Choices With Jill Bolte Taylor

Hello everybody, welcome to another episode of the Thriving Adoptees podcast. Today I'm delighted to be, uh, be joined by Jill, Dr. Jill Botti Taylor. Really looking forward to our conversation today, Jill.

Yeah, thanks, Simon, I'm happy to be here.

Cool. So, um, Jill is a neuroanatomist. Now I've heard it— did you used to call yourself a neuroscientist and then you became a neuroanatomist, or I, I've always been specifically an anatomist.

So, so, and I was a body, whole body gross anatomist, and then I was a histologist, a tissue anatomy, and then also neuroanatomy of the brain and spinal cord.

Yeah. So I, I discovered, uh, Jill, through a, a book that I was reading that referenced your, your, uh, Stroke of Insight book. So Um, so listeners, uh, Jill was in this field researching it, and then she had a, she had a stroke. So it was on the left-hand side of the, of the brain, and basically that turned your world around. And it was 8 years it took you to, to heal fully from, from that stroke. But the, the book's called A Stroke of Insight, so it's all about the insights that you had. about, um, well, about all sorts of things really. Um, and, and today we're going to be looking at that in, uh, in relation to the, the adoptee experience. So as adoptees, we've got this thing, we suffer this thing called separation trauma. And I was looking at, uh, I was looking at a reference to start the conversation, and, and I found one on betterhelp.com. And it says separation trauma and any other emotions felt during the adoption may, may linger in, in their, as in adoptees, developing neurological systems, right? So that's my kind of my keying in of our stuff as adoptees, trauma and, and tough feelings, and your stuff in terms of neurology. So does that kind of all make sense? Sure.

You want me to talk about that?

Yes, please.

Okay. So, um, you know, as when we're in the womb, you know, and we begin as this single cell, um, uh, half mom, half dad DNA, we're, we're just this little cell. And the cell has DNA and it has machinery. And there's an energy that drives the force of that cell to multiply and divide and multiply and divide. And it's multiplying the DNA and then repackaging that DNA inside of new cells. And in the womb, we develop at a rate of as much as 250,000 new cells per second, per second. So we're really this, this duplication machine. Which is driven by this ball of energy. And so by the time we are a fetus, a full fetus, and we're in the womb, we're really just this multiplying ball of energy. And as we then come out of the mother into the world, there is no longer— at this point, separation occurs. So the cognitive relationship of being taken away and the physiological of taking away from mother is one form of separation. But we all experience a natural form of separation as we separate from our mother's body, because we are at one with the energy of mother's body, because that's all we know. That's what we are. So as we are born, this really is the first real trauma that most of us experience is simply being born. Because now all of a sudden, I'm no longer nurtured by and fueled and a part of mom's energy. But now I become a separate energy entity. And then depending on, on when the separation from mom happens, be it an immediate adoption where there's, you know, mom's unconscious and the baby is taken from her. This, this results in a higher disconnect. a different level of neurological disconnect than an infant who's put in a little, you know, wrapped up and placed on mom and, and now my energy ball, because we're just at this point, just energy balls. So when you, when you consider the separation anxiety that happens for all of us naturally, this is circuitry, this is brain circuitry inside of the limbic tissue of our brain. And as I become separate from— being a part of mom's energy ball is what's familiar. So that's what feels safe. And as soon as we're taken away from mom's energy ball and separated even further from that, that's when this anxiety ball gets— the anxiety circuitry really turns on because I'm no longer nurtured in that, in the womb, right? First, I'm not in the womb anymore. But second of all, If I'm removed physically from mom, there's even a higher level of anxiety. And as a society, we've not done real well in addressing that's what's actually going on for the infants. Just even when you consider, even when we're born, we're born into rooms with bright lights and lots of noise and lots of clanking metal and lots of manhandling and let's put some shots in this infant. You know, it has not been treated as a sacred moment. So, um, uh, it is natural for that circuitry to develop fundamentally at the beginning of our lives.

Fantastic. So let me take a step, a step back to what's happening, happening in the womb, right? So, um, a lot of people talk about the fact that, um, mothers who are going to relinquish their child, they have decided to place their child before that child was born, but is born. So that includes me, right? I was the, my, the, my birth mother had, had a plan ahead. Um, so a lot of people talk about that in, in your in utero stress. So could you talk a little bit about that, please?

Well, I mean, mom is a human, right? And so mom is going to be having her own emotional limbic system response to having an energy ball growing inside of her womb. And if mom does— and it's a stressful environment. It's stressful for mom because mom needs to be careful about what is she ingesting in order to nurture this, this new life inside of her. She's managing the emotional relationships with probably her parents her siblings, the societal norm. So who knows what the circumstances are for each of these women who have decided, I'm going to give up this baby for adoption. I can't get too attached to it. And the attachment circuitry is a powerful circuitry also inside of that limbic system. And so normally, As, as women are pregnant and they become more and more attached to this possibility, and everybody says, oh, you have to, you know, wait until you're at least in your 3rd or 4th month before you form an emotional attachment because so many things can happen and you might lose the fetus. This emotional attachment, imagine the stress that a mother who is a biological creature must be experiencing in order to not have attachment. And it's not just not have attachment, but not have attachment for all these external reasons that, you know, every woman is going to be unique in that. And, um, uh, but the level of stress that that mother would have— stress is a chemical that stress stimulates cortisol. Cortisol flows throughout the body. And of course, it crosses the, the, not just the, uh, brain, barriers, but also to the fetus. So the fetus can experience stress. So, but what stress does then in the fetus is it's going to stimulate more of the stress circuit. So mom has the stress circuit, the growing cells and fetus has the stress circuit, and that's going to be a higher act— more, more easily activated circuitry because it's well developed.

Yeah. So, um, we've, we've got that happening in the— we've got that happening in the womb, and then, uh, baby is born. And, uh, and, and then obviously that separation that you're talking about earlier, that, that physical separation, that, that's— that is really about when the, when the, um, the cut— when the, when the umbilical cord is cut. That is the point at which uh, we are separated physically from our birth mothers. And it seems to me, uh, so that seems to me could be looked at as the primal wound. So The Primal Wound is this, is, is this book, this, um, written by an American MD, um, and it's about really— it's about relinquishment trauma. But it, it's— that's about when the the, the emotional stuff that's going on within us adoptees after the, um, um, after the, after the relinquishment, after the abandonment, after the placement, whatever we want to call it. But it struck me that— and she calls that, Nancy Varela calls that the primal wound— it struck me that the, the actual primal wound is when we are separated from our, uh, birth mothers. by the system of, you know, one, one becomes two.

