PERFECT, WHOLE, AND BEAUTIFUL
Let me begin by saying how grateful my Four Characters are that your Four Characters came along on this journey.
Although my TED talk flew around the world in a whirlwind, and continues to do so, it is important to me that the message that we are perfect, whole, and beautiful not just touch you in an 18-minute flyby. Instead, I want that message to land squarely in the fertile ground of your open heart. After writing My Stroke of Insight, I had no intention of ever writing another book unless I felt that I had something important to say. Then I realized that most people were not aware that we have two amygdalae, hippocampi, and anterior cingulate gyri making up two functionally separate emotional systems, one in each hemisphere, and I understood why it is so challenging for people to control their emotional reactivity. When we believe that we don’t have any choices, we run on automatic. When we understand the anatomy underlying our choices, not only are we empowered to not just react but we have the ability to make informed decisions. Just as Dr. Maya Angelou affirmed, when we know better, we do better.
I love a book that makes me think. But more importantly, I love a book that helps me become more conscious and evolve into my best self. One of the beautiful things about this Four Characters framework is that when you open yourself to it, it has the power to influence every moment of your life in a profoundly positive way. It is about learning to love each of the different characters inside yourself and the Four Characters in others. I believe that if you are willing to deeply explore and apply these insights to yourself and your life, you will grow exponentially.
My guess is that by now, with the exposure you have had to the Four Characters individually as well as in the wild, you are spotting these characters in yourself and in those around you. Just knowing that there are eight characters engaged in every single interaction between two people has, I hope, clarified how you might choose to interact with others more effectively. We are each one magnificent brain with Four Characters, and we have the power to choose, moment by moment, which of those Four Characters we want to embody.
When we train our brain so we can easily shift between our Four Characters, we are constructing new neural connections between those different modules of brain cells. Using those connections to bring our Four Characters into a Brain Huddle at any moment empowers us to bring our best self forward and live our life on purpose. The evolution of humanity is an ongoing process, and we have the power to consciously direct our own development as part of that evolution. We have two beautiful cerebral hemispheres, each of which processes information in its own unique way, and I believe that bringing them together into whole-brain living is our road map to both our own deep inner peace and peace in the world.
The most predictable constant in life is change, and we are wired in our right brain to meet change by being open, expansive, flexible, adaptable, and resilient. Learning to enjoy what we have while we have it, releasing it with gratitude that we had it at all, and then choosing to celebrate what comes next is one way we might choose to live. The only thing standing in the way of our expressing our joy and resilience is the wiring in our left brain that says, “No, I don’t want that because I do not feel safe.” Thank goodness we have this automatic knee-jerk response to push danger away, but our Character 2 is designed to be a warning, not a way of life.
When we realize that every ability we have is dependent on cells to perform that function, we become sensitive to the idea that our brain is a highly sophisticated collection of cells, and that our emotions, experiential feelings, thoughts, and behaviors are simply cells running in circuits. We are wired to be miserable just as we are wired to feel joyful, and we have the power to choose which of these circuits we want to focus our energy on and run and for how long, as well as how we will feel about it. We can choose to nip an emotion in the bud and feel the circuit run in our body and let it dissipate after 90 seconds, or we can act it out for 90 seconds, or we can rerun that circuit into a loop of emotion that goes on and on and on for 90 minutes or 90 years.
We have the power to choose which circuitry we want to run in good times and in tough times as well. A few years ago one of my dearest friends was dying. She was young, so it was particularly heart gripping for the 18 of us who supported her during her transition. None of us really knew what we were doing, but we instinctively came together and formed a human tapestry of love to support her. It was our intention to help this beautiful young soul “get out of her body” as lovingly as possible.
The night before Kat passed, there were four of us snuggled around her on the bed. At 2 a.m. her breath became labored as her chest became congested and began to vibrate with the death rattle. In that moment I realized that for the rest of my life I would remember this as either one of the most traumatic (Character 2) or one of the most beautiful (Character 4) moments of my life. I opted for most beautiful, stepped into my Character 4, and whispered into the room, “You’re okay. We’re okay. You only get to die once. Enjoy the ride.” In an instant, the depth of her breath shifted and the tension in the room dissipated. We all accepted the reality of what was. We shifted away from our Character 2 fear and owned the knowingness of our Character 4s. With Kat in the center, we each faced the inevitable reality of her death and embraced our ability to truly love another person to the other side. She ended up having a peaceful death, and it was an amazing grace for the rest of us because we chose for it to be exactly that.
