neurosculpting part 1 (Full session (brain talk meditation, keep her intro)

Hello and welcome. I'm Jocelyn King, the queen of online safety in an AI world, and I'm so glad to have you here. You know, one of the things that happens when we're looking at our physical lives and our online lives is it's very often that we might start feeling very uncomfortable or a little uncomfortable about how safe we feel.

And I'm offering this neurosculpting overview and meditation because I am a certified neurosculptor. And after I was hacked and lost a lot and felt under threat and was repairing my life, it was neurosculpting that was one of the key uh ingredients in helping me. And so I want to share that with you.

It's so important for us to feel safe in our lives and safe in the world as a foundation for living our lives and being our best. And that's why I like to offer in addition to, you know, workshops on how to stay safe online and safe practices with AI, I like to offer this empowering visualization session to help you envision and create a strong self-protecting mindset and self-protecting reflex in your own life. You need the skill sets, the tool sets, and the mindset to help you do that.

I am a certified neurosculptor from the Neurosculpting Institute in Denver. And neurosculpting is a neuroscience-based visualization meditation practice that has been scientifically proven to help people literally rewire their own brains using the latest findings from neuroscience and neuroplasticity paired with ancient meditation techniques. So these are the nine key concepts for you to understand about your own brain.

So key concept number one is that our the nervous system is adaptable in four directions. Our nervous system does not just have an onoff switch. It moves in four distinct directions.

And you've heard of these before. There's fight, right? Which is where you have a grizzly bear attacking you or on the trail all of a sudden and you're ready to fight or flight or flee, where you're ready to run.

You're going to outrun the threat or climb a tree or whatever you have to do. The other one is freeze, which is immobilizing and going quiet and shallow breathing. This is what infants do.

So if a saber-tooth tiger had come into the cave and there was nobody around holding them, their defense could not be fight or flight. So it was freezed to be invisible and it's in a a more ancient part of our brain. And a lot of people go into that.

I've experienced that myself and you can experience one or more of these. And then the fourth direction is homeostasis which is our happy place. That's our balanced regulated baseline state.

when we feel our best, when our prefrontal cortex comes online and we're feeling positive and happy and calm, and that's where we want to be. So, at any given time, we're in one of those four states. And each of these has physical, emotional, and mental traits.

And the goal of neurosculpting is helping us return to that homeostasis happy place more quickly and easily and to stay there longer. Key concept number two is our Vegas nerve. It's the foundation of our nervous system.

And the Vegas nerve, which sounds like Las Vegas, but is spelled V A Guus S, is the longest cranial nerve in your body. It runs from your brain stem all the way down through all of your organs in your body. And you have over 80 billion neurons in your brain, but you also have half a billion neurons or brain cells in your gut.

Isn't that amazing? And it's connected to your brain stem. And it's the main highway of your parasympathetic nervous system.

That's your rest and digest system versus your sympathetic fight and flight system. And you can have strong veagal tone of your vag nerve just like you can have strong muscle tone in your arms and legs. So when your vagus nerve or your veagal tone is strong, you recover from stress faster just like a strong muscle tone helps you recover from injury faster.

And veagal toning exercises include things like slow breathing, humming, splashing cold water on your face. These all strengthen your veagal system. And this is why we're going to use slow breathing centrally in our meditation.

And key concept number three is the lyic system and midbrain control stress responses. So, your lyic system, which is your fight or flight, and particularly your amygdala, which you might have heard of before, that's your brain's alarm system. I call my amygdala Amy G.

Dala. She's my brain's TSA agent. She's scanning and constantly alert for anything out of the order or unfamiliar or any possible threat.

You know, like that bottle of water you accidentally tried to sneak past, you know, airport security. She's fast, she's efficient, and she's preconcious. She's goes into action before you even think of what you're going to do or even notice a threat.

And you're because of that, your amygdala does not need your permission to activate. It goes into fight, flight, or freeze response before you even see that there's something moving in the bushes. And when something triggers this re region, your stress hormones like adrenaline and cortisol flood your system.

