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When building with wood, I spent years trying to figure everything out by myself before it finally occurred to me that a book might be helpful. I found one with lots of pretty pictures and I turned to the section on saws. I was curious to see what kind of advice a book might offer beyond pushing and pulling the saw back and forth. There I came across an unexpected piece of advice: Think the saw down the line.
Sure, the book discussed examining the teeth of the saw, holding it at the right angle, keeping your elbow in close to your side, and other practical stuff. But here was this oddly magical recommendation in a book on wood. The writer went on to explain that generations of woodworkers have done this, and that he was passing it on because it just plain works. The idea is, rather than focusing on manipulating the saw, you focus on the line and use your intention to will the saw to follow it.
It might have sounded crazier if I hadn’t heard of a similar approach to golf. While not exactly known as a sport dominated by new agey thinkers, many golfers do step into woo-woo territory if they think it will help their game. The most common of such practices is visualizing the event as one would like it to go – for instance, a smooth swing, hitting the ball just right, the ball soaring through the air, landing on the green, and rolling into the hole.
Athletes now utilize this technique in virtually every sport, from gymnastics to skeeball. There are even studies showing that “practicing” musical instruments through intention alone (imagining oneself playing piano, for example) leads to measurable improvements in skill. And yet, I would guess that the deliberate application of intention as a success strategy (outside of sports) isn’t a practice that has made it into most people’s daily lives.
If it works on balls and saws, why not use it to make a million dollars or to find a fulfilling relationship? Here are some recommendations for translating this practice to life-creation:
- Clarify. The arc of a ball from golf club to hole is simple to visualize. The arc from, say, a new business idea to a flourishing company is less simple. This makes it harder to visualize and therefore more difficult to grease the rails with intention. You can improve your chances by developing a very clear intention statement using positive language, such as “My business will be earning $100k per month by April 2024.” You can also consider the greater arc as a dot-to-dot with numerous smaller achievements along the way, and create a “sub-intention” for each. Visualizing these shorter distances may be more manageable.
- Potentiate. You can check your intention statement for potency by saying it out loud (to yourself or a friend). How does it feel? Is there a word that needs tweaking? Is it too vague? Or does it fill you with a charge of inspiration? Keep modifying until it feels really good.
- Scribe. Write down your intention statement to make it more real. Use a nice pen and a nice piece of paper. Take your time to get it right.
- Activate. Especially for big goals, you can add potency by enacting your intention in a special way. Consider this process as a starting point: Get into a calm clear mind space, light a candle, state that this ritual is to activate and amplify this intention, and ask for the guidance and support of the universe. As you focus on your intention statement, try to get as much of your whole self on board with it. Imagine that you are making this intention not just with your voice and your mind, but with your heart, with your gut, with every cell and every atom of your being. Imagine all parts of you are aligned in proclaiming this. Let go of any resistance. Thank the universe for hearing and responding. One of my favorite additions to this process is to use a piece of our Intention Paper, writing the intention on it and burning it to transform it from matter to energy and send it out into the world.
- Sustain. In the case of throwing a dart toward a bullseye, you’re ideally holding an intention from the moment you start thinking about it until the dart hits something. That’s not a very long time. Making a million dollars will probably take a bit longer. It’s not always possible to continually hold an intention from conception to fruition, but do whatever you can to keep yourself conscious of what you’re creating. At the least, re-read your intention statement daily. Even better, visualize its actualization for five minutes a day. Even better, feel how you’re going to feel when you’re at the destination.
- Act. When you intend a golf ball to go into a hole, it’s helped along tremendously by your hitting the ball in the direction of the hole. With intention alone, it still might get there eventually, but it’s probably not a common occurrence – especially for someone who isn’t especially practiced in the art of conscious intentioning. The same goes for using intention toward life goals. Don’t put all your eggs in the intention basket, but do maximize the potential of this avenue while also taking physical steps to put yourself out there where opportunities happen.
- Notice and Receive. A vital part of effective intentioning is noticing the good things that come to you and receiving them wholeheartedly. This single step can make more difference in your life than all the others.
Whereas we often use only step six (taking physical action), practicing the other six can greatly enhance our ability to shape life as we desire. Beyond whatever tangible gains this approach might produce, I feel there are wonderful intangible benefits as well. Ultimately it builds self-trust, promotes gratitude, helps us recognize of the potent role our perception plays in our quality of life, and reminds us that choice is always available.
Be well,
Peter
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Numerous members of the Dragontree community have told us they’re dealing with a lot of anxiety these days, and it happens to be something I’m very familiar with. I think my half-Jewish DNA blessed me with a substantial dose of fear and paranoia. Although there have been plenty of times I wished I weren’t wired this way, I’ve worked through it enough to recognize that many good things have come out of it – including that it has allowed me to help many others with anxiety.