Right.

Birth. Birth.

We all go through that. We all go through birth, right? And it's, it's traumatic. It is. I mean, there's a reason why we scream, right? Oh my God. Imagine when, when you're in the womb and you're breathing water, and water is what the lungs are doing. You're in this environment that is, is liquid. And then boom, all of a sudden now you're— and you're protected, right? That womb is very protected and sounds are not clear. They're muffled through, through water and light is muffled. And, and, and we're, we're, you know, it's warm in there and then boom. And we have to take this, this big breath, this first breath of— and, and just imagine it's like a whole reset button. It's like the breaker gets turned on and bam, now you're alive. And it's like, wow. Um, imagine what that's like. I, I think that, I think that at this point it's really important for you to recognize though that we all experience that. That's the normal trauma. That is the primal trauma. We're all wired for that trauma. And at that root, now we are given a circuitry that allows us to experience trauma. And that's not a bad thing. Because it is through trauma, then the reflection upon that trauma that we can grow. And learn. If all we have is the trauma and we're just caught in the trauma, whatever the trauma is, then we're just, we're just analyzing and routinizing in the trauma circuitry where that's not where our power is. It is important to have that circuitry, and it is important to have that trauma, and it is important to be able to go and reflect upon it, but not to make a lifestyle of it. So, so no matter what the trauma is that any of us is, is experiencing, whether it is, is this specific storyline, because this becomes a storyline. There are— oh, we all have a storyline. And but the power is not in the storyline. The power is in this happened to me. Okay, that's my story. But what can I learn from that story? And when I don't want to be in that storyline anymore, what are my options? What are the other parts of my brain that I can then hook myself back into So I'm not constantly focusing on my trauma. And in our society, you know, good old Freud, let's analyze it all and let's pick it apart and let's make up, you know, more story about the story about the original of the story. But it's not the story that's important. What's important is how— what can I learn from that story and then capitalize on the other parts of my brain that are not paralyzed by the story?

Yeah. So in a sense, then you're saying, um, what I might call healing, um, would be what you might call learning and growing. You're, you're, you're, you're, you're, you're separating, you're separating, um, us from our story.

Well, I'm not separating you from it. What I'm saying is, it's a story. That's all it is. It's a story. You know, the brain neurons are designed to make stories. You take it, you take a piece of data, And you take another piece of data, and the brain is designed to now make up a story. Well, you know, wow, what a great machine, right? Fantastic, because we need, we need stories. So let's say I see a snake. I see a snake bite a person, and the person dies. Okay, well, there's my story. All snakes now, when they bite you, they're— you're gonna end up dead. Well, we know that that's not true.

Right.

But based on the information that I have, if that's all I have and then I'm not willing to learn about other things and make that into the bigger picture, then I'm just stuck on that story of snake bites person, person dies. Right. So the machine is designed to tell the story, and the story is important because that's important information. But by, by looking at that information and realizing Well, that's a story. Okay, how can I know the bigger picture? That gives me the either the impetus toward diving deeper into the story. Oh my God, I can't. Anytime I see a snake now, I'm gonna be filled with fear and panic, and I'm gonna want to kill the animal, or I'm gonna want to run away, or I'm gonna get paralyzed. But now, you know, I just live in my story. Or I say, okay, well, that's some information for me. What can I do with that information? Because I am 50 trillion beautiful cells. cells. And if I'm 50 trillion beautiful cells and I'm allowing just a tiny little group of neurons about the size of a peanut to run my whole life, then is that a choice? Do I have the power to use the other parts of what I am as a living being to help look at that picture, value the information from that, but not just grow that story so that my whole life becomes that story, whatever the story is?

Yeah. So let's dive in then. So we've got this relinquishment trauma, we've got this abandonment, we've got this separation, the separation of mother, a separation of mother and, and child, and the child has gone off to be— the mother has placed for adoption. So, um, how does that separation become a, a feeling that there's something wrong with us? That one of the fundamental beliefs that I believe— well, I say we have as adoptees— is we believe that there's something wrong with us. And, and one of my fascinations is how can that, the physical act of separation, become a belief That there's something wrong with it.

So I understand that you— what, tell me your personal story.

Okay, so, um, I was, uh, I was adopted when I was 5 weeks old.

Okay.

Uh, back in 1967. And I had no conscious adoption trauma at all till I was 40, uh, till I was 40 years old. At 40 years old, um, I found out that the, my, uh, the teddy bear that I'd had from, uh, from birth was from my birth mother.

Okay.

And the first time I heard about that, I was, uh, uh, I, I thought, oh, that's strange, because I, I, I've, I've known I was adopted forever, right? I don't remember being told that I was adopted, right? It's kind of curious that my parents didn't tell me that the teddy bear was from my birth mother. And actually, my mum says now that they did tell me that the teddy bear was from my birth mother. But for some reason, I didn't remember.

Probably too young and it didn't register.

It didn't register, right? So then I went to— I was going to see a coach about something. I was going to see a coach about my anger, actually. So the context for my conversation was about my anger. And I said this, this stuff just came rushing out of me. And I was telling the, the coach Sarah about the teddy bear, and I said, she didn't— she, as in my birth mother— she didn't effing love me enough to effing keep me. She gave me this effing teddy bear as an effing consolation prize.

Yeah.

So that was when, um, Uh, I, I became— I, I'd never, um, thought those thoughts before. I'd never consciously felt that, that feeling. And many, uh, adoptees would say this is— so we're in the adoptee world, we use this, um, this term coming out of the fog, right?

Mm-hmm.

So coming out of the fog is when we become consciously aware of something, uh, of— we become consciously aware of, of of, of some form of trauma related to our, our adoption. And the, the, the, the, the, the woman that I was speaking to at the time, Sarah, she, she questioned gently, she questioned what I just said. And she said, well, I'm a mum, Simon, and I don't think it was like that. So then the, the volcano of eruption of, of anger. Just, it, it just went.

Yeah.

It just went as I saw the truth, uh, of, uh, and what she had, what she'd said. And, uh, so that was 17 years ago. And over the last 17 years ago, I've been studying, uh, a little bit, a little bit on trauma, a little bit on, a lot on emotions. I've had some coaching, I've had some therapy, I've Read books about neuroscience. I've, I've, and through that, I came across your work. And what, what really struck me was the, the TEDx talk that you did, um, in which you, you talk about having your stroke and you talk about the, the, the, the left brain as the one that feels that we're alone. The right brain as the one that feels that we are, we are one. We are all one. And that's, that, that really, um, that really struck me because as adoptees, we feel that, um, we feel that we're not good enough. We, we feel alone.

