SUPER

BRAIN
THE HANDBOOK

Inky Dinky Worldwide

Table of Contents
Introduction................................................................................................................................................ 1
Are You Ready for a Super Brain?........................................................................................................... 2
Quiz: Baseline Brain versus Super Brain................................................................................................. 3
A Healthy Brain for Life........................................................................................................................... 5
Quiz: Positive Input / Negative Input..................................................................................................... 7
Overcome Your Negative Thoughts.......................................................................................................13
Expand Your Awareness, Evolve Your Brain...........................................................................................18
Progress Report: How Am I Doing?..................................................................................................34
Quiz: The Four Roles of the Super Brain..............................................................................................35
Afterword................................................................................................................................................. 37

Introduction
The human brain doesnt come with a users handbook, but this course does. Thats because we are asking
you to relate to your brain in a new way. We want you to be more proactive. Your brain is waiting for you to give
it direction. You can lead your brain and inspire it. You can actively shape new neural pathways. You can keep
your memory intact, preserve your brains health, and minimize the risk of aging and senile dementiathings
that are greatly feared as people grow older.
In other words, theres a lot to do.
You can expand your awareness in many ways, and as you do, your brain will evolve. It will grow physically
by developing new neural pathways, synaptic connections, and even new brain cells. Perhaps more importantly,
it will evolve to mirror the expansion of your mind into new, creative areas. We encourage you to explore every
avenue opened up in this coursealong with additional information you can get from our book, Super Brain.
In this handbook we have selected a few of the most crucial topics and laid down exercises and quizzes
that supplement what youve already learned. As much as possible, weve tried to make the handbook original
and new, with minimal duplication of text from the book. We value your participation in the next great leap in
the brains evolution. Welcome to a movement spreading around the globe that we dub survival of the wisest.
Nothing is more important to the survival of our planet and the fulfillment of the human spirit.

Are You Ready for a Super Brain?

The way you relate to your brain is up to you. You can relate to it passively, following old habits and conditioning. You can even choose to let your brain operate on automatic pilot. The central nervous system has
dual controls: one part takes care of the bodys autonomic processes, like respiration, digestion, and heart rate
(among thousands of other functions). The other part takes care of the decisions and choices you make voluntarily, down to something as small as moving your eye across this page.
The two sides of the nervous system are only separate in medical textbooks. In reality, how you relate to
your brain affects every cell in your body. Your thoughts and feelings are part of numerous feedback loops that
influence every tissue and organ. When you are happy, every cell becomes aware of your mood; when you are
depressed, the chemical messages that correspond to your depressed mood travel everywhere in your body.
So there is no choice but to relate to your brain every minute, and the way you relate to itthrough
thoughts, emotions, and actionsshapes the brain. You are not your brain. You are much more than that: the
brain looks to you for instructions, guidance, and inspiration. This means that the brain is your physical mirror.
In our work, we make a distinction between the everyday brain and the super brain. The everyday brain
could be dubbed the baseline brain, because it operates at the minimum functioning to keep you alive and
healthy. Thats not a minor role; the baseline brain is a marvel of complexity and efficiency. But too much of it
is devoted to habits, old conditioning, unconscious reflexes, and a lack of self-awareness. We believe that the
brain is designed to deliver much more. By removing the obstacles that have built up over time, you can grow
your brain from baseline to super brain. Life happens in the here and now. Your brain is capable of meeting any
challenge, processing your everyday experiences in a way that is freer, more creative, and more coherent.
Lets see how ready you are for this dramatic transformation.

QUIZ: BASELINE BRAIN VERSUS SUPER BRAIN

Look at the following list and place a check beside each sentence that describes your behavior at least some
of the time. Dont be judgmental or hard on yourself. Simply mark the items that honestly seem to apply to you.

I dont ask myself to behave very differently today than I did yesterday.
I am a creature of habit.
I dont stimulate my mind with new challenges very often.
I like familiarity. Its the most comfortable way to live.
Im not that excited with the work I do.
My relationships follow pretty set patterns.
I should pay more attention to my weight.
I dont exercise regularly.
I can be impulsive and then regret it later.
I have certain habits I just cant seem to break.
I look at my past and see major regrets.
I know that I have missed some major opportunities.
Im only fair at making decisions.
Im aware of having inner conflicts.
I worry about aging, particularly memory loss.
Ive had much better times in my life than now.
The future fills me with uncertainty.
I need to be in better control of my life.
I wonder what my purpose in life is.
I wish that my emotions were more valued.
I rarely read inspirational stories, poetry, or scriptures.
I feel that I deserve more appreciation.
I dont see my life really getting better.
I have a hard time getting a good nights sleep every night.
I dont feel great about my body.

Analyzing your score: Every item on the list describes the baseline brain. Its attitudes, beliefs, and
habits are self-limiting. They arent bad or wrong
this quiz isnt about judging yourself. Its about the
habitual way that you relate to your brain. The
point is to assess where you stand in relation to
your hidden potential.
18 to 25 points. You are not sufficiently
proactive as you relate to your brain. Much of the
time you allow inertia to creep into your daily life.
You let old habits and beliefs hold power over you.
When something goes wrong, you tend to let it
slide. You dont believe that you can change your life at every moment, significantly. Its good that you see
yourself realistically, because each item that you checked off can be improved.
11 to 17 points. You know that your life could be better, and you have a good appreciation of your limitations. You
have spent some time trying to change, either through therapy, self-help, or spiritual pursuits. You may consider yourself a seeker. Even if you dont, you would welcome positive change. Looking at your past, you know that
you have more potential than you have fulfilled so far. Its good that you are so ready to change.
5 to 10 points. You are a self-aware person who has been interested in fulfilling your potential for a long time.
Its likely that you are quite familiar with therapy or the spiritual path. You value yourself and dont easily accept
limitations. You are ready to turn the rest of your life into a rising arc. You are already so proactive that the information youve learned in this course offers fulfillment at an unusually high level. The possibility of reaching
higher consciousness and calling on the higher brain to get you there is very real.
0 to 4 points. Either you are astonishingly self-aware or you didnt take the quiz seriously. Please take it again
without fearing that you will make yourself look bad. The quiz is about an objective assessment, not about judging against yourself.

A Healthy Brain for Life

Letting Your Brain Take Care of You

The health of the brain is key to the health of the body. Neuroscience is confirming this every day with new
findings about the mind-body connection. There is an underlying truth that holds for both your body and your
brain, but for most people its a counterintuitive truth.
If you want to stay healthy for life, you need to take care of yourself. Thats the conventional wisdom. Its a
frequent guilty reminder when we look in the mirror and realize that we arent in the best shape. We think, Ive
got to start taking better care of myself. But the real secret to lifelong good health is actually the opposite: let
your body take care of you.
Were not being contrary. The human body consists of 50 trillion cells that function perfectly under a
unified guiding intelligence, and the organ that governs and regulates that intelligence is the brain. The entire
physical system has been designed to maintain life indefinitely. Our cells have perfected specialized functions
for each organ and tissue. Theyve learned to cooperate with one another, staying in constant communication.
Modern medicine, for all its advances, knows less than 10 percent of what your body knows instinctively. As
humbling as it is to realize, a doctor doesnt heal his patients. He facilitates the bodys healing system, adding
whatever is lacking when self-healing falters.

What you decide to do with your life enters the bodys

feedback loop, gets communicated to every cell, and has
repercussions everywhere. As long as you are awake
and alive, you are adding to the feedback loop.
By the same logic, everything we do to take care of our bodies is just an adjunct to letting our bodies take
care of us. Which means that we should allow our brains to take care of our bodies first. The brain and central
nervous system send a constant stream of messages, creating a feedback loop of information. One side of the
feedback loop runs automatically. The other side supports free will and choice, which means that what you
decide to do with your life enters the bodys feedback loop, gets communicated to every cell, and has repercussions everywhere. As long as you are awake and alive, you are adding to the feedback loop.
This picture is simple but not simplistic. The brain and central nervous system form an information highway
teeming with messages, and these are either positive (enhancing your health and well-being) or negative (injurious to health and well-being). Your brain will take care of you for life if you maximize the one and minimize
the other. We doubt that anyone would seriously disagree with that proposition, but then we reach a fork in the

road. Modern medicine looks at the bodys feedback

loop almost entirely in physical terms. The subjective world of thoughts, feelings, hopes, wishes, and
dreams is discounted. If that world intrudes, as it
does in depression, for example, the conventional
solution is still physical: take an antidepressant.
The other road is holistic, which doesnt deny
the physical but refuses to discount the subjective
world. The body doesnt recognize that there is a
fork in the road. A chemical signal sent from the
brain fits into a receptor site in the outer membrane
of the cell wall. The entire feedback loop runs on that
mechanism, and as far as the cell is concerned, there
is no difference between a message that began as an emotion or mood and one that began as growth hormone
or estrogen. Your body couldnt survive a single day without being holistic.
Fixating on the physicalist approach, modern medicine has constructed a map to health that puts almost
the whole emphasis on physical measures. Certainly there are important physical elements to brain health.
Exercise is physical, obviously, but so is proper nutrition. Although we take it for granted, sanitation is a physical
measure that has probably done more to increase human life span than any kind of drug or surgery. Avoiding
toxins is physical, and beyond not smoking, abusing recreational or prescribed drugs, or overusing alcohol, there
is a growing awareness that environmental toxins, ones that we take for granted because our exposure is minuscule, may still have harmful effects long term. (These trace toxins include pesticides, herbicides, and hormones
that are routinely introduced into the food chain.)
Even if you adhered rigorously to the entire physical side, you are not really letting your body take care of
you. You are basically minimizing risks. A risk-free life is far from being a healthy life. To begin with, the very
word risk implies worry, and people who worry about every bite of food, sip of water, the air they breathe, the
gym sessions they have missed, and the minutiae of vitamin doses are not sending positive signals to their cells.
A stressful day sends constant negative messaging to the feedback loop, and popping a vitamin pill or choosing
whole-wheat bread instead of white bread does almost nothing to change that.

