I recommend that everyone spend some time reading and listening to what Jill Bolte Taylor has to say about the brain. I’ve included some links below. But here’s the most important ideas for our discussion.
Four Sections
There are four main sections to the brain, two on the left and two on the right. The left and right each have a lower and upper section. The lower section is the oldest section, it is what we often refer to as the reptilian brain or the monkey mind.
In very simple terms we can think of the left brain as the thinking/speaking side, and the right brain as the creative/spiritual side. Both sides have emotion, so there is thinking emotion and creative emotion.
The top parts of the brain are not connected, but the bottom parts are. The top parts are also much bigger! This means that these upper parts of our brain have to communicate to each other through the connection on the lower part.
How It Evolved
An easy way to visualize how it works is to understand how it evolved. Basically we started with the monkey mind, the lower part that has a left and right side which are joined. We can see this in our pets, like a dog. They wag along just perfectly happy with their “primitive” brain. Many of us actually envy them for it!
The human brain didn’t go from small to big overnight. It was the process of millions of years. Like all evolution it would’ve happened just a little bit at a time. A slightly bigger brain would have given a slight advantage, and then bigger yet another slight advantage… And on and on.
The left and right grew larger together. There was never a time where the left side grew bigger than the right side, or the right side grew bigger than the left side.
That’s important to understand because it means they are equally important, and they always work together. We’ll explore that more later when were really exploring who we are.
Links
Evolution of the Brain
— Interview about Jill’s new book Whole Brain Living