emotional only because it's familiar. I know what to do with that. That feels safe to me because even if dad was an alcoholic and he was a raging mean alcohol. He's still dad and represented another part of safety for me of home.

We are energy beings radiating different frequencies. We have a meter in our right brain that scans for familiarity.

We're very confused in how we think about these things but there's a level of familiarity. Things that are familiar, we invite in. Things that are new or different, we push away from. This is going to be the part of our brain where I'm attracted to blonde hair and blue eyed because they're familiar. If someone comes in and they're black hair, dark eyes and wearing clothing of a different religion that feels unfamiliar to me or their skin tone is different from mine. This character two that is looking at that saying, “That's not familiar. I'm going to push that away.”

Whether it's a positive or a negative, it's not rational but it's all we've got. It's our alarm, alarm, alert, alert. The alarm is going to go off. The thing about the alarm is, it's not just going to be benign observational information. It's going to be, “Honey, if I love you, I'm going to put my emotional trigger right up for you to pounce on so that you can hurt me because I'm your daughter or I'm your mother, or whatever it is. There's my trigger, go pound on it and hurt me.”

Why do we do this? Why do we set our trigger right out there? It's because we blend this need. I need you. This dependency, because this character never grows up. The emotional part of our brains never grow up, so we're going to have two children inside of our heads. We're going to have character two, which is what we're talking about, the pain from my past and the fear of my future. Character three are the children inside of our heads. This is a part of us that needs to be held and nurtured.

You're blowing my mind here. I've personally done a lot of what I would call inner child work like all the trauma and issues from my childhood. When I talked to my clients, I'll sometimes say like, “How old are you? Your kid is driving the bus. Your kid is running the show.” What you're saying is we've got four characters and two of them are our kids. They're our child inside and it's fascinating because as we continue this conversation, like how do we work with that and that interplay.

The last person you want to give the keys to the bus to but it's our pain and it is loud. It's right here, right now. It's explosive, loud, and real. From the moment we think a thought, it triggers an emotional circuit. Let's related to divorce. I hate to do that because I don't want to push people's buttons, but let's say I have the thought that my spouse is being unfaithful. Emotionally, it's like, “I’ve been down this road before and I'm going to catch this. I'm going to catch that. I'm going to look for this. I'm going to look for that.”

I rate powerful ball but from the moment the thought to the time I'm becoming this emotional ball to the time of whatever that neurochemistry is going to be that I just stimulated, because this is just cells inside of our head. That's important to remember, too. My rage, fear, anxiety, love, laughter, and identity is just a group of cells inside of your head. What do we know about cells that become predictable so that we can consciously choose to change or shift our output based on shifting what we know is going on in the brain?

From the moment the thought, it stimulates the emotional circuit. It dumps a chemical inside of my bloodstream. It floods through me and flushes out of me. It takes less than 90 seconds. If I do get hooked into a loop, I don't have to stay in that for days and months and years. I don't have to hate this person for decades. Now, I can because every time now I re-stimulate that circuitry of thinking of that and what he did or whatever, then I run that. It flushes through and out of me.

If I don't evolve that circuit with the other parts of my brain, then that is my stress, my pain. I'm inflicting on my biology over and over again. It's got nothing to do with that person they left years ago. They don't even care. They could be dead for all we know. That's why we say, “We're doing is, we're running. We're hurting cells and not the other person.” That's why forgiveness comes in, but how do I forgive? That's another part of the brain.

You're saying so much. We talked about the left thinking and the left emotional, but then you just mentioned the right emotional. Is that character three?

Character Three

Character three is the right emotional group of cells. Again, we have the amygdala for am I safe in the present moment? The hippocampus is how we learn and memorize new information and then the cingulate gyrus. Those are going to be the limbic cells of the right hemisphere. The right hemisphere is right here, right now.

Information is streaming in right here, right now and it's alarm, alarm, alert, alert, and am I safe. If I'm safe, then great. What is the experience of the present moment? What does the temperature of the air feel like between your fingers? That's experienced in the present moment. What does it feel like to feel your clothing on your body? What does that feel like? These headsets, how's that feeling? Am I having a pain come in because they're too tight or whatever? The experience of the present moment now.

