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[post_content] =>
Happy (almost) spring equinox! At the halfway point between the solstices, the equinox is a time of balance between day and night, hot and cold, and yin and yang. It’s a good time to tune in to your current state of balance (or lack thereof).
Take stock. Balance doesn’t imply that everything is equal, just that there is a state of relative harmony between opposing forces. If you have a couple minutes I encourage you to read the following questions as an assessment of personal balance. Take a pause after reading each question to let it sink in.
- How is your balance of movement and stillness? (Sitting vs moving; thinking vs quiet mind; sleep time vs awake time, etc.)
- How is your balance of work and leisure?
- How is your balance of community and solitude?
- How is your balance of communicating versus listening?
- How is your balance of doing versus being?
- How is your balance of holding on and letting go?
- How is your balance of connecting with your inner world versus the outer world?
- How is your balance of creating versus receiving?
- How is your balance of filling yourself up versus emptying yourself out?
- How is your balance of engagement with technology versus engagement with nature?
- How is your balance of preparing for the future versus being in the present?
- How is your balance of consumption of resources versus giving back?
- How is your balance of being mind-centered versus heart-centered?
While this isn’t a totally comprehensive list, I hope it provoked some insight. If you’re human, I’m sure you noticed certain areas where you’re out of balance. I encourage you to think of balance as a dynamic thing – just like the balance between night and day and all the natural forces. Don’t strive for perfection.
Consider taking a card and writing down a few of the activities / orientations from above that are lacking in your life. Then try to remember, throughout your day, to bring your attention to something on your list. At the end of the day or week, reflect on how adding in small doses of balancing qualities is affecting your overall sense of well-being.
By the way, if you like this sort of thing – exploring and growing – have you ever thought about being a life coach? Click here to check out our life coach training program. It’s based on deep, meaningful principles like what I shared here!
Be well,
Dr. Peter Borten
P.S. If you’d like to take a deeper dive into your inner balance, “clean house” internally, shed patterns that aren’t working for you, and open into your highest self, check out our upcoming program Sacred Expansion. Click here for more info.
[post_title] => Bring yourself into balance now
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[post_content] => I have written so much about what and how to eat, so I thought I’d say a few words about what we might do before and after a meal to enhance the experience.
First, the before-meals recommendations:
1) Set an intention. This applies to food, medicine, and supplements, though I think it especially makes sense for medicine and supplements because you had a specific outcome in mind when you bought them.
I believe there’s some value in stating to yourself what you want to happen whenever you put something into your body. Even if you’re doubtful about your ability to influence your body’s inner workings, perhaps you’ll find it worthwhile to just get clear for a moment on why exactly you’re swallowing something. But if we consider how powerful the placebo effect is – it’s not a matter of being fooled into believing we feel better, but a very real ability to cause our bodies and minds to change – isn’t this worth taking full advantage of?
When I say “set an intention,” I don’t mean you have to have an elaborate ritual (although if you want to light a candle and take your time with it, that’s great). I really just mean taking about 10 to 30 seconds to close your eyes, recognize that you’re about to introduce a new influence into your system, state clearly what you intend to get out of it, and feel grateful.
What do you want this new influence to do? Please you with its flavor, texture, and a satisfying feeling in your stomach? Make you feel grounded? Give you energy? Nourish you in the deepest places? Calm your mind? Repair something that is out of balance? Help you feel connected to the world? Build your muscles? Expressing your choice may make a difference.
2) Make sure you’re hungry. I should have said this first, but I wanted to make sure you saw the part about intention. It should be at least two hours since you last ate, and in my opinion, it’s best to avoid snacking between meals (though four or five small meals per day is fine). If it has been several hours since you last ate and you know you should be hungry, but you have a poor appetite, you can try taking some bitters before the meal, such as 15 drops of gentian tincture in a little water. Others prefer blends of bitters with aromatic herbs, such as citrus peel, cardamom, and ginger. Luckily, there is a wide selection of great bitters these days.
3) Make sure you’re not starving. If you skipped breakfast and now it’s lunch time, it’s quite possible that you’re going to eat faster than your body would like and more than your body would like. If meal skipping is a common thing for you, it’s also possible that your metabolism has slowed down, and it will be easy to eat more than your body can readily burn. I recommend not going more than about four hours between meals. If you’re already starving, of course you need to eat, but try doing it slowly. Next time, eat sooner.
