Welcome.

I’m Gino, founder of 51BLUE NeuroEI Training, and I’ll be your guide through this course on The Introduction to the Blue State of Stillness.

INTRODUCTION PART 1

The 51BLUE Journey

STEP 1:

Your 51BLUE journey to wellbeing and vitality begins with this Introduction to the Blue State of Stillness. The practice of stillness is designed to activate your parasympathetic nervous system, increase Calmness, and establish inner comfort and wellbeing. You learn to temporarily pause the movement of your body, remain still, and invite both body and mind into a state of rest. The increased comfort and Calmness you experience in restful stillness serve as bio-signals that your parasympathetic nervous system has been successfully activated.

STEP 2:

The next step on your 51BLUE journey invites you to enhance your stillness practice and deepen its restfulness by integrating the Three Core Skills: Cultivating Restful Breathing, Softening Muscles, and Strengthening Embodiment. You’ve already encountered these essential skills in The Introduction to the Blue State of Stillness, and now is the time to fully develop them. Each of these core skills, will be covered in its own dedicated NeuroEI course. In the course on Restful Breathing, you’ll amplify the calming and nourishing effects of your stillness practice. The course on Softened Muscles will increase the comfort you experience during stillness. Finally Strengthened Embodiment is a course that will solidify and ground your practice of stillness.

STEP 3:

Integrating the Three Core Skills is an important steppingstone toward the third step of your 51BLUE journey: the Six Fundamentals of Stillness—Rest, Feel, Embody, Reassure, Care, and Accept. Mastering these six abilities, which you’ll develop in an upcoming NeuroEI course, will guide you fully into the Blue State of Stillness. Combined, they unlock the transformative power of stillness and emotional intelligence to build a life rooted in deep wellbeing and radiating vitality.

Wellbeing and Vitality

My personal and professional journey has confirmed two fundamental truths about comfort, wellbeing, vitality, and joyful living:

1. Lasting wellbeing, deep calmness, authentic happiness, and true inner peace, are cultivated through the practice of suspending movement and embracing restful, attentive stillness.

2. Authentic and consistent vitality, flowing soft movement, and the joy of expressive living can only emerge from a foundation of deep stillness.

The ultimate wisdom guiding each person to comfort, Calmness, wellbeing, and vitality resides within our own stillness and restful mind. Neurologically, a life not merely survived but well-lived is guided and defined by restful and attentive stillness.

Stillness

Stillness is a distinct state between sleep and motion, characterized by restfulness and attentive inner activity. This wholesome state generates a sense of comfort and calmness, serving as bio-signals of inner equilibrium and wellbeing.

The state of stillness is often misconceived as merely a lack of motion, a passive and inactive state, or a momentary pause between movements. However, stillness, like movement, is an active waking state that serves an important purpose.

In this state, bodily systems such as your immune, metabolism, and digestive systems, are optimally engaged in maintaining and prolonging health and wellbeing. Natural healing and repair of bodily damage due to illness and injury are prioritized and heightened. Energy and resources are dedicated to physical growth, reversing aging signs, and enhancing reproductive health, when relevant.

During stillness, your mind’s default mode network becomes highly active. This large-scale brain network, which quietens during movement, plays a pivotal role in promoting self-awareness, emotional intelligence, and social engagement. It is involved in self-reflection, understanding others, remembering the past, planning for the future, consolidating learning and memories, as well as processing and regulating your emotional responses to life’s pains and pleasures.

The remarkable state of stillness nurtures inner balance and heightened awareness, naturally encouraging you to observe, learn, listen, connect, and grow. In deep stillness, refined sensing, enhanced reasoning, and increased compassion converge, giving rise to wisdom and a love for living.

From this state of stillness, curiosity, vitality, flowing movement, and a drive for self-expression, collaboration, and creativity naturally emerge. Fulfilling, meaningful, and harmonious relationships stem from stillness and are rooted in it.

Your still self is the most evolved and mature version of yourself. In a state of stillness, you have the ability to lovingly and wisely steer your life’s journey, and guide others towards wellbeing, happiness, vitality, and joy.

Surviving, self-preservation, and preventing harm necessitate intense movement (or shut down). In contrast, living, connecting, and growing are marked by soft and gentle movement deeply rooted in restful stillness.