How do we empower our Character 4 when we are caught in the pain of our Character 2? Sometimes that shift can be really hard to make, but even in the worst of times, we have the power to choose which character we want to embody. And when others are willing to work with us instead of against us, our power is immeasurable.
I always thought my mother, G. G., would live to at least age 100 because she had some serious longevity genes in her maternal line. My great-grandmother had lived to 98, and my grandmother made it to 94. In May of 2015, at the age of 88 (and only three months after my father passed) G. G. was unexpectedly diagnosed with a fast-advancing cancer that would take her life within five months. As you might imagine, my little Abby Character 2 was absolutely shattered by the mere concept of losing my “mommy.” G. G. had reared me twice and been my best friend and right arm for my whole life. She had rescued me and supported my recovery from stroke, and the depth of my Character 2 pain over losing her was unbearable.
Yet at the same time, thanks to my experience with the stroke, I knew that although my mother was religiously agnostic, in that she believed that she had come from the dirt and would completely disappear and return to the dirt, I knew intimately the consciousness and power of our Character 4. As you might imagine, each of my Four Characters had its own response to what we were facing. Although my little Character 2, Abby, was emotionally distraught, my Character 1, Helen, was pleased that we had a predictable timetable such that we would be able to plan the logistics and walk this road together. My Character 3, Pigpen, was excited to take everything off the calendar and live in the joy of the present moment. And my Character 4 felt assured that although losing G. G. in this life-form would leave a tremendous void in the quiet hours of my days, I would always be able to connect with her during peaceful moments of solitude. My Character 4 assured G. G. that although she was agnostic, I believed that she would be pleasantly surprised when she died. She looked at me blankly and said, “I guess I’ll see.”
G. G.’s Character 4 decided that she wanted her remaining time here to be a true celebration of her life rather than an expression of the devastation, dread, fear, and tears that our left brains are so good at conjuring. I let her know that overall I was good with that plan, but every now and again little Abby might need her “mommy” to comfort her. We verbally negotiated, agreed to the terms, set the intention for the next few months, and ended up having a ball. Among other things, G. G. wanted to be cremated, so 35 of our nearest and dearest friends came in with food and playlists of music from G. G.’s era, and we spent an evening loving on G. G. as she shared words of wisdom while we decorated the box in which she would be cremated. I now have precious video footage of my mother dancing around her cremation “box of love” to her favorite “lift me up” song, “Stompin’ at the Savoy ” by clarinetist Benny Goodman.
When G. G. exhaled for the very last time, I thought my little Character 2 would break down and weep. Yet instead, to my surprise, holding my mother’s now deceased hand, my Character 4 looked up into the room, smiled, and said out loud, “Mama, I’m guessing you are pleasantly surprised.” And then I felt elation and kissed her goodbye. Instead of hooking into the loss and pain, I spent the next few weeks consciously weaving the essence of my mother’s energy into the fabric of my DNA. I let myself cry when I felt a wave of grief come over me, and although I missed my mother’s presence in my daily life and still do, I strengthened our cosmic connection in such a potent way that now when I want to chat with her, I pause and breathe deeply, knowing that she is not only right here with me but that her energy fuels every ounce of my being.
We all grieve differently, but I have learned that when I open my heart to my Character 4, and consciously open my heart and mind to the Character 4 presence of those who have gone before me, I can connect with them more easily. On those rare occasions when I feel lost in the pain of my Character 2, I find it harder to feel that connection, as if my emotional pain is actually blocking my ability to feel their presence. In this way my Character 2 is actually impeding the ability of my Character 4 to connect with that which is beyond this physical form. Feeling my Character 2 emotions is neither bad nor wrong, but it’s a huge waste of time and energy if I forget to enjoy and savor these deep emotions, even the painful ones, along the way.
WHERE DO WE GO FROM HERE?
Mastering strategies that allow us to shift between our Four Characters by choice is how we own our personal power. By knowing our Four Characters and learning our patterned responses, we can take the steps we need to train ourselves to switch from one character into another. If you are willing to explore what is going on inside of your head on a regular basis, on and off throughout the day, your life, your relationships, and your world will change.
Here are some suggestions for how you might immediately begin applying this material to your daily life. The first step to choosing which circuits you want to run is to observe your current patterns of thought, emotion, and behavior. In the big picture, which of your Four Characters are strong and run on automatic already, and which ones would you like to strengthen? Paying attention to your current patterns is the perfect place to begin.
