20. Tending the Garden

I have learned so much from this experience with stroke, that I actually feel fortunate to have taken this journey. Thanks to this trauma, I have had the chance to witness firsthand a few things about my brain that otherwise I would never have imagined to be true. For these simple insights, I will always be grateful - not just for myself but for the hope these possibilities may bring to how we, as a people, choose to view and nurture our brains and consequently behave on this planet.

I am grateful for your willingness to join me on this intense journey. I sincerely hope that whatever circumstances brought you to this book, you move forward having gleaned some insight into your brain or the brain of another. I trust with my right hemisphere's heart consciousness that this book will now flow from your hands into the hands of someone who may benefit from it.

I always end my e-mails with a tag-line quote from Einstein. I believe he got it right when he said, "I must be willing to give up what I am in order to become what I will be." I learned the hard way that my ability to be in the world is completely dependent on the integrity of my neurocircuitry. Cell by beautiful cell, circuit by neurocircuit, the consciousness I experience within my brain is the collective awareness established by those marvelous little entities as they weave together the web I call my mind. Thanks to their neural plasticity, their ability to shift and change their connections with other cells, you and I walk the earth with the ability to be flexible in our thinking, adaptable to our environment, and capable of choosing who and how we want to be in the world. Fortunately, how we choose to be today is not predetermined by how we were yesterday.

I view the garden in my mind as a sacred patch of cosmic real estate that the universe has entrusted me to tend over the years of my lifetime. As an independent agent, I and I alone, in conjunction with the molecular genius of my DNA and the environmental factors I am exposed to, will decorate this space within my cranium. In the early years, I may have minimal input into what circuits grow inside my brain because I am the product of the dirt and seeds I have inherited. But to our good fortune, the genius of our DNA is not a dictator, and thanks to our neurons' plasticity, the power of thought, and the wonders of modern medicine, very few outcomes are absolute.

Regardless of the garden I have inherited, once I consciously take over the responsibility of tending my mind, I choose to nurture those circuits that I want to grow, and consciously prune back those circuits I prefer to live without. Although it is easier for me to nip a weed when it is just a sprouting bud, with determination and perseverance, even the gnarliest of vines, when deprived of fuel, will eventually lose its strength and fall to the side.

The mental health of our society is established by the mental health of the brains making up our society, and I must admit that western civilization is a pretty challenging environment for my loving and peaceful right hemisphere character to live in. Obviously, I'm not alone in feeling this way, as I look at the millions of beautiful people in our society who have chosen to escape our common reality by selfmedicating themselves with illicit drugs and alcohol.

I think Ghandi was right when he said, "We must be the change we want to see in the world." I find that my right hemisphere consciousness is eager for us to take that next giant leap for mankind and step to the right so we can evolve this planet into the peaceful and loving place we yearn for it to be.

Your body is the life force power of some fifty trillion molecular geniuses. You and you alone choose moment by moment who and how you want to be in the world. I encourage you to pay attention to what is going on in your brain. Own your power and show up for your life. Beam bright!

And when your life force wanes, I hope you will give the gift of hope and donate your beautiful brain to Harvard.