Once it gets beyond just my immediate, then it's like, “There's words out there. I want to go play in the woods. Look at the leaves. The energy is waving and they're like all saying hi.” Right here, right now is the perfect moment. Right here, right now is at least neutral if not divine experience. It is what it is. It's not in my head, so it's not about my past, my future, my fears, my anxieties, about me and all my muck. It's about right here, right now. What does it feel like when I dive into the water and I feel the temperature of the water and I feel the pressure of the water against my body?

I want to go on an adventure because I want to think out of the box. I want to explore something new. I want to be innovative and do new and creative things. This is why they say we're creative in the right brain because it's not about that box, the right, wrong, good, and bad defined by the left brain. It's about, I can take this and I can take that. It can take this and I can do all this but it's not all good.

I'm going to say, “Karen, let's go play. Let's go bungee jump. The cranes are here there. They're out on the sand dunes.” It's like, “Let's go hang gliding on the sand dunes.” You're going, “Let's go play.” It's like, “Let's get drunk. Okay. Let's go. Let's break into this. That's fun. Let's do that.” A lot of character threes is divine as it is and end up in jail because this is the spontaneous, energized, creative, out of the box part of who we are.

That was such a great description. Right here and right here character three never grows up.

It’s emotional and experiential. There's no thinking going on. What were you thinking? I probably wasn’t.

I think about my son who's got ADHD. He's impulsive. It's like bypass that one part of the brand and went right to a character brain. The other thing as you're speaking, we've just had a couple of guests on who talked about meditation and mindfulness. All of those practices are honing in on character four.

Perfectly lead into character four. What is character four? Here's the alarm, alarm, alert, alert, sympathetic nervous system, am I safe in the present moment, let's go think out of the box, let's have fun, we got energy and impetus to do, let's go be, let's go play, and let's go do this and that. Without the judgment of, “Is that a good idea? What are the consequences of your behavior for the future?” Says character one. Character three is going, “Why I didn't get there, right?” Teenage braid. A lot going on there.

Character Four

Character four is going to be the right-thinking tissue. The right-thinking tissue is in the present moment, right here, right now. It is not about me, the individual. It's not about my past, my future, my relationships, my job or my to-do's. It's not about right, wrong, good, and bad. It is, “I'm alive.” When you stop and pause, we have no idea how to create lives. You can't create life. We don't know. Life is this amazing miracle that happens where a membrane and a bunch of atoms and molecules come together.

They create a genetic profile and that genetic profile has managed to create a semipermeable membrane to separate it and its internal workings from the external universe. It puts little stippled of effects so that some things can come in and flow out but not a lot of things. It's got little receptors so it can detect, “Is there a lot of hydrogen out there? That's pretty acidic. I can't exist in acid, so I'm going to repel away.”

It might have little photon receptors on. It's like, “I thrive in light, so I'm going to move toward.” Here I am, I'm just a single celled organism. I'm responding to and interacting with the external world. People say, “Jill, what's the meaning of life?” I think it is to stimulate and be stimulated by an other, period. At the single cell organism. What am I? I was a single-celled zygote cell. The single combination cell from half of the DNA from mom and from dad, so now I'm a new combination and all the possibilities.

That cell multiplied. Its DNA repackage. They multiplied and repackaged up to 50 trillion beautiful molecular geniuses. Some of these became so I could see life. Somebody came liver cells so I could process, intake and nutrition. Some of these became whatever. I have digits and motor legs that allow me to move about in the world but what am I? I'm just a massive life. I'm alive.

Now, when was the last time you just stopped and thought, “I'm alive, period?” None of the, it’s me, pay for my past, fear the future, and all that. All me. Forget me. I'm alive. When you live in a state of, I'm alive. You exist with a sense of gratitude that you have bladder capacity. We have water capacity. I have a heart that beats and it pushes blood and I don't have to tell it to do that. I am this miracle of this collection of atoms and molecules from the universe and the energy. There's no separation between the energy of me in me and every cell of my body and the energy around me. I am the cosmic consciousness of the universe right here, 50 trillion strong.

Wouldn't it be nice to live there like more often?

It's right there. Let's go back to your original question. When you are mindful and you are a mindful of the thoughts and the kinds of thoughts that you're being. Now, you can say, “That's a character, too. That was my character too with the mic. That's character one with the mic. That's character three with the mic. This is character four in the mic and I want to go to character four because character four, my whole, soul takes a pause.” All that's busy stuff going on in my brain for my characters 1, 2, and 3. They all calm down and I take a big deep breath in the present moment. I'm grateful for my life.