They make you alert and awake and ready for action so you can respond. And it's useful when there's a real threat, like a grizzly bear and a hiking trail. But the problem is the part of the brain that can't tell the difference between a bear and an email from Bob and accounting that's getting you all upset is still giving you the same response.

And your adrenaline helps you deal with the bear, but it hinders you from dealing with Bob or rush hour traffic or crying children or long lines at the market or your in-laws and their crazy political rants at the holidays. You get the idea. So understanding this helps us recognize why we react the way we do and why we need tools to interrupt that pattern so it doesn't just become a runaway train.

Key concept number four is that the prefrontal cortex or PFC enables your emotional regulation. And this is what sits right behind your forehead. It's where our highest level abilities live like problem solving, creativity, compassion, empathy, your impulse control so that you don't lose your temper and you can calm yourself.

And it's where your emotional regulation sits. But here's the challenge. It's slow.

It's an energy hog and it gets tired easily. It needs optimal conditions to work well. It's like a Ferrari.

It needs fine tuning. Whereas your lyic system is like a beat up rusted out Chevy that will just doesn't care who it's going to run over or what it's going to hit on the way. It's going to get the job done.

So when you're stressed, this goes in. It basically goes offline and your lyic system takes over and you lose your Ferrari. But the good news is the prefrontal cortex can inhibit the fightor-flight response.

And so that's why we're training it and making it stronger in neurosculpting. Key concept number five is that your PFC and your lyic system have an inverse relationship that the these two regions of the brain our prefrontal cortex and our midbrain lyic fight orflight response work like a seessaw and when one is highly active the other is suppressed and cannot. If you think of the car analogy, it's like you've got one gas pump and you can only fuel one at a time.

So when your lyic system is running the show, your prefrontal cortex can't do its job. And you lose your access to your best thinking, to your creativity, to your empathy for yourself and others, for your children, your spouse, your your employees, your boss, your co-workers. But when we calm the lyic system, and again that's through breathing and safety cues like recognizing, okay, we're in a safe place.

We right now I have a roof over my head. I have comfort. I have food and water and clothes and just reminding ourselves that we're not actually in the cave with a saber-tooth tiger helps our prefrontal cortex come back online.

And this inverse relationship is the key to the entire neurosculpting method. Then key concept number six is that both regions of our brain have regulating checklists. So think of each brain region as having a checklist of needs.

And the lyic system calms down when it perceives the physical, emotional, and even online safety um and mental safety. anything predictable in our surroundings and our connections and our environment and that knowing that our basic safety needs are met and that even includes online that we don't feel we're under any kind of a threat with this little device in our hands of our phone and the prefrontal cortex lights up with curiosity. So anything time you're interested in something go what's that and intrigued that's your prefrontal cortex coming online novelty something new like oh what's that creativity when you know if you're write if you ever tried writing a poem or a song or even just singing one of your favorite songs that's all in creativity that brings your prefrontal cortex back on.

Humor is one of the best things. It also makes when you laugh you're also oxygenating your brain. So if you really want to bring your prefrontal cortex back online, have a favorite joke you can think of or um you know or a comedian on YouTube you can listen to awe and inspiration from you know the universe, the divine and wonder at the enormity of the universe, the world, and fact that the sun rises and sets regardless of what's happening.

All of those things bring our prefrontal cortex back on because they're bigger than us. So in our meditation, we're going to deliberately address both checklists. First, calming the stress response and then engaging that creative, curious mind.

Key concept number seven is that neuroplasticity or the ability for your brain to change. It responds to multiple drivers. So they, you know, neuroscience used to think that our brains were fixed like cement from the time we were 30 on or 25 on.

And they've learned that that's not like it at all. We're more like Plato. But, you know, if you ever seen Play-Doh sitting out on a table, it can be a little crusty.