QUIZ: POSITIVE INPUT / NEGATIVE INPUT

Lets quickly scan the health of the feedback loop in your body. Check 10 items from the following list that
describe the inner experiences you remember most over the past two or three days. Be honest and cover the
whole list, even though some experiences are obviously positive and others negative. Dont check an item just to
make yourself look good. Theres no one here to judge you.

I felt inner calm and contentment.

I felt a sense of curiosity.
I was open to a new experience.
I felt very safe.
I felt a sense of dedication and purpose.
I was in touch with my soul or God.
I felt uplifted and inspired.
I felt especially accepted and loved.
I felt fresh and renewed, almost like being young again.
I had real self-confidence.
I had a sense of high self-worth.
I was unusually alert and self-aware.
I noticed how unstressed I was when others around me were stressed.
I felt engaged and committed to a project.
I felt physically light and buoyant.
......................................................................

I felt conflicted about something.

I felt bored with everything.
I was fatigued, physically and mentally.
I was really worried.
I wondered if I might be depressed.

 I was anxious about money.

I felt threatened at work.
I got angry, hostile, or defensive.
I felt guilty about something, and it stuck with me.
I was critical of myself and/or others.
I felt confused and lost.
I was apathetic and wondered what it all means, anyway.
I felt unloved.
I felt insecure.
I felt unsafe.
Score yourself: Total up the check marks in two parts, those that fell above the dotted line, and those that fell
below the dotted line. (The total should add up to 10.):
___ Above the line
___ Below the line
Rating your results: The top half of the list covers the strongest positive signals you can send to your cells. The
bottom half covers the strongest negative signals you can send.
If you checked 7 to 10 items from the top half, you are well balanced; your feedback loop is dominated by positive messages, and in return, it gives you healthy responses. Your body is likely to have strong immunity, absence
of pain, a balanced sleep rhythm, and no major dietary issues. Even without seeing you, wed anticipate that you
are biologically younger than your age and have few health complaints.
If you checked 7 to 10 items from the bottom half of the list, you could use more balance; your feedback loop is
dominated by negative messages, and in return it sends you negative responses. You are likely to have frequent
colds, headaches, insomnia, and high stress. You may have a lifestyle disorder like type 2 diabetes, high blood
pressure, or heart disease. Without meeting you, wed anticipate that you have health complaints, and at the
very least you consider your life to have serious issues, either physical or psychological.
If your score is evenly divided between the top and bottom half of the list (at least 4 items marked on each),
you fall into the large majority of people whose life sends mixed signals. Your situation isnt critical, but health
complaints do crop up, and you are likely to have ups and downs in your energy, mood, and sense of well-being.

There is room for improvement, and if you want to rise to a higher level of positive responses, you need to
reevaluate the messages you are sending between your mind and your body.
Your overall goal is to let your brain take care of you. To do that, two things are vital:
1. Create a matrix for a positive lifestyle.
2. Create the best inner environment for your brain.
Lets discuss the first critical ingredient: creating a matrix for a positive lifestyle. You cant make positive
choices for the rest of your life without an environment that makes those choices easy, natural, and enjoyable.
We all know whats good for us, but we just dont do it. For example, while we know that our health depends on
getting daily moderate physical exercise and eating a sensible diet, we are still a nation suffering from an epidemic of obesity. Were becoming more and more sedentary despite the good advice that comes from all around us.
As a first step, lets stop thinking in terms of discipline and self-control. Some people can follow all the
warnings and guidelines with no problem; they are prevention saints. They consume only one tablespoon of total
fat per day in their diet, because thats the ideal amount for heart health. They ignore wind and rain to get in five
hours of vigorous exercise a week. Saints can be inspiring, but, lets face it, theyre also discouraging because
they remind us of our own unsaintliness.
Luckily, change without force is also possible. You dont have to have the will power and self-control that
those saints have. What you need is to create a matrix for making better choices. By matrix we simply mean
your setup for daily living. You already have a matrix; however, it may not be set up in a way that makes the best
choices also the easiest choices. So you may have to make some changes. A cupboard that doesnt contain any
snack foods would be part of a matrix for a
positive lifestyle. A house without a television or video games would be another, but
you arent being good to yourself by jogging
every day because you have no entertainment at home. In the end the physical side
is secondary. A matrix is more substantial
and sustainable.
The real key is to live in an environment
where the mind feels free to choose the
right thing instead of being compelled by
habit and inertia to choose the wrong thing.
Here are some of the things that you can
do to create a matrix for a positive lifestyle:

Have good friends.

Dont isolate yourself.
Sustain a lifelong companionship with a spouse or partner.
Engage socially in worthwhile projects.
Be close with people who have a good lifestyle habits.
Follow a purpose in life.
Leave time for play and relaxation.
Keep up satisfying sexual activity.
Address issues around anger.
Practice stress management.
Deal with the reactive minds harmful effects: when you have a negative reaction, stop, stand back,
take a few deep breaths, and observe how youre feeling.

These items have been well correlated with longevity. One thing that links them is very basic: success comes
when people act together; failure tends to happen alone. A spouse or life partner who keeps an eye on your
diet (Havent you already eaten a cookie today? Have a carrot.) is better than wandering the supermarket
aisles alone and impulsively grabbing a weeks worth of frozen dinners. A friend who goes to the gym three times
a week gives you more incentive than all the promises you make to yourself as you watch Sunday Night Football.
Its important to establish your matrix early and keep it going. Studies have shown that losing a spouse suddenly
leads to isolation, depression, higher risk for disease, and ultimately shortened life span. But if you have a wider
social network that goes beyond your spouse, you have a cushion against these baleful influences.
The other items on the list should be perused carefully, asking yourself honestly how you can improve
your matrix. The goal is to practice what is good for
you while making everything as effortless as possible.
This only happens with positive reinforcement. The
good news is that as you change your lifestyle, you
are training your brain in a positive direction. In time,
all the right choices become second nature. Research
has shown that the best way to be happy is to make
each day happy. The same holds true for the highest
state of health, which is well-being. Build it day by day
and the results will last a lifetime.
Your outer environment is only half the story. The
second key to lifelong good health is to create the right
inner environment, a journey that begins with making the

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mind-body connection as strong as possible. Its alarming to consider that 95 cents of every health-care dollar
is spent after a disease has appeared. This leaves the responsibility of lifelong health on you and me, which is
where it belongs.
A reminder: You are changing your inner and outer matrix so that your body can take care of you. The setup
isnt for more effort, diligence, sacrifice, and stressquite the opposite. Feedback loops are automatic mechanisms, and once yours is sending positive signals to the body, everything becomes much easier. That is ultimately
the point of prevention, to support the bodys own power to heal, balance, and regulate itself. Since the control
switch for these processes is in the brain, creating the best inner environment for your brain is crucial. Your brain
processes every experience you have, and it must function well in order for the real controller of your lifethe
mindto make its best intentions known.

Your brain processes every experience you have,

and it must function well in order for the real controller
of your lifethe mindto make its best intentions known.
The intention to live as long as possible isnt one of the minds best intentions, because quantity isnt the
same as quality. Health span at the physical, mental, and spiritual levels is more important than life span. Intending to live in a state of well-being is a higher intention, since it focuses on quality, but few people have devised
a credible recipe for well-being. Well-being changes as we move through life, which is why a childs version
of contentment and fulfillment cannot be the same as an older persons. So what is the common factor that
doesnt change as we age?
The answer is self-awareness. When you have any experience, your mind is in one of three states: unconscious, aware, and self-aware. The first state leaves healthand well-being generallyto chance. If you light
up your fifth cigarette of the day without thinking, you are doing something unconsciously, as is the nature of
habits. If you see yourself lighting up the cigarette, you are aware of what youre doing. But self-awareness goes
further; it says, What am I doing to myself? Posing questions, reflecting on your behavior, looking at the larger
picture, taking your life seriouslythese are all self-aware behaviors.
The mind-body feedback loop will operate automatically without any awareness, much less self-awareness.
Someone in a coma is an extreme example of the automatic nature of the bodys feedback loop being monitored
by the brains automatic mechanisms. The feedback changes when you add awareness, which is one reason it
is better to be awake than in a coma. The best way to participate in the feedback loop, however, is through
self-awareness, which calls upon the untapped potential of the higher brain. In that state you tune into your
body and lead your brains responses in a positive way.

