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One of my favorite sections of our Dreambook occupies only two-thirds of a page. It’s about discovering your core values. It’s easy to skip it. I know you could go through life only rarely, if ever, giving a thought to your core values. Or you could complete this part – choosing some appealing words from our list of suggestions, such as kindness, honesty, openness and love – and then quickly forget what you chose and why.
But what if we called them needs instead? What if I said, virtually everything you do is motivated by an attempt to get one or more of these values / needs met, and the same is true for everyone else? How might your communications be different if you could perceive the core values that are driving you and others?
A lot changes when we understand the underlying needs that move us, especially when we’re in conflict. For instance, the other day I was on the phone with a company that had really under-delivered on the large sum we paid for their services. I found myself getting angry and raising my voice even though I realized that the agent I was speaking with probably had nothing to do with it.
As I tuned in to figure out the underlying need that was pushing me, I realized it was fairness. Just to name it out loud felt better. “This isn’t fair,” I said. “It was reasonable to expect your company would do . . . but you didn’t, and then you still charged us the full amount.”
When we hit upon the value at the root of some conflict, we often feel more grounded in the situation – even if the circumstances don’t change. Here are five reasons why:
First, if we’re unaware of the core need behind our upset, we’re usually run instead by our feelings and the belief that things aren’t going our way. As soon as we see the need, there’s clarity: “Ah. This is what I value. This is what’s really driving me.”
Second, when we discover the underlying need and recognize that it’s a value, it’s easy to expand from “I want this for me” to “I want this for everyone.” This gives us perspective that lifts us out of the small feelings that are often engendered by the involvement of our inner child. With regard to fairness, the inner child of course understands “no fair!” from a self-centered point of view, but the mature inner adult grasps big picture fairness in a way that goes beyond one’s personal wants.
Third, it makes us more effective at getting another person to see our point of view when we know the core value that’s inspiring us.
Fourth, we can make rational, direct requests to achieve resolution because we know what we’re aiming for.
Fifth, when we know the need, we can almost always find more than one way to get it met.
I encourage you to consider this perspective when you’re working on the Core Values section of your Dreambook. If you’re having trouble, consider something you feel strongly about and ask yourself, “What would I get out of this?” Keep asking until you get to a refined, one word answer.
If you have about a situation like mine that you feel unsettled about, ask yourself, “What could have been done to resolve this or make it better?” And then ask yourself, “Why would that be better? What would I have?”
Also look at positive motivations. For example: Why do I like running? It keeps me healthy. What else? I release stress. I feel free. I feel strong. I feel connected to my higher self. These are great ways to home in on underlying values. Besides the list of sample core values in the Dreambook, consider these others: Peace. Security. Choice. Freedom. Creativity. Organization. Loyalty. Cleanliness. Clarity. Ease. Justice.
As you go through your day, check in a few times and see if you can discern what needs/values are currently moving you. Let’s try it right now. What motivated you to read this article? What do hope to get out of it? A feeling of peace? A feeling of achievement? Learning or greater self-awareness? Better communication and relationships? Clarity? Whatever you come up with, is that the value itself, or do you need to take it a step deeper to get to the value?
I believe that when we do the work to know ourselves deeply, this not only serves us personally, our clarity also benefits the community around us.
Be well,
Peter
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For the holidays we gave our eight-year-old daughter a set of indoor monkey bars. That meant I spent a day with my arms above my head, screwing eye bolts into her bedroom ceiling. She can now get from the doorway to her bed without setting foot on the floor, which is useful because she tells me it’s made out of molten lava.
At bedtime I reached out to turn on a faucet and suddenly my mid-back locked up. It was incredibly painful and I felt unable to move without worsening it. I made the mistake of bending down to touch my toes, thinking it would help, but was then frozen in that position.
I’ve treated this same condition in countless patients. Often this type of back spasm is crippling for at least a few days – meaning missed work or travel – followed by a lingering stiffness and pain for a week or more. Frequently the locked area, even as it begins to release, is prone to getting retriggered if we move or sleep the wrong way.
Luckily, I knew what to do. I started locating and massaging effective acupuncture points on my hands and arms that began to release the locked up muscles. Meanwhile, I used certain visualizations and breathing techniques that facilitated the loosening of my back. Eventually I could move enough to lie on a small ball to put pressure on the muscle spasm while continuing with the breathing, visualization, and self-acupressure. I went to bed about an hour later than I intended, but with my back feeling 80% better. The next day I released the rest of the tension.