It can be a little dry. But if you work with it and you play with it and you keep it agile, it's it soon gets very elastic. And that's why it neuroplasticity sounds the way it does.

It's our brain's ability to change and rewire itself throughout our lives. And it can happen up until the day we die. But it doesn't happen randomly.

It responds to specific drivers because our neurotransmitters are in our brain. These are chemical messengers. You know, when you see uh movies that show how they used to send smoke signals, you know, uh by on a on an old fort by lighting a fire and then the next fort sees it and lights the fire and they're sending this message through a chain.

That's what our neurotransmitters in our brain do. They're chemical messengers. They're they're like little almost like hair follicles that send little chemicals off and it it sparks the next one to get aroused and go, "Oh, I'm going to send that.

" It's kind of like a gossip chain actually and um it shares information that it finds interesting and novel and new and it can strengthen or weaken the connections. And then we use bilateral stimulation which is embra you know really stimulating both your left and right side of your brain. Um, you've heard the term right brain and left brain.

And right brain refers to creative people. The right side of your brain controls your left hand, left side of your body. And a lot of artists are left-handed.

And the part of that part of our brain loves visionary language. It loves colors, you know. And then the the left our our left brain which controls the right hand and we think of as what you know architects and and uh mathematicians and stuff use we like numbers.

It likes it it likes ones and zeros not fractions and and random. It it doesn't like mostly full. It wants to see 90%.

So both sides of the brain need to get engaged. And we exercise our brains by going back and forth. And then exercise is movement, literally growing new brain cells.

So when we do this brain exercise, it's just like when you go to the gym and you're stimulating your new body cells. And your brain is just like your body. It's either getting stronger or weaker every day.

Um, diet affects it. What we eat affects our brain chemistry and the inflammation. Just like you can have inflammation in your gut, you can have inflammation in your brain.

So our PFC's require protein, fat, and healthy sugars to function. For instance, they love salmon, not French fries. It loves avocados, though, not cupcakes.

Um, and that's what makes our brains work in our prefrontal cortexes be healthier. And then there's a somatic experience. Okay?

So somatic means the body sensations that we're going to use to anchor new patterns. If you ever heard of tapping, tapping is a somatic experience. It's where you're you're anchoring a feeling in your body by bringing attention to your body through a movement like rubbing your fingers together on your thumb or tapping maybe your chest or rubbing your belly or um holding your hands together and you can wire a somatic cue for what you want to feel in your life.

It's called Heb's rule. Neurons that fire together wire together. It's why grandma's house could can remind people of cookies because of the smell of cookies and grandma's house association or a strong fowl smell could remind you of a bad experience.

They're wired together because it's the physical scent along with a very strong uh mind memory. And then lifestyle is very important too. Our prefrontal cortex requires sleep.

Um stress management, daily habits, certain supplements and vitamins are important. So key concept number eight is the scarf model which is an acronym SC cf. It was developed by Dr David Brock and it gives us the framework in neuroscience.

Basically, anytime anyone gets upset, one of these five areas is being activated. And the S stands for status. That's our perceived place in relationships.

C is for certainty. We want to have a c we want to have a lot of predictability and stability. While we love novelty, we don't want too much novelty or we get overwhelmed.

So certainty is very important. A stands for autonomy. That's our free will, our choice, our self-direction.

R stands for relatedness, which is feeling seen and heard, and we want to feel included with others. We're wired for that. And the F in scarf stands for fairness.

We need to feel a sense of justice and equal opportunity um or we are going to be activated in an unjust fight orflight response. So when any of these five areas of scarf are threatened, our brain perceives it just like the physical threat of the grizzly bear on the um on the path. And that's why that email from Bob and accounting or being in rush hour traffic can produce the same chemical response in your body as the grizzly bear.

But when we feel supported and safe, we can think clearly because our prefrontal cortex is still online. So this is why neurosculpting um uses invitational language and I'll never use command language in a neurosculpting meditation. I won't tell you what to think or what to do.