4) Let everything go. Stop moving, sit down, and to the best of your ability, set aside anything you’re worrying about. Now it’s time to feed yourself and that deserves your full attention and enjoyment.
After you eat:
1) Set an intention again. You can spare 10 seconds to do this. You just filled yourself up and maybe forgot about that starting intention until now. So, once again, consider what you would like to happen with what you just consumed and state it clearly to yourself. For example: “Thank you for this meal. I intend that all the nutrients will be well absorbed and will go exactly where they’re needed in my body.” Or, “I’m grateful for this meal and intend to be thoroughly nourished and energized by it.”
Once, when I was doing a lot of qigong, I went out to eat with a friend. After finishing my food, while continuing to converse with her, I imagined I was sucking all the energy from the food through my digestive tract into all my cells. It was something I was practicing at the time, it only took a minute, and I thought I wasn’t giving any outward appearance of doing anything. But my friend’s eyes bulged out and she yelled, “What the hell did you just do?!” I explained what I had been up to and was very curious as to what she perceived. She said she couldn’t really explain it, but that it looked like my whole body came alive (I’m assuming she meant more alive). Regardless of what it looked like to her, I was just struck by the fact that my internal visualization had an outwardly noticeable effect. So, try it!
2) Relax. If possible, don’t get right back to your work or something that stresses you out. Give your body at least a few minutes to assimilate what you just consumed.
3) Take a walk. Vigorous exercise right after eating isn’t a great idea, but a walk is fine (after a brief rest), and will assist with digestion, especially after a big meal.
Give these easy practices a try. I believe that even if your food choices aren’t always excellent, you’ll be much better off if you observe these simple acts. Let me know what happens.
Be well ,
Dr. Peter Borten
[post_title] => Seven Things to do Before and After Eating
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What an amazing time to be alive, isn’t it?
I was meditating last week and a little story popped into my mind. I was a soul not yet born into this body. I was looking down at the world with some kind of guide and the guide said, “Are you sure you want to be a human right now? During your lifetime there’s going to be a pandemic and it will be scary and sometimes tragic. The world will be forever changed. Plus, there won’t be much toilet paper.”
I can’t say for certain that this is how it works, but if it does then we all made this choice. I like to believe that I made the choice to jump in because I knew I would have the faculties and resources to manage whatever might happen, and to thrive and make a positive difference in others’ lives. I have a feeling that a part of you (maybe all of you) feels the same way – even if your mind tells you otherwise.
Unfortunately, it’s easy to lose sight of this core truth. Fear is contagious and it has a frequency which (especially when resisted) can be intensely jarring. After all, that’s its job. It’s the emotional mechanism of our survival instinct. It’s trying to convince you that the only thing that matters right now is security. But humans evolved the ability to experience these animalistic impulses without letting them control us. One way is to open our eyes and notice all that’s good in the world – all of the evidence that our mind’s irrational concerns are untrue. Here’s some good news that’s come about through this tumultuous period.
- There is greater appreciation for the working class. More than ever before, many are recognizing that these beautiful people – the grocery store clerks, the UPS drivers, the garbage collectors, the utility company technicians – are keeping our world running. Let’s show them our gratitude.
- There is a pause in the habit of filling ourselves up with stuff. Sure, we’re stocking up on beans and rice, but for lots of people who have a habit of shopping to self-soothe, this period has initiated a rare break. It’s a time when we’re prompted to make do with what we have. Perhaps to repair, instead of replacing, what can be fixed.
- The environment is healing. How else could we have gotten the whole world to drive less? In such a short period of time we’ve seen the canals of Venice become clear enough to see fish and dolphins swimming in them, and the cloud of pollution over China has mostly disappeared. These may be short lived miracles, but it’s important for the world to witness that the environment is resilient. When this pandemic runs its course, environmental issues will still be here, and hopefully this vivid display of the impact of human activities will inspire us to develop permanent solutions.
