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To activate Parasympathetic Rest and increase NeuroCalmness during the stillness practice, it’s essential to acknowledge and endure any discomfort you experience.

In this practice, you scan your body for any discomfort you may feel. First, you will ensure that your discomfort does not require immediate medical attention. Once your physical safety is confirmed, you can encourage yourself to continue your stillness practice and keep inviting your body and mind to rest.

By acknowledging and enduring discomfort during your stillness practice, you gradually increase your pain threshold. This enables you to deepen your restfulness throughout the practice, even in the presence of discomforts.

Discomfort

The practice of stillness shifts your focus from outward attention to inward attention. Remaining still, closing your eyes, following your breath, calming your mind, and softening your muscles naturally enhances your awareness of inner experiences.

During your stillness practice, you might become aware of physical discomforts that went unnoticed when your attention was primarily directed towards the external world. Some physical discomforts, particularly if they are emotional in nature, may even intensify as you become aware of them.

Acknowledging all inner experiences, especially emotional discomfort and stress, is essential in the practice of stillness. These experiences, closely related to your Sympathetic Mobilization and NeuroUneasiness, should not be avoided but rather addressed wisely and with patience.

Physical Safety

At the beginning of this mini-course, you established external safety to practice stillness. Similarly, in this practice, it’s important to verify your physical safety when detecting inner discomforts.

If you detect physical discomfort that might indicate illness or injury requiring immediate medical attention, interrupt the practice of stillness and seek the necessary help.

Bodily needs

The practice of stillness requires a consistent attentiveness to inner discomforts. To support your health and wellbeing, suspend movement, soften your muscles, follow your breath to draw attention inward, and scan your body for uncomfortable sensations. This allows you to assess the need for physical care.

Engaging in the practice of stillness cultivates a heightened awareness of your bodily needs. This allows you to recognize and address needs such as fatigue, thirst, and hunger once your practice concludes.

Discomfort, not danger

This practice introduces a fundamental distinction between physical discomfort and physical danger, each necessitating a distinct response.

Physical discomfort that poses a danger to our lives requires immediate and urgent attention. However, non-life-threatening physical discomfort, whether caused by illness, injury, or emotions should ideally be observed peacefully before deciding how to respond.

Evidence safety of inner discomfort

In this practice, you offer your mind experiential evidence that enduring physical discomfort, including emotional unease, is safe when it does not warrant medical attention.

While you may logically understand that experiencing discomfort poses no actual danger, your subconscious mind doesn’t always align with these logical conclusions without concrete evidence.

This practice aims to provide concrete proof that enduring physical discomfort is not harmful. By maintaining your stillness, focusing on your breath, and remaining in a restful state amidst discomfort, you offer your mind compelling evidence of safety. The longer you persist in your practice without harm, the more convincing the evidence becomes that discomfort can indeed be safely endured. This accumulating proof enables your mind to support stillness and activate Parasympathetic Rest, as your confidence in safely enduring discomfort increases.

Facing discomfort

Humans have an innate aversion to physical discomfort. Furthermore, during childhood experiences of inner discomfort often feel overwhelming and are associated with threat and danger. As a result, there may be an inner reluctance to practice stillness and confront discomfort.

51BLUE Neurotraining focuses on developing the ability to counter this instinctive impulse of avoidance. Facing and enduring uncomfortable sensations, especially if they are of emotional origin, is an integral step on the path to restful stillness and wellbeing.

Enduring discomfort

51BLUE Neurotraining distinguishes between various types of physical discomfort, each with its own characteristics and implications. These include discomfort arising from illness or injury, discomfort related to posture, discomfort resulting from bodily needs, and discomfort stemming from emotional NeuroUneasiness.

As you continue practicing your Neurotraining, you will develop the ability to discern between various types of physical discomfort. A key emphasis will be to recognize and wisely address uncomfortable sensations associated with emotional NeuroUneasiness.

51BLUE Neurotraining educates the mind to distinguish between life-threatening pain, which necessitates immediate action for survival and non-life-threatening discomforts. These ‘safe’ discomforts, often representing actual or potential losses, should be faced, and endured during restful stillness. Gradually, patiently, and wisely addressing them is essential to achieving wellbeing and joyful living in an imperfect world.

PROGRESS CHECKLIST

• Can I scan my body and sense how I feel?
• Can I become aware of comfortable sensations in my body?
• Can I become aware of uncomfortable sensations in my body?
• Can I verify that my physical discomfort, even if due to illness and injury, does not require urgent medical attention?
• Can I verify and reassure myself that it is safe to feel discomfort during the practice of stillness, provided it does not require immediate medical attention?
  Can I confirm that it is safe for me to remain still and continue facilitating restful stillness, while acknowledging and patiently bearing the discomfort present in my body?