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seasonal viruses

Colds, Flus, and the Incomparable Value of Rest and Calibration

Every winter people ask me what they should do to get over colds and flus. In the past I’ve written long lists of all sorts of interventions, including numerous herbs… Read More

Ask people for help – whether it be in your garden, with your taxes, or finding a great preschool. Learn what gifts and wisdom those around you have and give them opportunities to share.
Be involved. Go to local meetings. Participate. Know your community’s plans for the future – and how you fit into them.
Know the names of people you see often – the grocery cashier, the gas station attendant, the school principal, the guy who takes the same bus as you every day. Allow them to be real people in your life.
Make eye contact with the humans you pass on the street. Be the one who says “Hi!” first.
Protect the green spaces.
Fix something that’s broken – a neighbor’s fence, your niece’s bike, the librarian’s flat tire.
Support local businesses – even if it costs a little more.
Learn about others’ traditions and celebrate together. Look for local festivals to attend, even if they’re for an event you wouldn’t normally observe.
Stick up for someone – a disadvantaged person or population, someone being mistreated or disrespected, or someone who’s unable to stand up for themselves.
Be curious. Attend lectures at the library, senior center, or local university, check out a high school science fair, and – foremost – learn what cool stuff people are up to in your town. What are people building? What are they learning? Who can tell you about the history of this place?