Mm-hmm.

Like many other people that feel alone, when we find a group of people that feel like us, have been through the same experience with us, it's, it's incredibly Healing, because, um, we're realizing that our thoughts, our feelings, um, other people have had them.

Yeah. So, so let— you've said a couple of things that I think are really important. Um, first of all, thank you for sharing them.

Thank you.

Um, uh, at the same time, um, you know, And when we're born, we are this ball of energy, and the cells that are best developed are the deeper cells of the brainstem. I have to be able to breathe independently. That's going to be cells in my brainstem that tell me to do that and control that. I— my heart beats by itself. I don't have to consciously tell it to do that. It does that. So I can perspire automatically. So, so those cells have to be completely wired by the time we're born. And then the next cells right above those automatic cells of essentially the reptilian brain is going to be the limbic, the emotional tissue. And those cells are, are going to be our emotions. You know, we come out, we're uncomfortable, we scream, we cry, we wail. We're not You know, we're not, we're not happy about this and we're expressing them. So, so then over time, the tissue above that is the thinking tissue in both hemispheres. And then the thinking tissue, as we age, can interact with the emotional tissue below and help regulate it so that I don't, I don't strike my sibling every time I feel like it.

Right.

I actually think, oh, consequence. If I, you know, smack my brother, my brother's gonna smack me back, right? So I learn. And, um, and that's just the way we are as biological creatures. So of course you have this well of emotion that you're wired for, and you are wired for emotion from your past. We carry that circuitry. We are wired to have those experiences. So once you found out That you not only were you adopted and you thought that you were okay with that, or, you know, at least coping with that. As soon as you found out that little teddy was, was given to you, and then your brain made up the story. Now, my story would have been— I can't say it would have been because I was— I'm not in your situation, but my story could have been— your story could have been, oh my gosh. She couldn't keep me for who knows whatever reasons, but she cared enough to give me a teddy. She cared enough for me to hold this and to be, to know, to hold close. I mean, what's the teddy? The teddy is the surrogate mother. And this woman who, who could not for her own reasons have a child. Life is hard in this world. You know, I'm a woman. Life is hard as a woman. And as soon as we have children, we become second-class citizens because now we are dependent on someone else to provide for us with this bundle that we need to now support. I mean, it is really complex. As soon as— which is, you know, you look at societal society and why on earth is a portion of society trying to keep Pre-abortion and pre— and information about contraception hushed and away from our young children, our young girls, so that they get pregnant. Because as soon as we are young and pregnant, we are now dependent on a system and we're no threat to power. So it is complex, right? This isn't just about this woman gave up this child. This woman had to manage whatever com— who knows? What the stress was in her in having to give up this child, or in choosing to give up this child. It could have been completely against her will, or it could have been that she knew— maybe this happened at an age where it was like, so, you know, I mean, I can go on and on and on. I can make up a million stories that counter what your story is. But to me, this woman cared enough to give you the, the thing to cuddle and to love and the thing that would love you no matter what in her absence. So again, that's going to take us back to story. But the most important piece here is that we are feeling creatures who think. We human beings, we— because that feeling tissue is more online and, and available for wiring when we're born, and it takes years before the circuitry of our thinking comes back, comes online. But for me to feel abandonment, for me to Anger, for me to feel sadness or blame or, or whatever. That's normal and that's natural, and we all have that circuitry. That's my point. We are all wired for that circuitry. And then the brain comes in and it tells a story that stirs up that circuitry and makes that circuitry erupt as the power of where our energy inside of our brain is going. Right? So you can tell a story that's going to really focus in and stir all that emotion up. But again, though, that circuitry is designed for us to learn from, not for us to dwell on and live inside of. So, so no matter what the trauma is, no matter what the story is, there's a million other stories. But this is my story. This is what I'm going to hold on to. But I don't want to live my life in that stress.

Right.

So what are my options? And my options are the other parts of my brain. I can bring my mind to the present moment. I don't feel stress in the present moment because the present moment, if my mind is in the present moment, I can handle whatever comes my way. Right? What happens if I'm sitting here and I'm speaking with you and we can be talking about, uh, we can be talking about earthquakes. Right? And all of a sudden, and everything's— and it's like, oh my God, earthquakes! And they're horrible because people, you know, and who wants to die with cement falling on their head? Horrible, horrible, horrible. And then all of a sudden, my house starts to shake because right here, right now, I'm in an earthquake. Well, what do I do? Well, it's not so horrible in the present moment. In the present moment, I'm going to use that stress anxiety to actually manage my current present moment. And I'm capable and I'm able. So I can bring my mind out of the past and put myself into the present. Well, this is the beauty of being a human, and this is the beauty of having a right hemisphere. The right hemisphere, it is always right here, right now. I always can choose to have my mind in the past, put my mind in the future, because that left hemisphere processes linearly across time, or I can bring my mind into the present moment where I feel peace.

Yeah.

So, so it's one thing for, for people, and this is general, this is generalized, this is why I wrote this book. It is our societal norm across the planet, not everywhere, there are cultures that don't do this, but we routinize, routinize, focus, focus, focus on our trauma. And it's like, that's not the purpose of trauma. That's not the purpose of that circuitry. The purpose of that circuitry is to wave a flag and say, we have something here we need to think about and we to heal. And heal doesn't mean we're going to routinize and tell horrible stories about it. And oh my God, because God knows we can blow that into my whole life now is miserable because I'm adopted. It's like, but no, somebody cared enough about you to let you have life. First of all. Second of all, life is this precious, amazing gift. And if we truly believe that life is a precious, amazing gift, then we can have a little sense of gratitude for, oh my God, what that woman went through. Who knows what her story was, but she cared enough to let me develop in her belly so I could have life, because life is this amazing, precious thing. So I can have gratitude for that also. And who knows what her drama and trauma is because she had to give up this baby. Now, maybe she had to give it up because, um, who knows, a million stories, right? Tell those million stories. But whatever it is, she still held me in her womb and allowed me to have life. And I can tell you as a woman that any life that we reproduce, we wish it all of its best. Can I provide for that? Maybe not.

Yeah.