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A self-aware approach would include the following prescriptions that hold good during every decade of life:

Be passionate about your life and the experiences you fill it with.
Remain open to as much input as possible.
Dont shut down the feedback loop with judgment, rigid beliefs, and prejudices.
Dont censor incoming data through denial.
Examine other points of view as if they were your own.
Take possession of everything in your life. Be self-sufficient.
Work on psychological blocks like shame and guiltthey falsely color your reality.
Free yourself emotionallyto be emotionally resilient is the best defense against growing rigid.
Harbor no secretsthey create dark places in the psyche.
Be willing to redefine yourself every day.
Dont regret the past or fear the future. Both bring misery through self-doubt.

There is a spiritual component to self-awareness that consists of expanding your consciousness through
meditation, mindfulness, and other established spiritual practices. But in this list we wanted to tell you how to
function efficiently in the mind-body feedback loop. From birth each of us has been part of the loop, dependent
upon it for all the good things in our lives, doing our best not to bring in bad things. Unfortunately, most people
dont pursue self-awareness. They equate it with feeling bad about themselves, turning over stones that are best
left untouched, and exposing the darker hiding places where anxiety, depression, and anger lurk. None of this is
true. Self-awareness is value free. It isnt scary. It doesnt imply that you will subject yourself to needless pain.
At its most basic level, self-awareness is simply the self recognizing and appreciating the self. To find an answer to a question we are all interested inHow am I doing?you have to be willing to look at yourself in the
first place. Its much more beneficial to your health if you feel your way through life than think your way through.
Self-awareness monitors how you feel. It is flexible, sometimes placing awareness on a bodily sensation, sometimes on the world around you, your relationships, the people you meet, the thoughts in your head, and so on. To
be in such a state means that you are fully participating in the mind-body feedback loop. By doing so, you make
your body and your brain into allies, and then the path to lifelong health can be followed in security and fulfillment.

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Overcome Your Negative Thoughts

How to Defeat Four Destructive Beliefs

The brain stores your beliefs and retrieves them for you as thoughts. One of the biggest issues we face is how
to make the mind an ally instead of an enemy. Everyday suffering is largely mental. We obsess and worry. We are
haunted by old hurts and anticipate new ones with anxiety. For many people, the same four questions keep cropping up to exacerbate these feelings. They are persistent doubts that never seem to resolve themselves:
1. Whats wrong with me?
2. Whats going to happen?
3. How will I ever get out of this?
4. Where will the money come from?
Making these thoughts go away is extremely difficult unless you form new pathways in the brain. Anxious
questions roam the mind at will because they are implanted like microchips in the brains memory centers. Everyone experiences unwanted thoughts that spring up automatically, and they keep trying solutions that dont work.
They try to ignore the nagging negativity, which is a form of denial, or they reassure themselves that there is nothing actually wrong, which, ironically, only stokes more worry and doubt. Another tactic to deal with self-doubt is to
offset it by proving your worth through the pursuit of money, power, and accomplishment. This can result in riches
and success but not in the feeling that youre good enough or that the future doesnt hold something dreadful.
Its necessary to try a new way, one that allows your brain to be your friend rather than your enemy. To do
this, you have to move from the level of the problem to the level of the solution. New perceptions are the key
to creating new pathways.
The first thing we have to do is take an honest look at what the four questions are doing to you and where
they come from. So, lets examine the first doubt, Whats wrong with me? This thought arises from personal
insecurity, self-doubt, and judgment against yourself. When people wrestle with self-doubt, they generally get
stuck saying opposite things to themselves: Theres nothing wrong with me one day and Im a mess. Everything is wrong with me the next, as circumstances swing from good to bad. Neither extreme is true, but thats
not the point. The false answer becomes a ritual, a fixed response that gets nowhere. Other ritualistic thoughts
would include I keep doing this to myself, Im stupid, Im all alone, I never get a break, and so on.
The problem is that youre trying to answer a question thats self-defeating to begin with. Instead, you must
look at why the question arose and solve that problemwhich is insecurityby building a self that fulfills its own
needs. Security comes from being centered in the self, but if you dont build a center, you are trapped seeking
fulfillment outside yourself, a recipe for feeling even more insecure. Giving away your power cannot help but
lead to insecurity.

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Now the second question, Whats going to happen? This concerns dread about the future. Its about lack
of trust. But in life, you will never know what is going to happen. Any attempt at a response is futile, since this,
too, is a self-defeating question. Instead, you need to live in the present. Realize that the future is not only unknown, it is unknowable. Therefore, you are worrying about a phantom; fear is piling on hypothetical possibilities
and worst-case scenarios. They vanish only when you place your attention on the here and now.
The third question is How will I ever get out of this? It comes from a feeling of being trapped. To end that
feeling, you must make space for creativity. It is self-defeating to block your creative juices with an obsessive
repetition of doubt. Solutions dont come from panic. They come when you reframe the situation you are
trapped in. Instead of seeing it as a prison, see it as a chance to prove that you are capable of meeting reality
head on. By clearing away the fear, you open a channel for new solutions to appear.
Where will the money come from? is the last question. On the surface, its about finances. But beneath
that, its about the feeling that your life can be taken away from you. You think that money protects you from
total loss of control and if there isnt enough of it, unseen forces will overwhelm you. Rather than tackling the
money issue, its time to create a safe place inside you. The first step is to see that money isnt going to make
you safe (unless, of course, you lack the basic necessities of food and shelter). A prudent amount of money is
undeniably a safeguard, but a sense of lack is psychological. You will feel safe inside not when you have enough
money but when you can say I am enough.

A Path Toward Solutions

Now lets talk about a strategy for ending the negative effect of all four questions, beginning with the fact
that they keep repeating themselves. Repetition is a sign that you need to change. A part of you is calling out to
get your attention. Repetitive thoughts can feel like an attack, but in reality they are like having a rock in your
shoe. Its not reasonable to ask the rock to quit hurting you or to see it as your enemy. The pain it causes is asking
for a solution. So what is the mental equivalent of taking the rock out of your shoe?
Here are seven useful tactics that you can use to rid yourself of that rock:
1. Turn negativity into positive action.
2. Get a healthy outside perspective.
3. Dont indulge the level of futility.
4. Expand your awareness.
5. Take full responsibility.
6. Develop a higher vision of your life.
7. Make full use of your successes.

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These tactics all rest upon decisions from a higher perspective, which only you can make. Every time you
make a decision, the cerebral cortex is strengthened. You must clear the slate of old imprints, telling your higher
brain that you are walking away from the false solutions and futile tactics that have kept you stuck in your mental
misery. Its not a nagging question that is making you miserable; its the lack of a viable strategy. Psychologists
have asserted for decades that there is a huge difference between having a negative thought and turning it into
action. Yet this lesson never seems to sink in. People are constantly beating themselves up, falling prey to guilt
and shame, because they mistake their bad thoughts for actions. Thoughts are just fleeting mental images.
They have no consequences until to choose to make them important.
Lets look more closely at the seven tactics from above.
1. Turn negativity into positive action. If its true that an obsessive thought is a cry for help, a signal that
something is wrong, the way to take care of it is to bring the help that is asked for. You wouldnt neglect a crying child, yet we all neglect our negative thoughts, which are the mental equivalent of a crying child. Lets say
you are in a difficult situation, and you start thinking, Whats wrong with me? or How will I ever get out of this?
Acknowledge that you are feeling scared, which is the actual event occurring in your mind. Dont push the
anxiety away. Take a break and walk away from the immediate stress. Sit quietly and take some deep breaths.
Do your best to center yourself.
Once you feel calm enough to address the situation, make a planit is helpful to write it down. List the
possible steps you can take that will be positive actions. The point here is to call upon the rational side of the
brain rather than giving in to runaway emotion. Once you have listed the positive actions you can take, put
them in order of which to do first, second, and third. Now take the first step. Turning an emotional event inside
yourself into a set of rational steps is one of the best ways to rise above the level of the problem to the level of
the solution.
2. Get a healthy outside perspective. If a negative mental habit like feeling insecure, scared, or helpless has been
with you for a while, you need to check to see if your plan for action is workable. Seek outside validation. Go to
someone you trust, preferably someone who displays the qualities you want to acquire (i.e., a good sense of self,
lack of fear, self-reliance), and discuss the practical things you intend to do. We arent talking about the kind of
adviser who says things like, Get over it, Everyone feels that way, or Poor thing. Such statements are copouts. Seek someone who genuinely empathizes and can validate and facilitate your plan to change.
3. Dont indulge the level of futility. Weve already discussed the propensity to keep doing what never worked
in the first place. Futile tactics are insidious. They keep coming to mind over and over, despite their record of
failure. The difficulty is that you have wired your brain, setting down a groove that is all too easy to fall back
into. Grooves can be erased only by forming new grooves. If you find yourself falling back into self-defeating
thoughts, stop and say, Thats how Ive been approaching the problem. It doesnt work. You will have to do this

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more than once, and yet each time is useful. The more you stop indulging the level of futility, the more mental
energy you have to devote to new tactics. But dont get caught in a vicious circle. We are not saying that you
should fight your old mental habits. Thats recipe for more misery, as all wars are. Your aim is to notice what
doesnt work; its a form of mindfulness or self-awareness.
4. Expand your awareness. When the mind is constricted, it becomes like a tight muscleyou cant expect it to
move as long as its cramped. The things that constrict the mind are old conditioning, outworn beliefs, ritualized
thinking, habit, inertia, fear, and low expectations. These are challenges you need to confront as honestly as
possible. Having a closed mind doesnt feel good, so wherever you detect any kind of inner discomfort, the first
tactic should be to expand your awareness. Lets say that you feel resentment toward someone else. Clearly
that is a contracted mindset. If you were more open-minded, youd start to tolerate that person, see their good
side, and stop waiting for something new to blame and dislike them for. In and of itself, open-mindedness solves
all kinds of problems that are the result of narrow-mindedness. Stop believing that being stuck, judgmental,
opinionated, and self-important ever works. You must learn to know your self better, to follow the model of
tolerant people rather than prejudiced ones, to turn away from victimization, and so on. For years meditation
has been recommended as the most effective way to expand awareness. Also useful are mindfulness, selfreflection, prayer, contemplation, and counseling.

