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From its very beginning as a British colony, the United States has been afflicted with a disease. At its core, the disease is fear. As a response to that fear, greed emerged. The subconscious thought process that fuels greed is something like, “If I can amass enough [money, power, land, etc.], I won’t feel vulnerable, needy, or alone.” Controlled by this greed (fear), our founders acquired wealth by stealing other humans’ lives and putting them to work as slaves. Although overt slavery has ended in the U.S., the underlying disease is still here. If we’re willing to look at it, we all stand to benefit.
I often educate people on what holistic medicine means and how it differs from what could be called “reductive” medicine. The term holistic is derived from the Greek word holos, meaning whole. A holistic medical practitioner (regardless of what form of medicine they use) is one who endeavors to see and treat the whole person. They take into account the “big picture” of this being and the environment they live in. In contrast, someone practicing in a reductive way tends to see a person as a collection of separate parts and addresses themselves to correcting malfunctions of these parts without concern for the influence of, or impact on, the rest of the being.
Sometimes reductive medicine works just fine. You have a headache – who knows why? – so you take an aspirin without concern for balancing your whole being, and a few hours later it’s all better. Score one for reductive medicine.
Other times it fails. You have a headache, you try aspirin, and the headache’s still there. “What’s wrong with my head?” you think. Maybe you consider a stronger painkiller. Without broadening your view, you may never get to the root of it.
In the case of our history of oppression of Blacks, while we’ve taken many big steps in the right direction, our nation’s healing process hasn’t been adequately holistic. There were enough Americans who were sufficiently pained by the existence of slavery to bring about its abolition, but they never got to the root of it.
The prevailing attitude among White people was that despite the fact that Blacks were ripped from their homeland; that their families were torn apart; that they were deprived of rights, recognition, education, good nutrition and healthcare, and a sense of equality and potential – all would be better when the race that perpetrated this invited them to step up and enter society. It wasn’t and it still isn’t.
Greed didn’t fix that underlying fear, and the enslavement and dehumanization of Blacks created its own gaping wound. The recent visibility of police brutality against Blacks shows what can happen when we choose the path of reductive medicine. The problem originated in Whites, well before they saw the enslavement of Black people – and then the freeing of Black people – as their aspirin. But true, deep, holistic healing is often a hard, slow, uncomfortable process. That makes it a hard sell for a population that likes things easy, fast, and comfortable.
Throughout our years of slavery, the following years of segregation, and the most recent generation of supposed equality, it’s simply harder to live to one’s potential as a Black American than a White one. A popular graphic by Tony Ruth does a decent job of explaining the differences between equality, equity, and justice.
In the first panel, we see an apple tree that leans to one side. There’s a man under the low side (where most of the apples are) and another man under the high side (where there are few apples). Neither can reach the branches, but an apple falls into the hands of the man under the bountiful side. The caption is “Inequality: unequal access to opportunities.”
In the next panel, the two men are given equal sized ladders. This allows the man on the low side to reach plenty of apples, but the other man still can’t reach the tree. We may look on such a scenario as being equal for both men – one just happens to be on the better side of the tree – but in our country, the tree of opportunity nearly always leans toward the White person and away from the Black person.
If you’ve never had to worry about being denied a job or loan because of the color of your skin, you’ve benefited from White privilege. If you’ve felt generally safer in the presence of cops, you’ve benefited from White privilege. We could just as well say, “If you’ve ever wondered if you didn’t get the job or loan because of the color of your skin, you’ve been hurt by Black disadvantage.” But Whites have always known about the disadvantages of being Black and done little to rectify it. By framing the disparity as White privilege, it’s clearer for White people to see that the onus is upon them to do something to correct it.
The next panel of the graphic depicts equity – the man on the high side of the tree is given a taller ladder so he, too, can reach the apples. Whereas the previous panel assumes both men are fundamentally equal, with equal resources, they don’t have truly equal chances of succeeding. In an equitable scenario, we attempt to level the playing field by giving the disadvantaged person the resources they need to close the gap between the two. It can be helpful, but it’s an imperfect solution. A real world example is ignoring the systemic racism (the leaning of the tree) that causes the inequality in the first place and attempting to overcome it at the time of college admission or job application by giving extra points to the disadvantaged applicant.
The final panel of the graphic shows the tree being straightened by a set of boards and ropes and is captioned “Justice”. Here there’s no need for affirmative action because the two men finally have equal chances of success. Overall, I like the graphic. However, by depicting unequal opportunity as something as natural as a bent tree, one could say there’s an implication that we got here by chance. We didn’t.