We can get there. Why do we pray? We pray to silence the left brain so we can become that consciousness. Call that God or Allah or whatever you want to call that. I call it the consciousness of my right-thinking brain. Now, does that mean that when I'm dead, I don't know what's happened when I'm dead. All I know is that's the portal through which I share that consciousness and we can get there. We can pray to get there. We can meditate to get there. We can yoga and use all these tools to get there but you can't get there if your left brain won't be quiet enough to take the leap. Left brain, you're not going anywhere. You're always right here. I can zip you right up in a moment but I have the power to choose to go to that piece of who I am.

I read a quote of yours where you said, “Face is only a thought away.”

That's right. That's the thought. The thought is, in this moment, I'm going to go be that part of me. I’m going to land in that part of me. I'm going to be that and again, what we practice get stronger.

You said that earlier. I was I wanted to mention it when you were saying it. The whole obsession over what he did many years ago and what it does to our body, you keep going there. You keep practicing on that over and over again. You're building a strong, I'll use the word muscle and pathway that you is not serving you at all. I did a whole course on positivity a couple of years ago and they were saying the exact same thing, what you focus on grows. Even that piece, knowing that the more I focus on my character four, the more peace I'm going to happen in my life. You just give us so much information. You said that your BRAIN huddle is also an acronym for something.

It is and this is the power of this material. What I want people to do is to get to know your own four characters. In Whole Brain Living, it has a chapter for character one, and it has questions at the end of that chapter. You can get familiar with who is your character one, how strong is it, where does it hang out, who gets along with your character one, and who is runs away from your character one. You just get to know that part of your life, and then who's your character two.

It’s a few different questions but the same idea, who is that and who comes in and tries to poke that trigger to move you in? It becomes fascinating when you start using your rational minds in order to perceive. Every time my brother comes in the door, we're good for about five minutes and then we move into an automatic fight. He wants my character two. How can I now use what I know about my own brain to not go into my character two to give them that? As soon as one of us changes the game, the game is a different game. It's like dancing. If I'm doing a different step, we can't fall back into the same old pattern.

What you said in the very beginning is, once we become familiar with our own four characters, we can also start seeing the four characters of those people that we’re in relationship with. One of the things that I speak about so often on this show is how when we do this work, understand and refine ourselves and gain more control of ourselves, we then can pour that into our children. There's something so incredibly powerful in what you're sharing with us. The BRAIN huddle tool is going to be super important for everybody and we're going to talk more about your book at the end and where they can get it.

Let's talk about marriage. Let's say my character one and your character one fall madly in love with one another because character ones are character ones. We’re efficient and cooperative. We work together. We more detail based. You got your turf and I got my turf. Let's say our character ones work well but I have a strong character three, too, and that's play. I want to play and you don't have a well-developed character three.

I end up having to take my character three out of the relationship. I got to go play with my pals or go do this or go do that. Not that that's not important, but it's important that your one doesn't then start resenting my three because I need my three because that's my refuel, my pause and my refresh button. Let's say I say to you, “I'm going to go play tennis with so and so.” You decide that you don't get to go, so you move into your character two.

Now, my character three who's happy little person is dealing with your character two. Now I start resenting you because I start feeling manipulated by that. I moved from my three into my two with you, but then I'm still going to take my three out and play with my pals. We got two against two and there's never a resolution in the two. As soon as we start that two to two dance, we have to figure out ways of using the other characters to come in and nurture ourselves out of our own character two. We need to take responsibility for our own character twos because that's how we find grace. We have to bring grace back into the relationship.

Character two and three are just to remind our readers those are the emotional parts of the brain that never grow up. That's where we fight and play. That's where we behave in ways that don't always serve us.

The BRAIN Huddle

Exactly. The BRAIN huddle, B stands for breathe. How do you want to get to the present moment, whether you're being mindful or meditative or doing a mantra or you're in prayer. We tend to focus on our breath. Why is that? Breath is the first thing we do when we're born in the last thing we do before we die. It is a train running in present time. If I bring my mind to even thinking about that track and I visualized that track. I can increase the frequency of my breath. I can increase the amplitude and volume of my breath. I can hold my breath. We're the only mammal on the planet but we can say, “Hold your breath and we'll hold our breath.”