I want everyone to have the experience of being part of a healthy, loving, supportive community. I hope you’ll engage with your community today and be reminded of how nourishing it is. Be well, Peter [post_title] => Community is Medicine [post_excerpt] => [post_status] => publish [comment_status] => open [ping_status] => open [post_password] => [post_name] => community-is-medicine [to_ping] => [pinged] => [post_modified] => 2022-06-29 20:03:12 [post_modified_gmt] => 2022-06-29 20:03:12 [post_content_filtered] => [post_parent] => 0 [guid] => https://thedragontree.com/?p=8692 [menu_order] => 0 [post_type] => post [post_mime_type] => [comment_count] => 0 [filter] => raw [webinar_id] => 0 ) [1] => WP_Post Object ( [ID] => 8949 [post_author] => 3 [post_date] => 2023-02-08 20:41:47 [post_date_gmt] => 2023-02-08 20:41:47 [post_content] => In my early 20s I had a boss who would ask me every morning, “How goes the battle?” I had never heard that expression before, but recognized that he meant, “How’s it going?” At the time I was learning about neuro-linguistic programming and becoming attuned to people’s word choices, so it struck me as an interesting – and loaded – phrase. Then I began to notice how common it is for people to characterize life as a fight – an ongoing series of conflicts, something we need to slog through, with a risk of imminent danger and an us-versus-them mentality. Even if we see ourselves as winning the battle, if we hold this perspective, there’s still a chance of getting ambushed, right up to the last minute. So, we must always have our guard up, sleep with one eye open, check our drink for poison, and so on. It causes chronic stress, and we’re never entirely free. Meanwhile, there are people who see life in a more positive light – as a game, a gift, an opportunity to explore, connect, experience, and be of service. Are they naïve? Are they less successful? Are they blindsided by the unexpected? I don’t believe so. If anything, because their perspective isn’t innately stress-inducing, they have greater resources for adapting to whatever comes. I encourage you to examine your relationship with the world. How would you sum up your story? What kind of words do you use, both to others and yourself, when you talk and think about your challenges and ambitions? How do you feel about others aiming for the same goals as you? What sorts of bodily feelings go along with this? For extra support in re-wiring yourself, check out our workbook, Freedom, and try doing it for a month. If you do find that you’re harboring a “battle” mentality, I wonder if it’s possible for you to symbolically wave the white flag, saying to the world (and yourself), “I’m not at war with you.” I know the stakes feel very high sometimes, but what if. . . (1) you could clearly see that being in ongoing conflict is more detrimental than it is beneficial to you, and (2) you had an unwavering link to something you could trust, an assurance that you are fundamentally okay, no matter what. We often speak of rousing our inner warrior and the term “warrior” comes up a lot in self-help books. The warrior archetype is deep in our collective consciousness. Everyone knows it. And there’s a good side to it. Often, we evoke the warrior archetype when we wish to inspire ourselves to be clear, sharp, and disciplined, to stand up for our values, to protect those in need, to be brave, to have integrity and honor. But the other side of being a warrior is, of course, that you’re at war. How can we embody these virtues without the sense of perpetual conflict? We live according to archetypes all the time – father, mother, husband, wife, cop, healer, good guy, bad guy, peacekeeper, curmudgeon, artist – mostly without realizing it. The first step is to become aware of the archetypes we’re subconsciously abiding by. Just making it conscious starts the process of releasing us from an archetype’s limitations. Second, we can begin to forge a picture of something better and freer than any single archetype – our own Highest Self. Who would you be if you were clear, lighthearted, determined, loving, creative, peaceful, spiritual, purposeful, artful, present, honest, forgiving, kind, and brave? Contrary to what your mind might say, that’s not too many virtues for one person to possess. You’re already somewhere on the spectrum of embodying every one of them. Whatever you dub this most-evolved you – Highest Self, Noble Leader, Queen/King, Divine Being, etc. – know that this is something you can freely choose at any moment. Spend some time visualizing and feeling into this Highest Self. Imagine that she/he is just waiting for permission to step into the driver’s seat. When your small mind takes over and your habits run you, the Highest Self is nudged into the backseat. It may take some conscious surrender to let go of your default program and allow the better You to be in charge. Another visualization you might find useful is to see yourself in the center of a circle of many different versions of yourself – all the possible ways you could be. Look around and see if you can spot the one that is the clearest, highest expression of your virtuous essence. Make a choice, and step into that Self. Try doing this every morning for a week and see what changes. Be well, Peter [post_title] => Be Better Than A Warrior [post_excerpt] => [post_status] => publish [comment_status] => open [ping_status] => open [post_password] => [post_name] => be-better-than-a-warrior [to_ping] => [pinged] => [post_modified] => 2023-02-08 20:41:47 [post_modified_gmt] => 2023-02-08 20:41:47 [post_content_filtered] => [post_parent] => 0 [guid] => https://thedragontree.com/?p=8949 [menu_order] => 0 [post_type] => post [post_mime_type] => [comment_count] => 1 [filter] => raw [webinar_id] => 0 ) [2] => WP_Post Object ( [ID] => 8933 [post_author] => 3 [post_date] => 2023-01-19 19:24:36 [post_date_gmt] => 2023-01-19 19:24:36 [post_content] => When I first delved into cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) as a psychology major, I remember thinking, “This is an evolution for humans.” CBT focuses on examining and challenging one’s thoughts and beliefs, changing related behaviors, and building coping skills and emotional regulation. Of course, there is a long philosophical tradition of examining the nature of human thought and behavior, but the advent of cognitive and behavioral psychology in the past couple centuries infused these concepts into mainstream culture in a profound way. It’s now common for people to talk about their thoughts as something separate from themselves, and to routinely employ behavior modification techniques in all areas of life. I had a mentor in my early 20s who was a big advocate of CBT, and at the time I told her I had been exploring methods for healing the memories of traumatic events. I felt both rebuffed and inspired when she said, “You’re wasting your time. We don’t need to go back and relive our childhood or spend the rest of our life lying on some shrink’s couch analyzing everything that ever happened to us! All that matters is, right now, are you going to be at the mercy of your thoughts and automatic behaviors, or are you going to manage whatever comes up in a conscious, intentional way?” I’ve thought a lot about this in the decades since. My mentor was of the mind that we don’t need to figure out why these painful or dysfunctional patterns keep coming up, we just need to change our response to them, and eventually we’ll transform our psychological makeup in a permanent way. I believe there is real value to this approach, and also . . . sometimes I think we need to go back. When it comes to our healing and growth, here are three good reasons to revisit your past: (1) If you’re constantly managing your response to a recurrent pattern, it might be more efficient to get to the root of the pattern and dismantle it (or at least mitigate it) so that it doesn’t come up much, if at all. Of course, you can also use cognitive and behavioral strategies if it does arise. (2) There is potential