I will invite you to. You have 100% agency over what you choose to do and I will just invite you to close your eyes. Some people don't want to close their eyes.

So I will never tell you to close your eyes, but I'll invite you to close your eyes or lower your eyelids. I'll invite you to get comfortable. Um, I'll invite you to think of certain thoughts.

What if you could do X? Or perhaps you might notice. By my inviting you, I'm not triggering your fight or flight of having to trust me for your physical security because I'm not threatening you.

And key concept number nine is the fivestep process that integrates all these concepts. We're going to, it's a trademark five-step neurosculpting meditation. Step one is to quiet the fight or flight, focusing on our surroundings and the safety and support we feel.

Step two is engaging our prefrontal cortex. I'm going to say some things to invoke your curiosity and novelty. Step three, we're going to engage both hemispheres and use concrete details for one half of your brain and then abstract imagery for another and toggle back and forth.

So, you're exercising your brain. We're going to link a somatic cue, right? A physical cue.

So, I'm going to ask you to think about once you're feeling the feeling you want to be feeling and the associated thoughts, you're going you can tap your chest or rub your fingers together or put your hand on your belly or put your hand on your wrist. You can do something and you're going to do this with your non-dominant hand. So, if you're right-handed, you're going to use your left hand.

If you're left-handed, you're going to use your right hand. And you do that because it's going to anchor a phrase because step five is that you're going to name the experience. You're going to assign a word or a power word or a meaningful phrase to this feeling and this experience of safety that you want along with a physical cue and a touch so that you can by by doing that touch that physical cue again and thinking that word you're literally rewiring your brain.

This has been proven in MRIs that you're literally lighting up and creating new neural networks, neural networks in your brain so that you don't have to be stuck in old habits, old fears, old ways of thinking. And so these nine key concepts are the science behind why why neurosculpting works. And when you understand your own nervous system and the relationship between your lyic system and your prefrontal cortex as well as the drivers of the neuroplasticity and how you can rewire your own brain, you can use neuroscultations that create real lasting change and improve the sense of safety that you want to have.

And so that is an overview of neurosculpting and the nine key concepts. So now I'd like to invite you to get comfortable. You can stay seated where you are and close your eyes.

You could sit on the floor. You can lay down on the bed, the floor, a couch. You can um lay lean back.

I'm just going to invite you to get comfortable and just take a deep breath out. just comfortably letting the air out so that you can take a deep comfortable breath in. And I'll invite you to close your eyes or lower your lids so you can focus on your body and just become aware of any parts of your body that may feel a little tense or tight.

Maybe you want to roll your shoulders, circle your wrists or your ankles. You got a little soreness in your neck, you can give it a little a little rub. Give your body a little love.

It's been there working for you hard all day, all night. And as you center yourself in a comfortable spot, I invite you to become aware of any parts of your body that you want to release a little t tension or tightness in. You just tease the edges of it.

And as you're doing that, just see if you can see in your mind's eye or feel what is it that you might be holding. Is it stress ss or sadness or anger or fear or something else? Maybe you're feeling happiness or contentment.

But what are you feeling? And your breath keeps breathing itself. And though it may be a mild feeling or a strong feeling, any feeling we have like that and any tension we have is actually only trapped energy.

And I wonder if you could see it having a color. And if it had a color, I wonder what color would it be? Your breath keeps breathing itself.

And to any extent you desire, I invite you to release any or all of that tension and to just watch that color leave your body like a party balloon rising and floating up to the ceiling. And if it had a shape to this balloon, like a carnival balloon that could be twisted around to make shapes of animals or toys or objects, what might yours look like? And as you're seeing that, you might notice how it feels to breathe in and feel your chest rise and fall and your torso rise and fall with your own breath, allowing air into your lungs and into your lower belly and back out again.

And I invite you to notice your in-n-out breath. Is it shallow? Is it deep?

Is it long slow breath or shorter deep breaths? Is it easy or labored? And you can slow or deepen your breathing what to make but what it but however you can make it comfortable for yourself.