Several times throughout the process I thought, “This would be so much worse if I didn’t know how to do this.” I would have to find a practitioner and wait for an appointment. But what kind of practitioner, and which one? What if they weren’t available during the holidays? Would I have to be immobile during our holiday party? Would I be reliant on pharmaceutical painkillers? Would I be in a daze? Would I find it hard to get off them?
This conundrum is why I created an online course called Live Pain Free. It started with the advice I found myself giving hundreds of pain patients in my office over the years – and the realization that I didn’t have time to explain everything I wanted to teach them. Little by little, the course grew to include virtually all of the techniques and lifestyle modifications I have found useful for self-treatment of pain. It’s more comprehensive than anything else I’ve found.
Are there other things like it? Yes, of course. There are plenty of books and courses that teach pain relief techniques, some of them very useful. But most feature a single approach to pain, and I’ve never found a single method that works for all – or even most – pain. Even for a given individual, some things work one day and not the next. This is because there are many “ingredients” in pain, especially long-term pain – our history, psychology, lifestyle, body mechanics, etc. – so we need a blend of multiple approaches.
During the years I spent crafting this course, I discovered that beyond helping people to make their pain go away, much of what I wish to share deals with releasing ways of thinking that are restrictive and keep us trapped in discomfort. Although pain management is the issue that often leads people to look deeper, the ultimate resolution may be something so much more than mere physical relief: liberation from our resistance to life, the opportunity to accept and live in the present moment, the recognition of patterns that have held us back, and more.
The feeling of gratitude I had the other night – I want that for everyone. If you deal with frequent pain, if you would like to help a loved one with their pain, or you just like the idea of being prepared and knowing a wide range of strategies – some based in modern science others in Eastern medicine – check out Live Pain Free.
Be well,
Dr. Peter Borten
[post_title] => The Gift of Knowing How to Manage Your Own Pain
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There’s a well-known spiritual quote from philosopher and teacher Jiddhu Krishnamurti. The story goes that he was speaking to a group of students (who saw him as an enlightened master), and he whispered, “Do you want to know my secret?” At this, the room fell silent and everyone leaned forward. Then he continued, “I don’t mind what happens.”
What I like about this idea is that it’s simple; it speaks of a state of transcendence of the ego and unshakable peace. But as an expression of absolute spiritual truth, it also lends itself to spiritual bypassing and illusions about spirituality.
The tricky thing about Krishnamurti’s statement is that he was presumably speaking not from his ego but from an expanded state of consciousness, his higher Self. Thus, while not minding what happens was his outlook from this state, it’s not necessarily the path that got him there.
In Krishnamurti’s case, he went through a series of spontaneous, often painful experiences over many years that caused an opening of his consciousness. That’s not something we can replicate at will. So what can we garner from this “secret”?
It’s a good opening to a discussion on how we relate to absolute spiritual truths while existing in a world of relativity. Even among non-dual spiritual traditions (meaning, all the world is considered to be an expression of one great Being, and separation is an illusion), there is often a distinction made between the Source in an absolute sense (which is formless) and the many forms it takes in the relative world.
In the realm of the relative, which is where the majority of human minds dwell, relativity directs nearly every aspect of our lives. For instance, when we say something is good, we’re usually not coming from the experience that the universe is fundamentally Good, and therefore all of its expressions are imbued with that same essence of goodness. What we mean is that things are good relative to some other way they could be. Thus, we’re directed toward things that we perceive as better than our other options and away from things that seem worse. And absolute spiritual truths – like “the universe is fundamentally good” – are simply lofty concepts to most people. We do get glimpses of them though (as I’ve written about in my articles on “gaps” in the dominant egocentric state), and these often fuel a drive for spiritual awakening.
People who have gone through a certain form of spiritual awakening (what’s sometimes referred to as enlightenment, liberation, or moksha) often describe it as an experience of becoming perpetually conscious of the absolute. This doesn’t make the relative disappear, but the awareness of the undying oneness that unifies all apparent differences enables them to play in relativity without the “high stakes” feeling – and the anxiousness and drama that go with it – that most humans experience. This is why it’s referred to as liberation, which can be a very appealing notion to anyone who wants to be happy.
So, apparently from this state, Krishnamurti said, “I don’t mind what happens” because, in an absolute sense, nothing is ever wrong. Nor is there such a thing as tragedy or victory. To win a race just means one part of the Source crossed the finish line before another part of the same Source (or God beat God, if you prefer that name). Likewise, the death of any given expression of the Source is akin to a red blood cell dying and being recycled into a new blood cell; the Whole has lost nothing in the process.