for deeper self-awareness, insight, and growth through visiting your past and coming to understand the factors that went into making you who you are. These are opportunities to forgive, correct misunderstandings, reframe our stories, and revise or erase beliefs. While it’s totally possible for many people to be happy without going there, it’s probably not possible to be self-actualized without making peace with your past. There are some caveats. Analyzing your past can be taken to a self-indulgent degree. It can retrigger old trauma. And most common, it can make us feel worse as we work through it (and experience it without resistance, perhaps for the first time) – though this usually gives way to greater freedom. Thus, it’s important to do this work when you’re feeling relatively stable, with a clear sense of why (what you hope to accomplish), and with the tools and/or support to do it in a way that’s likely to turn out well. (3) Finally, some people seek total liberation from our programming, i.e., the ego. Once this urge awakens in us, it often never goes fully back to sleep. If you’re in this boat, you may find value in recapitulation. I read about recapitulation in a Carlos Castaneda book when I was 18 and it seemed unfathomable. Castaneda, a Peruvian anthropologist-turned-apprentice of shamanism, was instructed by his teacher to write down his entire life story, from his very earliest memories, including every person he had ever met. This process, he was told, was necessary to free him from his worldly attachments. It took him years. I remember thinking, “I could never do that.” Since then, I’ve encountered various forms of recapitulation in my other studies of shamanism, and I now feel it’s more doable than I previously believed. Could it take years? Absolutely. But you’ve got time, and it’s not an all-or-nothing proposition. Every time we release some piece of baggage, it’s like dropping a sandbag from a hot air balloon. We’re that much lighter and freer – even if we’re not “done.” As we go through our history, we find countless moments that have a certain weight or charge. They exist in a state of incomplete resolution. Taken together they have a powerful influence on how we show up in the present. They can make us dwell in the past and fear the future. They can cause us to live within a fraction of the spectrum of what’s possible. In short, they limit our freedom. As we loosen our history’s grip on us, we thus loosen the grip of our ego, and we more readily access our true essence and potential. I stumbled upon my own recapitulation process while doing somatic releasing practices. In a nutshell, all our history with a charge – everything that doesn’t sit neutrally in us – can be experienced through the body. There is a physical expression and felt experience to all of it. And in willingly visiting it, experiencing it without resistance, and accepting it, we promote its resolution. If this is unfamiliar territory for you, just try this: Bring up something about your current life or your past that you wish were different. While holding this in mind, expand your awareness to include what you feel in your body. You will perceive a certain unease. As you meet it and even invite it, the unease loosens. (Sometimes this takes a little practice, especially if you’re not accustomed to feeling your feelings. If you’re interested in diving deeper into this process, check out our workbook called Freedom.) When we do this work we inevitably find layers of holding. We release one layer and discover another layer, and so on. In my case, I began to recognize the layers faster than I could process them, so I started writing them down. Hundreds of cords, linking me to my past, pulling on me, distorting my present self. The list grew at the same rate that I crossed things off it. I’m not nearly done, but I feel much lighter. I’m not saying a person can’t show up in a clean and authentic way until they release every conflict or resentment they’ve ever had. What I mean is that a thorough recapitulation facilitates ego liberation – something that’s beyond the scope of CBT and, frankly, not of interest to most people. In my own process, I found that I was sometimes inspired to move my body in certain ways to assist the release of a sticky pattern, which is an integral part of some somatic therapies. Interestingly, it’s also a technique used in shamanic recapitulation. As Sandra Ingerman and Hank Wesselman explain in their book, Awakening to the Spirit World, we can facilitate the “unraveling” of a memory (or the emotional charge attached to it) by spinning. This can also be accomplished by turning the head or twisting the body from side to side, and the authors say they believe this is also why EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing) works. They recommend spinning or turning while breathing deep into the memory and its associated emotions, accepting it, and intending to release it. I believe recapitulation also occurs to some extent automatically, especially when we’re ready for it: in dreaming; in meditation, when we are sometimes spontaneously presented with something from the past that needs to be “cleared”; in yoga and exercise; and very often under the influence of entheogenic (psychedelic) substances, especially when used intentionally as medicine. This is why psilocybin mushrooms are rapidly gaining a reputation as one of the most effective therapies for attaining peace at the end of life. I’m curious to hear from readers about your experience with the different approaches I discussed. Have you used CBT, and did it help? Have you dug into your past to heal yourself? What methods did you use, and how did it go? Have you done a large scale recapitulation? What was the outcome? Please share. Be well, Peter [post_title] => Are You Willing to Go All the Way Back? [post_excerpt] => [post_status] => publish [comment_status] => open [ping_status] => open [post_password] => [post_name] => are-you-willing-to-go-all-the-way-back [to_ping] => [pinged] => [post_modified] => 2023-01-19 19:47:15 [post_modified_gmt] => 2023-01-19 19:47:15 [post_content_filtered] => [post_parent] => 0 [guid] => https://thedragontree.com/?p=8933 [menu_order] => 0 [post_type] => post [post_mime_type] => [comment_count] => 5 [filter] => raw [webinar_id] => 0 ) ) [post_count] => 3 [current_post] => -1 [before_loop] => 1 [in_the_loop] => [post] => WP_Post Object ( [ID] => 8692 [post_author] => 3 [post_date] => 2022-06-29 19:15:20 [post_date_gmt] => 2022-06-29 19:15:20 [post_content] => It was my birthday party in May and before we all started eating, Briana asked if I wanted to say something to my guests. Unbeknownst to them, I had been feeling a nauseous gurgling in my guts all day, so I was trying to hold it together and was caught a bit off guard. But I looked around at this group of shining faces and said the first words that came to me: “Community is medicine. Thank you for being here.” And that was enough. Immersion in loving community is deeply fortifying, supportive, and uplifting. Studies show that when a suffering person holds someone’s hand, their suffering is reduced. I think the same is true of metaphorically holding many hands through community engagement. And while it’s therapeutic to be seen and held in our challenges, there’s also value in the way that being oriented to our community gives us a break from self-scrutiny and self-indulgence. Like eating green vegetables or meditating, sometimes we can forget to prioritize community when we’re busy or immersed in a personal struggle. But as some wise person once said, our community is like our muscles. Besides supporting and empowering us, they need to be engaged regularly in order to stay strong. If you neglect your muscles, they get flabby. If you neglect your community, they probably won’t turn their backs on you, but for numerous reasons they won’t be able to support you as well as they could. From our book, The Well Life, here are some actions you can take to mindfully build your community:

Ask people for help – whether it be in your garden, with your taxes, or finding a great preschool. Learn what gifts and wisdom those around you have and give them opportunities to share.
Be involved. Go to local meetings. Participate. Know your community’s plans for the future – and how you fit into them.
Know the names of people you see often – the grocery cashier, the gas station attendant, the school principal, the guy who takes the same bus as you every day. Allow them to be real people in your life.
Make eye contact with the humans you pass on the street. Be the one who says “Hi!” first.
Protect the green spaces.
Fix something that’s broken – a neighbor’s fence, your niece’s bike, the librarian’s flat tire.
Support local businesses – even if it costs a little more.
Learn about others’ traditions and celebrate together. Look for local festivals to attend, even if they’re for an event you wouldn’t normally observe.
Stick up for someone – a disadvantaged person or population, someone being mistreated or disrespected, or someone who’s unable to stand up for themselves.
Be curious. Attend lectures at the library, senior center, or local university, check out a high school science fair, and – foremost – learn what cool stuff people are up to in your town. What are people building? What are they learning? Who can tell you about the history of this place?

You may also be interested in:

Community is Medicine

Be Better Than A Warrior

Are You Willing to Go All the Way Back?

The Dragontree

seasonal viruses

Colds, Flus, and the Incomparable Value of Rest and Calibration

The Dragontree and its Founders have been Featured in