We have the ability to bring our mind into the present moment. Focus on the breath. Any of the characters can call a BRAIN huddle. Helen, the character one. She might say, “Where's my team? I need to know my team. Huddle.” Only because the Helen wants to exercise that we all know how to do this because practice makes perfect. I need to be able to know why I can get all four of my characters on board in the huddle because when I'm character number two, all she wants is her pain.

We're the only mammals on the planet who can say, 'Hold your breath,' and we'll hold our breath. We have the ability to bring our minds into the present moment.

She wants her pain. She wants to be mean and get out of pain but she gets out of pain by being mean. It's like the louder I get, the more numb I need from you. Are you attracted to that? It's the exact opposite. Two needs to know how to call the huddle. Two can call the huddle when she’s in pain. Character three, playful is like, “Where's my team? Huddle, I need a cuddle.” All four characters come and it’s like, “Think about the breath. Is everybody here?”

Character four wants to call a huddle because, “I'm so grateful I'm alive. Helen thank you for doing all the things you do because you do them so well. Little character two, I love you. Thank you for being here because you keep me safe and you are my growth edge. You show me where I'm constricted and I can learn to grow and become more expansive. Character three, thank you for being you that impetus of life. This is dynamic spark plug that you are. I'm here to just express gratitude for all of you.”

Any them can call the huddle. R is recognized which about my four characters did just call the huddle? We just ran through that. Recognize which character called the huddle. A, appreciate the fact that no matter who called the huddle. There's four of us in here. We're all right here. I get they all got names. I know who they are. I know what they're good at. I know what they do, what their habits are and how they get me in trouble. I know it all.

A, appreciate that we have all four to work with. I is inquire. In this moment, who do we want to come out in order to, N for navigate, the next moment? Who shows up? I'll give you a quick example. I walk into a room, all four of me. There's a couple in there and they've been fighting. Character four feels all that energetic. That's just energy. It's like I just walked in a fight. We know the intuition of the character four is saying. Character one can come in. Now, it's BRAIN huddle. What do we doing this moment? We just barge in the middle of a fight.

It's like, BRAIN huddle instantaneous. Character one could come in and say, “Is there anything you need? Can I help you in any way? Do you need me to make a call? Do you need water? Do you need a steep stiff drink? How do I serve you? How do I fix this problem with you?” That's what Helen might do. My character two might say, “There in there and they're fighting. They're fighting about another friend and I know that person, too.”

My little character two wants to get in there and misery loves miserable company, so I'm just going to steal the pot. I have that ability. Character three is going to come in and go, “Whoops,” and make some inappropriate whimsical jokes like, “Stick your foot in your mouth. Now is the moment to do that, or come on, forget that.” The character four is going to be empathic, compassionate and open and it's going to say, “I love you. I got your back. If you need anything, we're here to support you. Take the time that you need and surround them with a nurturing love and be there.” Hold the space for whatever that pain is.

That's the BRAIN huddle. B is to bring your mind to the present moment by focusing on the breath. R is recognized which of your characters call the huddle. A is appreciate that we're all four here on board ready to act. I is inquire with among ourselves. Not about what other somebody else thinks we ought to be doing, and that's important. Not doing what someone else thinks we ought to be doing. Inquire among my four what is the best choice for us. N is navigate moment by moment.

I might find that my character three came in and made an inappropriate joke then it was like, “That was a bad choice.” Helen might come on character one and say, “What can I do to support you?” Four might come in and say, “Take your time. I got your wrapped in a bubble of love and do what you need to do and nurture.” This is the power of our brain. This is the power of whole brain living and the four characters that drive our life.

We have the power to choose moment by moment who and how we want to be in the world. We have that power but we don't have that power if we don't know what our choices are. These are the choices and then the BRAIN huddle is the tool to get them all on equal standing ground and say, “Little two, I got you.” This is how we self soothe. Our own nurturing, loving character four comes online and says, “We are so grateful to be alive. I may be in the depth of my pain because that bastard is going to blame. It's going to shame and feel guilt. It's going to do all those complex emotions that we are so fortunate that we get to experience,” because that's the difference between being alive and being dead.