- Everyone is working together. The world has never been so united in a common cause. We’re seeing unprecedented stories of cooperation. In England, there was a call for National Health Service volunteers and over 400,000 people signed up in the first 24 hours.
- We’re reminded of the value of our elders. Who could forget that line from Joni Mitchell’s Big Yellow Taxi (1970): “Don’t it always seem to go that you don’t know what you’ve got till it’s gone.” The threat of losing our senior citizens had helped the world recognize just how important they are. The young are helping the old. Stores are offering special hours for seniors only. This period has also highlighted how isolated many of our elders are, and it’s prompting a collective desire to honor them, to care for them better, and include them more.
- We’re recognizing the importance of community. The bigger and faster the world gets, the easier it is to feel disconnected. But social distancing has been a (sometimes painful) reminder of how much we need and value each other, and all sorts of novel ways of connecting have emerged from this crisis. We’ve seen virtual sing-alongs, virtual dinner parties, video chat board games, meetings in parks (maintaining six feet of distance) to make eye contact, tell jokes, and (non-contact) dance. People have been doing the “reach out and touch someone” thing with folks they haven’t been in contact with for years. We need each other.
- Unprecedented generosity. We’ve seen offerings of free products, free counseling, groceries, donations of medical supplies, sharing of toilet paper, help with yard work, and so many other ways in which people are stepping up to contribute.
- Teachers are getting the recognition they deserve. For all of the parents who are suddenly forced to home school their kids, there’s a mass awakening happening as to how hard it is to be a teacher and how much we depend on them, not just to educate our kids but to keep them safe, to hold space for them to develop and grow, and to create a healthy classroom culture for them to discover who they are and hone their gifts.
- We’re reminded of how many heroes there are. People everywhere are putting their health (perhaps their lives) on the line to serve others. Doctors, nurses, medical staff, caregivers of all kinds, receptionists, and everyone who continues to show up at jobs in essential businesses – these dedicated humans are putting the good of the community first and we should all be grateful for them.
We would love it if you’d share some good news in the comments below. What silver linings have you discovered? What’s beautiful in the world that’s being revealed in this crazy time?
Be well,
Peter and Briana and Everyone at The Dragontree
[post_title] => {Good News} 9 things to celebrate right now
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Happy (almost) spring equinox! At the halfway point between the solstices, the equinox is a time of balance between day and night, hot and cold, and yin and yang. It’s a good time to tune in to your current state of balance (or lack thereof).
Take stock. Balance doesn’t imply that everything is equal, just that there is a state of relative harmony between opposing forces. If you have a couple minutes I encourage you to read the following questions as an assessment of personal balance. Take a pause after reading each question to let it sink in.
- How is your balance of movement and stillness? (Sitting vs moving; thinking vs quiet mind; sleep time vs awake time, etc.)
- How is your balance of work and leisure?
- How is your balance of community and solitude?
- How is your balance of communicating versus listening?
- How is your balance of doing versus being?
- How is your balance of holding on and letting go?
- How is your balance of connecting with your inner world versus the outer world?
- How is your balance of creating versus receiving?
- How is your balance of filling yourself up versus emptying yourself out?
- How is your balance of engagement with technology versus engagement with nature?
- How is your balance of preparing for the future versus being in the present?
- How is your balance of consumption of resources versus giving back?
- How is your balance of being mind-centered versus heart-centered?
While this isn’t a totally comprehensive list, I hope it provoked some insight. If you’re human, I’m sure you noticed certain areas where you’re out of balance. I encourage you to think of balance as a dynamic thing – just like the balance between night and day and all the natural forces. Don’t strive for perfection.
Consider taking a card and writing down a few of the activities / orientations from above that are lacking in your life. Then try to remember, throughout your day, to bring your attention to something on your list. At the end of the day or week, reflect on how adding in small doses of balancing qualities is affecting your overall sense of well-being.
By the way, if you like this sort of thing – exploring and growing – have you ever thought about being a life coach? Click here to check out our life coach training program. It’s based on deep, meaningful principles like what I shared here!
Be well,
Dr. Peter Borten
P.S. If you’d like to take a deeper dive into your inner balance, “clean house” internally, shed patterns that aren’t working for you, and open into your highest self, check out our upcoming program Sacred Expansion. Click here for more info.
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