Let’s claim or reclaim all of who we are. For thousands of years we lived closer to a way of life that revolved around relationship and being.
There is a fascinating book and corresponding Tedtalk called My stroke of insight by Jill Bolte-Taylor. Dr. Jill Bolte-Taylor is a neurophysiologist, an expert on the brain. She describes her catastrophic stroke that occurred in the left hemisphere of her brain.
Although it’s an oversimplification, in general, the two hemispheres of our brain have distinctly different capabilities which she describes as “personalities”. Within us is the logical linear, verbal, and detail focused left hemisphere and, then, there is the other us: the visual-spatial, intuitive, heartfelt, holistic, right hemisphere. Some cultures seem to emphasize the personality of one hemisphere over the other. Western cultures seem to be generally left hemisphere heavy. Our educational system emphasises the gifts of this analytic, linguistic personality. Where as some asian, pacific islander, Hispanic and, particularly, indigenous cultures are more inclusive of the gifts of the wholistic, creative right hemisphere.
When her stroke was underway, Jill Bolte-Taylor recalled her unrestrained, blissful, almost mystical, experience that overtook her when her left hemisphere was silent. Unleashed from the overriding chatter of the left brain, her right hemisphere revealed itself. She said she felt a tremendous expansion of herself into inter-being, a lovely melting into all life. Her small “i” (that is the ego, individual self) dissolved while her larger self, the self that merges and interacts with all that is, expanded to become “ huge”.
This raises the question of identity. Who are we? In many religious and spiritual traditions this larger “I” is understood as the I that affords us connection with the divine, or if we want to talk about it in a non-religious sense, a connection with life, with inter-being. In our culture we tend to have an emphasis on doing over being. Yet it is through being that we are more able to access this expansive, connected self. In a culture now grappling with diseases of dis-connection, cultivating the personality of the right hemisphere brings the soothing sense of our reclaimed, quieter and interrelated self. Engaging more with the right brain we would be moving towards more balance: the Yin with the Yang of life, the night with the day, the right with the left hemisphere of our own wonderful beingness. Poignantly, the first brain-like structures are in our heart as we are developing tiny beings within the universe of our mother’s body. 
