#31 Remember Who You Are: Accessing Your Awakened Brain

Dr. Lisa Miller's research on "the awakened brain" reveals what spiritual traditions have always taught—our brains toggle between two modes. The achievement brain keeps us focused and driven but can fuel anxiety when overused. The awareness brain opens us to connection, creativity, and flow. During moments of connection—whether through meditation, prayer, or simply watching a sunset—our default mode network quiets, our parietal lobes soften their boundary-drawing activity, and regions associated with compassion light up.

The episode includes practical tools to access your awakened brain: journal prompts to explore your connection experiences, affirmations to reinforce your sense of oneness, and a guided meditation to experience this shift firsthand. 

Download the free Awaken Brain Map from the show notes to bring these practices into your daily life.

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Transcript

Welcome and Dentist Office Story

Speaker 1 0:01

Hey, welcome, welcome back to Just Count Me In. I'm Sarah, your host, and I hope you had a great week this past week. I'm really feeling some good energy with this new moon today and I wanted to share something special with you. Have you ever had a day when you just felt like you were rowing upstream the whole time? So some people say that life gives us tests along our journey. This week I actually had a pop quiz. I had been reading Dr Lisa Miller's book about the awakened brain and little did I know I got a chance to test it out in real time. So I was at the dentist and I actually really like going to my dentist office. The place has really good vibes, it's got good energy, the people are really positive there.

Speaker 1 0:50

But today there was some kind of screw up with my insurance and I found out that my tooth was going to cost me a whole lot more than I'd planned on. I don't like to admit it, but in that moment, to be honest, I got really scared and sad and worried that maybe I couldn't even get my tooth fixed and I just reverted back to these old patterns and I've worked so hard to reprogram myself. I was frustrated and in a moment I reached for my phone and the reason I did that was my. Our grandson, teddy, started kindergarten this week and I was planning to see if my daughter had maybe sent a picture just to distract myself. And then there on the screen was a message that I had been in a rush and not sent to somebody in my family and everything changed. Here's the Picture, the endless possibilities that are all around you. You are so aligned with joy, abundance and certainty. You are the signal, the frequency of your highest reality. Just remember who you are. And then I looked up and I saw a picture I had never noticed in this office before. I saw a parrot that was flying. Last week I did an episode about Alex, a bird who was trilingual he actually spoke three languages and during a storm he had trauma and forgot that he could fly. And it clicked in me. Something just switched on and it was like remember, you can fly, you have wings. And in that moment, literally everything changed.

Speaker 1 2:37

Within that dental visit, the problem was resolved. I connected with someone who's going to take a private yoga class. Resolved, I connected with someone who's going to take a private yoga class. Another hygienist came by and she was talking about the fluorite that I had. So we talked about crystals and the possible effects they might have on the electromagnetic fields in her environment. And then the receptionist is actually looking for people to connect with through a podcast to help her transform her life right now for this new stage, all within one hour of this dentist appointment. And who knew so?

Speaker 1 3:13

Have you ever felt like the sense of connection, like the world was alive and speaking to you? The moment I shifted, the moment I was able to pivot from this yucky, constrained things aren't working for me, no matter what I do, it's not working feeling to a moment of connection, like everything is happening for me. That moment wasn't random. I was actually practicing what I had been reading about in the book and that was switching on to my awakened brain at work.

Speaker 1 3:46

Science now finally proves what ancient traditions have always known Our brains are wired for connection both with others and with something bigger than ourselves. We toggle back and forth between a brain. That's the awakened achievement brain. It's laser-focused, it's goal laser focused, it's goal driven, it's forward moving. But pushing too much actually isolates us and drains our feeling of connection. It can fuel anxiety and fuel depression in us.

Speaker 1 4:17

Awakened awareness. The awakened awareness brain is more open and it's receptive and it's actually connected and creative. It's pretty blissful when you meditate, you pray or even stand at awe at a sunrise or a sunset. You can find that sweet spot when you've got an integration, when both are in harmony. You can find that sweet spot when you've got an integration, when both are in harmony, where we're feeling like we're affecting our lives but we're actually very alive.

Speaker 1 4:54

Two things happen when you feel connected the default mode network, the DMN, which we talk about. That fuels your ego and your overthinking. It's the part that's always busy. It quiets down Suddenly. You're not lost in like me, me, me and you open up to we. The parietal lobes draw the lines of where I end and where the world begins. They soften their activity. That's why, when you feel connected, you actually are feeling a sense of oneness or boundarylessness, and this is all observable under brain scans now, which is amazing to me.

Speaker 1 5:39

At the same time, areas like the anterior cingulate cortex and the insula light up and that deepens your compassion, your presence and your body awareness. So, according to the research I've been reading in the awakened brain, people who nurture this connection and it doesn't matter, you can go down and see a sunset. You can look out your window and notice a tree Any kind of connection. You can listen to music. It deepens our compassion, our presence and our body awareness. Whether we do it through spirituality, meditation, nature, religion, this part of our brain actually grows stronger and more resilient. Mri scans show thicker cortex regions and better emotional regulation and a sense of purpose. That protects us against depression. Some studies are showing that people are 80 less likely to become depressed that have these regular practices strictly because of the changes that they've incurred in their brains. It's pretty amazing. So how do we do this? How do we balance? We can't be completely without the realization that our bodies end and the world begins, and so it's a hard. It's a hard walk.