1. When You First Wake Up (and Go to Sleep)
When I first wake up in the morning, I say thank you to those cells in my brain stem that did their job and woke me up. Then I keep my eyes closed and observe what it feels like to be alive in my body. I just lie there and feel what position my body is in, and then I assess what it feels like to be me. Did my brain wake me up on its own schedule after it finished a sleep cycle, so I feel rested and content, or did I wake up prematurely in the middle of a cycle and feel as though I did not “finish cooking”?
Keeping my eyes closed so I can more easily tune in to my internal systems, I check in with my Four Characters. Do I feel like bouncing out of bed to start my to-do list? Does Abby want to stop the day and go back to sleep, or might Queen Toad want to wrap her heart around the things we are grateful for? Pigpen may either still be asleep or deep in the imaginings of a stone sculpture. All parts of our brain do not wake up (or go to sleep) at the same time, so pay attention to which of your characters wake up first and set the tone for your morning.
I think becoming conscious of and mastering your morning routine is one of the most important gifts you can effortlessly give to yourself. When I first awake, I know that all of the cells throughout my body are listening to the conversation going on between my ears. If Character 2 perks up first and announces her discomfort, all the cells in my body tend to home in and begin pronouncing my aches and pains like a roll call. If Character 3 grabs the morning mic, the neural messages of my aches and pains may utter their presence, but they fall into the background as a part of the humdrum of my existence. Each of my Four Characters will listen to those proclamations, but the outcome is predictably unique to each of those modules.
Character 2, for example, may choose to focus on the pain, concentrating on the density of the discomfort, inadvertently making it more intense. Characters 3 and 4, on the other hand, visualize the pain as a ball of energy, and when they consciously picture that tight ball of pain slowly expanding, the pain loosens its grip and lessens. Our right brain is so grateful that we are alive that our Character 3 would say, “Thank you, pain, for reminding me that I am alive. Now, how might I hold my body so that I can feel better?” Character 4 would say, “Thank you, pain, for reminding me that I am alive. I am grateful that I am alive and able to feel this pain because it means that I still have life.” Once each of my Four Characters has chimed in, I can take a Brain Huddle and consciously set the tone for the day.
Of course, taking this type of a Brain Huddle at night before going to sleep is a great way to let each of the characters quiet down, become calm, and shift into slumber mode. If you find that you cannot quiet your chatty Character 1 or fearful Character 2, you can consciously choose the expansive and all-encompassing consciousness of your Character 4. It’s always right there, always available for you to tap into. Hook into that consciousness and let it turn on your delta waves for deep sleep.
2. Notice When Emotions Hit
Once I am up, I take notice of when I begin to bump up against something that bristles my emotions. I am a feeling creature who thinks, so I keep a close eye out for the bristle that I feel right before I tend to reactively trigger. If I choose to become fascinated when I start feeling prickly, curious about the charge, that is often all I need to deactivate the circuit from running. We can train ourselves to exhibit the one-two punch of first, being aware, and second, shifting away and consciously choosing to not engage.
I have noticed that my immediate physiological/anatomical response to a bristling of my emotions is multifold. In an instant, my brows furrow, my jaw shifts forward and my lips purse, my eyes shoot to the left, and then my head tilts to the right, even if what is bristling me is on my right. It’s fascinating. Give it a try. Pay attention in that instant of bristle to how you physiologically respond. Once you know this pattern of yours, you can train yourself to notice the first wave of reactivity, and nip the rest of the circuit (yelling, belittling, defending, hitting) in the bud. When we walk in with our eyes wide open to our own pattern of reactivity, especially if we have noticed past patterns of irritation in relationship with certain people, we can more easily choose to do a different dance step even when the old familiar music starts to play. Unless, of course, we just want to run that delicious circuit of rant and rave. If you do choose to do that, choose to do it consciously, with the awareness that in that moment you are causing a disconnect that may have long-term consequences.
3. Notice Those Stereotypical Four Characters Moments
I tend to run a lot of stereotypical moments during my day. Character 1 is so organized and structured that she deliberately picks up my stuff, maintains order, and keeps my kitchen clean. My right-brain characters don’t even notice the mess. Helen is all about getting something done, so it is simple to notice when she is out and about and busy, even when she is just percolating in the background.
If I’m feeling remotely derailed or caught in my heavier emotions, there’s my little Character 2 either hurting or bristling. It is obvious when she steps in and takes the reins, so when I train myself to recognize her first few triggers, I can choose to comfort her, let her rip, or sidestep her altogether.
