Rewire Your Brain: Part 2

"This.” ― Ram Dass

Fully entering the present moment through 10 second exercises will help you choose your thoughts and transform your life.

In Part 1 of the series Rewire Your Brain, you learned how to identify the self-defeating thought patterns that quietly undermine confidence, relationships, health and success. Based on the Positive Intelligence program, I introduced the concept of Saboteurs—the inner critics, fear-based beliefs, and outdated survival strategies that operate from the limbic region of the brain. The Judge is the main Saboteur, often accompanied by one or more of the 9 Accomplices:  Avoider, Controller, Hyper-achiever, Hyper-vigilant, Restless, Victim, Hyper-rational, Pleaser, and Stickler. Each of us has a unique “Saboteur profile” shaped by core emotional needs such as acceptance, independence, or security. Our saboteur profile also shapes how we respond to stress, whether that's by asserting control, earning approval, or avoiding people, places, emotions, etc. As per usual, awareness is the first step towards change. When you recognize a negative thought pattern and celebrate your awareness, you interrupt the self-defeating thought and begin to lay the groundwork for new, life-changing habits.

We explored how neural plasticity makes change not only possible, but sustainable. With time, consistency, and intention, we can rewire our brains to strengthen new, life-affirming mental pathways. In fact, simply noticing and naming your Saboteurs—and celebrating that awareness instead of judging it—begins the rewiring process. Just one kind thought at a time can shift you from fear and reactivity to clarity and self-trust. As you continue through the series, you'll learn how to engage Presence Practices that activate the brain’s Sage regions, helping you face challenges with creativity, ease, and a new resourcefulness.

Rewiring Your Brain with Presence Practices: Shift Out of Stress and Into Potency

Positive Intelligence emphasizes building mental fitness through awareness, intercepting Saboteurs, engaging PQ Reps (Presence Practices) and utilizing the Sage brain or region of wisdom and insight. The focus of this post is to describe and help you utilize Presence Practices that will help you shift from mental looping to consciously entering the present moment to make conscious choices and achieve desirable outcomes. Remember, our power does not live in the past, which is gone or a future that does not yet exist. Our power lives in the Here and Now. The Presence Practices I introduce are short, simple sensory-based exercises that bring your focus fully into the present moment. While deceptively brief and easy, they are neurologically powerful tools that interrupt stress patterns, regulate the nervous system, and rewire the brain toward greater clarity, capacity, and emotional resilience.

What Are Presence Practices?

Presence Practices are mindfulness-based exercises that bring your attention to a single sensory experience for 10 seconds or more. They can be done anytime, anywhere, and require no special tools—just your willingness to drop into the here and now. Whether it’s noticing the texture of your skin or tuning into subtle sounds around you, Presence Practices act as a reset switch for your nervous system. See below for a quick video that demonstrates 2 of the 8 practices outlined in this post.

Presence practices are especially effective in moments of emotional activation, anxiety, or self-sabotage, because they shift our attention away from the survival-driven parts of the brain and into the regions linked with focus, wisdom and ease.

How Presence Practices Work: A Neurological Perspective

When we are stressed or triggered, our brain activity is dominated by the survivor brain — primarily the amygdala and parts of the limbic system. These regions are reactive and binary and we automatically go into a survival response pattern like fight, flight, freeze, fawn or appease. In this state, our body is scrambling to keep us safe, we lose access to higher-order thinking and tend to react from a place of fear, judgment, or urgency. 

Presence Practices, however, activate the Sage regions of the brain (prefrontal cortex, the anterior cingulate cortex, and the insula). These areas are involved in empathy, creativity, intuition, and focused decision-making. When we engage a Presence Practice and deeply hone in on one of our senses, we activate neural pathways that enlist the parasympathetic aspect of the nervous system (rest and digest) and increase resilience and capacity. By repeating these practices over time, we strengthen ability to shift from frantic reactivity to engaged and resourced responsiveness.

This neuroplastic process—strengthening certain neural circuits while weakening others—is what makes Presence Practices so powerful. They're not just coping tools; they're transformation tools.

