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Some years ago, I was apprenticing under an elder practitioner, and we stepped into the treatment room to meet a tan, muscular guy with a crushing handshake, a loud voice, and a surplus of confidence. “I just need a tune up,” he yelled immediately, lest we consider for even a moment that there could be anything wrong with him. He went on describe a life of conquest and wealth, from climbing Mount Everest to buying, selling, and merging companies. He was also kind enough to share his personal credo: that everyone should maintain a “cash cushion” of at least a million dollars – just in case. The only health issue he could think of was an old ankle injury.
But my mentor was a healer of spirits, not ankles. And I could sense, as he felt the patient’s pulses and asked polite questions, that he was smelling, seeing, hearing, and feeling information on another dimension. We stepped out of the room and he said, “The bigger the front, the bigger the back.”
I’m sure you get the gist of this expression even if you’re not familiar with it. You’ve heard about the preacher who foams at the mouth about moral depravity and then gets caught with a prostitute. In this patient’s case, we didn’t uncover anything scandalous, just a cowering core of insecurity and isolation that made all his accomplishments feel worthless. He had so much invested in the “front” in order to avoid revealing or confronting the “back.” To use the Japanese terminology from last week, we could see these fronts and backs as jitsu (“jit-soo”) and kyo (“kee-oh”).
If a kyo is an inner weakness, instability, or deficiency, a jitsu is the resulting drive to protect, acquire, and resist. Greed is always a jitsu emanating from some misunderstood or unrecognized kyo, and the same is usually the case with other strong drives that benefit only the individual’s ego or pocketbook.
Psychologists and philosophers have been digging for the secret kyos behind pathological behaviors for centuries. Many kyos would fall under what Carl Jung referred to as the “shadow aspect” – that usually hidden part of the personality where we keep everything we regard as wrong or bad. Jung said, “Everyone carries a shadow, and the less it is embodied in the individual's conscious life, the blacker and denser it is.”
It’s interesting to consider this front/back dynamic in an age when obesity is epidemic, military spending is outrageous, and people stab each other for Black Friday deals. What’s the hole we’re trying to fill or protect with so much acquisition and armor?
Whatever our individual kyos, I’m inclined to believe there is a deeper, central kyo embedded in the collective unconscious. It’s the kyo of the kyo, a core weakness that’s the same for everyone even if it’s expressed uniquely by each of us. While it’s gratifying when our jitsu activities lead to the recognition and treatment of our personal kyo, it’s monumental when we uncover and heal the one primal kyo.
As I see it, the fundamental kyo is the belief that we are separate from our world. Separate from God, Nature, Spirit (or whatever other term you like), separate from other humans, and separate even from ourselves, i.e., ultimately alone. This apparent separation is what allows us to perceive a world of attack and defense; a world in which our gains come at the expense of another’s loss; a feeling of guilt (for separating from our source) and blame; and an endless drive to find something that will correct this unsettled feeling.
All these expressions of the kyo are confused except possibly the last – a drive to find something that will correct this unsettled feeling. Of course it’s possible, if this drive is outwardly directed, for it to lead to overeating, gambling, hyper-acqusition, drug addiction, and more instability. But it’s also possible that it might direct us to uncover the truth: that we’re not actually separate or alone, and that we need nothing but to wake up.
Oneness with everything – sometimes called Self realization or unity consciousness – is a theme common to so many spiritual traditions and described by so many thoroughly rational, nonzealous people, that it would be difficult for an intelligent and open-minded person to dismiss it, even if the mind has no point of reference for it. In fact, I’ve noticed that once the seed of this concept is willingly invited into one’s mind, it tends not to leave. It’s compelling, because it would mean an end to so much conflict, an opening to such deep peace, and a resolution of our core kyo.
Over the week, I encourage you to feel into the underlying instability that compels you to seek for things outside yourself. Feel into the vulnerability that makes you want to attack others and defend yourself. Are these kyos different? Or do they emanate from one central idea? Can you determine what that idea is? If so, is it true? Tell me what you discover.
Regardless of your ability to unearth these feelings or beliefs, just arousing the spirit of curiosity is valuable. At the least, it’s better than being at the mercy of below-the-radar impulses.
Be well,
Dr. Peter Borten
P.S. If you didn’t read last week’s article on jitsu, kyo, and amoebas, you can check it out HERE.
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"The place of wood is to grow upward towards the fire element. It's always trying to reach the sun."
