05 June 2019
Into the Magic Shop
Into the Magic Shop
A Neurosurgeon's Quest to Discover the Mysteries of the Brain and the Secrets of the Heart
James Doty

Highlights

Teenagers crave freedom, but only if they’re standing on a base that is stable and secure.
. . .
“Jim, your thoughts are so loud I can hear them, but I can’t make them out."
. . .
Feelings are not right or wrong. They are just feelings.
. . .
I’ve felt that connection with others throughout my life—sometimes it’s a random person in an elevator, where you look into each other’s eyes, and for reasons you can’t explain, there is a connection, not just simply eyes meeting, but some deeper knowing, an acknowledgment of each other’s humanity and the reality of being on the same path.
. . .
This voice in your head is judging every second of your life as either good or bad. And your mind responds to what the voice is telling you. As if it actually knew you.
. . .
The problem is that often your response isn’t one that is necessarily good for you.
. . .
When your mind wanders away from your breath it’s not good or bad. It’s just doing what it does. Just notice it. Then guide it back to your breath. Help it focus again.
. . .
At that moment, I didn’t really know if things were going to be OK or not. I knew they loved me as best they could. And that was far different from how I had hoped for so long that they would love me. Yet at that moment, it felt like enough.
. . .
And this thinking about thinking—this ability of the brain to observe itself—is one of its great mysteries.
. . .
[W]hen you are not distracted by internal dialogue the associated emotional response does not occur.
. . .
“I am worthy. I am loved. I am cared for. I care for others. I choose only good for myself. I choose only good for others. I love myself. I love others. I open my heart. My heart is open.”
. . .
[W]hen I began to realize that when I was angry with someone, it was usually because I was hurting on the inside. I was angry at myself for something.
. . .
Research shows the heart to be an organ of intelligence, with its own profound influence not only from our brain but on our brain, our emotions, our reasoning, and our choices.
. . .
By learning to observe my thoughts, I was learning to separate myself from them.
. . .
In your mind bathe them with love, warmth, and acceptance. It does not matter what their response is.
. . .
“Don’t count yourself short” repeated itself in my head. I wasn’t sure what that meant. I didn’t count myself short—it was more like I hadn’t thought there was anything to count at all.
. . .
Others can create your reality only if you don’t create it yourself.
. . .
I could try to create a new reality for myself, but I could not change the people I loved, no matter how much I might have intended it.
. . .
The brain doesn’t distinguish between an experience that is intensely imagined and an experience that is real.
. . .
Another mystery of the brain is that it will always choose what is familiar over what is unfamiliar. By visualizing my own future success, I was making this success familiar to my brain. Intention is a funny thing, and whatever the brain puts its intention on is what it sees.
. . .
[M]aybe I should have set my intention more on succeeding at school and focused on one thing at a time, instead of only what life would look like when I was finally someone.
. . .
Everything didn’t have to be broken just because something was broken. I didn’t have to be broken
. . .
It was hard to give love to myself because I had somehow internalized that my situation was my fault.
. . .
Over the decades I have learned that having faith in the outcome is quite different from being attached to the outcome.
. . .
Unfortunately, so many people allow others to decide what they can or cannot do. This was another gift that Ruth gave me—the ability to believe in myself and accept that not everyone will want me to succeed or accomplish great things. And how to be OK with that reality and not react to it.
. . .
A broad knowledge of a lot of areas actually hurt my chances
. . .
We can die a thousand times in this lifetime, and that is one of the greatest gifts of being alive.
. . .
What research has shown is that the heart sends far more signals to the brain than the brain sends to the heart—and while both the cognitive and emotional systems in the body are intelligent, there are far more neural connections that go from the heart to the brain than the other way around. Both our thoughts and our feelings can be powerful, but a strong emotion can silence a thought, while we can rarely think ourselves out of a strong emotion. In fact, it is the strongest emotions that will trigger ruminating or incessant thought. We separate the mind as rational from the heart as relational, but ultimately the mind and heart are part of one unified intelligence.
. . .
Our journey is one of transcendence, not endless self-reflection.
. . .
[W]e get sick alone, and we get well together.
. . .
After their tears and grief, they thanked me for trying, and my heart broke for all the times in their life people had not cared enough to try. An ear infection or lack of health insurance should never cause a child’s death.
. . .
The act of kindness ripples out and makes it more likely that your friends and those around you will be kinder
. . .
[A] heart ignored for too long will always make itself heard.
. . .
We all have that gift and ability to connect. Whether through music, or art, or poetry, or just through listening to another.
. . .
What I have learned since is that compassion is an instinct, perhaps our most innate.
. . .
Many misinterpret Darwin by implying that survival of the fittest means the survival of the strongest and most ruthless, when in fact it is survival of the kindest and most cooperative that ensures the survival of a species in the long-term. We evolved to cooperate, to nurture and raise our dependent young, and to thrive together and for the benefit of all.
. . .
“There is no perfect life we are born into, and there is no escaping the awful reality of suffering. There is also no escaping the beautiful synchronicity of the heart.”
. . .
“Today you have sealed your path with an oath. This path will take you to life’s deepest and darkest valleys where you will see how trauma and disease destroy lives, and sadly you will see what one human is capable of inflicting upon another and even more sadly what one human is capable of inflicting on himself. But it will also take you to life’s highest peaks where you will see the meek demonstrate strength you thought not possible, cures for which you can find no explanation, and the power of compassion and kindness to cure human ills. And by doing so you will see the very face of God.”
. . .
They were not applauding just me or my journey but our collective journey toward greater compassion and ever-greater humanity.