In a nut shell: I control my brain, my brain controls how I interpret the world - I am in control of my world.
(so choose a good world - for everyone's sake)

I thought this book was really great. It had moments of greatness, and moments of "really?", but I thought the message was solid and something worth being reminded of. Particularly Dr. Taylor's experience while her stroke was happening was really an intense and one of the powerful sections i have read in a long time. The physiology and knowledge was informative and I thought I learned a lot about my own biology.

"I may not be in total control of what happens to my life, but I certainly am in charge of how I choose to perceive my experience." 127

"What a wonderful gift this stroke has been in permitting me to pick and choose who and how I want to be in the world. Before the stroke, I believed I was a product of my brain and that I had minimal say about how I felt or what I thought. Since the hemorrhage, my eyes have been opened to how much choice I actually have about what goes on between my ears." 128

"And to complicate matters even more, have you ever noticed how negative internal dialogue can negatively influence how you treat others and, thus, what you attract?" 145

"[painful thoughts]...it is freeing to know that i have the conscious power to stop thinking those thought when I am satiated."154

"Peacefulness should be the place we begin not the place we seek to acheive" J. Jesseph 157

Truth be told there are lots of other dog eared pages in my copy of this book of pieces that struck a specific cord in my cabeza. Of course it is pretty much what my father has said to me my whole life (and what I catch myself consistently reminding Oliver of these days):

You don't control what happens around you, but you DO control how you react to it.

I am anxious for my wife to read this book so we can talk about the parallels in this book and to her recent study of yoga and meditation...