If I choose to let my little Character 2 rip, I need to be totally conscious of the wounds I may be inflicting or triggering in those around me.
Yet if I am brimming with excitement and ready for a great adventure, feeling goofy, eager to make a mess, or just laughing out loud, I say hello to my little Character 3. And when I feel that expansiveness in my chest, and my consciousness shifts into a deep sense of gratitude for anything at all, I know I am in my Character 4.
Catch yourself in your stereotypical moments. Feel them, enjoy them, and celebrate each of them. This will strengthen that circuitry of your awareness and help you choose to shift into those modules when you need them.
4. Tune In Randomly throughout the Day
It is one thing for you to notice the stereotypical patterns of your Four Characters, but you can also purposely tune in randomly throughout the day and figure out which character you are exhibiting. Not only does this keep the Four Characters in the forefront of your consciousness but you start evaluating the behavior of your Four Characters from a more nuanced observational perspective.
5. Schedule a Daily Brain Huddle
Training our Four Characters to take a Brain Huddle is an art form. Each of the characters must be willing to participate, so practicing in moments when you do not have a need helps it become a more habitual pattern for when you do need to huddle. Practice makes perfect, and putting a Brain Huddle on the schedule will help you create and strengthen that underlying circuitry so you can turn the Brain Huddle into a habit.
6. Pay Attention to Your Patterns
Which of your characters comes out when? Who comes out on a cold and rainy day, or a warm and sunny morning? Who gets hyped up on caffeine or sugar, and how do you feel after drinking a glass of milk or eating a heavy, meat-based meal? Which character likes to go to the movies or go on walks with a friend, and who picks your late-night TV show? Who comes out when your mother-in-law calls? We can learn a lot about our Four Characters by simply paying attention to these patterns.
7. Keep a Character Log
Keeping a log of your observations will provide insight into the prevalence of your characters, the way they show up, and even the time of day when they each may tend to appear. Maybe they cycle, and maybe they don’t. The more aware you become of your predictable patterning, the more transparent you will become to yourself and the easier it will be for you to pick and choose whether you want to run your old patterned response or create a new one.
8. Create a Strategic Plan for Meeting Another’s Character 2
It used to be that it was not socially acceptable for us to put our Character 2 on full public display, as we had trained our more civil Character 1s to interact with one another when we had different opinions. As such, our Character 1s would sidestep our Character 2’s emotional reactivity and, after taking a time-out or 90 seconds to calm down, engage in thoughtful conversations and negotiations.
But times and social norms have shifted, and it is no longer unusual for us to encounter someone else’s Character 2 in public. Having a plan for how you might strategize these situations is a good idea, and knowing how your Character 2 innately responds to someone else’s triggered Character 2 is the first step in knowing, observing, and transforming your own automatic response. Past behavior may be the best predictor of our future reactivity, but neuroplasticity is real, and we do have the power to consciously practice new behaviors, creating new habitual responses at the neuroanatomical level.
Remember that two Character 2s will never come to a peaceful resolution. If someone is committed to expressing their Character 2 as anger, hostility, bullying, or belligerence, then unless you decide that you want to tangle with them as your Character 2, there are a few things you can do. First, of course, is to remain calm. To do this you must be more committed to your own sense of peace (Character 4) than your desire to be right (Character 1). If you approach an angry Character 2 as your Character 1 who wants to either fix the problem or be right about something, expect the Character 2’s resistance to grow.
If you approach an angry Character 2 with your Character 3 or 4, the Character 2 will either run through their 90 seconds of negative emotion and come out ready to interact peacefully or they will rerun their negative circuit. Realizing that you do not have the power to stop a Character 2 from expressing itself is fundamental, and choosing to recognize that this person is in deep emotional pain may offer you the edge you need to keep them from triggering your own Character 2 fear—which is of course a natural response. If your Character 1 or 2 steps in and tries to shame, guilt, threaten, or bully the other person’s Character 2, this will of course only pour gas on the fire rather than help extinguish it. Although the other person’s Character 2 may respond by becoming still or silent in the moment, their wound is deep. When dominated rather than validated, the energy of a Character 2’s wound circuit will strengthen rather than dissipate, and the upset will fester rather than heal.
When someone is attached to expressing their Character 2 and running that circuit over and over again, it is often a good idea to choose to leave them alone so they can regain their own composure. Of course, we don’t want to abandon the Character 2s of those we love, but it is critically important that Character 2s learn how to tend to their own needs through the self-soothing natures of their more mature Characters 1 or 4. When a Character 2 is triggered and inflamed in full tantrum, it is important that the adults in the room remain in their adult mode.