Your mind encompasses the best of yourself and the worst.

It holds the greatest promise and the greatest threats.
There is no way around the all-embracing way that
our minds create our reality.
5. Take full responsibility. Your mind encompasses the best of yourself and the worst. It holds the greatest
promise and the greatest threats. There is no way around the all-embracing way that our minds create our reality. Once you face this fact, it can be overwhelming. We all secretly want to escape responsibility for creating
the situations we find ourselves in. We dont want to face painful truths. Change feels like risk. Our minds are
used to projecting blame and judgment upon others. So much promise goes unfulfilled this way. In truth, the
power to create your reality, which begins by building a mature self, opens the way to lifes greatest joys.
6. Develop a higher vision of your life. It would be sheer drudgery if you took responsibility only for the bad
things in your life. You are also responsible for the good things. If you have a vision for yourself, you can aim
higher. The good things become more meaningful because you are heading for long-term fulfillment. This is

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much better than a string of short-term pleasures, nice as they may be. People without a vision can amass a lot
of small pleasuresimmediate gratification is everywhere in our society. Distractions are a multibillion-dollar
business. Look at your daily quotient of idling around the Internet, playing video games, channel surfing, watching movies, snacking, shopping, and merely hanging around. These distractions are leftover from adolescence,
when immaturity was a natural state. They drop away when life moves on and you undertake the project of building a self. The point isnt to become self-serious and reject having fun. The point is to aim for higher satisfaction
that lasts. By developing a vision of what your life is about, you are asking, Who am I? and then turning your
answer into positive actions.
7. Make full use of your successes. We began with the universal problem of mental misery, tracing it back to
the mind being an enemy instead of an ally. When you start making your mind into a friend, each step forward
needs to be reinforced. Thats how the brain gets new neural pathways that last. Without reinforcement, your
successes will seem to float away while your problems will seem to stick around. In reality, negativity has no
power to defeat positivity. Both forces exist in everyones mind. The real issue is to bring in as much light as you
can. Negativity acquires its power through repetition, being unconscious, judging against yourself, and focusing
on setbacks. Positivity gains its power by celebrating your successes, associating with people who are good role
models, learning to be emotionally resilient, being objective about your situation, and, above all else, acquiring
self-awareness.
We realize that weve set out a plan for overcoming
mental misery that sounds daunting if you are used to
following futile tactics. These only postpone the day when
you make the tremendous discovery that you are not lifes
victim or fates pawn. You are the creative center of your
own existence. Such a realization has the power to completely reprogram your brain. The greatest power human
beings have is the power to create reality. Mental misery
denies you that power. Taking positive steps to turn your
brain into an ally is the escape route from suffering that
everyone has been seeking for centuries. The essence of
wisdom is to see that there is always a creative solution once
you realize that the mind, which seems to create so much
suffering, has infinite potential to create fulfillment instead.
The brain can deliver any reality that you train it to. Why not
a reality that lacks all self-destructive impulses?

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Expand Your Awareness, Evolve Your Brain

Your brain is the product of unprecedented evolution. It took millions of years to assemble its almost infinite
complexity. Every step of the way, the mind was involved. It thought the thoughts and felt the feelings that took
shape physically. We propose that the brains evolution hasnt stopped. There is unlimited potential in store, as
long as the mind has the vision to see beyond its present reality. We cannot predict where evolution will go, but
if the past gives us a model, it shows that the mind leads the brain.
Therefore, as you expand your mind, you are consciously evolving. New neural pathways will be set down in
the brain. Conscious evolution is the goal. In the following pages, we offer a template for expanded awareness.
Each day of the week is devoted to a different theme. On each day we ask you to expand your awareness by
paying attention to a specific area of growth:
DAY 1:
Be Generous
of Spirit

DAY 2:
Be Loving
and Loveable

DAY 3:
Let Go

DAY 4:
Follow Your
Purpose

DAY 5:
Find Your
Healing

DAY 6:
Ask for
Fulfillment

DAY 7:
Let It Be

There is a hidden potential to be tapped every day, whether it is accessing compassion, surrendering, or
learning the power of intention. All of us experience a portion of this potential. Much more is possible, however.
If you perform the daily exercises we recommend, you will be imprinting new pathways in your brain. The process isnt accomplished in a week, so we hope that this template will guide you for a long time.
Almost all of the exercises ask you to be more self-aware. We believe that self-awareness is the most
powerful way to change the higher brain, where future evolution will take place. Your brain is already highly
developed in two modes of operation: unconscious and aware. It takes care of your body without needing specific detailed instructions. It processes the five senses to keep you aware of your inner and outer world. Selfawareness is different. When you are self-aware, you pay attention to the one who is aware, the true self. The
true self is where values, meaning, and purpose come from. In the worlds wisdom traditions, it is connected to
the soul. Our intention isnt to impose any spiritual teaching, however. We want to be completely practical. If
higher values exist, they must register as experiences through the brain.
With practicality in mind, we offer these exercises as a way to make your life more fulfilling. There is a need
for everyones brain to be imprinted with more self-enhancing impulses: the impulse for peace over violence, love
over fear, compassion over selfishness. In the larger scheme, an endangered planet may depend on the evolution
of consciousness. Survival of the fittest can take us only so far; competition and aggression have brought us to the
brink of self-destruction. What is needed now is survival of the wisest. You can participate in this shift by expanding
your own awareness. At the level of the mind, you are part of the human mind; at the level of the brain you are part
of the global brain. This is a perfect example of becoming the change that you want to see.

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DAY 1: BE GENEROUS OF SPIRIT

Old pathway: Holding on to what is yours
New pathway: Sharing yourself
Todays exercise is about giving of yourself. Wed like to begin with a parable about a monk and a thief. There
are many variations of this story in the Eastern wisdom traditions. In this version there was a monk traveling by
himself and teaching the dharma, the right way to live spiritually. As he made his way through the forest, he
came upon a large clearing and sat down to rest.
Just as he opened his sack to take out some food, a thief happened to pass by. He saw that the sack contained an enormous diamond. When the monk had finished his meal and was on his way again, the thief followed
him for many hours, waiting for an opportune moment. As dusk fell, the thief ran ahead and hid himself in the
bushes, so that he could pounce on his quarry. Soon the monk approached, and the thief leapt out. The monk
calmly asked him what he wanted.
The diamond in your bag, the thief replied.
You followed me all this way just for that? the monk asked. He took the diamond from his bag and held it
out. All right, take it, he said.
The thief greedily snatched the diamond and hurried away. He hadnt gone far when he looked back to make
sure the monk wasnt coming after him. What he saw stunned him. The monk was sitting cross-legged under the
stars, meditating peacefully with a look of complete bliss on his face. The thief had a moment of transformation
and went running back to the monk.
Please, he begged, teach me whatever it is you know that allows you to give so freely and be so happy.
This parable is a beautiful illustration of generosity of spirit. When, like the monk, we know that the source
of happiness doesnt lie in anything outside of ourselves, we can afford to be generous. We realize that giving
and receiving are different forms of the same energy, a basic rhythm of life. Instead of chasing after the external
symbols of happiness, we let go of struggle and enter the flow of life. We understand that the more we give and
the more we become open to receive, the more we keep everything circulating in our life. And as we awaken to
the possibility of not struggling so much, we can be generous at every levelincluding the gifts of our attention,
appreciation, affection, joy, kindness, and acceptance.
When you look deep within the silence of your heart, you will feel your shared existence with humanity and
experience a natural desire to give, receive, and be part of the expansion of happiness whenever it occurs.

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Exercise: Today be aware of old pathways that cause you to react with me first. Watch yourself holding back
instead of giving. If you see hints of selfishness, greed, fear of lack, fear of loss, and other kinds of contraction
around giving, stop and take a deep breath. Cut off the reaction and go back to the self. Wait and see if a new
way of responding comes up. Its okay if it doesnt. Just stopping the old reaction is a step forward.
To lay down a new pathway, look for one opportunity today where you can be kind, affectionate, or appreciative to someone. Anticipate someones need before they ask. See what you can do to go out of your way to
help. Ask what it means to be generous, and see yourself in that role. Act on your generous impulses instead
of shrinking away from them.

