WFF Chapter 1: Sanctuary

Chapter 1

Sanctuary Feeling peace and power from within

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About Sanctuary Joy circuits are supported by eudonic rewards — rewards that are natural, sustainable, and of a higher order. Our goal is to strengthen these joy circuits and weaken the stress circuits, which are artificial, addictive, and of a lower order.

Sanctuary is the first eudonic reward of this method, as all other rewards rest on our capacity to be present, attentive and attuned. Sanctuary is the body feeling that we experience when the thinking brain is securely aware of and tuned into the emotional brain.

That state of secure attachment and attunement produces a relaxation response and an activation of the brain reward centers. We feel a slight glow in our bodies.

In later chapters, we will build on this skill, but for now, the challenge is to consciously access that state often, so that the brain begins to get into the habit of feeling that sense of peace and power from within.

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Emotional Evolution: Existence This week we’ll start rewiring one of the 4 Circuits, a basic expectation that is stored in the unconscious mind, that ramps up stress. The first one is: I do not exist. When the brain is in a full blown stress response, we really believe that we do not exist. Then that message becomes encoded in the brain. Often it is only aroused when we are very stressed. However, let’s start rewiring it. If using this technique or any others in the method don’t feel rewarding to you, then set them aside and go on to the next one.

Otherwise, let’s begin to rewire it by grinding it in. A Grind In is a repeated stating of the effective expectation. It can be more helpful to state the hard part of accepting that (“the essential pain”) and then the emotional payoff for accepting it. In this case that is: Core Expectation: I do exist.

Essential Pain: I am alone.

Earned Reward: Sanctuary

I got really stressed at work yesterday. I said to myself 10 times: I do exist. The truth is that I am alone. If I can face that essential pain of life, I can feel peace and power inside. About the 3rd time I said that I felt my body relax.

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I have been using this Grind In, writing it down, and saying it to myself when I’m stressed. I do exist. The essential pain is that I am alone, but I do have me. I have a sanctuary within.

For more information, visit the ebt.org website and watch the video for this chapter.

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Spotlight: EBT Check In Tool The Check In is the master tool of the method, and the goal is to use it often enough for it to become spontaneous more of the time.This won’t happen unless it is rewarding. So it is more important that you do something than that you do it perfectly. Perfect for you is what brings you a physiologic response, that is, a relaxation wave in the body.

Experiment with using ONLY belly breathing or just Body at 1 or even just warmly observing yourself, especially when you are stressed! You will find how best to become aware of your level of stress or “brain state.”

How to Check In 1. Deep Breaths Breathe into your belly, relaxing more with each exhale.

2. Body in Joy Shoulders back, chin up, a slight smile. Give your brain the message that you are in a state of well-being. This technique uses proprioception, which is the power of the body to impact the state of the brain.

3. Warmly Observe Warmly observe yourself without judgment.

Be curious about your feelings, sensations 57

and thoughts. Warmly Observe yourself in the present moment just as you are. No judgments.

This technique of decentering gives you a fresh perspective on yourself and brings a feeling of peace and power from within.

4. Feel A Wave of Relaxation?

Using those three techniques consecutively — taking deep, relaxing breaths and focusing on your breathing, making small but important adjustments in your posture and warmly observing yourself without judgment has two effects.

It can calm the stress response, and it can cause a slight wave of relaxation that activates the brain’s reward centers.

You can feel a slight glow. This feeling is a sign that your thinking brain has connected to your emotional brain and you have attuned to your feelings.

Sometimes you will feel that wave of relaxation and other times you will not feel it. When stress is higher, it can be more challenging to feel. However, each time you check in, you learn something, and you strengthen the wires that move you through stress back to joy.

Practicing this skill pays off. Your mastery of this tool not only calms the stress response, but it also creates a firm foundation for the Sanctuary Tool.

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Planning Your Check Ins The emotional brain doesn’t like change, so even though you may intend to check in 10 times per day, a whole day can easily go by without taking any twominute vacations.

To get better results, record your Check Ins in this journal, and take 3 minutes per day to share your progress with another person. Also, create a plan for reminding yourself to check in.

I will set an hourly reminder to check in: On my telephone On my computer A timer An alarm Other: ___________________

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Joy Points A Joy Point is a moment when you feel a surge of relaxation and pleasure in your body. Sometimes that joy comes from a sensory pleasure, like being outdoors, petting the cat or listening to music.

A moment of joy can also come from bringing to mind a happy memory or anticipating seeing someone you love. Any experience of emotional connection — with yourself, with others or with the spiritual can activate a joy response.

