Dr. Jill Bolte Taylor

Am I safe?

And you're fine until you're not safe.

Yes, that's exactly what it is.

You have two emotional systems.

One in your left hemisphere and one in your right hemisphere.

And the right hemisphere is going to be right here right now.

Am I safe in the right here right now?

So let's say all of a sudden a snake went by and we would jump.

We would startle because it's your right amygdala saying, oh my gosh, am I safe?

And then the left hemisphere is going, oh my gosh, it's a snake.

No, I'm not safe.

Push it away.

And when we're calm, that's when the hippocampi, because we have two amygdala, one in each hemisphere, two hippocampi, one in each hemisphere.

And when the amygdala are calm and you feel safe, now you can learn and focus, focus with the anterior, with the cingulate gyrus, and learn new things.

So, you know, these groups of cells...

Now, if you wipe out an amygdala, you're not going to feel any fear.

You wipe out a language center, you're not going to have any language.

You wipe out motor skills to your index finger and you're paralyzed.

So every ability you have is because we have these brain cells that perform that function.

So for the four parts of us, so we have an emotional system in each hemisphere.