And how, how hard is that for us, right? Because we're put in these As women, I heard this horrible statistic. I live in Indiana and I have half time in Kentucky, and I just came back from Kentucky. And on the radio, I heard in the last 3 months since October, since October, there have been almost 3,000 young people, young girls who have, have gotten impregnated by rape. Just in Kentucky. Just in Kentucky. 3,000 in 3 months. Okay. It is not easy being a woman. It is not easy being a female capable of conception. It is not easy. There's a million stories to be told here. So what do I do? I can focus on, okay, I was not adopted out. You know, I had the privilege of living in my god-awful, nonfunctional, crazy family. I had that privilege. Well, you don't think about that, do you? You have no idea what that family of origin could have been like. I was beaten on every day by a brother who would be diagnosed with schizophrenia. Growing up, most people, if you ask most people, they will say to you, I am an alien in my own family. At least this is how we are in America. I don't know what it's like in the UK. But over here, looking at each other going, I have no idea how I was born into this family because I do not fit in, right? So, so, but again, that's the story. And the point is here that we can all focus on the trauma. We can focus on that circuitry of that left emotional circuitry specifically designed For us to feel that and to routinize that and to be miserable about that. But what it does is it constricts us and it makes us unhappy and it makes us angry and it makes us sad and it makes us feel like we have no value because that's what that circuitry does. That's what it does. We're biologically programmed to tell the story that has us in those feelings. And if you look at the condition of the world, this is why we're in the condition of the world that we're in, because we're all madder than hell. And we're madder than hell because we haven't been trained that we have these other parts of our brain. And with a little sense of gratitude, I can actually look at you and recognize, well, you may have a different color skin, or you might speak a different language, or you might, might have a— have eat different food that smells different. And so fundamentally, you're different from me. And I can look at that which is different from me with either an acceptance and a curiosity And a sense of gratitude that, oh my gosh, everybody doesn't look like me and think like me, because we do need diversity, because I don't know it all, and clearly none of us do. And instead, we're all at war with one another. So whatever the trauma— and we all experience it because we all have this trauma circuitry— but the power is not in the trauma circuitry. The power is recognizing I have an analytical brain. That allows me to look outside and think about other things. And I have a right hemisphere, both emotion and thinking, that pulls me into the present moment where I actually am here with curiosity and gratitude. So the hit— my point here is that it's all circuitry. It's all a brain and it's all circuitry. And a tiny little peanut size is telling our story. And how much power are we going to give the story versus how much If the story's being told and it's making me smaller and smaller and smaller, or I might have a, a story that says, I'm better than everyone. I'm better than everyone, and so everyone should follow me, and it doesn't matter if I even speak the truth, or it doesn't matter if I do this, that, or the other. I want to become a world leader because I'm the one. It's all a story. It's all a story. But the point is that we have a whole brain, and the better we get to know all of our brain and how to get the different parts of our brain to communicate with one another, we have so much more power over what's going inside of our heads than we ever thought.

Yeah. Wow. There's a lot there. Um, the, the, the bit that really landed for me was when you were talking about the junction between the, the thought part of the brain and the feeling part of the brain. And, and those two, um, uh, adding, you know, adding 2 and 2 together and getting 5, right, for me. So, um, 7 years, 8 years after having that moment of anger towards my birth mother, um, I happened to read my adoption file and a letter from her. And reading that letter, it was clear to me that the, uh, the, uh, the teddy bear was not a consolation prize. It was a symbol of her love, and it was in line with what you, um, what the, the sorts of line of thinking and, and what you, what you shared with, with us. And in, in that moment, my, uh, I, I broke down in tears of empathy with her, empathy, empathy for her, uh, for the situation that she was in. Uh, to feel— I, I felt the lack of power that you're— you, you talked about, you know, uh, lack of female power and authority and things like that. I, I felt that for her, and I, and I felt her love. I felt her love for me, and I actually felt at one with her.

Beautiful.

I felt at one with her. So, but for me, the— and This TEDx talk, which I've linked to in the show notes, listeners, you're on 21 million views of that now.

Oh, I'm almost 30 million now. Are you talking about the, the TED Talk, My Stroke of Insight?

Yes.

Okay. That was actually the first TED Talk, the original TED that ever went viral.

Wow.

So, so TED and I exploded in the world together. It was a really important message. Um, and I only ask because there I did do a TEDx talk, uh, on the teenage brain, and I just wanted to make sure that wasn't the one you were referring to.

So I must have been looking at the wrong numbers then. But what— but what— why I'm sharing this with you listeners is that, uh, Jill's talking about a choice between, uh, a left hemisphere, a left hemisphere and a right hemisphere. And this is an incredibly powerful— it's just an incredibly powerful 18 and a half minutes, exactly how long it is. And she goes into this, uh, and it's almost— when I heard that, I thought, this is the neuro— this is the neuroscience or the This is what was happening for me neurally when I read that letter, because this right brain is, is we are all one.

Right.

You know, there's no, there's no Americans versus Brits. There's no, um, there's no Trump versus Bidens. There's no, um, Labour versus Conservative in the UK. There's, there's no, you know, there's no Yankee fans versus whatever. There, there's no uh, Leeds versus Man Utd, there's no Celtic versus Rangers, there's no non-adoptees and kept people, there's no separation whatsoever in, in this right-hand space. And, uh, you know, this is the neuroscience of Eckhart Tolle. I think to me it's the neuroscience because that, you know, his, his— one of his books is The Power of Now. And what you're talking about in the, in the right-hand there is the, the, the, the, the, the past. The past and the future are left-brain phenomenons, and the power of now, then that now bit is in our right-hand brain. And that's, that's, that's the healing. That's the healing space. And that's why I was, you know, I was so excited to, to get you, you know, when you said yes, come in. I was so delighted because it, it basically, you're, you're setting out the neurology Of what other stuff that, that people don't link together.