Collecting moments of joy can be powerful. In those moments, the stress response calms down. The reward centers are flush with feel-good chemicals and you are aware of a slight surge of pleasure in your body. The brain can’t be in joy and stress at the same time, so joy swamps the stress.

Being on the lookout for moments of joy, then savoring them, is just a habit. If you’ve been stressed, you might have forgotten that habit, but you can pick it up again.

I had a cold and felt blue. Then I petted my cat and felt love for her. A Joy Point!

I was on the bus daydreaming, and brought to mind a passionate moment from the night before. Instant Joy Point.

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In addition to checking in, keep track of your Joy Points. Be curious and have fun with it. Discover the power of Joy Points to ease your stress.

Joy Foods To decrease stress, inflammation, appetite and cravings, start with the solid base for your day of a high protein breakfast. Chances are that instead of being hungry mid-morning, you will have balance in your body for 4 to 6 hours. Here are some menu ideas: Keep it Simple – 1 egg + 2 egg whites, 1/2 cup strawberries or 1/2 grapefruit sprinkled with cinnamon.

Avocado & Eggs – 2 scrambled eggs with sliced avocado and salsa.

Sausage Breakfast – 3 low-fat sausages, 1 egg cooked in healthy oil, and grapefruit topped with cinnamon.

Hawaiian Special – 2 whole eggs and 2 egg whites cooked in healthy oil, served with a slice of pineapple.

Eggs, Chorizo and Strawberries – 2 scrambled eggs or egg substitute, cooked with a few slices of chorizo sausage and fresh basil and served with fresh strawberries.

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Banana Orange Smoothie – 1 scoop (20 gm protein) protein powder, 1 banana, and 1 orange, plus water to cover. Blend. Serve with a small handful of pecans.

Power Smoothie – 1 scoop (20 gm protein) protein powder, 1 banana, 2 tablespoons almond butter, 1 tablespoon milled ground flax seed, 1 cup frozen blueberries, water to cover. Blend.

Classic Smoothie – 1 scoop (20 gm protein) powder, 1 banana, 1 cup frozen mixed berries, plus almond milk to cover. Blend.

On the Run Breakfast – 2 hardboiled eggs, a baggie of strawberries and handful of almonds.

Sausage Patty Breakfast – 2 low-fat sausage patties cooked in healthy oil, and 1 large orange sliced.

Leftover Chicken and Fresh Tomatoes – Chicken from the refrigerator, heated with healthy oil and tossed with sliced tomatoes and fresh basil.

Power Fruit & Nuts – 2 cups of berries sprinkled with 2 tablespoons of nuts, and topped with 1 cup almond milk mixed with a scoop protein powder (10 grams protein).

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Freedom This week we’ll use two strategies to create freedom from the drive for external solutions.

1. Get Hooked on Joy Change your environment so that artificial rewards do not tempt you, and natural pleasures are easy to access. Change your environment to promote getting hooked on natural pleasures.

I am taking all the Stress Foods, particularly sugar, out of the house, and I am bringing in luscious Joy Foods. I love blueberries, flank steak, teriyaki chicken, avocados . . . and they take away my cravings, too.

Our house is a trap for technology. We all connect with our smart phone or computer or TV. I’m pulling the plug. No electronics between 6 and 8 pm. That should stress out everyone, but I’m sick of being hooked on artificial rewards.

My life revolves around alcohol. It hasn’t been that effective in meeting my needs for love and emotional connection. I’m taking the alcohol out of the house. That’s not the solution, but it helps.

I’m putting my running shoes and clothes by the front door so I see them when I get home. I’m installing a basketball hoop in our living room 63

and I’m getting the television out of the bedroom.

Instead I am making the bedroom a sanctuary for love and light!

I will remove from my environment: ______________________________________ ______________________________________ I will bring into my environment: ______________________________________ ______________________________________ 2. Re-wiring the Circuit In Stage 1, our goal is to make the circuit come alive to us emotionally. It’s to make crystal clear to the emotional brain that we really did experience a moment of overwhelm, and that in that moment reaching for our external solution made perfect sense. Only when that experience has been made emotionally VIVID, does the circuit begain to change.

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My Survival Circuit Progress Stage 1. See the Circuit Strategies See it – 3TATE YOUR 8 AND 9 REFER BACK TO P Visualize that circuit without judgment. Be aware of it as you walk through your day. Do not judge it. Do not analyze “why� you are doing it. It’s not logical. It’s just an old emotional wire.