Perhaps you notice with each breath in and out that your breath breathes itself effortlessly continuously with or without your attention. Isn't that an amazing wonder? The fact that we don't have to focus on our breathing or we can put our attention on whatever we want and our body will take over and breathe itself.

Notice that your breath continues to provide you fresh air in and every moment. allowing your bottle body and notice that your breath continues to provide you fresh air in in each moment allowing your body to settle into gravity's full support. So whether you're sitting or laying back or fully laying down just feel how the the surface underneath you is supporting your body.

And think of all the ways just become aware of the ways in which your needs are met. the air in the room, the temperature. Perhaps you see, you know, a safe roof over your head, or if you're outside, you see the sky, which allows the sun to come down onto your your face and the and the earth, or you're under the moon, and you can count on the sun rising again.

And perhaps if you're inside, you're noticing that you have shelter from harsh elements or heat or cold. Maybe you can take note of your access to water and food. And as you're aware of these needs being met, you can be aware that these needs will remain being met as you move your attention to something, some curiosity about your space.

What if you noticed the back of your neck? What might you notice? Do you feel any air on it from an air conditioner or the wind?

Can you feel hair on your neck? If you're laying down, do you feel a pillow or a couch or the carpet on your against your neck? Do you feel hair on your neck?

What might you notice? And now what if you notice your pinky toes on each foot? One on the left and one on the right.

What sensation might you notice about them? Are they cool or warm? Are they covered with shoes or socks?

or are they free? What might your pinky toes feel? And with your breath breathing itself and your needs met and your attention heightened through curiosity about your body and environment, you can be assured that anything in this meditation is for you to accept or change as you desire.

You are the owner of your experience. And you can take comfort knowing that this experience is uniquely yours. And with your breath breathing itself and your body supported, I invite you in this moment to draw to mind how you feel safe s a f in your environment and in your life.

What are the ways you feel safe? And as you envision that, see if there's any recurring thought or story. s t o r y or perhaps a thinking habit h a bi t about not feeling as safe as you would like in one area of your life.

And if feeling safe is a hot air balloon, what sandbags might be on it? Just see the sandbags and see the word on them of what might be keeping you from feeling 100% or have the highest level of safety that you want to have. Is it a name?

Is it a place? And just observing it outside of yourself because it's not here. It's not in the room.

Just it's a memory. You're just becoming aware of how that might be not allowing you to feel as safe as you would like. And so for you to feel safer, you'll be able to untie these sandbags.

And to make sure that they don't have an ongoing effect, instead of keeping them inside the hot air balloon basket with you, you're going to picture how you could dispose of them. Maybe you're going to want to put them into a trash can. Maybe you want to put it into a fire pit and light it on fire.

Maybe you want to place it back where it happened so it's not with you in your present life in your present circumstances and recognize that that was a different place in a different time. And maybe you notice of this feeling how it might be affecting your body. leaning in to this wonderful feeling of safety and security and privacy in your surroundings that you have right this minute and looking at how you can release and change anything that would hinder you from staying here.

Maybe you want a big dump truck to come and pick up the sandbag or sandbags and take them off. And maybe you want to hire a security guard or a team of security guards to keep it out. Maybe you want to build a castle wall.

Maybe you want your security team to be dig a moat or put out a security system that you envision to keep you safe in your inner safer circle. And allow yourself to feel the feeling of now having this safety that you have in this moment with the additional safety of your safer circle and your security. Knowing that something that might have once scared you, might have even once harmed you, is in fact a memory with very strong chemicals in your body, but that it's not in front of you right now and that you have put yourself in a safe place.

And you can touch your arms together or hug yourself. And you can allow yourself to feel the safety of being in an inner circle. What does this feeling of being protected and being safer feel like?

Is it warm or cool? Is it a color? Blue or red or purple or white or brown or black or some other color?

Does it have a texture? What does this feeling of safety feel like? Is it smooth or rough?