It's important to recognize that an absolute spiritual truth is different from an uplifting life principle or a good piece of advice. If someone told you their “secret” is “Focus on the good” or “Don’t sweat the small stuff” or “Practice gratitude” or “Don’t take anything personally” you could immediately adopt it and start living it. But to a person who hasn’t realized and directly experienced it, an absolute truth isn’t actionable in the same way. And in relative terms, the absolute may make no sense at all.
Imagine that a dog is biting your leg and you think to yourself, “I’m going to be spiritual about this. What did Krishnamurti say? Oh yeah, I don’t mind what happens. I guess I’d better breathe through this. Whew, that’s a lot of blood. Do I just let him keep gnawing? I don’t mind. I don’t mind. I don’t mind. If I call 9-1-1, does that constitute “minding”?” I doubt many people would take an unrealized spiritual truth to this extent, but as you can imagine, it’s possible to get into some trouble this way.
Next week we’ll try to find the usefulness in statements of absolute truth and we’ll talk about what to do if you do mind what happens. Meanwhile, I always love to hear what readers think of these philosophical explorations.
Be well,
Peter
[post_title] => Can We be Misguided by Spiritual Truths?
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One of my favorite sections of our Dreambook occupies only two-thirds of a page. It’s about discovering your core values. It’s easy to skip it. I know you could go through life only rarely, if ever, giving a thought to your core values. Or you could complete this part – choosing some appealing words from our list of suggestions, such as kindness, honesty, openness and love – and then quickly forget what you chose and why.
But what if we called them needs instead? What if I said, virtually everything you do is motivated by an attempt to get one or more of these values / needs met, and the same is true for everyone else? How might your communications be different if you could perceive the core values that are driving you and others?
A lot changes when we understand the underlying needs that move us, especially when we’re in conflict. For instance, the other day I was on the phone with a company that had really under-delivered on the large sum we paid for their services. I found myself getting angry and raising my voice even though I realized that the agent I was speaking with probably had nothing to do with it.
As I tuned in to figure out the underlying need that was pushing me, I realized it was fairness. Just to name it out loud felt better. “This isn’t fair,” I said. “It was reasonable to expect your company would do . . . but you didn’t, and then you still charged us the full amount.”
When we hit upon the value at the root of some conflict, we often feel more grounded in the situation – even if the circumstances don’t change. Here are five reasons why:
First, if we’re unaware of the core need behind our upset, we’re usually run instead by our feelings and the belief that things aren’t going our way. As soon as we see the need, there’s clarity: “Ah. This is what I value. This is what’s really driving me.”
Second, when we discover the underlying need and recognize that it’s a value, it’s easy to expand from “I want this for me” to “I want this for everyone.” This gives us perspective that lifts us out of the small feelings that are often engendered by the involvement of our inner child. With regard to fairness, the inner child of course understands “no fair!” from a self-centered point of view, but the mature inner adult grasps big picture fairness in a way that goes beyond one’s personal wants.
Third, it makes us more effective at getting another person to see our point of view when we know the core value that’s inspiring us.
Fourth, we can make rational, direct requests to achieve resolution because we know what we’re aiming for.
Fifth, when we know the need, we can almost always find more than one way to get it met.
I encourage you to consider this perspective when you’re working on the Core Values section of your Dreambook. If you’re having trouble, consider something you feel strongly about and ask yourself, “What would I get out of this?” Keep asking until you get to a refined, one word answer.
If you have about a situation like mine that you feel unsettled about, ask yourself, “What could have been done to resolve this or make it better?” And then ask yourself, “Why would that be better? What would I have?”
Also look at positive motivations. For example: Why do I like running? It keeps me healthy. What else? I release stress. I feel free. I feel strong. I feel connected to my higher self. These are great ways to home in on underlying values. Besides the list of sample core values in the Dreambook, consider these others: Peace. Security. Choice. Freedom. Creativity. Organization. Loyalty. Cleanliness. Clarity. Ease. Justice.
As you go through your day, check in a few times and see if you can discern what needs/values are currently moving you. Let’s try it right now. What motivated you to read this article? What do hope to get out of it? A feeling of peace? A feeling of achievement? Learning or greater self-awareness? Better communication and relationships? Clarity? Whatever you come up with, is that the value itself, or do you need to take it a step deeper to get to the value?
I believe that when we do the work to know ourselves deeply, this not only serves us personally, our clarity also benefits the community around us.
Be well,
Peter
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