How will you grow and move past the obstacles in your way? Leave a comment below and let us know.
[post_title] => Talking Wellness with Dr. Peter Borten: The Wood Element (video)
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Every year we collect more and more stories from people who have used the Dreambook to achieve clarity about what kind of life they want to create and then made it a reality. Maybe because of the craziness of 2020, there’s been a big surge of interest in the book this year, so I decided to share a little about what makes it special.
In a time of such uncertainty, many of us tend to abandon long-term and even medium-term plans, just focusing instead on getting through each day. Unfortunately, this isn’t really the same as living in the present moment, and that’s where the richness of life dwells. If there were ever a time to live for the present, it’s now.
While the Dreambook is designed to help people with 1-year, 3-year, 10-year, and lifetime goals, our overarching intention is to help people enrich the journey rather than the destination. The journey is always happening, so it needs to be as full of the good stuff as we imagine the destination will be.
Thich Nhat Hanh’s discussion on washing the dishes is one of the most quoted passages on the topic of mindfulness, but I could hear it and share it a million times: “There are two ways to wash the dishes. The first is to wash the dishes in order to have clean dishes and the second is to wash the dishes in order to wash the dishes. . . . If while washing the dishes, we think only of the cup of tea that awaits us, thus hurrying to get the dishes out of the way as if they were a nuisance, then we are not ‘washing the dishes to wash the dishes.’ What’s more, we are not alive during the time we are washing the dishes.”
The consequences of mindlessly washing the dishes may be minor, but what about the consequences of mindlessly eating, mindlessly doing our job, mindlessly playing with our kids, or mindlessly conversing with our partner? A life without our presence – because we’re just trying to get through it – is devoid of the magic, connection, and grace that make it worth living.
There are a number of ways to change this outcome-focused orientation. One of the most potent, which we share in the Dreambook, is identifying your life purpose.
When you have a purpose, you’re conscious that you’re serving a bigger function than meeting your own needs. When you’re “on purpose,” energy arises to support your work. Opportunities appear everywhere. And, most importantly, you spend more of your life right here, right now, alive and clear.
Various methods exist for determining your life purpose, but when it comes down to it, it’s a matter of intuiting what you’re meant to do, feeling it out, and choosing to pursue it. It’s okay if you later decide to modify that choice.
We have a more involved process in the Dreambook, but for today let’s see what comes to you with just a few minutes of contemplation. Grab a pen and paper and write a few sentences in response to these questions:
What times and places in your life have you felt you were making a meaningful contribution?
What inspires you?
What would people say your strengths are?
When/how do you feel called to serve humankind or the planet?
What are your highest values (e.g., kindness, generosity, honesty, service, integrity, beauty, etc.)?
Based on these responses, craft a statement that conveys how you intend to serve the world. Here are some examples:
- My purpose is to help people heal through creative expression.
- My life purpose is to build healthy communities.
- My purpose is to help people use their voices and awaken their power.
- My purpose is to facilitate playfulness in adults.
- My purpose is to teach people how to live in harmony with the environment.
- My purpose is to help people actualize their potential.
Don’t worry about getting the statement perfect on the first round. For now, choose a statement of life purpose and read it out loud and with intention. How does that feel? Ideally, making this statement should feel powerful and right, or as my friend Reuvain puts it, it should feel like a “Hell yeah!”. It might even give you goosebumps or tingles. If it feels a bit intimidating, that’s ok, too, as long as it also feels true.
If it doesn’t feel like a “hell yeah!” change some of the wording. Consider making it less specific. For instance, if a statement such as, “My purpose is to help children to become healthy adults by learning to process their emotions” doesn't feel as inspiring as you hoped, you could start by broadening it to something like, “My purpose is to help children process their emotions,” or even just, “My purpose is to help children.” Just get it as accurate as you can manage and then write it down. I recommend writing it in a special way on a nice piece of paper. Put it somewhere where you’ll see it and say it every morning.
More importantly, try to keep it in mind throughout your day, applying it as often as you can. Use the Dreambook to integrate it into your weekly planning process and your goals. You can also use the Habit Tracking function to help you remember and assess your progress.
What changes when you’re on purpose? Is it easier to make decisions? Do people respond differently to you? Is there more energy available? Consciously living your purpose is the only way to know if it’s right. As you live your purpose, you’ll get insights that will help you refine your purpose statement. I’d love to hear about your experience with this process.
Be well,
Peter
P.S. My life purpose to love, heal, and awaken myself and the world. I hope I’ve served that purpose today!