As Scott Woods writes, “Racism is a complex system of social and political levers and pulleys set up generations ago to continue working on the behalf of Whites at other people’s expense, whether Whites know/like it or not. It is so insidious that it doesn’t care if you are a White person who likes Black people; it’s still going to find a way to infect how you deal with people who don’t look like you.”
Another questionable implication of the graphic is that the tree can be bent to fix the problem. As we all know, an old tree can only bend so far before it snaps. Can we really keep the old structure and simply rectify it to correct centuries of damage? We must dive deep into the holistic path of healing to find out, but my hunch is that tree-bending is reductive.
So, what do we do? The old fear remains and as White people come to terms with the persistent consequences of treating humans as property, it takes new forms: the fear that healing this will be painful; the fear that fixing the system will mean a loss for those currently in a position of privilege; the fear that Blacks are cooler, stronger, faster, or more powerful than Whites and that their rise to equality will threaten White dominance; the fear that truly desegregating ourselves will amount to a dilution of Whiteness, etc. Thus we encounter many attempts to derail the conversation, like, “Don’t all lives matter?” and “If I’m so privileged because I’m White, how come I’m [poor, sick, disabled, struggling, etc.]?”
I don’t think I need to point this out, but acknowledging the advantages of being White doesn’t mean blaming White people for their whiteness. White privilege shouldn’t be conflated with White guilt. And whiteness alone doesn’t guarantee someone a good life. Life is, after all, what we make it.
I’m not an expert on racism, so I’m sharing this amazing list of resources (mostly for White people) – books, podcasts, videos, and articles by people who have made this their life’s work. Learn what they have to teach and amplify their voices.
What I do know is holistic healing and by applying these principles to our disease, I believe we truly shall overcome.
- Be humble. Resist the impulse to believe you already know, and listen to others’ experiences.
- Dedicate yourself to learning the truth. Go to multiple sources – not just the first one that confirms what you already believed.
- Broaden your perspective. Let your vision include as many factors as you can hold space for. This means also acknowledging what’s been kept hidden in the shadows, and the parts of yourself that you’ve denied.
- Forgive. Forgiveness is healing. I’m not saying your feelings are wrong. I’m not saying you aren’t entitled to feel angry, sad, victimized or anything else. I’m not putting a timeline on it. I’m only saying that at some point, a complete healing process – and true freedom – entails releasing our grievances.
- Keep your heart open. It’s natural – but not helpful – to close our hearts in the presence of pain. Open it, open it, and open it some more. Be willing to feel what’s arising. Feel without resistance. Notice what happens.
- See the connections. As Yogi Bhajan said, “Remember, the other person is you.” The great divisiveness and brutality of this chapter in human history is made possible through the illusion of separation. We are one. And as long as one person is oppressed, none of us can be completely free.
- Be willing to get uncomfortable. You simply can’t heal if you aren’t willing to be uncomfortable in the process. Trust that the discomfort will give way to greater freedom.
- Don’t settle for less than the ROOT. We’ve band-aided the hell out of this thing. Go deep. Ask for clarity and guidance and they’ll be given to you.
Please share about your experience. We all learn from this conversation.
Much love,
Peter
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[post_content] => Discover a transformative practice for experiencing greater freedom with Dr. Peter Borten. Click below to watch the video and start your journey towards more spaciousness.
[post_title] => [Video] Experiencing Greater Freedom
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Hi there!
We’re so excited that you’re going to be joining us for 9-weeks of strategic and heart centered action to create a meaningful life.
For years, people have been asking us how we do it. Starting in our 20s, we launched several successful businesses promoting body-mind wellness, including private healthcare practices, three spas, online courses, a magazine, a book, a café, and a company that makes body care products and herbal tinctures. Meanwhile, we have an ecstatic marriage, a light work week, we spend lots of time with our kids and pets, and we have as much fun as possible.
We don’t claim to have all the answers, but we’ve learned a few things along the way. In particular, we’ve discovered that as important as it to teach people things like healthy eating and stretching, most folks need at least as much instruction in putting together a balanced and satisfying life.
When we realized we wanted to help others structure their lives, we talked to many friends and clients and the majority expressed that they felt far from achieving the life of their dreams. When we asked what they were doing to make their dreams come true, we found that most weren’t actively pursuing them.