Right. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. Right. Well, we're, we, everything you just said is true. And, but how can that be true? People are saying, how can we all be connected? How can there not be a this and a that? Well, there's only a this and a that to, because we have these beautiful cells in our left hemisphere. That is, that are specifically reductive, which means they take information and they, they find, they even look at, at an entity and they look at the edge of that entity and they say, that's a boundary, that's a separation point. And so now I can see boundaries and I can see that the picture on the wall is not the wall. Well, to the right hemisphere, it's just a bunch of atoms and molecules, right? All and everything's in motion. But to the left hemisphere, things are organized in such a way that it is specifically looking for edges and boundaries. And in that edges and boundaries, I'm still just an energy ball. Even though I am born into the world from my mother's womb and my energy— that ball becomes separated from her energy ball— I am still of her energy ball, right? And I'm still an energy ball, but I can't function in the world. We cannot be functional human beings If we're all just a bunch of energy bulbs and we're going to be just like a bunch of amoebas floating around smacking into one another, we'll be completely nonproductive and something's going to eat us. I mean, right? We have to be able to have a left hemisphere that says, I am an individual. And so there's a tiny little group of cells inside of our left brain that says, I am, I am separate. And it's that same group of cells that says, I am not loved because I was put up for adoption. It's that same group of cells that says, I am an individual and I am separate from my mom. And because I'm separate from my mom, but she chose to not be with me, she doesn't love me. So that's how your story got told by that cellular circuitry of individuation. So we have— but we have to have individuality or we become nonfunctional in the world. And so a tiny group of cells says, I am separate from my mom. I'm separate from everyone. I am an individual. My face is separate from the atoms and molecules around me, so I'm not even blending with that when we know that we do. We have— I'm an energy ball, right? I'm exuding energy everywhere. So, but I have to have the perception of my singularity, my individuation. And then with that comes my likes and my dislikes and the stories that I tell myself of, oh yeah, I'm gonna wear red because I like red and I want my red to match the red up there. And all those weird stuff, but it's all story, right? And, and if we're highly intuitive, you probably don't even notice that I match my flowers, right? But oh, it's so important to my left brain to be able to do that kind of thing, because that's what the left brain does. It wants things to match. It wants patterns. It wants things to fit together in the story so I can tell the story. And it's like, but ultimately we're just a bunch of energy balls. We're big balls of of cellular life, fortunate to be alive, and we have the ability at any moment in time to shift into gratitude that we're alive at all. What a gift. So regardless of the story of post the womb, when we're in the womb, we were, we were, we were cared for enough to continue life, to be born. We were not aborted. We were born, whatever our story after the, the life. We actually have the ability to have a story because somebody cared enough to let us be born. And now that we're in, if we focus on that with a sense of, oh my gosh, I have life because someone cared enough to let me be born, and I live in a sense of gratitude, everything shifts because now I'm in my right hemisphere in this sense of gratitude. And with that comes a sense of curiosity in that emotional tissue of that right brain of the present moment. And so now I'm out here, and I can explore, and I can explore my own creativity and my own gifts and the old— the wonder of my own life. And you can just simply hear it in my voice. It's a different part of who I am, and I am as we all are, as equally wired. for gratitude and curiosity as we are wired for anger and rage. It's just different cells, different circuitry, but we can choose. We can choose what we want.

Yeah. So in, in the, uh, in the TED Talk, you talk about, um, losing 37 years of emotional baggage.

Yeah.

Tell us a little bit more about that.

Well, you know, I was a brain scientist at Harvard Uh, my area of expertise was how does our brain create our perception of reality? Because I have a brother diagnosed with schizophrenia, and it's like, what is the difference between my brother and I at a cellular level where I can take my dreams and I can connect my dreams to reality and I can make my dreams come true? I can achieve, I can climb the Harvard ladder, I can become a neuroscientist. But my brother's brain gets lost in his delusional thinking so that he, he is just caught in the circuitry of his own mind, and he, he does not share a common reality. So, so that was what, that was what drove me into the field in the first place. So, um, uh, when I experienced the stroke, it was a major hemorrhage in the left half. Of my brain, and it was a malformation in the blood vessels. So at a biological level, I had essentially a varicose vein inside of my brain that the artery couldn't take the high— the vein couldn't take the high pressure of the artery pushing blood into it. It popped off. And so then I had this major hemorrhage. And in 4 hours, I could not walk, talk, read, write, or recall any of my life. But during those 4 hours, I got to witness My experience of losing circuit by circuit by circuit, and that's what the TED Talk is all about. So I encourage everyone to watch the TED Talk. It's quite a profound experience because I take you on that journey. But as I what I lost also was all the emotional pain from my past. So so that trauma, that circuitry that says trauma, trauma, trauma make up my story about the trauma. Well, I still have the story about the trauma, but I don't have the power of the emotion supporting the trauma. But it wasn't just the trauma and the negative emotions that I lost. I also lost the positive. For example, when I graduated with my PhD and I walked through commencement, uh, I was a very proud moment. I mean, I was the 3rd Dr. Taylor. My mom and my dad were both there, and they were both, you know, doctors of whatever. And so it was a really proud moment. Well, I remember the experience, but I don't have the pride. So all of that emotional— all that the emotional baggage essentially is what I call it. But all of the emotional content from my first 37 years of life is gone. And in the absence of that, I got to live in nothing but the present moment for 8 years because the left hemisphere was wiped out. And then it took 8 years for my right brain to— which thinks in pictures and big picture, uh, to rebuild the skill sets of my left hemisphere that I had lost so that I could then regain function and become— have language again, have an analytical brain again, relearn terminology again, all that. Uh, so that I could become whole brain. So the gift of, of me losing, uh, part of my own mind and then using the rest of my brain to rebuild that tissue so I could become functional again is really how, how, you know, this, this piece of the story of neuroscience gets filled in for, uh, uh, what we understand about the brain.

Yeah. So you're talking about Learning, then you're talking about 8 years to relearn stuff, and you're talking about, uh, the, the, the, the pain of the past having, uh, less emotional charge, and the— but also the pleasure of the past having less emotional charge. So it was kind of like a dulled-down version of, of the past. Yeah.

Yeah, but as soon as I, I recovered that circuitry, it all started back up again. So, you know, it's been 27 years now since that stroke. So 27 years worth of emotional baggage built up again.

Yeah.

