Rewire Your Nervous System
Goal: Identify the internal feeling-state you want to build your life around. Clarity comes from aligning your feelings with your thoughts, not by brute forcing your mind into thinking harder.
Insights are important, but to make an insight stick you also need to upgrade your nervous system's capacity. Even the most insightful ideas do not guarantee you will have the capacity to put that into action. The exercises that follow will map your new stories to your nervous system.
Your mind time-travels to regrets, fantasies, anxieties. Your body lives fully in the present. This makes your body the most reliable compass you have. Your “emotional GPS” is the sensation that signals the life you actually want to live. You’ll know you’re aligned when your head, heart and gut all feel in tune with each other. If your gut says “yes” but your head keeps coming up with “no” excuses, interrogate the reasons and map them back to your stories.
Exercise 1 - Feeling-State Meditation
Find a quiet space where you won’t be interrupted for 20 minutes. Mute your phone and devices. Mornings are ideal, but any moment you can find a space will do.
Close your eyes. Breathe slowly.
Now, go to a time and place where everything you desire has already happened. In this imagined state, you have accomplished everything you ever wanted. You have achieved everything and are surrounded by everyone you desire to have in your life. There are no limitations. There is no lack of money, love, or anything else.
While imagery can be helpful, it’s less important to picture your desired outcomes, rather feel them deeply. Feel that moment when everything comes together for you. Recognize the mind’s desire to explain everything and come up with excuses for why it might not happen. Just observe those thoughts and let them pass on like clouds blowing by.
Feel it.
What does it feel like in your:
- Chest
- Stomach
- Shoulders
- Face
- Breath
Write down the sensations you felt using simple words: Did you feel lightness, peace, confidence, playfulness? Spaciousness or maybe relief. Was there warmth? What other energies were present?
No wrong answers. Your body knows.
Reflection Questions
- When have I felt this exact sensation before?
- What was I doing then that I am not doing now?
- What one simple daily action would nurture this feeling?
Exercise 2 - Write Your Emotional GPS
Fill in the sentence: “The feeling I choose to build my next chapter around is ______.”
This is your compass. This is not only for the next 72 hours, but for however long you’d like to feel these emotions. Map yourself and your actions towards the capacity to hold that insight in thoughts, words, and actions
Exercise 3 - Your Lived Questions
Remember those unanswered questions from yesterday? Review them and ask yourself if you could rewrite them but with more clarity about the feelings you desire versus the outcomes you seek? In other words, might you ask questions like,
“What will my life be like when I feel calm and peaceful?”
"How might I feel that feeling more regularly?"
"Where physically do I feel my clarity?"
Day 2 complete.