To begin with, almost no one was clear about what their dreams actually were. They had lost touch with them after deciding (probably unconsciously and long ago) that it’s unrealistic to want an amazing or magical life. Some had even convinced themselves that it was more mature to expect lots of compromises and to learn to be content with whatever hand you’re dealt. But, they weren’t content. They had forgotten what they really wanted out of life or denied that they wanted anything different than what they had.
Many claimed they weren’t pursuing big dreams because they believed this would mean working like a dog and being unhappy. They felt that unless someone was superhuman, the only way to succeed was by sacrificing the enjoyment of life and perhaps losing your soul.
So, what were these folks doing in their free time if not making progress on their goals? Perhaps having fun, being in nature, and engaging in creative projects? Well, no. No, in fact, most felt that not only were they failing to reach their goals, but also that they weren’t making the time to cook, to stretch, to breathe, or to do other soul-nourishing self-care activities that they knew were important.
Those who had chosen to bite the bullet and put their noses to the grindstone in pursuit of their dreams tended to unwittingly ensure that they were unhappy because of how deeply enrolled they were in the belief that achievement demanded sacrifice. The things that make life sweet were often the first to go.
Finally, nearly everyone – whether actively pursuing their dreams or not – felt busy. Too busy. Not just because of their work, but because of their immersion in a relentless data stream that engages them in the job of perpetually checking in and keeping tabs on an endless volume of information. For those who believe they’re not doing enough, it offers a way to feel more busy, but because it’s unceasing, it comes to feel like an obligation. However much time and energy they devote to it, it never feels truly gratifying or productive.
We believe that balance is possible – even in the face of chaos.
And we believe that you can – you must – do the good-feeling, soul-nourishing, body-fortifying activities even while you pursue your dreams. We put these practices under the general heading we call Sweetness. Sweetness not only makes life more satisfying, it also makes us stronger and more resilient.
If you feed your life, your body, and your soul, you become more effective at shaping this life however you choose. If you fill your life with this sweetness, you bring yourself many steps closer to the life of your dreams, regardless of the outcome of any particular goal. If your goals don’t materialize, at least you haven’t spent years of your life immersed in work with little to show for it. No, just the opposite: you will have spent the time doing meaningful work, living your purpose, treating yourself well, enjoying the world, and serving your species. It doesn’t get much better than that.
And when you do achieve your dreams, if you’ve been feeding your soul and growing all the while, you’ll be better able to assimilate the new changes in a healthy way.
While integrating more sweetness adds thrust to our dreams (and even brings our current circumstances closer to our dream life) we knew from coaching others that the biggest hindrance to achievement was problems with structure. They either didn’t know how or never got around to building a structure to get them from point A to point B. Some resisted structure because they seemed to equate it with restriction or conformity. Others had learned about “manifesting” concepts, such as the Law of Attraction, and took this to mean that structure and work are needless or even misguided.
When we looked at the structures people had in place, we found that without much training in life architecture, they were often unclear about how to build stable structures that would get them to their dreams. Some structures were like a bridge made of clothesline suspended over a canyon – they seemed to span the distance, but lacked support. Making it across would depend on a massive amount of personal effort, focus, and luck. Other structures were more like a concrete pipe over a chasm – sturdier to walk through but at the expense of any enjoyment of the scenery. Still other structures were like complicated tangles of trusses, cables, and parapets – more likely to get the traveler lost and confused than to their destination.
We noticed that those who avoided structure weren’t as free and unfettered as they would have liked. Instead, they often felt scattered and preoccupied, as if they were juggling all the ideas and tasks that they weren’t building into a plan. We wondered if the reason for their resisting Structure was that it wasn’t married to sweetness; Structure without sweetness could feel cold and meaningless to people, like striving for advancement in a factory run by robots.
We also observed an unusual trend toward over-structured lives, even among people who seemed to have very little going on. It was as if the structure developed independently of a guiding vision – structure for the sake of structure – with very little breathing room. Both the desire to eschew structure and the trend toward hyper-structure highlighted the necessity of Space.
Space is one of those things we tend not to value until it’s been missing for a while. Few people would identify it as a priority, and yet, it’s an essential factor in a healthy, happy, and fulfilling life. Without space, there is no perspective or clarity. Imagine there’s a large mural painted on the side of a building, but because the adjacent building is just a foot away, you have to stand in a tight alley in order to look at it, so you’re only able to see one small section at a time. This is how we view our lives when space is lacking. Space allows structure to breathe.