Feel it in your body – Bring to mind the drive and be aware of where you feel it in your body. Focus your attention on where in your body you feel those feelings.

Travel back – Again, bring to mind a moment when that drive for your external solution was activated.

Focus on your body and be aware of where you feel it and what it feels like.

Focus on that body feeling. It may feel familiar. Say to yourself, “I’ve felt that feeling before. I’m going to follow that feeling back to the time when I first felt it.�

Take 5 minutes to be silent and travel back. Focus on the feelings in your body. If your emotions shut off (“faucet turned off�) then pause and relax. If you can connect to the Sanctuary within at that moment, your emotions will turn on again (“faucet turned on�).

As you travel back, images may arise, and you may feel angry, sad, afraid or guilty.

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You may see how terrified, lost or overwhelmed you were, and feel a wave of compassion for yourself and, most important, those intense negative feelings will subside, and become warm, loving feelings, intense compassion for yourself.

In that moment, you have activated the old circuit, and the synapses are open. The circuit is fluid. At the time your Survival Circuit was encoded, there was nobody there who was able to connect with you lovingly. If there had been, the circuit would not have formed.

By opening that circuit now, either on your own or with guidance from an EBT Provider, you lovingly reconnect with yourself. That experience of really seeing yourself, feeling your feelings, and hearing yourself heals the circuit. An emotional experience encodes the circuit and only an emotional experience can re-encode the circuit; this is the most powerful strategy for rewiring a Survival Circuit.

“It Makes Sense.” – Appreciate how stressed you were, and how reaching for that external solution made perfect sense.

Feel compassion – Give unconditional love to that circuit and to yourself.

Draw or sketch the circuit – It’s just a wire! It’s not me.

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I was eating a candy bar and I visualized my circuit. It was activated. I really did think I was getting my love from sugar. That’s a wire for me. I didn’t judge it. I didn’t analyze it. I just noticed it.

My survival circuit is that I get my protection from being heavy. That extra weight is my wall of safety from the world. I was in a meeting at work and aware of that wire. It was telling me that I get my safety from the extra fat on my body. I visualized the circuit without judging it.

When I get a craving for a drink, I get ramped up. I go to Brain State 5 and numb out, but part of me is charged up. I’m going to get that drink. I’m past the point of no return, but this time I felt the feelings in my body. I changed the words of my Survival Circuit from I get my safety from alcohol to I get my love from alcohol. It’s a love drive for me.

I did the Travel Back activity, and asked my Personal Connection to sit with me and be a loving presence for me while I did it. We sat together and I found that feeling in my body and allowed my mind to travel back to when it was encoded. I started crying. Then I felt rage, then I felt intense fear, and then came love. I felt love for myself. Of course I would reach for food. I had nobody to turn to for safety. I opened the circuit, and have not been the same since. I feel connected to myself in a more authentic way. I have a stronger sanctuary now.

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I tried to use the Travel Back and my mind turned off. I went numb. Then I did it again, this time with my EBT Coach, and my mind traveled back to a time when I was 9 and really scared at home. I felt so ANGRY at my family, and such RAGE that they raised me like that. I felt sad, really sad, and then afraid that I would never be safe. Then I felt this wave of compassion for myself. From that day forward I had a circuit that started ruling my life. Yet what if I hadn’t been smart enough to do something to take care of myself? My mind turns blank when I think of that . . . so I feel love for the circuit, too. It makes perfect sense that in stress I would make a beeline to my external solution.

I had fun drawing the circuit. I drew a stick figure of myself, then I drew the wire in my head as a big cross — a mix-up between love and food. I’m not my wiring. My essence is all about love and living my life.

That wire is extra. It’s just a circuit. It’s not me.

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Freedom from My Survival Circuit Stage 1. See the Circuit I get my “X” ___________________________ from “Y” ___________________________.

I used the following strategies to gain freedom from that circuit: I saw it. I visualized that circuit without judgment. I did not judge it. I did not analyze the circuit or ask myself “why” I do it. It’s not logical. It’s an old emotional crossed wire. I was aware of that wire as I walked through my day.

I felt the feelings in my body. I brought to mind the emotions I have in my body when I get a craving and start wanting my external solution. I noticed where in my body I felt them.

I traveled back to open the circuit. I focused on my body and the feelings I have when I get a craving, and took 5 minutes of quiet time. I allowed my mind to travel back to the time when it was first encoded, and felt my feelings.

I realized that “It Makes Sense.” I appreciate that given how stressed I was, it makes perfect sense that I would reach for that external solution. In a way, I’m grateful it was there for me.