DAY 2: BE LOVING AND LOVABLE

Old pathway: Suppressing love
New pathway: Expressing love
One of our deepest needs is to know that we are loved and lovable. We come into this world swaddled in
innocence, with no doubts that we deserve loving attention, but for almost everyone the accumulated hurts
and wounds we experience cloud our sense of self. When we look in the mirror, we perceive flaws and judge
ourselves as less than lovable and less than loved. This is a perception that your brain adapts to, and the result
is that your inner sense of self turns into outer experience.
What the mirror doesnt show is that despite anything we were taught growing up, the need to love and be
loved is still innate. It has been blocked by pain, regret, and loss, an accumulation of negative experiences that
are now imprinted as neural pathways. Imagine someone you trust saying to you, You were created to be perfectly loved. What would your reaction be? If you mind immediately protests, know that this is only the voice
of old conditioningthat voice isnt telling you the truth; it is only a reflection of your memories.
This reflection has become part of your self-image, and the self-image you project signals to others whether
you want to be loved. They cant read your mind, but they can read your self-image. By establishing a new voice in
your head, you will start a chain of events that will reshape your self-image. When that happens, your deep need
to love and be loved will start to show. Then and only then can someone else begin to fulfill your need.
Exercise: Today your goal is to turn repression into expression. Inside us all there are feelings and impulses that
we resist. We dont express them even when they are completely positive. It may be healthy or socially prudent
not to express how hostile you feel at a given moment, but repressing something as positive and basic as love is

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self-destructive. Happiness consists of knowing what you need and gaining fulfillment from someone who wants
to meet your need.
Since giving is easier than receiving for most people, show some aspect of love today that you would normally repress.
This doesnt mean that you suddenly come out of your shell and say I love youalthough that is often a
very welcome thing to say and to hear. Instead, think of your mother or someone else who loved you in a very
natural way. What did she do to express love? She looked after your needs, she put you ahead of herself, she
didnt judge or criticize, she helped heal your wounds and supported you when you were nervous, afraid, or insecure. Find a way today to enact that role for someone else.
It is impossible to turn I am not lovable enough into I am perfectly lovable overnight. A process is involved. What made you feel unlovable was a series of messages from other people; these negative messages
became incorporated into your self-image. So lets reverse the process. If others give you positive messages that
you are lovable, your self-image will shift in that direction. Bit by bit, you will earn a new self-image.
Be aware of yourself today in terms of love. Watch to see if you push away other peoples positive messages. See if you fall into the groove of acting neutral, indifferent, or careless with others. If so, stop. All retraining
requires that you stop doing what doesnt work. If you simply stop, that is a step forward. But also add to the new
pathway. Be someone who is worthy of love. A smile, a kind word, any act of bondingthese small daily things
tell other people that you care. Most of love isnt romantic. Its an expression of a warm heart, and the one thing
that every warm-hearted person does is care. Instead of worrying if you will ever find the right one to love you,
be the right one. The more you express love, the more your higher brain will automatically react in loving ways.

DAY 3: LET GO

Old pathway: Holding on to resistance

New pathway: Surrendering to what is
The highest aim of any spiritual path is surrendera mysterious word when you try to surrender all at once,
but a useful practice when it comes down to letting go. Any time you are stuck, theres an opportunity to let go.
Most people are stuck on an emotion. They may say that they are standing on principle, but underneath, they feel
resentful and aggrieved. They are stuck on anger, a feeling of injustice, being treated unfairly, being victimized, or
being made to look like the bad guy. I dont deserve this is almost always present in the back of their minds.

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You can let go when you realize that the issue isnt what you deserve or dont deserve. If you wait until the
world gives you what you deserve, what are you actually waiting for? To be told how good you are or how bad?
Most people would love to be told how wonderful they are and how much they deserve to be noticed for their
goodness. But most people would also hate to be reminded of their worst aspects and to revisit the bad things
theyve done in the past. Thinking in terms of I deserve X and I dont deserve Y is a broken feedback loop
you put your brain on pause waiting for a package thats always in the mail and never arrives. The point isnt to
get what you deserve. The point is to get unstuck from old feelings that run into a rut.
Reality is right in front of you, waiting for you to respond. When you do, your brain does what it is designed
to do: it keeps the feedback loop running. Feedback loops are all about input and output. Both are needed.
However, when you are stuck, you either have no reaction or have the same one as yesterday. In both cases,
the feedback loop is damaged or even broken.
We are being almost clinical here because when people are stuck, they take things too personally. Their
pride or their hurt, their resentments or their wounds become prized possessions. They dont see that life is no
longer feeding them anything new and fresh. Its the same stale back and forth. So dont take things so personally. Be more objective. Realize that you will automatically form new pathways the minute you tell your brain that
you are back in the game. The term for this new attitude is detachment. When you detach yourself from all the
resistance that you are holding on to, your brain has no need to hold on. It is neutral to begin with. You decide
whether to hate or love. It simply carries out your intentions.
If you remove the moral glue that is keeping you stuck, the emotions that are refusing to budge will begin
to soften. What is moral glue? Its the following kinds of beliefs:

Im right, damn it.

I deserve better than this.
The other person is totally wrong.
Nothing will change until I get an apology.
Somebody has to hold their ground, so it might as well be me.
God approves of what Im doing.

There are many versions of moral glue, but underneath it usually comes down to hurt pride. In other words,
the ego has stepped in. People who build their self-image based on pride wind up being very judgmental and
isolated. Their moral armor is so thick that life bounces off it like rubber bullets.
Letting go will make your life much easier, because you will be back in the flow. The past wont hold you back.
Its always easier to travel if you arent dragging an anchor behind you. There is much more to surrender than this,
however. At the level of spirit, everything is always unfolding perfectly. It is only our ego mind that believes we are
alone in a hostile world and that we have to hold on with clenched fists to survive. In truth, each of us is a spiritual
being. Our true nature is pure potential, pure energy, pure intelligence, and pure lovethats our Being.

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As letting go becomes natural, in time you surrender to spirit and awaken to who you really are. Then surrender delivers its highest reward. You free yourself from all resistance, old hurts, and inner obstacles. Such blissful
freedom can only happen through detachment. In the ancient Vedic text called the Mundaka Upanishad, there is a
beautiful passage that expresses the difference between detachment and attachment, between the true self and
the ego: Like two golden birds perched on the selfsame tree, intimate friends, the ego and the Self dwell in the
same body. The former eats the sweet and sour fruits of the tree of life, while the latter looks on in detachment.
The bird that tastes the fruit of the tree is our individual, conditioned self. It has a tendency to cling to the
world through its lack of self-awareness. The bird looking on in detachment is the silent witness or true self. The
true self sees its divine source; it is able to experience and master the world through the organizing power of
self-awareness and presence.
Exercise: Today you need to let go of something. Keep your attention on this, and when a moment arises when
your inner voice says, Im right, damn it or Im not giving in, just stop. You dont have to do the opposite of
anything. Merely pause and be self-aware. Notice that you are clinging, holding on, demanding that the situation
change. How does this make you feel? Almost always, holding on feels tight, constricted, angry, and stressful.
If you feel any of this, walk away and relax. Do deep breathing or meditation. Center yourself before you react.
Letting go is emotional and physical. You are opening a pathway of acceptance. Whatever your inner voice
says, reality is simply what is. You need to look at what is, which means dropping what should be. Dont think of
this as surrender in the sense of losing. Think of it as being more open, letting your brain gain more information.
At a higher level, you are also calling upon the brain to deliver better responses that suit the situation.
Being self-aware will alert you to your negative reactions. In the past, the old pathways gave you two options when you felt negative: shut down or act out. Most people shut down, since theyve learned from painful
experience that acting out their judgment, anger, resentment, and ego gets poor responses from others. Yet this
was never an either-or situation. Instead of shutting down or acting out, you can simply be aware. When you do
that, you let in the light of consciousness. Your higher self is actually nothing more than expanded consciousness. When you hold on to anything, it gets squeezed into a narrow place in your mind, the mental equivalent of
folding your arms tight across your chest.
You can spend a lot of time with tight-folded arms, a clenched jaw, and squinty eyes, or you can notice what
you are doing and stop. The mental equivalent works the same way. You can make other people wrong for a long
time, or you can notice what you are doing and stop. The process of letting go begins here. In this case, once you
stop clenching inside, your brain is automatically freed up. Over time openness becomes a habit. The new pathways replace the old by gaining fresh experiences. You need proof that holding on isnt workingthats the easy
part once you actually look. What takes patience is to find the rewards in letting go. Life is hugely complicated;
shutting yourself up in a small room delivers a safer reality. But once you let life flow in by no longer resisting,
letting go becomes easier, and then you see that life is yours to experience as an individual. Bliss is universal;
finding your own kind of bliss is a privilege that belongs only to you.