Peace really is just a thought away, but it may take work to create the neural habit. This is one of my favorite quotes from author and American Tibetan Buddhist Pema Chödrön: “If we want there to be peace in the world . . . we have to be brave enough to soften what is rigid, to find the soft spot and stay with it. We have to have that kind of courage and take that kind of responsibility. . . . That’s the true practice of peace.” The deep inner peace of your Character 4 is wired right there in your right-thinking brain, and quieting your other characters is how you soften your heart to find that soft spot.
PERFECT, WHOLE, AND BEAUTIFUL
A healthy brain is made up of billions of healthy neurons that are in communication with one another. Comparably, a healthy society is made up of billions of healthy people who are in communication with one another. The way we as a society have embraced meditation, yoga, and mindfulness over the last few decades shows how hungry we are to gain control over the spontaneous reactivity of our emotional circuitry. Now we have another set of tools, the Four Characters, that we can use.
Because we are feeling creatures who have the capacity to think, instead of running our emotional circuitry on automatic and responding reactively, we have the power to choose to push the pause button, wait for 90 seconds while the physiology of our emotions flushes out of our body, and then choose the life we want to live. If we want to balance our lives, we need to balance our brains, and turning our Brain Huddle into a habit is a great tool for that.
Our brain is the living bio-network that functions as the power source of our existence. Yet because our society is skewed to the values of our left brain—which values that which is outside of ourselves more than our whole selves—it has been impossible for many of us to find true purpose and meaning in our lives. Thanks to my stroke, I found that purpose. I unwittingly heeded the call of my own Hero’s Journey: I dropped my leftbrain ego, battled my monsters, entered into the realm of my right brain, and let the power of the consciousness of the universe empower my recovery. And now, here I stand, bare to the bone, sharing these insights I gained with you, inviting you to assess where you are on your Hero’s Journey.
At the start of this book, I shared very specific messages with each of your Four Characters. Now let’s see what your characters have to say to one another:
To your Character 1, your other characters say this:
You did it. Thank you. You took the dare and now you have so much more information about the rest of us whom you so mightily corral, both inside your own head and in the world. You may not be aware of it, but the rest of us really are grateful that you are willing to do what comes naturally to you, to protect and provide for us.
As you step in as the adult authority in our life, please trust we know that without you there would be no order either in our life or in the world. All of us need you, our Character 1, to thrive at what you do. We need your discipline to help us create structure in our homes, safety in our schools, and civility in our government. Your discipline, judgment, rules, and order make our world go around.
Thank you for staying faithful to the task. When you become tired or distressed, please make sleep your priority. And when you rise and feel fresh, and are good and ready to go at it again, please take a few moments to let the rest of us in. Remember that we are one brain, and when you are willing to reflect with us, we can walk the world like it is our backyard, and we can be happy, whole, and united. Let us remind you, always, that we value your efforts and we are your head cheerleaders. (Ha, pun intended.) Together we make a fantastic team, and holding a Brain Huddle is always a good idea and just a thought away.
To your Character 2, your other characters say this:
Look at you—you made it, and we love you for your willingness to hang in there and learn about the rest of us. We hope you feel seen, heard, and deeply valued. Because of your sacrifice, your willingness to step out of the cosmic flow, you are our first line of protection, defense, and offense. We need you. We love you. You are our growth edge, and when we listen to you, we face our deepest fears and gain our greatest insights into our most mysterious selves.
The gift of you, our little Character 2, is our most vulnerable and innocent self, and we affirm that you are precious beyond measure. Please know that we are doing our absolute best to heed your warnings and live our best life. May you always feel supported by the rest of us. Character 1 is readily available to protect you. Character 4 is always present loving you, and Character 3 is ready to play with you. In those moments when you feel isolated, you are not alone. We are always right here, standing beside you just beyond the fog.
To your Character 3, your other characters say this:
Yahoo, what fun, we’re almost done, congratulations! You really are the joy of our life, and you bring a dimension of beauty that is far beyond our wildest dreams. Because of your curiosity, playful nature, and generosity of spirit, we thrive in heart-to-heart connections, both within ourselves and with others.
Like a big, beautiful, beaming bright neuron, you reach out unapologetically and enthusiastically, boldly taking your position within the consciousness of humanity. You are our spark plug of life, our impulse to move, and our intimate connection with others. Thank you for reading this book. Thank you for reminding us, through your mere existence, how beautiful we are and what a gift this life is. By sharing your insights with others, we as a collective brain bring our peace into the world, and the world is a better place simply because we are here.
