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We spend lots of time learning how to navigate people, things, situations, and environments. But it’s the inner navigation called interoception that can be integral in our ability to heal and be compassionate in the world. The quiet information and stories our nervous system tells us about our inner states can be easily drowned out by the din of thoughts and our outer worlds.

What more will your gut tell you today when you take a few moments to quiet down?

If you give the prefrontal cortex the perception that it has control over your stress response it can actually begin taking control. Creating visuals and acting them out in your mind’s eye gives your prefrontal cortex this exercise.

In what ways will you use your imagination for purposes of healing rather than judging?

The side portions of our prefrontal cortex, called the ventro lateral PFC, control our braking system and help us inhibit behavior and exercise self-control. This area is easily exhausted and uses up large amounts of glucose and oxygen. Exercising self-control in one area may actually decrease our ability to exercise self-control in another. So trying to inhibit or quiet two habits at once is very difficult. You’ll be less likely to resist eating the chocolate cake if you’d spent your morning trying to quit smoking.

How can you exercise patience with yourself as you reprioritize what behaviors you’d like to inhibit today?

Our conscious mind, which uses most of our brain’s energy, actually represents only a small portion of our brain’s total activity: less than ten percent. Ninety percent of what’s going on in the mind is not conscious. So when the logic mind gets stuck in a rigid stance where you declare “I know this to be true!” it behooves you to question that.

What one rigid belief can you soften today as you question what went on in the other 90 percent of the brain to help create that thought?

MRI studies are showing that when individuals feel left out, rejected, or isolated their brain activates in the same way it does when one feels physical pain. Our social brain networks are wired as deeply as physical survival networks, and are just as important. Community and inclusion are vital ingredients to our individual well-being.

What can you do today to enhance your community connection?

As social creatures we all long to feel valued and want to be treated fairly. These are not simple ego desires. These are survival networks according to the brain. During times we report feeling this way our brain activates in the same way it does when our basic survival needs are met.

If you tell at least one person today you are grateful for them, how do you think that will affect your connection with each other?

The insula is important in our social brain. It’s involved with processing events in the future based on our current body states, and it correlates to experiences of pride and disgust. Studies published in Cerebral Cortex in 2012 note that a sense of uncertainty increases insula activity and levels of aversion. Statements like, “Wait until your father gets home” can trigger this response.

What anticipatory language can you notice today that increases your own sense of aversion or disgust? How can you shift those words?

Acts of charity have been shown to activate the brain’s reward center.

In what ways can you give to someone else today?

The mirror neuron network in our brain registers someone else’s genuine smile in the same way it registers our own genuine smile, as though we’ve experienced the other person’s smile.

How many more people can you smile at today?

The prefrontal cortex responds to each and every small accomplishment by releasing a little bit of dopamine, one of our “feel good” neurotransmitters. Notice when you hit moments of self-doubt, depression, or are unmotivated.

How many of your small accomplishments can you remind yourself of today?

The brain can be wired to make us either avoidance-directed people or goal-directed people. An avoidance-directed statement would be, “Floss regularly to avoid gum disease.” A goal-directed statement would be, “Floss to have healthy gums.” Motivation only happens if we are getting the message in a manner to which we are wired to respond. The avoidance-directed person won’t be motivated by the goal-directed statement and vice versa.

Notice throughout your day if you are avoidance- or goal-directed, and begin using that knowledge to motivate you in areas you’d like to change.

The business world uses “implementation intention” to mean the intention and focus one puts into setting a goal and next considering all the “if-then” scenarios one might encounter while pursuing that goal. Studies suggest that those who add mental imagery to this have a greater success rate in meeting their goals. If you set a goal to quit a habit you might be more successful if you pictured in detail the many ways in which temptations could arise and the different options you’d have to manage those temptations. Having the script rehearsed in your mind might lead to greater success.

What scripts can you notice today that seem to be running under the surface that keep you from meeting your own goals?