I’ve found that there’s no single approach that works for everyone, so I like to give people a few things to try together, and I’ll share some of these today. A good place to start is with an understanding of how our survival mechanisms work – and malfunction.
Most of us had our first taste of intense fear in childhood and it made a strong impression on us. The feeling itself is often as memorable as whatever it was trying to warn us about. After a few incidents in which a strong feeling of fear accompanied a situation in which we had a strong desire to avoid an unpleasant outcome – e.g., getting hurt or losing something or someone, perhaps our own life – we began to trust fear.
“Why would I be feeling this way,” the mind rationalizes, “if there weren’t something bad about to happen?” Fear is the emotional mechanism our survival instinct uses to get our attention and to cause us to prioritize security above all else. It makes sense that fear feels bad, that it jars us, that it causes us to react without thinking – and that, since it arises when big things seem to be at stake, it’s trustworthy. It’s not.
Our trust in fear began at an age when we didn’t know how to discern whether or not it was legitimate. It turns out much of the time that fear is aroused by our survival mechanisms, it’s misinformed and exaggerated. Just think of all the times you’ve gotten scared about something that turned out to be nothing. We even feel fear while sitting safely on our couch, reading or watching a story in which a fictional character is threatened.
For most people with anxiety, fear is an error nearly 100% of the time. We just got into the bad habit of letting it take over whenever it arises. Breaking a habit takes work, but anyone can do it. When it comes to anxiety this means, as often as possible, doing something different than usual when you feel fearful.
1) Slow down and deepen your breathing. The mind follows the breath, so slower, deeper breathing – especially with a long exhale – will slow down your mind and open up space in your consciousness so you can notice and question this feeling without being at its mercy. Let your inhale go all the way down to fill up your pelvic bowl, and let the edgy feeling pour out of you on the exhale.
2) Turn toward it with curiosity and bravery. Fear goes hand-in-hand with the fight-flight-freeze reaction. That is, we tend to fight it (resist it, hate it, throw everything at it, spend all our savings on toilet paper, etc.), run away from it (any of various avoidance mechanisms, including getting on our devices or moving to a bunker), or freeze (become physically and/or mentally immobilized). These are all animalistic reactions; we can be smarter and braver. Instead of letting the feeling run you, get interested in it. It’s just a feeling. Examine it. What is this thing? What triggered it? What does it look like? What does it feel like? What does it sound like?
3) Don’t resist it. While meeting the feeling with bravery and curiosity, can you soften yourself in relation to it? What if you just let the feeling be here without fighting it? What if you even invite it to stay? What if you allow yourself to feel it with total willingness? Resistance makes fear stronger. You’ve probably heard “What you resist persists,” but maybe you haven’t heard the corollary: “A feeling fully felt finally fades.” The moment you say, “Bring it on,” it changes.
4) Turn the relationship around. When you have one or more intensely anxious experiences it’s easy to develop an aversion to fear. You may find yourself experiencing it as a monster that’s chasing you, which you need to destroy or run away from. But as soon as you run, you define the relationship. You make fear bad. You make yourself a victim. You relinquish your power.
When you start chasing it instead, it stops controlling you. Tell it, “I will find you. I will learn all of your appearances, all of your hiding places,” and you’ll stop fearing fear.
I know these are uncertain times. No one knows what tomorrow will bring. But I promise you, whatever happens, certain things will still be here. Love will still be here. Grace will still be here. Kindness will still be here. Peace will still be here.
I hope these different ways of relating to anxiety are helpful for you. Next time we’ll look at broader self-care strategies for “down-regulating” your nervous system.
I’m honored to help however I can,
Dr. Peter Borten
P.S
If you need extra support, I've crafted our
Anxiety-Relief tincture to do just that.
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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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When building with wood, I spent years trying to figure everything out by myself before it finally occurred to me that a book might be helpful. I found one with lots of pretty pictures and I turned to the section on saws. I was curious to see what kind of advice a book might offer beyond pushing and pulling the saw back and forth. There I came across an unexpected piece of advice: Think the saw down the line.
Sure, the book discussed examining the teeth of the saw, holding it at the right angle, keeping your elbow in close to your side, and other practical stuff. But here was this oddly magical recommendation in a book on wood. The writer went on to explain that generations of woodworkers have done this, and that he was passing it on because it just plain works. The idea is, rather than focusing on manipulating the saw, you focus on the line and use your intention to will the saw to follow it.
It might have sounded crazier if I hadn’t heard of a similar approach to golf. While not exactly known as a sport dominated by new agey thinkers, many golfers do step into woo-woo territory if they think it will help their game. The most common of such practices is visualizing the event as one would like it to go – for instance, a smooth swing, hitting the ball just right, the ball soaring through the air, landing on the green, and rolling into the hole.