Not about the first 37 years of my life, but, you know, I mean, because it's circuitry and I want that. I want that because, and this is why this tissue is so important. So many people say, oh, I wish they could just go in and cut that out and I didn't have those feelings anymore. It's, but. But if, if there is a trauma that is still gnawing on you, then you need to go and say, what can I learn from this trauma? What can I learn from this trauma? Not just go feel the trauma, be angry about the trauma, be caught in the passion and emotion of the trauma, but really look at that trauma and say, say, and, and try to, to grow, try to learn something from the trauma. The flag is being waved. I have pain, or I have anger, or I have sadness, or I have whatever I have. But that's just the brain screaming in pain, saying to the rest of the brain, hey, we need some attention here because we're having a problem with integration. This is all about integration. And so if I get caught in the story that I wasn't loved, and that's why— and I'm, you know, I— that's why I didn't stay in the family. And if I go back to— if I go to the root of I wasn't loved, then the story I'm telling myself is I'm not lovable. And it's like, but I know better than that. I'm 50 trillion beautiful molecular cells. I'm— of course I'm capable of being loved. Do I have abandonment issues? I think we all have abandonment issues because we're not in the womb anymore where we'd all like to be. I mean, it's— it had its appeal. So abandonment is natural. So, so just because I'm feeling abandonment doesn't mean I'm not worthy of love. That becomes part of of the story. Of course I'm worthy of love. I'm these— I'm alive. I'm this precious— but, but it doesn't matter if 50 million people love me. It doesn't matter. What matters is if I love me, if I know I'm lovable. And if I'm telling myself I'm not lovable, that's a tiny little group of cells inside of my brain saying, well, I'm not lovable. And though I can guarantee you the, the present moment you who is right here right now, who looks at you and sees that you're this magnificent human creature capable of experiencing sight and sound and touch and life and creativity and communication and all these wonderful things. Of course I'm, I'm worthy of love. But it's, it's the story. How much truth do I place in a story that says that snake bit that man and that man died? So every snake is now poisonous. And that just pulls us full loop back to You know, these, these messages inside of that tissue, again, those are important. It means I have to be vulnerable. I have to be vulnerable to loss and the loss of love and the loss of a lover or the loss of, of, of, of attention or loss of, of being devalued or being— and then it's like, oh, whenever I feel that, it's like, oh yeah, I recognize that circuitry. That's my abandonment. And then it's like, well, how do I hold myself? How do I hold myself when I'm abandoned? I'm an adult now. I can hold myself. And how do I hold myself? Well, my right hemisphere is right here, right now, and it loves me. I am loved. I am loved. There's just a tiny group of cells that says I'm not loved, but the rest of me knows I am loved. And as a collect— connected to all that is, when I have that level of consciousness, I am love. It's not just that I am not loved, but I am loved. And then you say, well, I don't feel like I'm love. And it's like, that's because you're actually running a circuit. If you calm that circuit down without that story or that judgment, and you just settle in the fact that, yeah, love, I know the feeling of love, I can be love, and be that love and practice being love, then that's the circuit that grows. And and this is the power that we all have. We have the power to choose who and how we want to be, and I want to be love. And because I want to be love, I'm going to make time on my schedule when a man who I don't know from anybody on the other side of the planet contacts me and says, "Can we talk for an hour?" Of course we can talk for an hour. Of course we can, because I'm love and you're love, and we can meet. There. And then we can talk about drama, or not the dramas in the external, but the trauma at the level of the brain and what power we have to help that heal. Wow.

I'm speechless. Yeah. I am love. We are love.

Yeah. We are love. That's all we are. Everything else is circuitry running on top of it, distracting us from the fact that we are love.

Yeah.

And we all learn that when we die, because when we die, it all shuts down. And when it shuts down and the stress shuts down and we're not feeling sad, we're not feeling angry, and we're not feeling, oh, you know, all that, all that. When we, when we release from that, what are we? What do we feel? We feel love. And we feel connected because we are love and we are connected. And then we have this crazy circuitry. A good friend of mine, you know, he says, uh, we're all confused and more confused. Because we're living with this, this very confused and confusing machine inside of our head that tells all these stories that just whip us up into all this stuff. And the, and the thing about the brain is the more often you run a circuit, the stronger the circuit becomes. And this is why it's so important to not just routinize and routinize and routinize and be caught up in and talk about and be in that drama all the time, because you're just strengthening that circuitry. And if you want to strengthen your loving circuitry, then put yourself in the presence of a newborn where you feel in the present moment love. I mean, why do we love babies? Because they bring us to the present moment and they are this ball of love. And it's beautiful to be in the presence of that. You know, to hang out with people, people who, who, you know, a friend of mine just said, you know, she has her past world and she has her new world because she just turned 50. And she said, and now I'm looking at all the energies in the past world and I'm painting a picture of my new world. And I'm being very specific in what am I bringing forward into my new world. It's like, You know, there's a lot of things and a lot of people that aren't going to be coming energetically into her new world because she knows she wants to be love.

Yeah.

And that's how she does it.

That's how she does it. So people talk a lot— this word's bandied around a lot— neuroplasticity.

Yeah.

So what, what does that mean in relation to the conversation we've had today?

It's exactly what I just said. Our ability to change our focus and our ability to grow new circuits and make them stronger is neuroplasticity. Neuroplasticity is the ability of the brain— it's a beautiful thing— the ability of us to use our conscious and emotional parts of who we are to think about other things in other ways, to be curious. You know, if I'm being— if I have a plan, Let's say you had a plan and your plan was you were gonna— we were gonna meet and you were gonna ask these very specific 5 questions. And, and then I answer the first question, but it led naturally to a different question. Right now your left brain is saying, but I have a second question. I don't wanna go over there where she's going, but I— part of me does, right? My right brain says that's really interesting and really curious, so I'd wanna go ask her that instead. So now you're in conflict, aren't you, between what you thought, what you planned you were going to do, and what you really want to do now? Well, those are just 2 different parts of your brain. One part of your brain, your left brain, is saying, but I feel safe knowing these questions. But the right hemisphere is saying, but I want to be in the present moment and go with the flow with the conversation. And it's simply because you're running different circuitry. And the more often we run a circuit, if you're more curious, then you spend more time being curious about the people you, you talk to or about the places you go. And you're not just all about the left hemisphere details, details, more details about those details, but you open yourself up to more new possibility.

Excuse me.

It's just different circuitry, but you can train yourself to be more curious. You can train yourself to have higher levels of gratitude. You can train yourself by actually doing it. The cells inside of your brain that are, are curious and express gratitude, they're growing stronger because that's now where you're putting your energy. And that's the neuroplasticity. Um, at the time of trauma, of physical trauma, uh, there's also neurogenesis, the growth of some new neurons. And, and that helps if you've had some kind of a brain wound. And, and so I'm sure I had some neurogenesis when I experienced my stroke in order for those groups of cells to be able to recover. But the brain, our capacity to learn, we learn, we learn. So, so snake, snake bites man, man dies. Oh, I have learned that. Okay, that's now my standard story. And then I see, you know, I go to the zoo and I start learning about different kinds of snakes and And the, the snake handler says, see, this snake is not poisonous, and he lets the snake bite him. And, and in the meantime, my brain is learning new things. Well, it's learning new things because those brain cells are making new connections, and I'm learning something new so that my story isn't just my story. It's not, not my story anymore because now I have new cells that have created, have grown that story. into a higher level of, of development. And so I have, I have learned, and learning is actually cells reaching out and creating new networks, and that's the neuroplasticity.

Wow. Did, uh, I, I do have 4 or 5 questions that I normally ask, right? Or, or that I have in my head, right? Yeah. And I pretty much always start with the first one.