Being rewarded seems to activate dopamine so that we feel good. Studies done at the NeuroLeadership Insitute measured dopamine activity during experiments in which a tone sounded shortly before a reward was given. Upon deeper examination it seemed that dopamine increased at the sound of the tone and not at the moment of receiving the reward. When the tone was removed but the reward was still given, there was no dopamine increase. This suggests that the expectation or hope of the reward actually releases the feel-good neurotransmitter. Perhaps it truly isn’t the goal, but the journey.

What extra attention can you give to the journey today rather than the goal?

Dr. Rick Hanson, author of Buddha’s Brain, notes that virtue involves our ability to regulate actions, words, and thoughts to create benefits rather than harm for ourselves and others. He notes that those abilities require healthy activity in the prefrontal cortex, and the down-regulation of our fight-or-flight response. When we are in fight-or-flight, we can’t attain virtue.

Which neurosculpting practice can you use today to calm the fight-or-flight response and help you attain virtue?

The reflective self is said to arise in the brain’s anterior cingulate cortex, the emotional self in the amygdala and hypothalamus, the autobiographical self in the prefrontal cortex, and the narrative self in the midline and junction of the temporal and parietal lobes. From a neurological viewpoint, each time you feel like you it’s actually a perception built from many sub-systems and glued together with fabricated subjectivity.

If we’re assembling the self each time, what attention can you put today toward being the self you always dreamed of being?

Because sensory information streams through our cortices with many connection points into the limbic brain, by the time the information reaches our cerebral cortex for logic processing we have already placed a feeling on that information. It’s already encoded as pain or pleasure, sadness or joy, love or fear. “Although many of us may think of ourselves as thinking creatures that feel, biologically we are feeling creatures that think.”

What thoughts can you focus on today as you trace them to their root feelings?

According to a study in the New England Journal of Medicine, playing a musical instrument and dancing are among the best activities to reduce the risk of dementia. Songs and melodies running through our minds give a vivid charge to memories associated with those songs. The process of listening to and interpreting music stimulates both hemispheres of the brain in a synchronistic way.

How many minutes can you spend today listening to your favorite music or dancing?

Our neurons are decisive and action-oriented. There’s no maybe in their language. They decide to either fire or not, and there’s no in-between. How they decide is a wondrous miracle. Each neuron has a threshold of stimulation that must be exceeded for that neuron to send a signal to the next. Each neuron can alter that threshold based on the situation, stimulus, and even hormonal environment. Since diet, meditation, and exercise can positively affect the stress hormones, we may be able to influence our nervous system through our lifestyle choices.

In what ways can you contribute to healthy neural activity today?

Dr. Daniel J. Siegel notes in Mindsight that “Given the number of synaptic connections, the brain’s possible on-off firing patterns— its potential for various states of activation— has been calculated to be ten to the millionth power— or ten times ten, one million times. This number is thought to be larger than the number of atoms in the known universe. It also far exceeds our ability to experience in one lifetime even a small percentage of these firing possibilities. . . . If we get stuck in one pattern or the other, we’re limiting our potential. It becomes our sacred human responsibility to open our minds to more of this potential.
What possibilities could you focus on today if you changed just one of your small thought patterns?

We have up to 100 billion neurons in the brain with more of them allocated to threat-detection than to thinking positively. This is why negativity is an easy default and is so contagious. Neuroplasticity promises us that positivity can be trained and exercised. What one new positive thought will you create for yourself today?

The more you think a thought, the stronger that neural network becomes, exercising the synapse, broadening the dendritic reach, enhancing the long-term potentiation, and thickening the gray matter. The thought muscle you exercise will grow in dominance. What thoughts can you choose to rethink today?

When we’re doing “nothing” fMRIs show the brain is still active in the prefrontal cortex and temporal lobe. Our minds can easily wander to thoughts and concerns of the past and future. Simple tasks like games, chores, hobbies, and activities have a measurable impact on these areas. Blood flow is redirected and the brain can begin to experience a relaxed state.

What new activity will you use to replace your couch-potato time?

Cognitive dissonance is our belief in two conflicting thoughts that seem related. An example is “I like ice cream” and “ice cream is bad for me.” To justify this we either minimize one thought, or create a third thought to counteract the others. We tend to believe that newly created third thought as a way to avoid the conflict. It’s like the smoker trying to quit who says, “I’ll stop after this one.” Where do you notice you are lying to yourself today?