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I needed to feel safe and nobody was there to make me feel really seen, heard and felt.

I felt compassion for myself. I felt compassion for myself, and felt grateful that the external solution was there.

I drew the circuit. I drew the circuit. It is separate from me. It’s just a wire. It’s not me.

What I learned: _______________________________________ _______________________________________ _______________________________________ As you walk through your day, see that wire.

Appreciate that it is real and it is still with you. Even though it was encoded long ago, it lives inside you.

See that wire. It’s just a wire! Thank goodness that wire was encoded!

In that moment of stress, the warmth, the loving connection, the nurturing inner voice you needed was not available to you, so that external solution filled in the gap in that moment . . . yet it was encoded long, long ago before you had the skills to deeply and lovingly connect with yourself.

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Personal Connection Share the Family and Friends booklet from Wired for Freedom with two or three members of your family or with friends.

You are changing one of the least plastic areas of your brain, and that brain changes most easily in “emotional resonance� with others. Making a systems change involving others is far more powerful and effective than making a solo change.

Your needs matter, and, as the booklet explains, their role is flexible. Be sure to share how you feel and what you need, and listen to how they feel and what they need.

This is a very important part of the program. If you need more support with it, please bring your thoughts and needs and feelings to the next meeting of the group.

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My Check Ins Deep Breaths

Body in Joy

Warmly Observe Myself

Feel a Wave of Relaxation My Body?

YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES

Each Check In counts. Each one eases stress.

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My Progress Create My Day: “I am creating JOY in my life.”

Check-Ins

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Joy Foods (30%: High Protein Breakfast) Balancing Sleep (8 or more hours) Awaken Hungry (Body in Balance) _____ Total Points Today

Today’s Connection was with: _______________________________________ Biggest Accomplishment Today: _______________________________________ 73

My Check Ins Deep Breaths

Body in Joy

Warmly Observe Myself

Feel a Wave of Relaxation My Body?

YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES

A Check In “counts” if you take 6 deep breaths.

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My Progress Create My Day: “I am creating JOY in my life.”

Check-Ins

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Joy Foods (30%: High Protein Breakfast) Balancing Sleep (8 or more hours) Awaken Hungry (Body in Balance) _____ Total Points Today

Today’s Connection was with: _______________________________________ Biggest Accomplishment Today: _______________________________________ 75

My Check Ins Deep Breaths

Body in Joy

Warmly Observe Myself

Feel a Wave of Relaxation My Body?

YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES

My emotional brain is throwing a fit.

It must know that I am committed to rewiring it!

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My Progress Create My Day: “I am creating JOY in my life.”

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Joy Foods (30%: High Protein Breakfast) Balancing Sleep (8 or more hours) Awaken Hungry (Body in Balance) _____ Total Points Today

Today’s Connection was with: _______________________________________ Biggest Accomplishment Today: _______________________________________ 77

My Check Ins Deep Breaths

Body in Joy

Warmly Observe Myself

Feel a Wave of Relaxation My Body?

YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES

We finally did a Personal Connection.

It was a bit awkward, but pretty good.

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My Progress Create My Day: “I am creating JOY in my life.”

Check-Ins

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Joy Foods (30%: High Protein Breakfast) Balancing Sleep (8 or more hours) Awaken Hungry (Body in Balance) _____ Total Points Today

Today’s Connection was with: _______________________________________ Biggest Accomplishment Today: _______________________________________ 79

My Check Ins Deep Breaths

Body in Joy

Warmly Observe Myself

Feel a Wave of Relaxation My Body?

YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES

Stress is a moment of opportunity.

The synapses are fluid and open to change.

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My Progress Create My Day: “I am creating JOY in my life.”

Check-Ins

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Joy Foods (30%: High Protein Breakfast) Balancing Sleep (8 or more hours) Awaken Hungry (Body in Balance) _____ Total Points Today

Today’s Connection was with: _______________________________________ Biggest Accomplishment Today: _______________________________________ 81

Week 1 Progress Daily Points Average daily points this week?

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Progress: Needs Work Good

8 Great

Freedom Assume your drive for excess is a 10 to start.

What was it this week?

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Progress: Needs Work Good Great

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Emotional Housecleaning I feel angry that ___________________________.

I feel sad that ____________________________.

I feel afraid that ___________________________.

I feel guilty that ___________________________.

I feel grateful that _________________________.

I feel happy that __________________________.

I feel secure that __________________________.

I feel proud that __________________________.

Collect a Joy Point!

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