When to Use Presence Practices

• In Moments of Stress: Use them to break the cycle of rumination, worry, panic, looping thoughts, feelings of “stuckness” or frustration.

• Before a High-Stakes Event: Ground yourself before a difficult conversation, a new challenge, public speaking, or a performance review.

• To Generate Daily Mental Fitness: Like brushing your teeth, daily Presence Practices build resilience over time. The more you use them, the more you’ll remember to use them until entering possibility (rather than scarcity) becomes second nature.

• To Build Emotional Intelligence: Presence practices create a pause between trigger and reaction, allowing for actual choice which leads to more thoughtful, heart-centered responsiveness.

  
  

Examples of Presence Practices

1. Tactile or Touch-Based Practices

Bring your awareness to subtle physical sensations.

• Thumb to Finger Pad Awareness: Gently rub the pad of your thumb against the pad of your index finger. Pay close attention to the ridges of your fingerprint. You might notice the warmth, softness, or friction between the two fingers.

• Palm Tracing: With the index finger of one hand, slowly trace the lines and contours of the opposite palm. Let your focus sink into the pressure, temperature, and texture you feel. I like to alternate hands, which also engages the mechanisms of bilateral stimulation. 

  
  

2. Sound-Based Practices

Bring your attention to the sounds around and inside you.

• Layered Listening: Tune in to the most distant sound you can hear—perhaps birds outside or a distant hum—then bring your focus to the closest sound, like your breath or the rustle of your clothing. Alternate between near and far sounds for 10-30 seconds.

• Single Sound Focus: Close your eyes and focus on just one consistent sound—like a clock ticking, the hum of a fan, or wind in the trees. Let your entire attention be absorbed by that sound.

  
  

3. Visual Practices

Bring your full attention the visual details of your environment.

• Color Saturation: Pick one color in your environment and observe every object that contains that color. Notice the differences in shade, texture, light reflection, or shadow.

• Texture Noticing: Choose a single object to study visually—perhaps a plant leaf, fabric, coin or wooden surface. Notice every tiny detail: the edges, lines, fibers, shadows, and irregularities.

  
  

4. Breath-Based Practices

Use breath as a gentle anchor into the present moment.

• Nasal Breath Awareness: Focus on the sensation of air moving in and out of your nostrils. Feel the coolness of the inhale, the warmth of the exhale.

• Belly Breathing with Counting: Place a hand on your belly. Inhale slowly for a count of four, exhale for a count of six. Stay with the movement of your hand and the rhythm of your breath for at least 5 breath cycles.

Why Presence Practices Work: Rewire Through Repetition

Presence Practices work not just because they calm us in the moment, but because they create lasting change in the brain through neuroplasticity. Repetition is key. Each time you consciously shift from the reactive, Saboteur brain to the Sage or Wisdom brain, you strengthen that muscle. Over time, the mind becomes more efficient at noticing stress triggers and redirecting attention to grounded awareness.

Instead of spiraling into fear, judgment, or avoidance, train your brain to pause, recenter, and respond from your wiser self. Utilizing these and other tools we practice together, you will shift from surviving to thriving.

Utilizing Presence Practices in Real Life

When you notice that you are stressing or ruminating or distracting with food, scrolling, etc:

1. Celebrate your noticing for just 10 seconds or more.

2. Pause and choose a Presence Practice that is easy and accessible in that moment.

3. Engage the practice for 10-30 seconds with your full attention.

4. Notice any shift in your internal state after completing 10-30 seconds.

5. Repeat if needed, or use that new clarity to take your next small, manageable step.

You don't need to wait for peace and clarity to enter the present moment. You can practice your way into it, one moment at a time. In a world that constantly pulls our attention outward and into urgency, Presence Practices bring us home. They are the bridge from reactivity to intuition. Presence Practices help us remember that even in challenge, we have choice. And in that choice lies our greatest power.

If you have any questions or if you’d like to explore this more deeply together, please don’t hesitate to reach out: britta@intuitivehealthhealing.com and 917.519.2432.

If you think someone you know would benefit from these ideas, please forward along! 

10 Second Touch-based Presence Practices to help you release stress and return to center.

For more information about Positive Intelligence: https://www.positiveintelligence.com/