Something that often gets overlooked in growth and healing is how to make success safe,
Because your nervous system doesn't automatically want success,
It wants familiarity,
Predictability.
It wants to know what to expect so that it can keep you alive.
And that is where the power of this practice comes in.
Grounded in neuroscience and also practiced for thousands of years in ancient traditions,
This practice will invite you to imagine a new scenario where success,
Visibility,
Connection,
Pleasure,
Recognition,
Income,
Ease is available.
And because your brain cannot fully distinguish between a vividly imagined experience and a lived one,
We begin to teach the body that those things are not only possible,
But they are safe and even inevitable.
So that all of your amazing powerful mechanisms,
Your discipline,
Your ingenuity,
Your innovation,
Your creativity can kind of lock onto your vision and make them happen.
This happens because of neuroplasticity.
Your brain is always shaping itself.
And every time that you visualize something,
You create a new pathway,
A blueprint to teach your system what is possible.
Also because of predictive coding,
Your nervous system is always scanning for what is familiar.
So if it hasn't been practiced and kind of rehearsed,
It might be taken as unsafe and therefore you avoid it without even realizing that you're avoiding it.
And somatic rehearsal.
When you feel a future scenario in your body,
You train your nervous system how to respond to that with calm and curiosity and confidence instead of threat.
This is a regulation strategy.
Let's practice.
Take a few deep breaths,
Pull your shoulders back,
See if you can straighten your spine,
Whether you're laying down or seated.
Take a nice long,
Big inhale.
Open your mouth.
Exhale.
Do more like that.
Release your tongue from the top of your mouth.
Go at your own pace.
One last one.
You have time for this.
And take yourself to a moment in the future.
It might be small,
It might be an email that you're excited to receive confirming an invitation or a sale.
A conversation that lends deeply,
You feel like you're recognized for your work.
It might be your bank account looking a certain way or your afternoon with certain events,
An unexpected moment of joy,
Recognition.
Just allow it to come gently from within.
See if you can get a little bit more specific.
You don't need to take long doing this,
But just see if you can inhale and almost expand your body to fit into this new scenario.
So it's exhaling out into yourselves,
Into your arms,
Into your fingers.
Notice,
Maybe you can get more detailed.
Where are you?
What do you see?
What do you hear?
But on every exhale,
Just,
Ah,
I can kind of fit into this new space.
And in this new space,
What do you feel in your body?
Does your chest lift?
Does your face soften?
As you explore,
Bring into,
Keep,
Or even struggle to find the thing in your mind's eye that you're looking for,
Just notice how your body responds.
No need to fix it.
It's okay if it tenses or it flinches or it braces.
It's just you practicing being there.
Widening your capacity for this new experience.
And as you sit a second longer in it,
Remember that somatic intelligence seldom makes logical sense.
The ideas,
Thoughts,
Emotions,
Intuitions,
And actions that come from learning to be in the goal or the desire that you have go beyond logic,
And they often make a lot more sense in hindsight.
So this may feel uncertain and that's okay.
One more breath here.
No need to force it.
Just meet what is here as you expand today.
Tomorrow will be different.
Just to get a feel.
And come back to this practice every day for 40 days.
See what happens.
See the new types of possibilities that you see.
As you let your body taste success so that it can receive your goals with less fear,
Less self-doubt,
Less self-sabotage,
So that you can regulate into not just avoiding what you don't want,
But actually leaning into and creating what you do want.
And so that the unfamiliar doesn't have to be so painful because you are allowed to want more and you are allowed to receive it well.