Yeah.

Um, and then sometimes I followed and asked the rest of them, and sometimes I let it go where it— and usually I let it go where it needs to go. I only use— I only fall back on the, on the question.

And it probably makes for a better conversation.

Yeah.

Because if you don't like where the conversation goes, you'll go right back to your prepared and get it back on track, which is perfectly fine. And actually, that's a better interview because then we're having a conversation that you thought this would be really interesting. And then it went there and that was really interesting, but you still want to pull it back to your level, your, your area of interest. And, and so there becomes this dance between the 2 hemispheres, and that's what makes for a good conversation.

Yeah. So the book is very cleverly titled, your book, right? A Stroke of Insight. So the insight, right?

Yeah.

An insight is a new learning, is it? Or what is an insight?

It is a gained. It is a gained insight, gained learning. Absolutely. What did I gain here? It's called my stroke of insight. My, and I called it my because it is mine, and I didn't want the world to go crazy with you know this is whatever I'm projecting onto the world. But well, you know you got to worry about that. But when I lost my left hemisphere, when I lost the left hemisphere, I lost all the left hemisphere. I became an infant in a woman's body because I went back to being the energy ball. That's all I had was I returned to being a newborn. All I had was energy. I was a ball of energy. I had no individuation because that's in the left hemisphere. I had no past and future because that's all in the left hemisphere. I lost all plans, all order, all structure, all relationships because that's external knowledge. I didn't know what a mother was, much less who my mother was, because I was a ball of energy. I was connected to all that is. And then over time, once they— I had a craniotomy and they removed the blood clot the size of a golf ball. They said, you know, go heal, go. We have no idea what you're going to get back. And it was like, okay, so my job was to heal and recover and whatever that was going to look like. And All my mother wanted, my mother's only dream for me was that I could live independently again because she wanted that for me, you know. And it was like, okay. And then look at what happened. I got it all back and I got more because in the absence of the left brain, which has all the answers, I had none of the answers, which gave me all of the other answers. And, and in knowing that, and in knowing that we are connected to all that is, And knowing that we are love at a fundamental level, that's the energy that drives us. Okay, well, I get back what I get back. I'll try to get back what I can get back. It turns out I got a lot of it back. And then it was like, well, how do I communicate this to other people? What I gained in the absence of this, this pain, because this pain and stressful circuitry of the left hemisphere. Yes, it gives us language. Yes, it gives us relationships. Yes, it gives me an identification. of self so that I can have likes and dislikes and I can be an individual in the world and be a functional person. Yes, it gives me all that, but what it takes me away from is the knowing that I am connected to all that is. And that is the, the stroke of insight. Yeah, that we all have the power, so any moment, to tap into that inside of ourselves.

So then learning is about a break in the routine. You've talked about routinizing A lot, haven't you? And so, uh, an insight is a break in the routine. It's a new learning. It's something that becomes true. You like when we see— when a belief— when we see that a belief isn't true?

Well, that's one form of insight, yes. When, when we allow ourselves out of the box of what we think is true and where we approach it with Curiosity and gratitude. Gratitude is the key. We're completely different people when we're grateful.

Yeah.

Totally different people when we're grateful.

So, um, whenever I get near, whenever, whenever we get near the gratitude thing here in the adoptee space, right? Um, I differentiate between kind of spontaneous gratitude, right, and forced gratitude. So some people will, you know, will have a moment, an insight into that makes us grateful, right?

Yeah.

So like the insight of my gratitude for you coming on the show today, right? Um, and the things that I've learned. And then you've got like the forced gratitude. So what happens for a lot of adoptees is they're told they should be grateful when they don't feel grateful. And that actually makes them feel invalidated, I think, like it would do for any— for anybody.

Angry, invalid, right? All that. But so, so you're— so I'm not saying to you, be grateful that you were adopted. What I'm saying is You're alive. Does your life have a value to you? Do you want to be alive? Are there any— is there anything about life that you have a sense of gratitude about? Do you have a sense of gratitude that you have eyes that allow you to see? There are people who don't have eyes that allow them to see. And these are complex cells. I mean, this is when I, as an anatomist and a gross anatomist, I go into the body. I have movement. I am not a plant that is planted into the ground, and I have to receive stimulation where I am, and that's all I can receive. I have legs, I have hands, I have dexterity, I have language, I have a voice, I have taste buds. I am capable of experiencing the world around me. And to me, the sense of gratitude Ultimately goes back to my own sense of gratitude of my own life. Now, if I have no sense of gratitude for my own life because my mother, whatever the story, rejected me and is not with me, is my value based on the story of my mother? Is my value based on the story of my mother? Well, mine is not. If, if my mother had died or if my mother had given me up, I could make up a story. Well, my story never would have included, oh well, if my mother would have put me up for adoption, I wouldn't have been beaten up on a regular basis every damn day because I had a crazy brother who was abusive, right? So, so I, I'm not— I don't know what that reality would have been. Is my value based on another external story that has nothing do with me? Or does my value as a human being stem from the fact that I have life and my mother cared enough for one reason or another to allow me that gift of life? And for some reason, whatever story, I didn't grow up with that mother, but I grew up and had life simply because somebody did care enough for me to be born. Right? So, so it all depends on what you focus on. And the beauty of the human brain is what we focus on grows. And if I can get past the negative story that I'm designed to have in that left emotional tissue, if I'm willing, if I can get past that and shift back into the sense of I'm grateful for my life, I'm simply grateful for my life. And, and oh my gosh, I've had 64 beautiful years. And in that life, have I had a lot of trauma? We all do. Trauma is a part of life. So we all have the story of our trauma, but we also all have life. And I don't want to, I don't want to waste my present based on my past. And, and I can do that. You can do that. Your listeners can do that. We all can do that. And it's important to visit that, but not to make it a lifestyle.

Yeah.

It's important to visit that and help that heal, but not to make it a lifestyle. And so how do I heal that? I recognize I can love myself, and in loving myself in my own life, in the gratitude that I have that life, that heals the fact of whatever that story is that I tell myself about my past. That isn't relevant right now. It's not relevant to my present anymore, other than in my story.

And the only thing that's gonna get in the way of us loving ourselves is that little bit of the left brain that you've been talking about.

Tiny little group of cells in the left hemisphere. Yeah. Yeah. And as a society, that's, you know, and, and it's been legitimized. Our trauma and our focus on our trauma has become a, uh, you know, billion-dollar market of psychoanalysis. Let's, let's talk about it and talk about it and talk about it and talk about it. But if ever— if what we— if, if, if what we run, every time we run a circuit, it grows, then we get really caught in the power of that trauma. Because that's where our focus goes.