The Challenge

It’s common, especially in the early stages of practicing stillness, to experience persistent discomfort, stress, excitation, or tension. Shifting from the dominant Red and Orange States of Intensity—driven by Sympathetic Mobilization and high levels of Uneasiness or Excitement—into the Blue State of Stillness, with its deep Calmness, takes time, patience, and dedicated practice. This shift is gradual and cumulative, and with each practice, your ability to slow down, remain still, and rest deepens, bringing you closer to the extraordinary Blue State of Stillness.

Trust the process, value your progress, and move forward with care and compassion for yourself. Each step brings you closer to the comfort, wellbeing, vitality, and joy you seek.

INTRODUCTION PART 2

The Syllabus

The Practice of Stillness is introduced in three modules:

Module 1: Initiating Stillness (Practices 1 – 8)

To initiate the practice of stillness, pause movement, settle into a comfortable posture, remain still, and follow your breath. Expand your breathing experience, calm your mind, and explore techniques like counting pulse and breath to facilitate the practice of stillness and deepen its restfulness.

• Practice 1: Establish the safety to practice stillness
• Practice 2: Pause movement, remain still, and rest
• Practice 3: Cultivate nose-based breathing
• Practice 4: Broaden the experience of breathing
• Practice 5: Follow your natural breath
• Practice 6: Calm your mind
• Practice 7: Count your pulse
• Practice 8: Count your breath

 

Module 2: Deepening Stillness (Practices 9 – 12)

Transition from merely pausing movement and remaining still to actively slowing down and encouraging your body and mind to rest. Invite rest by observing your pulse and breath. Soften your muscles and strengthen your sense of groundedness to deepen your stillness. This helps you recognize bio-signals like pleasantness, calmness, and comfort, indicating successful effective slowing down, activation of Parasympathetic Rest, and increased NeuroCalmness.

• Practice 9: Observe your pulse and breath
• Practice 10: Soften your muscles
• Practice 11: Strengthen your groundedness
• Practice 12: Focus on comfort

 

Module 3: Sustaining Stillness (Practices 13 – 14)

Acknowledge and endure discomfort during the practice of stillness, verifying that it does not require immediate medical attention. Focus on the comfort and increased NeuroCalmness, even amidst discomfort. Learn to experience comfort alongside your discomfort and acknowledge how these opposite sensations can coexist within your body.

• Practice 13: Endure discomfort
• Practice 14: Focus on comfort alongside discomfort

 

NeuroEI Skill-based Deep-Learning

In 51BLUE NeuroEI Training, cognitive understanding and theoretical clarity from written materials are combined with sensing-based audio-practices for physical and neural development. Understanding the theory behind the practice brings focus and intention to your experiential learning. Engaging in the practices stimulates deep neurological, experiential, and organismic learning.

Individual preferences vary; some people prefer to read the resource material before engaging in the practice, while others might opt to start with the practice and then continue to the written resources. Either approach is fine.

A progress checklist is provided to help integrate the awareness and skills acquired during each practice before you move on to the next one.

Integration and Personalization

For this NeuroEI course to be effective, follow the practices in the order presented. Establish a minimum of three practices per day, ideally at regular times.

Upon completing the course, consider returning to the beginning and starting again. After repeating the practices several times and becoming familiar with the entire program, feel free to change the order to suit your preferences. You can focus on specific skills by choosing relevant practices.

To combine familiarity with new abilities, the beginning and end of each practice generally remains consistent throughout the training, while the middle part focuses on cultivating new skills and awareness.

Guidance on Audio Recordings

To help you explore, practice, and integrate these skills, intentional silences are incorporated following my instructions throughout the practices. I’ve carefully considered the duration of these silences to provide you with the space to explore and practice the skills.

Each practice offers two audio recordings with shorter and longer silences. Choose the recording that works best for you. Initially, you may find the longer silences a little unsettling. However, with repeated practices, you will likely become more comfortable with these quiet spaces, finding them beneficial.

As you progress through the training, you might discover a preference for even more time between instructions. In such cases, feel free to press pause during silent intervals and resume when ready to continue.

A third versions of the recording is also included that omits the standard concluding instruction. By extending your stillness practice beyond the length of the recording, you can deepen its impact.

INTRODUCTION PART 2

Parasympathetic Rest and Calmness

Our nervous system is comprised of two branches: the sympathetic and the parasympathetic. The sympathetic branch prepares the body for movement and speeding up, whereas the parasympathetic branch facilitates slowing down and rest, supporting the body during stillness and sleep. These contrasting functions of the nervous system can be summarized as: Sympathetic Mobilization versus Parasympathetic Rest.