We have the power to choose, moment by moment, who we want to be and how we want to show up in the world. We have that power, but we don’t have it if we don’t know what our choices are.

It's like God, I wish I could just cut my pain out. Our pain shows us our growth edge. If I'm caught up in that relationship and the dream of that relationship, the pain from the past and the fear of the future. If I'm caught up in that, that's a group of cells inside of my brain. I don't want to lose my life or my sanity or my peace of heart and mind, which is my character four because I'm in so much pain in my character two.

It's character two and character one who skiing for manipulation and forces for suicide. That's me, the individual. I have a whole brain in my presence of the experience of the present moment to know what an amazing gift life is. We never know what tomorrow will bring. We never know the gifts of what tomorrow will bring and hooking into the beauty and the love and the awe that I existed all. I do have this power to stop the pain from my past by bringing my mind into the other parts of my brain. This is neuroanatomical. This is cells.

Three quarters of my brain want me to be happy, well, and alive. There's one part that just root noises in that agony. The question is, how much time do we spend there? I'm the first person to say, you have to go through that pain. You have to feel the beauty of that pain. Go to the floor on all fours and weep your soul when that wave comes over you, but let it last for 90 seconds. Feel it flood through you. Feel the power of it. Let it rinse your gut and then let that wave pass out of you. You will find that biologically the time between those waves of grief and pain will get bigger and bigger and you will find more peace. You will spend more time in that heart consciousness of your character for.

The 90 second thing you've mentioned it twice. When I was going through my divorce, I was involved in Al-Anon. One of their many slogans, which I use all the time is, if you're upset count to ten. If you're really upset, count to 100. The idea is exactly that. I could totally would call it the pain body. It's like this thing happened but it doesn't last but then some people it does last. I don't know what you're talking about 90 seconds. Would you say that character two, the left emotional brain is just holding on to the mic?

Holding the mic and if you keep rethinking the thoughts that are going to make you unhappy, then it's a natural progression of thought to unhappy. If you just hook into that and keep running that loop, then what happens? Let's say, I'm in my misery, I'm worrying or nagging or whatever I am and then telephone rings. It's like, “Hello?” I have now automatically been shifted into a part of my brain and then I put the phone down.

That's the moment I do my work. If I choose or don't choose, but do it automatically to go back to the same old thoughts that ran the same old pattern then I'm just right back in my character two. I might say, “I'm going to go to the office. I'm going to get this to-do list done.” At least cross one or two things off the list so that I feel better about the list. I got this art project going on down stairs, but it's chaotic and messy down there, so now I need to clean up the mess. I'm going to go down there and sweep the mess. I'm going to choose to put my mind somewhere else.

However, character two is our addiction tissue. If I'm addicted now to my pain and being worried or being unhappy, then I need to look at what I'm doing. I have to remember that these are cells in circuit. I love that you brought up AA because in the book chapter 11 but it's on AA, an addiction and how the four characters are the heroes journey for any of our addiction and how we get through from the monster, which is my craving but I'm having a calling to be being sober.

I have my craving and I need to jump out of those consciousnesses, heed the call of the journey, leave me and my life behind, which means my addiction as well and come into the present moment. Why is it that AA one day at a time or one hour at a time, or one moment at a time? It’s because now I stepped out of that circuitry into the present experience of the new moment. In there, I don't have an addiction in that tissue. Think about it. Three quarters of your brain doesn't have addiction. I need to get myself out of that addiction tissue into these other character profiles that live a healthier life.

It's so amazing and I was going to bring that up, three quarters of my brain wants to be happy. That’s so interesting because we’re already in a win if we can tune into this and work it. You only have this cranky little one quarter that never grow up complaining. One thought comes to me. I talk a lot about emotional intelligence as you're describing it, and correct me if I'm completely off base here. It sounds like character four is where a lot of our emotional intelligence lies.

The Power Of The BRAIN Huddle

It's our wisdom. It's our sense of wisdom, who am I as a as a life force, and what do I want. That's why the BRAIN huddle is so important. If you can train any of your characters, especially your character two, but again, have all your characters call the BRAIN huddle because it's a muscle. As you said, you want that circuit to run so that it's strong enough, so that when you're in your pain you can still call a huddle and see the value of it in order to get out of the routinizing pain. The routinization is just a group of cells that are running and running.