Is it slippery or prickly? And your breath is still breathing itself. And you're still feeling your chest and your abdomen move with the rhythmic breathing of your body in this safe space, in this present moment, in this now.

And if you could imagine looking right through your body as if it were clear, I wonder what you might visualize this color and texture looking like inside your body or temperature. Where do you see it? What do you see?

What does this safety feel like to you? Do you find it in your chest or in your back? Is it in your belly or your head, your arms or your legs?

Or is it somewhere else? Is it filling your whole body or just in the end of your of your middle or first finger or your thumb? And what might you notice about the sensation?

Is it light or heavy? What does safety feel like? Is it warm or cool?

And now I want you to imagine some container that is strong enough and secure enough to hold whatever you want to give it so that you can put anything preventing you from this feeling into that container. What's the rest of what you would like to put in there? so that you know where it is but it does not cannot get to you.

It is under your lock and key. You have agency over it. What would you use the container?

Is it a locking box? Is it the fire pit? Maybe it's a drain pipe you're going to flush it down.

Maybe it's a rocket you're going to launch into space and your breath is still breathing itself as your body is still supported by gravity. And I wonder how you might imagine using your breath to exhale and release as much or as little as you want into that container. What might you notice about this release?

And if your mind perceives release from your body, you're invited to recognize that by tapping that area with your non-dominant hand or making a gesture with your non-dominant hand if that's comfortable. You might tap your chest. You might rub your belly.

Might rub your fingers and thumb together or something else. And while you're doing that, know that you're linking this gesture to this vision that you can release this old story or this old memory whenever you want. And as your breath breathes itself, I wonder what you might now notice about your space.

What might you notice about your body now? Where do you feel any sensations or temperature or lightness? And if your mind imagines this feeling anywhere in your body, you're invited to tap that area with your non-dominant hand or tap your fingers together, linking this gesture to the vision and cultivation of feeling safer, of living a safer, better life today.

And I wonder how you might use your inhale, your inhale to brighten this vibration or sensation and how you could use your exhale to allow it to spread inside your body. And all the while your security team and your wall and your moat and anything that you put together as your security system is still protecting you. And as that happens and you inhale and allow this feeling of safety to spread throughout your body, how far might it spread?

What might you notice about your body and your space now? And I invite you to name this meditation with a word or a phrase so that each time you said it or heard it or read it, you could continue to deepen this story with a word that makes you feel safer and calm and centered so that you can respond to anything in your environment. that your preffrontal cortex stays online and that you with curiosity can see what is happening and respond to protect yourself and stay safe and make the choices that will keep you safer.

So what is that phrase or word? I wonder what would you call it? And all the while your breath keeps breathing itself.

And you're invited to continue to deepen this story more and more tomorrow and the next day and next week and next month as you continue to use this visualization and your own somatic cue and word to make yourself aware of how you're making yourself safer and your life is becoming safer and that you have more and more of the safety and security that you want. All the while your breath is breathing itself. And you can take a few more easy breaths as you become aware of your surroundings.

And as you begin to come back and open your eyes, you can end your meditation. And I invite you to continue to practice this to listen to just the neurosculpting part again. And this part is really important in how you can retrain your brain.

Use your non-dominant hand to brush your teeth and say the word in your head. Stir your coffee or scramble your eggs or eat your cereal or pour your drink with your non-dominant hand and say the word. Every time you say your word out loud or in your head and trig and use your non-dominant hand, you are using this powerful pairing.

And you're literally lighting up new neural networks in your brain that are leading you to what you need to do to have a safer, better life. So, I invite you to every day, every morning, every night, if you brush your teeth this way twice a day, you're literally rewiring your neural network 60 times a month. It's a powerful powerful exercise that compounds as you repeat it so that you feel safer, you make safer choices, and you protect yourself better than you ever have.

So, thank you for joining us for this, and thank you for everything you're doing to make yourself and everyone and everything you care about safer and helping make the world a safer place.