Finally, to your Character 4, your other characters say this:
It is with the utmost gratitude that we have the privilege of sharing this consciousness with you. Because of your insights and connection with all that is, we know at the deepest level that we are perfect, whole, and beautiful just the way we are.
Now let me turn the tables and speak from each of my Four Characters to
yours:
My Character 1, Helen, says this:
Thank you to all four of your characters, for your commitment to making your life, and the lives of those around you, a more congenial and compatible place. Peace really is just a thought away. We have the power to change our society as well as the overall condition of the world because the external world is the macrocosm of the microcosm going on inside of us. When we feel peace, we project peace and that
peace grows. When we are willing to show up as our whole selves, we create the world we want to live in, and when we find ourselves in need, the Brain Huddle is an effective tool. So let’s use it and be the people we want to be.
My Character 2, Abby, says:
I have a lot to say. I want this book to help us (all of our Character 2s) feel better, faster, when we are feeling lonely, violated, or reactively triggered. Our world is kind of a mess because we (our Character 2s) are so powerful and scary to others. It is our nature to instantaneously become hurt, offended, or angry based upon minimal amounts of information. It is natural for us to become loud, aggressive, demanding, and manipulative, and at times we will even go on the attack to push your buttons so that you will go away. We do this to hold on to our power and protect ourselves.
To all those other characters, please remember that our Character 2s are programmed to fight/flight/play dead in the instant that we are emotionally triggered. As a result, we inadvertently disconnect from not only our own other characters but from other people as well. Trust me: it is just as maddening for us that our natural response during those reactive moments is to wreak havoc in our relationships and push people away when we most desperately really want to connect but don’t know how. We are more likely to react like this on automatic when we don’t have strong connections with the other characters in our brain. Please, we need you to love us in spite of ourselves.
At the same time, because I am a wounded child, I don’t like the idea of taking responsibility for my thoughts, emotions, or behaviors when I am upset. This whole idea of emotional and cognitive accountability makes me feel very uncomfortable and distrustful of the implication that I could do or be better. That is why I may rail against this book and question its validity, as we all know that it is absolutely delicious to just run on automatic and let ourselves rip with hostile negativity, especially when we can be anonymous.
When we practice the Brain Huddle, we (our Character 2s) feel less vulnerable to running on automatic, as it strengthens our ability to be more conscious. We are healthier and feel more connected when we know our other characters are there supporting and loving us. So please, if I am wailing or trying to pick a fight with you, remember that I do not have the ability to mature. I am a vulnerable child and I am in pain. Please don’t purposely antagonize, shame, or guilt me. Please walk the higher road, and don’t let me hook you into a fight. Instead, just stay calm as your adult self, and love me from afar until I can get the rest of my team into a Brain Huddle so they can rescue me. Do that for me, and I’ll do my best to do that for you. Maybe we can choose more often to stop wounding each other and instead help each other heal. I would like that.
My Character 3, Pigpen, exclaims this:
YOU ARE SO TOTALLY AWESOME! YAHOO, ALL FOR ONE AND ONE FOR ALL!
And my Character 4, Queen Toad, shares this wisdom with you:
We are each so blessed to have this experience of life: this magical combination of matter and energy, transformed into the structure of a consciousness that is capable of living, moving, feeling, experiencing, and thinking. Our life is the gift of the human experience, and when it is time for the energy of our consciousness to shift away from our cellular form, although our life will extinguish and our brains will still, in those precious moments between the this and the that, the here and the there, the life and the death, the breath and the final exhale, we will clearly see how perfect, whole, and beautiful we truly are and have always been.
All those years ago, my TED talk was about me. Now it is about you:
You are the life-force power of the universe with manual dexterityand two cognitive minds. You have the power to choose, moment bymoment, who and how you want to be in the world.
Right here, right now, you can step into the consciousness of yourright hemisphere, where you are the life-force power of the universe.You are the life-force power of the 50 trillion beautiful moleculargeniuses that make up your form, at One with all that is.
Or you can choose to step into the consciousness of your lefthemisphere, where you become a single individual, a solid, separatefrom the flow, and separate from me.
These are the “We” of your Four Characters.Which do you choose . . . and when?I believe that the more time you spend choosing to run the deepinner peace circuitry of your right hemisphere, the more peace you willproject into the world and the more peaceful our planet will be.
And I still think that’s an idea worth spreading.