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DAY 4: FOLLOW YOUR PURPOSE

Old pathway: Routine

New pathway: Fulfillment

At some point most of us have wondered, What is my lifes purpose? Why was I born and what did I come
here to do? These crucial questions come from the depths, yet they arise almost always when we are in doubt.
Life seems aimless or boring; nothing new seems to excite us; we think about roads not taken. Doubt can be
productive if it opens your eyes to hidden issues. But its far more productive to examine your life, not out of
insecurity and self-doubt, but with a sense of vision.
In India, the word dharma is a critical one. At a simple level it defines the kind of work you should be doing.
The worlds wisdom traditions declare that each life has a unique purpose, and unless your work is part of fulfilling that purpose, its external rewards are meaningless. A saying goes, Better to perish in your own dharma
than to live in someone elses. That takes some explaining. Most people dont see any great harm in doing work
that is less than fulfilling. They receive their wages, take time off, attend to their families, and look forward to
retirement. Work becomes a routine, and one thing that the human brain has mastered is adapting to routine. A
person may say, I hate my job, but his brain is trained to stick to routine and raise a panicked cry if the routine
breaks down. Anyone who has lost a job knows the anxiety and depressing feeling that result when routine work
is taken away, even though the routine was totally unfulfilling.
To escape the bind of routine, there are options. Most people choose the option of distractionindeed, our
whole society is founded on running after every kind of distraction. Unwinding with a drink, slumping in front of
the TV, getting lost for hours on the Internet or in a video gameonly the formulas for distraction change. The
underlying drive is to escape the tedium of a brain that has adapted all too well to a lack of fulfillment.
In India, dharma provides a different solution. It is an aspect of higher consciousness that knows what life is about:
purpose, meaning, and fulfillment. Dharma is like inner guidance. It is nudging you to look beyond the world of appearances and discover your inner identity. The real question isnt Why am I here? but Who am I? Every selfevery I
you could identify withcreates a different reason to be here. If you answer Who am I? with breadwinner, provider,
good family man (or woman), loyal friend, and so on, reality will shape itself around the I you have chosen.
There is no good or bad answer to Who am I? but the worlds wisdom traditions point to a mistake that
runs through most peoples minds. They think that I is alone, isolated, a speck in the universe overwhelmed by
natural forces. When we run into the arms of other people to find security, there is no real improvement: if I
is an isolated speck in an indifferent cosmos, it doesnt matter if you multiply it by a thousand or six billion. The
essential insecurity remains.

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Dharma comes from the Sanskrit root to uphold, because it says that the universe isnt neutral or indifferent.
It upholds life in an evolutionary direction. What is evolutionary for you, right this moment? To follow the line of
meaning, purpose, and happiness that extends into the future. You must grow into fulfillment; it doesnt come
with the territory. Dharma supports any action that keeps you on the track youre meant to be on, the track of
personal growth and increasing fulfillment. The only way to see if the universe really upholds your life is to act as
if it does and then see what happens. You already know how to live as if the universe doesnt care.
Exercise: Today you need to break out of routine. Thats easy to dotoo easyif all were talking about is asking
for poached eggs instead of scrambled, or turning to a different channel as you sit in front of the television.
Routine is rooted in the brain. Its a form of survival when, in truth, there was never a risk of not surviving. Most
peoples lives are established when it comes to the basics of food, shelter, and clothing. The fact that we can take
survival for granted, however, doesnt convince the lower brain. It is constantly trying to shore itself up against
famine, aggression, exposure to the elements, and a dangerous environment. Hence the sense of risk, amounting to dread, when people are cut off from their familiar routines.
Your goal today is to learn to expand beyond your brains habit of equating new, fresh, and unexpected with
alien, threatening, and anxious. Be aware today of how your whole day is structured around making yourself feel
safe. Pick up your groceries in a poor part of town. We realize that not locking your car feels as if we are telling
you to throw yourself into the arms of danger. In fact, the chance that you will be robbed is millions to one.
Protecting yourself is a lower-brain instinct. But, the current evolution of your brain lies mainly in our higher brain functions like reason, planning, and intuition. And, it wont evolve if you force it to live behind barriers.
Break out of the rather pointless security systems you have built around yourself, even for a little while. When
you do, what happens? You will see that you are walking around feeling insecure, and thats your actual reality.
We are not talking about foolish risk-taking. We are talking about the root of insecurity, which is the belief that
the universe would never uphold our existence.
To dispel that deep sense of insecurity, you must go through a process of retraining your brain. Give it room to
evolve. The lower brain wont go away; you need its protective instincts some of the time, although very rarely. Most
people are protecting themselves from imagined threats. But if your higher brain dominates, the protective voice
will grow smaller and less anxious. Imagine that you have been dropped unwillingly into the middle of Haiti after its
devastating earthquake or Malaysia after its tsunami. You would probably go into some kind of anxiety or panic.
Now imagine that you have voluntarily gone to those disaster places to help. You are there for a higher
purpose, something deeply meaningful to you, and therefore, the voice of threat is rendered marginal. Meaning
overrides insecurity.
Thats the key. So today, find something to do that expresses your purpose. Let life support your purpose. Be
decisive; know what you are about. If you cannot think of anything that fits the bill, then read a book about someone in real life who inspires you, a potential role model. Become absorbed in the path that this person took. Now
sit back and ask if you have been given a clue about your path. Clues are always present. Its part of the dharma.

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DAY 5: FIND YOUR HEALING

Old pathway: Passive neglect

New pathway: Active well-being

The human body isnt a machine that looks to the brain as a source of operating instructions and commands. Every cell in the body is intelligent, and when every system is healthy, intelligence flows throughout,
in a constant stream of messages. As human beings with conscious awareness, we are the only creatures on
the planet that can change our biology through our thoughts, feelings, and intentions. Our cells are constantly
eavesdropping on our thoughts and being changed by them. The slightest shift of mood is picked up by every
cell, which means that we do not think with our brains aloneall 50 trillion cells actively share our thoughts.
The same is true for health and well-being. Healing is wholeness plus intention. It is wholeness because every cell is affected. It calls upon intention because decisions must be made and directions set in place. Finding a
way to manage your own well-being is the core issue. There is no one else who can take over this responsibility.
Doctors are trained as specialists, learning as much as possible about one organ or system. But this division into
separate, distinct parts is unknown to the body itself, which works to keep every cell healthy.
This leaves you with a choice: whether to allow well-being to happen passively, with no guidance from you,
or to actively pursue well-being. In effect, you must ask yourself if you are willing to find your own healing.
Although the bodys healing system can operate on its own, out of sight of the conscious mind, it is helped or
hurt by every choice you make. Healing is full time; it doesnt begin when you feel pain, illness, or discomfort.
At the top of the list are lifestyle choices, which include the habitual things we all do every day: eat, sleep, work,
play, and manage daily stresses.
In each of these areas your body will be active today, and how it responds will dictate what happens tomorrow. Will tomorrow be different or the same, forward motion or inertia, growth or status quo? You are the
chooser; your body is assigned the secondary role of carrying out your intentions. Therefore, if you disregard
your role as decision-maker, your body falls back on old habits and conditioning. Because your body cannot
make decisions for you, it has a built-in default mode. Anyone who has ever been on a diet knows the difference
between consciously choosing what to eat and not. With conscious eating there is awareness of the nutritional
values in our food. With unconscious eating the body returns to default, and all too quickly high fat, sugar, and
calories enter the picture. So passivity is a form of neglect. This holds true for exercise, another basic lifestyle
choice. You must decide to exercise every day; doing nothing only needs to happen once. Very soon a week or
a month without going to the gym or taking a long walk has passed without being noticed.

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Lifestyle choices are basic but hardly the whole picture. To keep your body from returning to default is
crucial in all areas. Everyone has default emotions, for example, as well as a default level of physical activity. The
templates are set early; nobody starts from zero. Imprinting yourself with better choices is a challenge because
the automatic imprints have an advantage. They were established unconsciously in childhood; they have had
years of reinforcement; they are associated with your core self-image. As soon as you say Im not the kind of
person who does X or The way I do things is Y the voice that is speaking comes from old conditioning, and you
mistake the conditioning for who you are.
There is a clear watershed to be aware of. When you can say, My body is telling me not to eat this or My
body is telling me to get outside and move around, the default has shifted. Your automatic mode is now programmed for well-being. It takes conscious choice, repetition, and patience to reach the watershed. Imagine
yourself watching television. You feel hungry and walk into the kitchen. Without much thought, which do you
reach for, ice cream or a glass of juice, nacho chips or carrot sticks? This is your default system at work. If you
groan at the choice of an apple instead of potato chips, its not that you are being childish (although bad eating
habits get their emotional fixation in childhood); its not even that mass-media advertising has turned you into a
munch machine. Instead, old neural pathways are guiding you to act unconsciously. When new pathways are in
place, it becomes just as automatic to do good for yourself.
Exercise: Today your goal is to help your bodys healing system. Healing system is a relatively new term medically,
in that it brings together several of the bodys other systems. The immune system may be central to healing a
wound or infection, but emotional healing involves the brain, exercise involves the muscles and cardiovascular
system, diet involves the digestive system, and so on. When people pop a vitamin pill with the thought that they
are helping to fend off disease, the benefit is minimal and mostly unnecessary given a healthy balanced diet.
When the same person refuses to look at damaging stress in their life or long-held anger and resentment, the
result isnt passive; the healing system is meeting a serious obstacle.
Today, be aware of your passive neglect. When you brush your teeth, think about your dental health. When
you eat breakfast, consider your weight. When you take the elevator instead of the stairs, consider your activity
level. As you do these things, check in on how you feel. The reason you neglect yourself always has an underlying
feeling. Once you become aware of the feeling, you can actively address it. This is a powerful way to get out of
default mode.
Feelings arent just emotional. They include body awareness. If you snack at midnight, consult your hunger
impulse. The body is designed for sleep at midnight, not for hunger. If you feel hunger pangs, you have trained
your body to have them. Are you happy to tune in to your body? Many women, indoctrinated to have poor body
image, dont want to tune in at all. They use worry and self-judgment instead. They accuse their bodies of not
being perfect, which is a form of rejection that carries a hidden price: they are rejecting the bodys healing system at the same time. Thus it becomes an annoyance when the body signals discomfort, and if the discomfort is
actual pain or another serious symptom, the only response they have is anxiety and panic.