We need carbohydrates for our fuel and energy, fat for our cellular health and neuron functioning, and protein for building our structures and neurotransmitters.

In what ways can you change your diet to get a balance of all three today?

Your brain will work better if you use your resources in an efficient manner. Your brain-taxing tasks that need a lot of concentration are best dealt with when you are well fed and well rested. More automated or mundane tasks can be accomplished with far fewer resources.

In what ways can you reprioritize your mental tasks today to better use your well-fed and well-rested times?

Almost winning tends to increase our feel-good neurotransmitters just as much as actually winning.

Where in your life can you stop focusing on your failures and start focusing on the times you almost succeeded?

Perceiving life sometimes with an either-or mentality creates a rigid and limiting stance in the brain. Perceiving life sometimes with an and mentality opens us up to inclusion.

Where can you change your or to an and today?

A sense of uncertainty can cause us to fear more and project to the worst-case scenario. In the Ellsberg Paradox, groups were presented with a task to pick cards from a deck. Individuals were told that the certainty deck contained 50 percent blue cards and 50 percent red cards. They were then offered another deck, which either contained all red cards or all blue cards. The probability of picking a red card was virtually the same in either case, yet individuals were more likely to take a risk at winning when offered the certainty deck. Even when the stakes are the same uncertainty distorts the way we view life and our potential opportunities. Where can you identify uncertainty limiting you today?

The mirror neuron effect shows us that we map others’ experiences to our own internal experience, and the brain perceives we are actually having the same experience. The insula draws up the internal state of the body and maps it in the mind. Perhaps understanding more of what we’re feeling and sensing inside can then help us understand what we notice in others.

How much extra time can you spend today becoming acquainted with your body’s emotions and sensations?

When we empathize, the analytical part of our brain becomes inhibited, and conversely when we are stuck in analysis we are unable to empathize, according to a study done by Case Western Reserve University. Perhaps a comprehensive approach to life is about balance. Where can you bring in empathy to balance analysis and some analytical thought to balance empathy today? Social conformity has been shown to create false memories in individuals. Group descriptions of events have the power to influence our own memory of the event.

What can you do today to discern your own truth from your peer’s truth?

The facial expressions of others can trigger our mirror neurons, making us feel what others are feeling. The same is true for our own expressions. Look in the mirror today.

In what ways will changing the expression on your face affect your friends, family, and co-workers today?

Rejection and isolation can easily trigger our fight-or-flight center and cause stress in the body.

In what ways, and with whom, can you be more inclusive today?

Always considering the worst can predispose us to a fear-based response to the world.

Where can you notice yourself jumping to the worst-case scenario today?

The prefrontal cortex regulates attention and thoughts with a vast number of neural connections and a system of arousal and neurotransmitters. If we take no action, our default system can easily resort to negative thinking, which supports a disease state in the body. Each time we perceive victimhood, we favor this same dynamic.

How many times today can you notice yourself thinking, “Why me?” What if you were to ask instead, “How did I contribute to this, and what would it take to change it all?”

The fight-or-flight center functions reflexively, with speed and little thought. The prefrontal cortex, or area related to expanded awareness, empathy, and joy, is reflective. It takes time to process, energy to figure things out, and patience to make it all happen. You can go about your day reflexively or reflectively. What can you do today to balance the two?

The amygdala is masterful at creating imagery that’s imbued with vivid emotional charge. It’s expert in creating images associated with fear and survival. The hippocampus stores these charged stories and references them when a current situation only vaguely resembles the old one. In this way a current event can trigger the emotional charge of a past memory, or of a future concern. At this point fight-or-flight takes hold.

What valuable resources are you wasting on figments of your past, or excessive concerns about your future?

Wimberger, Lisa (2015-01-01). Neurosculpting: A Whole-Brain Approach to Heal Trauma, Rewrite Limiting Beliefs, and Find Wholeness . Sounds True. Kindle Edition.

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