Movement and Stillness, regulated by the two branches of your nervous system, are closely related to Emotions. Etymologically, the terms emotion, motivation, and movement derive from the same root. The word emotion originates from the old French emouvoir, meaning to stir up, and the Latin movere, which means to move. The word e-motion suggests an “energy that puts us in motion”: a motivational force that drives our actions, behaviors, and movements.

According to 51BLUE theory, three basic E-motional Energies increase or decrease in accordance with the levels of your Sympathetic Mobilization or Parasympathetic Rest:

• Uneasiness
• Excitement
• Calmness

 

Uneasiness and Excitement function as motion-energies, intensifying through the activation of your Sympathetic Nervous System. They respond to pain and pleasure, respectively. When your Uneasiness and Excitement reach high levels, you feel mobilized and driven to escape pain and chase after pleasure.

In contrast, Calmness serves as a rest-energy and increases with the activation of your Parasympathetic Nervous System. High levels of Calmness, encourages a state of restful stillness, especially when faced with pain or pleasure.

Uneasiness , Excitement , and Calmness can be sensed in the stomach, solar plexus and chest area. From there they can spread across the body and to peripheral locations, such as the throat, face, back, arms and legs.

 

 

The Blue State of Stillness

Throughout the 51BLUE NeuroEI Training, you will gain an in-depth understanding of your 3 E-motional Energies: how to assess their activation levels within yourself (in percentages), their roles in your responses to life’s pains and pleasures, and the way they combine to form 5 distinct E-motional States.

According to 51BLUE, one of your five E-motional STATES is always active. Additionally, this state is closely related to your core motivational MODE of surviving or living, the level of mobilization and rest (MOTION), and your type of response to life’s pains and pleasures (RESPONSE).

The table below illustrates the existential MODE you’re in (Surviving or Living), the levels of mobilization and rest defining your MOTION (Intensity, Flow, or Stillness), the emotional and motivational STATE currently active (Red, Orange, Red-Orange Hybrid, Orange-Blue Hybrid, and Blue)—represented by colored circles, and the corresponding goal and type of RESPONSE each evokes (Fight, Flight, Freeze, Chase, Grow, Connect, Rest, Guide).

Emotional Alchemy

The next illustration demonstrates how varying levels of your Uneasiness, Excitement, and Calmness combine to form a Red, Orange, or Blue State. Explore how each of the 3 E-motional Energies define your state—whether they are present at high levels, low levels, or absent altogether. Observe how these 3 E-motional Energies manifest themselves in both the body and the mind.

The Practice of Stillness

This NeuroEI course introduces the Practice of Stillness. It enables you to pause movement, activate Parasympathetic Rest, increase your Calmness, and begin cultivating the restful and attentive Blue State of Stillness.

When you begin practicing stillness, it’s common to experience dominant and chronic Sympathetic Mobilization, hindering Parasympathetic Rest. The Red, Orange, or Red-Orange States of Intensity are characterized by high Uneasiness and/or Excitement, and low Calmness, manifesting as persistent restlessness, overexcitation, stress, and tension. Carving out a space for Stillness and Parasympathetic Rest can be challenging with dominant Sympathetic Mobilization.

To transition from dominant and chronic Sympathetic Mobilization to Parasympathetic Rest, you begin by resisting the urge to move during the practice. Then, you engage in a gradual process of physical and mental slowing down. As your restfulness and comfort deepens, a natural need for stillness, dormant during dominant Sympathetic Mobilization, awakens. Once this pull towards the restfulness, comfort, and wellbeing of stillness has a wakened, it motivates you to dedicate more time to the practice of stillness and the activating of the Blue State of Stillness.

In the practice of stillness, when your Calmness becomes greater than both Uneasiness and Excitement, you enter the restful and attentive Blue State of Stillness. Specifically, this equilibrium is achieved when you have at least 51% Calmness, in contrast to 49% Uneasiness or 49% Excitement. This state is aptly named 51BLUE.

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The 51BLUE journey follows a road less travelled.
It’s not an instant painkiller.
Nor a key to unlimited pleasure.
It’s not a quick-fix to problems.
And it’s not a shortcut to enlightenment.
However, it’s a proven path to stillness and flow.
A direct route to enduring wellbeing and vitality.
And for those who persevere, it becomes a gateway to lasting happiness and joy.