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You can avert all of this by tuning in, not out of anxiety but in an effort to be your bodys ally. In turn, your
body will become your ally. The most positive signal you can send every day is to be aligned with balance in all
things. Your body is constantly in a state of dynamic equilibrium called homeostasis. This is the same as a car idling
at the stoplight or setting a thermostat and walking away. Homeostasis is meant to be disturbed, to be thrown off
its set point. The reason is that a body at rest also needs to move at a moments notice. If you decide to run after a
cab, rush to the phone, or enter a marathon, homeostasis gives you the flexibility to do those things.
Passive neglect reinforces the body at rest; it chooses inertia over dynamism. What helps homeostasis
remain dynamic, flexible, and available at the touch of intention? All kinds of things, as long as they are the
opposite of inertia.
Exercise wards off physical inertia. Taking an interest in life wards off mental inertia. Best of all, self-awareness
enables the whole mind-body system to be dynamic, because self-awareness makes room for spontaneity. The
best kind of freedom is unexpected, because you are open to surprise, passion, and the unknown. So see if you
can trigger those things in your daily life. Surprise yourself; take an interest; find something to be passionate
about. These are all deep forms of healing, and when you pursue them, you are truly finding your healing.

DAY 6: ASK FOR FULFILLMENT

Old pathway: Limited expectations
New pathway: Unlimited potential
We all live with a sense of lack, and we are convinced by our reasons for having low expectations. Life is
unfair. Theres not enough to go around. One persons loss is another persons gain. But the worlds wisdom
traditions dont say these things. They declare that life is a field of infinite potential, that the goal of life is the
fulfillment of desire. Unless you follow your desires, you will have no passion for your own existence.
It makes a huge difference if life is indeed designed to make our dreams come true instead of squashing
them. Is abundance the nature of life? Thats the first question, because if life is a zero-sum game, with only
winners and losers, the struggle for fulfillment must go on. There is a story in the ancient Vedic tradition about
a young man who went in search of the secret of abundance. For many months he traveled through the countryside until one day, deep in a forest, he met a spiritual master and asked how to make his dreams come true.
What do you really want? the master asked.
I want to have untold wealth, but not for selfish reasons, the young man replied earnestly.

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I want to use it to help the whole world. Can you please tell me the secret to creating such abundance?
The master nodded yes. ln the heart of every human being there are two goddesses: Lakshmi, the goddess
of wealth, is generous and beautiful. If you worship her, she may bestow you with treasures and riches, but she
is capricious and may also withdraw her favors without warning. The other goddess is Saraswati, the goddess of
wisdom. If you venerate Saraswati and dedicate yourself to wisdom, Lakshmi will become jealous and pay more
attention to you. The more you seek wisdom, the more fervently Lakshmi will chase you, showering you with
wealth and abundance.
This advice goes beyond Do what you love and the money will come or even Follow your bliss. The lessons of wisdom arent always blissful, and what you love can change. At a deep level, devotion to Saraswati or
wisdom is about connecting to who you really are, discovering and then using what is unique about you. The path
to fulfillment is in you. Take an external path instead, and all the rewards of money, status, and possessions can
end up being worthless, because you havent really tapped into what would truly fulfill you. But telling someone
that money doesnt buy happiness is futile; what it does buy feels good enough. The real problem is mental programming. If you have no other imprinting except materialism, the road less traveled doesnt even exist. They
tore it up to build a superhighway to the shopping mall.
Ask and you will receive is meant as a blessing. It indicates that when you ask the higher brain to look
beyond boundaries, the boundaries fall away. Unseen powers come to your aid. But Ask and you will receive
can be a curse if it means that what you ask for is all you will ever receive. The universe is infinite in its flexibility;
reality can be programmed for less or more. The secret is to place yourself in the field of unlimited possibilities,
and that happens only when you seek more fulfillment every day.
Exercise: You need to be fulfilled today, not on some magical day in the future. And you can do this by changing the pathways of fulfillment. Fulfillment is multidimensional. It feels satisfying physically, emotionally, and
spiritually. The ingredients are, first, a general sense of relaxation and contentment in the body, along with the
absence of tension and discomfort. Second, at the emotional level you feel a sense of personal satisfaction, like
you are living your life well. With this comes an absence of threat, isolation, loneliness, and emotional baggage.
Finally, on the spiritual level you feel peaceful and centered, connected with your highest self. This comes with
an absence of doubt, fear of death, and abandonment by God.
Although only a sketch, this picture of your multidimensionality shows you where to look for fulfillment. Any
of these dimensions will do, and if you truly pursue physical, mental, and spiritual satisfaction, all will merge. All
the pathways will be open to the many avenues that fulfillment comes from. There is no set recipe. Its true that
giving brings fulfillment to many people, and to others there is no substitute for the satisfaction they experience
when being of service. These are general conclusions only. Because you are multidimensional, any map you draw
leads to where you want to go.
The chief obstacle is limited expectations. Whether they admit it or not, most people are unfulfilled because
they set their sights too low. They have, in fact, achieved what they imagined would make them happy. The field of

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positive psychology is quite new. For decades psychologists looked at what makes people miserable and psychologically
impaired. When they decided instead to look at what makes people happy, the situation was full of contradictions.
Everyone tries to be happy; everyone pursues the thing they think will make them happy. But it turns out that
human beings are bad predictors. When we get the thing that should make us happy, it doesnt. New mothers,
for example, often feel frustrated and depressed by taking care of their babies; as a source of unhappiness,
caring for small children ranks with doing household chores. Money makes people happy only up to a certain
point. After a nice level of comfort has been reached, adding extra money increases unhappiness by adding
responsibility and worry. There is also the problem that once you have enough money, you receive diminishing
returns from getting more. The second Porsche doesnt carry the thrill of the first; the tenth time you stay at
the Ritz, the glamour has worn off.
Wealth aside, the essential reality is that fulfillment requires higher expectations. As you go through your
day, experiencing all kinds of things, pause and ask yourself, Honestly, what is this doing for me? The answer wont
be cut and dried. Some things will be more fulfilling than you might suppose; others will fall flat. Then ask yourself, What would be more fulfilling instead? In other words, embark on a journey of discovery. You will quickly find
out that discovery isnt a piece of cake: there are obstacles and limitations in your way.
Be aware of the following kinds of limitations: Thinking that you dont deserve better. Fear of not being
accepted. Fear of failure. Fear of sticking out too much from the crowd. Anxiety over leaving your old ways
behind. For many people, happiness is the same as settling. They choose good enough because its safe. But
good enough means that your dreams will be so limited that fulfilling them brings small satisfactions. Take a second look at the people you associate with. Their expectations are likely to be your own, because in all likelihood
you want to fit in with your own crowd. We arent asking you to disapprove of your friends or yourselfquite
the opposite.
Choose the person you most admire among your circle, or the one whose dreams secretly match yours.
This person is a living example of how to expand your expectations. You can get closer to them, ask for advice,
and share your hearts desire.
Yes, this means taking a risk. Exposing who you want to be isnt necessarily safe. But finding out who you
want to be is crucial, because that image keeps your eye on the prize. You accept constant growth, an unending
journey, expanding horizons. Fulfillment isnt like a wall that you build brick by brick until you stand back to admire the finished product. Fulfillment is a river that you cant step into in the same place twice.
The one image is static, the other dynamic. The one is fixed securely in place, the other leads who knows
where. You have neural pathways to deal with both extremes. Stability is important and so is dynamism. Most
people are so imprinted to be secure that there isnt much play on the dynamic side. The landscape features more
walls than rivers. As you go through your day, try to be aware of how your personal landscape looks. Thats the first
step in getting around the walls. Some need tearing down; others need climbing over or sneaking around while not
knocking them down. It feels good to live with as few walls as possible if they are the kind that shut out new possibilities. See if you can take one deep breath of real satisfaction today. In that lies the path to lasting fulfillment.