Balancing Connection and Self-Awareness

Speaker 1 7:09

We have to figure out ways to stay connected, be aware, stay in tune with our flow, and one of the ways you can do that is when you feel yourself in a state of dysregulation or disharmony. You can take a moment and just have a breath and remember. Remember who you are, remember who you are becoming. Another practice that I do with my clients is they give themselves a promise ring and, in essence, you're marrying yourself because you are going to be forever with yourself and they put the ring on whichever finger they want. Sometimes the boys will get beads because they want to wear the beads around their necks, and sometimes they'll just have something that they use like one of those Pura Vida bracelets on their wrist, and they make a promise to themselves. They make a promise to trust themselves, to trust their inner guidance. They make a promise to remember why they're here. They make a promise to be respectful and you can touch that like a touchstone or something that reminds you to just click on the part of you, that reminds you that things are happening for you, not to you. So here are some journal prompts that you can try.

Journal Prompts for Connection

Speaker 1 8:36

When was the last time I felt deeply connected to something bigger than myself? Last time I felt deeply connected to something bigger than myself, would you take a minute and describe that moment in detail? What practices bring me into a state of presence? I mean, they've shown that we're in a state of presence even if we're petting a dog or just being with an animal being outside in nature. How can I make space for these practices during the week? What beliefs or thoughts am I having that keep me in that ego mode and that mode of separation instead of openness. Where in my life can I shift from control to trust today? What's one small change that I can make If my brain is actually wired for connection? What's one tiny action I can take to strengthen that connection? How can I remind myself, how can I remember? What does living in flow mean for me right now? And if you can't think of a time, think about a time when you were younger, when you were able to feel in flow. What message or guidance may life be offering me that I have been too busy to hear.

Five-Minute Guided Meditation

Speaker 1 10:06

I also wanted to give you some affirmations to try. I am open to wonder connection and grace in every moment. In every moment, my mind is calm, my heart is awake and my spirit is free. I trust life to guide me in the right direction at the right time. I am part of everything and everything is part of me. Every breath I take is my invitation to peace and clarity. My awareness expands with love, compassion and curiosity, and curiosity.

Speaker 1 11:04

We're going to do just a five-minute guided meditation, a little mindful moment. So if you are in a place where you can pull over, that would be great, or you can always click off and come back to this. So take a moment and swallow to release your jaw, close your eyes, take a deep and out, take a long, slow breath in through your nose and seal your lips out through your nose and feel the relaxation, feel every tension just draining out of you into the ground. And you can either look up or you can close your eyes and roll your eyes up. Your eyelids will flutter a little bit and connect to that space a couple hundred feet above your head and connect to that space a couple hundred feet above your head, the place that people look at when they pray, the place that often people will just look up to the sky for guidance and feel that love of all things and feel that light.

Speaker 1 12:39

Experience it in your way and let that come down through you, through the top of your head and imagine it just lighting up your brain, cascading behind your eyes so that you can see the love and the light in all things, and inside your ears so that you can hear the love behind the words, and let it circle around your throat so that you can speak your truth with love. And you can even picture an aquamarine blue in this area, because that's the color of that chakra and let that light go down through your shoulders, just washing away any tension, any energy that's not serving you. Let it just rinse out right to the ground and let that energy swirl around your heart and radiate it out 360 degrees and you can take a breath in through the back of your heart and out through the front, and then in through the front and out through the back and let that light come down around your stomach and your hips and let it go down your arms and your legs. You might even feel a little tingling in your fingers or your toes. Feel the space around you and imagine your sense of self gently, gently dissolving, not disappearing, but actually expanding beyond your body, beyond your thoughts, and notice your heartbeat. You can put your hand on your heart and feel it as part of a bigger rhythm, like the ocean's tide or the sound of the wind in the leaves. Breathe in with that rhythm. I am NOT separate. Breathe out. I am part of everything. Life flows through me and around me as me, and ask yourself what wants to come through me today. Feel guided, feel held, listen, trust and smile. I'm awake. So, gently, allow your awareness to come back to your body, wiggling your fingers and toes, your ankles and wrists, your knees and elbows, and remember you are so much more than the things that happen to you. You are so able to switch gears and to pivot when you just remember to awaken to who you really are, to awaken to who you really are. And we have moments where we forget, and we have moments where life throws us a curveball and maybe the ball even hits us and we get walked to first base. But we can turn that around and it is within those moments that we discover how strong we really are. So good luck on your next test. Good luck on your next quiz.

Closing Thoughts and Resources

Speaker 1 17:37

If this episode spoke to you, please share it and please make sure that you've joined the podcast, that you're following the podcast and that you're downloading them so that you can get notified when I post new episodes. If you want to join the Facebook group, please do that. Just send me a message. And if you want to connect with me, go to the link for the email list and get signed up. Know that the welcome email, for some reason, is going to people's spam box, so check your spam box if you've requested to be joined to the email list.

Speaker 1 18:16

Right now I'm gathering people and preferences as to how often they want the emails, or whether you just want to be made aware of new offers and specials, or the episodes or the back notes. On the episodes it depends. But we're creating this community together. Please check out the free guide in the show notes. It's called the Awaken Brain Map and Practices to Bring this Science Into your Daily Life. Brain map and practices to bring this science into your daily life and enjoy the journey. I'm so happy that you joined me. Thank you so much for your time today and I look forward to seeing you soon. Have a magical week.