Space is the crucible in which sweetness and structure interact to yield a life that feels inspired, meaningful, and fun. Through our background in Asian philosophy, we both came to appreciate the preeminence of the “emptiness” from which everything is born. In Taoism, it is called Wuji, the limitless, boundless, or most literally, the non-polar. That is, it’s where our expanded consciousness resides, which isn’t polarized, doesn’t need to take a position, and is simply open. In Buddhism, it is Sunyata – emptiness, openness, or spaciousness – the space in which the soul is unconfined by the mind. In Ayurveda, it is Akasha – space or ether – the origin and essence of the entire material world.
Alignment and healing can’t occur without the openness that space provides. Sweetness needs space in order to be rooted in authenticity and to penetrate, engage, and feed the deepest parts of ourselves. And space is the solution to our addiction to the data stream which attaches us to our devices and disconnects us from the magic of the natural world around us.
Together, structure, space, and sweetness are the underpinning of this course.
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From its very beginning as a British colony, the United States has been afflicted with a disease. At its core, the disease is fear. As a response to that fear, greed emerged. The subconscious thought process that fuels greed is something like, “If I can amass enough [money, power, land, etc.], I won’t feel vulnerable, needy, or alone.” Controlled by this greed (fear), our founders acquired wealth by stealing other humans’ lives and putting them to work as slaves. Although overt slavery has ended in the U.S., the underlying disease is still here. If we’re willing to look at it, we all stand to benefit.
I often educate people on what holistic medicine means and how it differs from what could be called “reductive” medicine. The term holistic is derived from the Greek word holos, meaning whole. A holistic medical practitioner (regardless of what form of medicine they use) is one who endeavors to see and treat the whole person. They take into account the “big picture” of this being and the environment they live in. In contrast, someone practicing in a reductive way tends to see a person as a collection of separate parts and addresses themselves to correcting malfunctions of these parts without concern for the influence of, or impact on, the rest of the being.
Sometimes reductive medicine works just fine. You have a headache – who knows why? – so you take an aspirin without concern for balancing your whole being, and a few hours later it’s all better. Score one for reductive medicine.
Other times it fails. You have a headache, you try aspirin, and the headache’s still there. “What’s wrong with my head?” you think. Maybe you consider a stronger painkiller. Without broadening your view, you may never get to the root of it.
In the case of our history of oppression of Blacks, while we’ve taken many big steps in the right direction, our nation’s healing process hasn’t been adequately holistic. There were enough Americans who were sufficiently pained by the existence of slavery to bring about its abolition, but they never got to the root of it.
The prevailing attitude among White people was that despite the fact that Blacks were ripped from their homeland; that their families were torn apart; that they were deprived of rights, recognition, education, good nutrition and healthcare, and a sense of equality and potential – all would be better when the race that perpetrated this invited them to step up and enter society. It wasn’t and it still isn’t.
Greed didn’t fix that underlying fear, and the enslavement and dehumanization of Blacks created its own gaping wound. The recent visibility of police brutality against Blacks shows what can happen when we choose the path of reductive medicine. The problem originated in Whites, well before they saw the enslavement of Black people – and then the freeing of Black people – as their aspirin. But true, deep, holistic healing is often a hard, slow, uncomfortable process. That makes it a hard sell for a population that likes things easy, fast, and comfortable.
Throughout our years of slavery, the following years of segregation, and the most recent generation of supposed equality, it’s simply harder to live to one’s potential as a Black American than a White one. A popular graphic by Tony Ruth does a decent job of explaining the differences between equality, equity, and justice.
In the first panel, we see an apple tree that leans to one side. There’s a man under the low side (where most of the apples are) and another man under the high side (where there are few apples). Neither can reach the branches, but an apple falls into the hands of the man under the bountiful side. The caption is “Inequality: unequal access to opportunities.”
In the next panel, the two men are given equal sized ladders. This allows the man on the low side to reach plenty of apples, but the other man still can’t reach the tree. We may look on such a scenario as being equal for both men – one just happens to be on the better side of the tree – but in our country, the tree of opportunity nearly always leans toward the White person and away from the Black person.