Yeah.

For me, for Whole Brain Living, the power of our brain is not in the story. The power is knowing I can pull my energy out and 3 quarters of my brain knows I am the life force power of the universe. I'm not just the life force power of the universe. I'm a human. Oh my God, I'm a human. I'm not an elephant. I'm not a plant. I'm not whatever. I'm a human. With a human brain and a human capacity, trying to figure out how do I bring the best of me into the world so that I can influence the best in you in the world, so that we are all projecting the best of what we are into the world instead of our pain, so we stop fighting with each other.

Yeah.

Before we all become extinct. And then it was like, well, I hope you enjoyed your time here because now it's gone.

Fantastic. Yeah. Um, we, we, uh, I, I say that we, we, we should be— I believe that we've become trauma obsessed.

Yeah.

And as a society, and I think we should be trauma informed and, and healing obsessed. And, and because what we get— so because what we focus on gets bigger. So we try, we focus on healing. Here on Driving a Doctor, because we want to heal.

But it's not just healing. It's like, if I'm obsessed with my healing, what if I just forget about my problem for a while? What if I allow myself to just escape it? There's nothing wrong with the escape. The escape is the present moment. I'm wired for that. And I'm wired for that because that's where my power is. I can't change the trauma. I can change the story around the trauma, but I'm not going to heal the trauma. I heal the trauma by healing my own power and owning my power to bring my mind into the parts of myself that are not traumatized. My left thinking brain knows 1+ 1= 2. It has no trauma. It has no emotion. You know, how, how the engine in my car works. or doesn't work has no emotion in it. It simply is a really healthy part of my analytical brain. It's very healthy. My ability to experience with curiosity and my expression as an artist with innovation and entrepreneurialism and new possibility. This is a really healthy part of my brain. There is no trauma there. It's a part of who I am. It's a whole personality and who I am. And it's not focused on the trauma or healing the trauma. It can love the trauma and say, it's important to me that I have my trauma. I have to have my trauma because my trauma is a part of my story, and I have to have my story. But if all I do is focus on the trauma, then it's like I'm missing out on my analytical brain, my curiosity and creative and entrepreneurial innovative brain, and then my connection to all that is. That's the right thinking part of my brain. My ability to experience love and be connected to all that is is a part of who I'm wired to be, right there in the right hemisphere. So if I'm putting all the energy into let's heal the trauma, I can heal the trauma. All I can do is tell a different story. And I don't really want to heal the trauma because if it's not that trauma, it— I can guarantee you it's going to be a different trauma because it's circuitry inside of our brain. So I can look at the trauma, I can label the trauma, I can put a story on the trauma, I can Or I can recognize I have trauma. I have trauma inside of my brain. It's a circuit. I can run it. I can run it a lot, or I can run it barely, hardly at all, right? But I have the power to choose, and that's where your power as a human being comes in, is to recognize, no, I, I, I can't really heal my trauma. I can understand it. I can change my story, but the trauma itself is going to be a circuit that runs. And how I look at that circuitry is how I heal it. I can recognize and say, oh, I am not loved. I am not loved because I was put up for adoption. Or I can say, I have a circuit inside of my brain that was triggered when I was a newborn because I was put up for adoption, and my brain said trauma, trauma, trauma.

Right.

And I'm not very happy about it. Well, okay, let's go and look at that trauma. Let's go look at that story. Let's look at the reality of, okay, that triggered my trauma. That triggered the circuit that screams trauma. Well, how do I heal it? Well, I don't run it all the time. I don't keep reinforcing it. I say, well, I was put up for adoption. I have no idea why. It doesn't mean I wasn't loved. I can tell myself that's the story. Or I can tell my story myself, ABCDEFG stories about it. That doesn't mean it's true. Right? And then I can like start ruminating on, oh well, let's, let's do this and let's do that. No, I have evidence for that. And oh my God, 40 years later I find out my teddy was given to me by my mom. How dare she? It's like, well honey, you just needed to go back and say, well, that's one story. That's one story of the trauma. And even if that were the true story, It's not who you are. You're this magnificent human being. You're this magnificent human being who cares enough about other people to talk about this level of depth with your audience because you share something with them and you want to connect with them and you want them to feel connected to you. So, so the trauma serves a connection. Which is a beautiful thing. And that's part of the story. And that's part of how you heal it. And you say, I'm like you. We're the same. But, you know, we've got all this other part of our brain that we can use. And we don't have to focus just on, on that piece of the story.

It's the difference. I heard this expressed very eloquently. Somebody said, it's not what happened to us, it's what happened for us. I don't know who that was that said that, but like, it's the meaning. It's, uh, our manure becomes— our shit becomes manure to help other people learn. That's right. That's fine.

I had a stroke.

Yeah.

And that's why I could have been really angry and hostile and horrible, and I fell off the Harvard ladder, and oh my God, I lost this and that and the other, and I became an infant, and oh my God, I had to spend 8 years recovering. Oh my God, and it was the best damn thing that ever happened to me because I choose for it to be. And then I tell that story. Because of that, I got to lose the left hemisphere, and I got to actually bring more information to the world of science that I care about because now I had this uninhibited, disinhibited right hemisphere, and I got to live In that blissful euphoria for 8 years and then choose to recover and relearn all my signs, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. It's just a story. What do I do with it? I'm this magnificent life force power of the universe. That's how I'm going to look at myself because I want to. And when I die, there's no question in my mind that I'm going to dissolve back into the love of all that is. And the universe is going to reaffirm, yes, that's all we are. We're the life force power of the universe. Wow, what did we do with it? What do we want to do with it? Where do we want to focus? How do we want to grow?

What would you like to call this episode of the Thriving Adoptees Podcast?

I think you should, uh, I think you should do that. Okay, because now you've had the experience of me Based on the structure of you. Choices, choices, choices. Really, for me, everything boils down to choices. I can choose to put my energy focus into my story, or I can choose other parts of my brain wired for choices. I don't know. I don't want to label it something that would feel ingenuous to your population. I mean, I'm sure that this is one of the deepest wounds there is. But at the same time, there's so many really deep wounds we can get lost in. Yeah. Yeah.

As always, listeners, check out the show notes, got a link to to Jill's TED Talk, which is brilliant, and the books and the website and socials and stuff like that. So it's all there. Thank you, Jill, and thank you, listeners.

Thank you, Simon. Thank you, everyone.

Bye.