U/B 21: You and I are as expansive as the universe

But our left hemispheres think otherwise

Here’s your weekly reminder to choose thoughts that are useful and/or beautiful.

Hi.

Have you ever felt as expansive as the universe? Apparently this is a thing.

I have yet to feel this, but I hope that someday I will, now that I know it’s possible.

How do I know it’s possible? Because I keep finding stories. And I choose to believe other people when they share their lived experiences, as foreign to me as they might seem.

Photo by Egor Yakushkin on Unsplash

The first time I encountered this possibility was watching the famous Ted Talk by neuroanatomist Dr. Jill Bolte Taylor¹ about her stroke which shut down her brain’s left hemisphere and she lost the ability to perceive herself as a separate, individual being.

I looked down at my arm, and I realized I could no longer define the boundaries of my body. I can’t define where I being and where I end, because the atoms and molecules of my arm blended with the atoms and the molecules of the wall. And all I could detect is this energy — energy.

And because I could no longer identify the boundaries of my body, I felt enormous and expansive. I felt at one with all the energy that was, and it was beautiful.

I find her talk to be wildly inspiring. But also credible. She explains how her spiritual experience was possible by connecting it to the physical biology of her brain. The concrete science of it makes sense, and concepts that make sense are easier for my skeptical self to believe.

Actually, my skeptical self has been taking a back seat lately. Probably because I’ve been introducing it to other possibilities and it’s realizing how little it actually knows. Plus, I’m tired of a separate, lonely existence. I don’t want to live in fear and anxiety that there is not enough. I want to believe there is more. So I’ve been choosing different thoughts.

We have the power to choose, moment by moment, who and how we want to be in the world.
- Dr. Jill Bolte Taylor

Here’s another story by American Tibetan-Buddhist nun Pema Chodron in her book The Places that Scare You².

Recently a lawyer told me that while standing on a street corner waiting for the light to change an extraordinary thing occurred. Suddenly her body expanded until it felt as big as the entire universe. She felt instinctively that she and the universe were one. She had no doubt this was actually true. She knew she was not, as she’d previously assumed, separate from everything else.

Photo by VENUS MAJOR on Unsplash

Albert Einstein once wrote to a friend³:

A human being is a part of the whole, called by us “Universe”, a part limited in time and space.

He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings as something separated from the rest — a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us.

Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole nature in its beauty.

Another anecdote comes from The Four Agreements by don Miguel Ruiz. Here’s a bit from the beginning story in which a man discovers this universal consciousness:

He saw himself in everything — in every human, in every animal, in every tree, in the water, in the rain, in the could, in the earth.

There were no words to explain it. He tried to tell the others, but they could not understand.

They believed that he was an incarnation of God, and he smiled when he heard this and he said, “It is true. I am God. But you are also God. We are the same, you and I. We are images of light.”

But still the people didn’t understand him.

Which makes sense if this universal connectedness is experienced in our right hemisphere, but language exists in the left. How do we share this truth without language?

I guess we try, regardless. We tell stories. Share our lived experiences, hoping that others may believe in possibilities beyond their perception.

---

Love and universal consciousness

This concept is on my mind because of an entry in my new Diary of My Most Dangerous Thoughts (aka White Lady Problems) where I talk only to myself. Not to you or as a potential draft. Just thoughts as they come.

Through writing, I realized I may be a bit afraid of my capacity to love. From my diary:

The love almost hurts. It makes me un-whole, to have given part of my heart away.

Maybe this is why I must remember that we are all the universe. There can be no loss if there is no “me” to lose anything.

If I am not an individual, I cannot feel less than whole when I love another, when I give parts of my heart away. It’s just sharing love around, all part of the same universal whole.

Maybe, when we are universal, there can be no heartbreak? That’s a curious thought.

---

Thank you for being here. Your attention is a gift.

Love,

Kate

---

Like this letter? Will you help others get value from it, too? Please tap the heart, forward it, restack, share on your socials. Thank you.

If you’d like to create more possibility in your life, reply this email or send me a DM. I coach curious, kind people to see beyond their perception and transform their lives.

1. Her new book Whole Brain Living is fabulous, by the way.

2. https://pemachodronfoundation.org/product/the-places-that-scare-you/

3. https://www.nytimes.com/1972/03/29/archives/the-einstein-papers-a-man-of-many-parts-the-einstein-papers-man-of.html