If you’ve never had to worry about being denied a job or loan because of the color of your skin, you’ve benefited from White privilege. If you’ve felt generally safer in the presence of cops, you’ve benefited from White privilege. We could just as well say, “If you’ve ever wondered if you didn’t get the job or loan because of the color of your skin, you’ve been hurt by Black disadvantage.” But Whites have always known about the disadvantages of being Black and done little to rectify it. By framing the disparity as White privilege, it’s clearer for White people to see that the onus is upon them to do something to correct it.
The next panel of the graphic depicts equity – the man on the high side of the tree is given a taller ladder so he, too, can reach the apples. Whereas the previous panel assumes both men are fundamentally equal, with equal resources, they don’t have truly equal chances of succeeding. In an equitable scenario, we attempt to level the playing field by giving the disadvantaged person the resources they need to close the gap between the two. It can be helpful, but it’s an imperfect solution. A real world example is ignoring the systemic racism (the leaning of the tree) that causes the inequality in the first place and attempting to overcome it at the time of college admission or job application by giving extra points to the disadvantaged applicant.
The final panel of the graphic shows the tree being straightened by a set of boards and ropes and is captioned “Justice”. Here there’s no need for affirmative action because the two men finally have equal chances of success. Overall, I like the graphic. However, by depicting unequal opportunity as something as natural as a bent tree, one could say there’s an implication that we got here by chance. We didn’t.
As Scott Woods writes, “Racism is a complex system of social and political levers and pulleys set up generations ago to continue working on the behalf of Whites at other people’s expense, whether Whites know/like it or not. It is so insidious that it doesn’t care if you are a White person who likes Black people; it’s still going to find a way to infect how you deal with people who don’t look like you.”
Another questionable implication of the graphic is that the tree can be bent to fix the problem. As we all know, an old tree can only bend so far before it snaps. Can we really keep the old structure and simply rectify it to correct centuries of damage? We must dive deep into the holistic path of healing to find out, but my hunch is that tree-bending is reductive.
So, what do we do? The old fear remains and as White people come to terms with the persistent consequences of treating humans as property, it takes new forms: the fear that healing this will be painful; the fear that fixing the system will mean a loss for those currently in a position of privilege; the fear that Blacks are cooler, stronger, faster, or more powerful than Whites and that their rise to equality will threaten White dominance; the fear that truly desegregating ourselves will amount to a dilution of Whiteness, etc. Thus we encounter many attempts to derail the conversation, like, “Don’t all lives matter?” and “If I’m so privileged because I’m White, how come I’m [poor, sick, disabled, struggling, etc.]?”
I don’t think I need to point this out, but acknowledging the advantages of being White doesn’t mean blaming White people for their whiteness. White privilege shouldn’t be conflated with White guilt. And whiteness alone doesn’t guarantee someone a good life. Life is, after all, what we make it.
I’m not an expert on racism, so I’m sharing this amazing list of resources (mostly for White people) – books, podcasts, videos, and articles by people who have made this their life’s work. Learn what they have to teach and amplify their voices.
What I do know is holistic healing and by applying these principles to our disease, I believe we truly shall overcome.
- Be humble. Resist the impulse to believe you already know, and listen to others’ experiences.
- Dedicate yourself to learning the truth. Go to multiple sources – not just the first one that confirms what you already believed.
- Broaden your perspective. Let your vision include as many factors as you can hold space for. This means also acknowledging what’s been kept hidden in the shadows, and the parts of yourself that you’ve denied.
- Forgive. Forgiveness is healing. I’m not saying your feelings are wrong. I’m not saying you aren’t entitled to feel angry, sad, victimized or anything else. I’m not putting a timeline on it. I’m only saying that at some point, a complete healing process – and true freedom – entails releasing our grievances.
- Keep your heart open. It’s natural – but not helpful – to close our hearts in the presence of pain. Open it, open it, and open it some more. Be willing to feel what’s arising. Feel without resistance. Notice what happens.
- See the connections. As Yogi Bhajan said, “Remember, the other person is you.” The great divisiveness and brutality of this chapter in human history is made possible through the illusion of separation. We are one. And as long as one person is oppressed, none of us can be completely free.
- Be willing to get uncomfortable. You simply can’t heal if you aren’t willing to be uncomfortable in the process. Trust that the discomfort will give way to greater freedom.
- Don’t settle for less than the ROOT. We’ve band-aided the hell out of this thing. Go deep. Ask for clarity and guidance and they’ll be given to you.
Please share about your experience. We all learn from this conversation.
Much love,
Peter
[post_title] => Holistic Medicine for Racism
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