Introduction to the Blue State of Stillness

Introduction (text only)

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.

Your journey to wellbeing, vitality, and joy begins here. In this foundational NeuroEI course, you’ll be introduced to the transformative practice of stillness—a meditative practice designed to activate your parasympathetic nervous system, increase NeuroCalmness, and promote inner balance and wellbeing. To practice stillness, you will temporarily pause the movement of your body, and while remaining fully awake, invite both your body and mind to rest.

The comfort you’ll experience during the stillness practice serves as a bio-signal that your parasympathetic nervous system has been activated, and your NeuroCalmness is increasing. The Blue State of Stillness is the opposite of the Red and Orange States of Intensity, which are driven by chronic sympathetic mobilization, stress, and high levels of NeuroUneasiness or NeuroExcitement.

It’s completely natural, especially in the early stages of this journey, to experience discomfort, in from of tension, or restlessness. Moving from the Red and Orange States to the Blue State of Stillness requires time, patience, and gentle dedication. This shift is gradual, and with each practice, your rest will deepen, bringing you closer to the Blue State of Stillness.

This Introduction to the Blue State of Stillness is just the beginning of your journey. Once you’re familiar with the practice of stillness, you will continue to develop through the Three Core Skills: Restful Breathing, Softening Muscles, and Strengthening Embodiment. These core skills enhance your practice of stillness and deepen its restfulness. As you master these skills, you’ll be ready to move on to the Six Fundamentals of Stillness, which complete the journey and help you unlock the full power of the Blue State of Stillness.

As you embark on this journey, remember that stillness is a gradual practice. Each small step forward brings you closer to greater wellbeing, vitality, and the joy of living. Trust the process and approach it with patience and kindness toward yourself.

To begin, let’s start by:

  • Understanding the significance of stillness
  • Explaining Parasympathetic Rest and NeuroCalmness
  • Outline the course syllabus
  • Provide guidelines for the 51BLUE skill-based deep-learning process.

 

Stillness

Stillness is a distinct state between sleep and motion, characterized by restfulness and attentive inner activity. This wholesome state generates a sense of calmness and comfort, serving as bio-signals of 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 wellbeing, 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 peace and heightened awareness, naturally encouraging you to observe, learn, 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 movement (or shut down). In contrast, living, connecting, and growing are deeply rooted in restful stillness.

My personal and professional journey has confirmed two fundamental truths about wellbeing and vitality:

  1. True wellbeing, happiness, inner peace, and contentment are cultivated through the practice of suspending movement and embracing restful, attentive stillness.
  2. Vitality, flowing movement, and the joy of expressive living can only emerge from a foundation of deep stillness.

 

The ultimate wisdom guiding each person to wellbeing and vitality resides within our own stillness and restful mind. Neurologically, a life well-lived is anchored in, guided, and defined by Parasympathetic Restful Stillness.

Parasympathetic Rest and NeuroCalmness

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 supports 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, highlighting their distinct impact on our mental and physiological state.

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:

  • NeuroUneasiness / Red Energy
  • NeuroExcitement / Orange Energy
  • NeuroCalmness / Blue Energy

 

NeuroUneasiness and NeuroExcitement function as motion-energies, intensifying through the activation of your Sympathetic Nervous System. They respond to pain and pleasure, respectively. When your Red Energy and Orange Energy reach high levels, you feel mobilized and driven to escape pain and pursue pleasure.

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

NeuroUneasiness, NeuroExcitement, and NeuroCalmness 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 Neurotraining, 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 NeuroUneasiness, NeuroExcitement, and NeuroCalmness 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 mini-course introduces the Practice of Stillness. It enables you to pause movement, activate Parasympathetic Rest, increase your NeuroCalmness, and cultivate the restful and attentive Blue State of Stillness.

When starting the practice of stillness, it’s common to experience dominant and persisting Sympathetic Mobilization, hindering Parasympathetic Rest. The Red, Orange, or Red-Orange States of Intensity are characterized by high NeuroUneasiness and/or NeuroExcitement, and low NeuroCalmness, 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 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 NeuroCalmness becomes greater than both NeuroUneasiness and NeuroExcitement, you enter the restful and attentive Blue State of Stillness. Specifically, this equilibrium is achieved when you have at least 51% Blue Energy, in contrast to 49% Red Energy or 49% Orange Energy. This state is aptly named 51BLUE.

Skill-based Deep-Learning

In 51BLUE Neurotraining, 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 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 mini-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 mini-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.

51BLUE is skill-based training leading to greater awareness. As your trainer and facilitator, my role is to introduce you to new skills and broaden your awareness. Your role is to practice these skills and acknowledge your evolving awareness until they become internalized knowledge that impacts your way of life.

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.

 

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.

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