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Some years ago, I was apprenticing under an elder practitioner, and we stepped into the treatment room to meet a tan, muscular guy with a crushing handshake, a loud voice, and a surplus of confidence. “I just need a tune up,” he yelled immediately, lest we consider for even a moment that there could be anything wrong with him. He went on describe a life of conquest and wealth, from climbing Mount Everest to buying, selling, and merging companies. He was also kind enough to share his personal credo: that everyone should maintain a “cash cushion” of at least a million dollars – just in case. The only health issue he could think of was an old ankle injury.
But my mentor was a healer of spirits, not ankles. And I could sense, as he felt the patient’s pulses and asked polite questions, that he was smelling, seeing, hearing, and feeling information on another dimension. We stepped out of the room and he said, “The bigger the front, the bigger the back.”
I’m sure you get the gist of this expression even if you’re not familiar with it. You’ve heard about the preacher who foams at the mouth about moral depravity and then gets caught with a prostitute. In this patient’s case, we didn’t uncover anything scandalous, just a cowering core of insecurity and isolation that made all his accomplishments feel worthless. He had so much invested in the “front” in order to avoid revealing or confronting the “back.” To use the Japanese terminology from last week, we could see these fronts and backs as jitsu (“jit-soo”) and kyo (“kee-oh”).
If a kyo is an inner weakness, instability, or deficiency, a jitsu is the resulting drive to protect, acquire, and resist. Greed is always a jitsu emanating from some misunderstood or unrecognized kyo, and the same is usually the case with other strong drives that benefit only the individual’s ego or pocketbook.
Psychologists and philosophers have been digging for the secret kyos behind pathological behaviors for centuries. Many kyos would fall under what Carl Jung referred to as the “shadow aspect” – that usually hidden part of the personality where we keep everything we regard as wrong or bad. Jung said, “Everyone carries a shadow, and the less it is embodied in the individual's conscious life, the blacker and denser it is.”
It’s interesting to consider this front/back dynamic in an age when obesity is epidemic, military spending is outrageous, and people stab each other for Black Friday deals. What’s the hole we’re trying to fill or protect with so much acquisition and armor?
Whatever our individual kyos, I’m inclined to believe there is a deeper, central kyo embedded in the collective unconscious. It’s the kyo of the kyo, a core weakness that’s the same for everyone even if it’s expressed uniquely by each of us. While it’s gratifying when our jitsu activities lead to the recognition and treatment of our personal kyo, it’s monumental when we uncover and heal the one primal kyo.
As I see it, the fundamental kyo is the belief that we are separate from our world. Separate from God, Nature, Spirit (or whatever other term you like), separate from other humans, and separate even from ourselves, i.e., ultimately alone. This apparent separation is what allows us to perceive a world of attack and defense; a world in which our gains come at the expense of another’s loss; a feeling of guilt (for separating from our source) and blame; and an endless drive to find something that will correct this unsettled feeling.
All these expressions of the kyo are confused except possibly the last – a drive to find something that will correct this unsettled feeling. Of course it’s possible, if this drive is outwardly directed, for it to lead to overeating, gambling, hyper-acqusition, drug addiction, and more instability. But it’s also possible that it might direct us to uncover the truth: that we’re not actually separate or alone, and that we need nothing but to wake up.
Oneness with everything – sometimes called Self realization or unity consciousness – is a theme common to so many spiritual traditions and described by so many thoroughly rational, nonzealous people, that it would be difficult for an intelligent and open-minded person to dismiss it, even if the mind has no point of reference for it. In fact, I’ve noticed that once the seed of this concept is willingly invited into one’s mind, it tends not to leave. It’s compelling, because it would mean an end to so much conflict, an opening to such deep peace, and a resolution of our core kyo.
Over the week, I encourage you to feel into the underlying instability that compels you to seek for things outside yourself. Feel into the vulnerability that makes you want to attack others and defend yourself. Are these kyos different? Or do they emanate from one central idea? Can you determine what that idea is? If so, is it true? Tell me what you discover.
Regardless of your ability to unearth these feelings or beliefs, just arousing the spirit of curiosity is valuable. At the least, it’s better than being at the mercy of below-the-radar impulses.
Be well,
Dr. Peter Borten
P.S. If you didn’t read last week’s article on jitsu, kyo, and amoebas, you can check it out HERE.
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Good reminder, thank you!
You’re welcome.