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DAY 7: LET IT BE

Old pathway: Struggling to achieve

New pathway: Using least effort
In the famous Beatles song, the advice to Let it be is called words of wisdom. We agree, because
being isnt a passive state. It is a mode of living, but one that most people have never tried. For the past six
days weve outlined what this new mode consists of, from showing generosity of spirit and expressing love to
finding healing and following your purpose. Weve emphasized that these elements are consistent with how
the brain is designed. The higher brain evolves by carrying out the instructions you give it. By reshaping the
pathways of brain response, you create a feedback loop that fits your own unique life purpose.
Unconsciously youve been shaping your brain all your life. It is unavoidable that the brains soft wiring changes according to your thoughts, moods, emotions, and intentions. We have added the element of
self-awareness so that you can be the creator of new responses that support personal growth. Here on the
seventh day wed like to draw these elements together into a single picture: the art of being.
Lets say that you have begun the process of reshaping new pathways. At first this requires effort and
attention. The old pathways, which represent imprinted memories, habits, and conditioning, must be addressed over and over. You are changing the default mode of your brain, and it takes conscious attention to
do that. But the project is highly rewarding, and if you persist, various signs of progress will appear, including
the following:

Your internal dialogue quiets down.

Negative responses diminish.
Impulses are more easily resisted and controlled.
A sense of meaning grows.
You begin to feel cared for.
There is less regret over the past and anxiety about the future.
Decision-making becomes clearer.

At a certain point, you reach a tipping point. Having done the work of imprinting your brain to have new responses, you can trust those responses. This opens the door for being. You can let it be when your brain starts
taking care of you. You already trust your brain to take care of you in countless ways. It automatically controls

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hormone levels, respiration, the sleep cycle, heart rate, appetite, sexual response, the immune system, and
much more. So the art of being isnt foreign to you; it is second nature.
You can extend the same trust to the higher brain. The only difference is that this is the center of the voluntary nervous system, and when it comes to something like the immune system, heart rate, and respiration,
youve been trusting the involuntary or autonomic nervous system. The worlds wisdom traditions open the way
to higher being, as viewed from the brain, by calling on the hidden potential of the cerebral cortex. This potential is hidden because unless you have a vision of higher possibilities, they do not unfold. The range of unseen
potential is immense. Using higher brain responses you can:

Experience a silent mind and the peace it brings

Turn intentions into reality
Make dreams come true
Stay in perfect balance
Flow with the rhythms of nature
Experience the presence of God, the soul, and the higher self

None of these things should be taken on faith, even though they have spiritual implications. All experiences
require a corresponding brain activity, and that includes the experience of inner peace or experience of the soul.
Without neural pathways that correspond to these experiences, they cannot register; their existence would be
hypothetical. The fact that spirituality has a history stretching back thousands of years doesnt mean that our
ancestors were mystics or credulous believers. It means that the hidden potential of the higher brain is a shared
legacythe art of being comes as second nature thanks to the design of the human brain.
Exercise: Today is about learning to let it be. The basics are simple: intend for a certain outcome, let your intention go, wait for the result. There is nothing esoteric about these steps. You go through them every time you
send an order to your brain, such as wanting to raise your arm. The intention is carried out automatically. You
dont stand watch to see if your brain will respond the way you ask it to. The feedback loop between intention
and result runs smoothly and automatically.
The art of being consists in bringing the same trust and effortlessness to other aspects of your life. The difference is that in the West, events in here are kept apart from events out there. Claiming that your intention
can affect an external situation sounds normal in Eastern spiritual traditions, where consciousness is held to be
everywhere, both in here and out there. One worldview is dualistic; the other is unified. But terminology is
irrelevant; the proof is in the pudding. Can you have an intention and allow it to manifest without struggling to
achieve your goal?
The worlds wisdom traditions say that you can. Letting it be means that you are connected to the same
source in pure Being as everything in the cosmos. When this connection is strong, having a desire in here leads

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to a result out there automatically because there is an underlying unity that transcends boundaries and artificial separation. To arrive at the point where you are completely connected is a process, and the process takes
place though the brain. As with the previous exercises, you only need to become more self-aware.
In practice, what were asking you to do is this: Have one intention today, let go of it, and see what happens.
If you get the result you want, appreciate the fact that you connected, you tuned in to the mechanism of least
effort. Least effort is the same as letting your Being do the work. If you dont get the result you want, shrug it
off and try again with a new intention. Many times, however, the result wont be so cut and dried. You will come
close or sense that things approximately worked out as you wished.
This is part of the process, so notice that you came close and accept the result you received. (Most of the
time you will have to do more work to achieve what you wanted, but thats okay.) In this exercise, there is no
failure. Creating a strong connection to your Being is the same as creating any new pathway. You are making
progress if any of the following indicators appear:

It takes less effort to get to a result.

You feel less stressed about getting a good outcome.
People around you begin to cooperate with you more easily.
You sense that everything is going to be all right.
You start to have strokes of luck.
Events mesh together in synchronous fashion.
Results start to appear more quickly.
Creative solutions appear as if out of nowhere.

None of this is mysticism. Every life already contains synchronous happenings, strokes of luck, and happy
coincidences. Instead of accepting that these are accidental or random events, you can now look upon them as
a sign that making a connection is very real and possible. The art of being requires real mastery, which takes time
and self-awareness. But your brain is designed to forge the ultimate pathway to fulfillment, which is effortless.

Every life already contains synchronous happenings,

strokes of luck, and happy coincidences. Instead of
accepting that these are accidental or random events,
you can now look upon them as a sign that making
a connection is very real and possible.

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Progress Report: How Am I Doing?

Developing your super brain is a process, and as you continue evolving, you
need to mark your progress. Below is a
self-assessment quiz. Wed like you to take
it at regular intervals, such as every three
months. In that way, you can prove to yourself that you really are relating to your brain
in a new way, shedding limited expectations,
and breaking out of old conditioning.
Weve chosen the four roles that you
play in relationship to your brain: leader, inventor, teacher, and user.

AS LEADER
you hand out
the days orders
to your brain.

AS TEACHER
you train your
brain to learn
new skills.

AS INVENTOR
you create new pathways and connections
inside your brain.

AS USER
you are responsible
for keeping your brain
in good working order.

The following quiz can serve as a quick self-assessment and a handy way to mark your journey to the goal
of higher consciousness, expanded creativity, and freedom of choice.

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QUIZ: THE FOUR ROLES OF THE SUPER BRAIN

For each statement below, mark yourself Fair (F), Good (G), or Very Good (VG). Use your own evaluation
of what these words mean to you. Dont be a perfectionist. Just be honest and objective, as if you were helping
a friend assess their situation.

My role as the leader of my brain:

I ask myself to improve day by day.

VG

I am not a creature of habit.

VG

I stimulate my mind with new things very often.

VG

I catch myself if Im too comfortable for my own good.

VG

I defeat boredom and repetition in my own life.

VG

I make sure that my work is challenging.

VG

I look upon every day as a new world.

VG

I pay attention not to fall into bad habits.

VG

I like to improvise.

VG

I gravitate to new people and those who stimulate my mind.

VG

I am growing as much as when I was younger.

VG

If I learn a new skill, I take it as far as I can.

VG

I am not threatened by the unknown.

VG

I reach beyond what I am already good at.

VG

I spend minimal time on passive things like watching television, simply to pass the time. F

VG

I do things to keep evolving for my whole lifetime.

VG

I adapt quickly to change.

VG

I open up ways to explore and discover.

VG

I keep responding to the challenge.

VG

I thrive on being curious.

VG

My role as the inventor of my brain:

If Im not good at something when I first try it, thats okay.

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My role as the teacher of my brain:

Im open-minded. I like to know other points of view.

VG

I dont push my beliefs and opinions.

VG

I dont leave it to others to be the experts.

VG

I put in the effort to educate myself.

VG

I remain current through educational television, attending public lectures, etc.

VG

I am good at inspiring myself.

VG

I like reinventing myself, even in small ways.

VG

Ive recently changed a long-held belief or opinion.

VG

Theres at least one thing I am an authority on.

VG

I like to examine hidden aspects of myself.

VG

I feel in control of my life.

VG

My stress level is getting better; its well managed.

VG

I dont worry that I might be depressed.

VG

My life is going in a direction I like.

VG

I am where I need to be.

VG

My thoughts arent obsessive, scary, or anxious.

VG

I actively avoid stressful situations by walking away and letting go.

VG

I am not holding on to grievances and resentments.

VG

My mood is consistently good.

VG

I like the way my mind thinks.

VG

My role as the user of my brain:

Assessing your results: Its likely that your results ran the gamut on these questionsthats to be expected. As
you work your way toward your super brain, you should start to see progress in all of them. Soon those Fs will
turn to Gs and finally to VGs. Dont judge yourself by your answers. The only goal of this is for you to have an
honest assessment of where you stand and what you need to work on.

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Afterword
We wish you the best on your journey. Its the same journey that we have been on ourselves, so we know
its challenges, its ups and downs. Yet through setbacks and crises, nothing is more irresistible than choosing
your own path. The goal of creating a super brain is unlimited growth and complete fulfillment. The human spirit
yearns for those things, and we salute you for your dedication and courage.
The mind-body connection sounds like a dry phrase, but when you deeply explore it, you will reach a turning point where true love emerges. This is love of the mind for its own awareness, of the body for its incredible
intelligence, and of the self for being the source of all joy.
Enjoy the journey.

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