The power of the huddle is you don't have a huddle without your character four on board. As soon as character four is on board, you're going to make better decisions because character four is there holding, soothing, loving, nurturing, and not just others but our own little character two. I learned this when my mom passed. She passed in 2015. I would call her when my little character two was unhappy or unsafe. She had a very character four death. She wanted it. I lived a great life. It's like, “I'm going to die. How exciting is that?”

She wanted everybody to know, “I'm going to die.” We all celebrated. There were people moved into their twos. She would call these people who she loved at time like, “I'm so glad I have known you in my life, but I'm going to die.” They then immediately went into their character two and she said, “No, I don't want to talk to people who are in their character two about it. It's been great. It's been a great ride.” I said, “Mom, you can't call these people and tell them that unless you're going to hold the space for their two.”

She said, “Here's a list of people. Call them when I die so that they know.” She didn’t want to manage two. I asked myself when I was unhappy and sad mom was gone, what did I get from mom? What did mom do? What energy did she bring me? What did she say? How did she bring in her character three sense of humor? How did she soothe me?

I encourage everyone to go and think about when you're in your deepest grief, pain, and anger, who in your life was the go-to character and think about what did they do. They probably simply held the space for you. They loved you, listen to you, and held the space until you were ready to dissolve that anger ball, that fear ball, and that grief ball and relax back into your own character four with them.

This is so empowering. Everybody has to read this book and understand these characters. This is the most empowering paradigm concept truth because life is difficult. There are bumps, bends, trials and tribulations. Many of us are just like operating from characters two when life happens. Yet if we can be huddling on a regular basis, that's a game changer. You can experience the rest of your life differently and significantly better if you can brain huddle through your life.

You did say something and I want to address it because you said something about three quarters of our brain, we can be happy. I don't care about being happy. I'm not here to be happy. I'm here to be whatever the experience of life brings me. Happy is relative to external circumstance. Joy is which comes up through the consciousness of that character three into our life that we can push out into the world.

I'm much more fixated on my own internal character three joy that is always a candle that is always lit. Now, I might be damned because I'm not giving it a lot of oxygen, but if I give it oxygen, I become a torch of positive energy in the world not because of what's going on in the world but because of the light within me. We all have that choice and all that power to choose that. Now, that doesn't mean I don't want to feel my agony because I love agony.

My favorite emotion is grief. It is so overwhelming. It envelops me and takes me to the ground. It fillets me it. I cry and scream but then it flashes past me. It was like, “That was delicious. I'm alive. I'm capable of that level of soul and we can judge that as negative and as bad but if you just look at what it is, it is so beautiful that we're capable of these emotions.

Beautifully said. Tell us again about your book and where people can find you before we say goodbye.

DrJillTaylor.com is my website. Whole Brain Living: The Anatomy of Choice and the Four Characters That Drive Our Life, I truly believe that this this material is the gift that from the stroke that I had when I was 37 but died. When that stroke happened, I lost my left brain. I lost Jill, the individual. She died that day. I lost character one and two. All I had was character three and character four. Character four mostly, and then characters three came back online with a little energy. It's like, I can exist in this blissful euphoria for eternity, but I'm alive. It became important to me to try to communicate to others. That piece is the thought away and it's right there in the consciousness of that right brain.

You have one of the most watched TED talks.

My TED Talk in ‘08 was the first TED talk that ever go viral.

What the name of it?

My Stroke of Insight.

You have a book named the same, My Stroke of Insight.

Watch the TED Talk and the book. Check out Dr. Jill's website. This has just been brilliant. I could ask you a hundred more questions and maybe you'll even come back and speak with us again. Thank you.

I would like that. Especially if once you're audience lives with it, gets it, reads it, and incorporates it then we get to have another conversation. It takes it to a whole new level because now it's real people working with the real material, finding the benefits, and finding the obstacles. I’d love to have that conversation.

Let’s make that happen. Thank you so much. We will be back again with another episode real soon.

Important Links

• Dr. Jill Bolte Taylor
• Dr. Jill Bolte Taylor on Facebook
• Dr. Jill Bolte Taylor on YouTube
• Whole Brain Living: The Anatomy of Choice and the Four Characters That Drive Our Life
• My Stroke of Insight
• My Stroke of Insight: A Brain Scientist's Personal Journey
• Journey Beyond Divorce