Athletes now utilize this technique in virtually every sport, from gymnastics to skeeball. There are even studies showing that “practicing” musical instruments through intention alone (imagining oneself playing piano, for example) leads to measurable improvements in skill. And yet, I would guess that the deliberate application of intention as a success strategy (outside of sports) isn’t a practice that has made it into most people’s daily lives.
If it works on balls and saws, why not use it to make a million dollars or to find a fulfilling relationship? Here are some recommendations for translating this practice to life-creation:
- Clarify. The arc of a ball from golf club to hole is simple to visualize. The arc from, say, a new business idea to a flourishing company is less simple. This makes it harder to visualize and therefore more difficult to grease the rails with intention. You can improve your chances by developing a very clear intention statement using positive language, such as “My business will be earning $100k per month by April 2024.” You can also consider the greater arc as a dot-to-dot with numerous smaller achievements along the way, and create a “sub-intention” for each. Visualizing these shorter distances may be more manageable.
- Potentiate. You can check your intention statement for potency by saying it out loud (to yourself or a friend). How does it feel? Is there a word that needs tweaking? Is it too vague? Or does it fill you with a charge of inspiration? Keep modifying until it feels really good.
- Scribe. Write down your intention statement to make it more real. Use a nice pen and a nice piece of paper. Take your time to get it right.
- Activate. Especially for big goals, you can add potency by enacting your intention in a special way. Consider this process as a starting point: Get into a calm clear mind space, light a candle, state that this ritual is to activate and amplify this intention, and ask for the guidance and support of the universe. As you focus on your intention statement, try to get as much of your whole self on board with it. Imagine that you are making this intention not just with your voice and your mind, but with your heart, with your gut, with every cell and every atom of your being. Imagine all parts of you are aligned in proclaiming this. Let go of any resistance. Thank the universe for hearing and responding. One of my favorite additions to this process is to use a piece of our Intention Paper, writing the intention on it and burning it to transform it from matter to energy and send it out into the world.
- Sustain. In the case of throwing a dart toward a bullseye, you’re ideally holding an intention from the moment you start thinking about it until the dart hits something. That’s not a very long time. Making a million dollars will probably take a bit longer. It’s not always possible to continually hold an intention from conception to fruition, but do whatever you can to keep yourself conscious of what you’re creating. At the least, re-read your intention statement daily. Even better, visualize its actualization for five minutes a day. Even better, feel how you’re going to feel when you’re at the destination.
- Act. When you intend a golf ball to go into a hole, it’s helped along tremendously by your hitting the ball in the direction of the hole. With intention alone, it still might get there eventually, but it’s probably not a common occurrence – especially for someone who isn’t especially practiced in the art of conscious intentioning. The same goes for using intention toward life goals. Don’t put all your eggs in the intention basket, but do maximize the potential of this avenue while also taking physical steps to put yourself out there where opportunities happen.
- Notice and Receive. A vital part of effective intentioning is noticing the good things that come to you and receiving them wholeheartedly. This single step can make more difference in your life than all the others.
Whereas we often use only step six (taking physical action), practicing the other six can greatly enhance our ability to shape life as we desire. Beyond whatever tangible gains this approach might produce, I feel there are wonderful intangible benefits as well. Ultimately it builds self-trust, promotes gratitude, helps us recognize of the potent role our perception plays in our quality of life, and reminds us that choice is always available.
Be well,
Peter
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)
)
Thank you so much for these excellent articles!
I am wondering, do you have any advice in dealing with the upcoming time change? I experience a slight anxiety each spring and fall when daylight savings changes. What is the best way to transition the body to the back and forth of this?
Hi Dini,
You’re welcome. I’m glad you’ve liked them.
As for the time change, I think the best thing you can do is stay connected to the earth. The earth element in Chinese thought is considered to be the most stable. The earth always spins on its axis at the same rate, always revolves around the sun at the same pace, the plates of the earth move at an incredibly slow pace, earthen structures (like the pyramids) last a long, long time. So there’s a consistency to it, and by spending lots of time outdoors, you’ll be more aligned with the earth itself and its innate consistency. Because, of course, nothing is really changing except what we’re CALLING the current time. I think the more time you spend outside, the easier this will be.
Another option could be this: As we approach Daylight Savings (the spring forward, where we’re calling the time an hour later than it really is), if you have a schedule that requires that you start work at the same time each day, you’re basically going to need to wake up an hour earlier than you have been, so, if possible, you could prepare for that shift by gradually waking up earlier each day until you’re waking up an hour earlier than your usual time. Then, when the clocks change, you’ll wake at the same (new) time you’ve gotten used to, but it will now be your “old” time. At the other end (fall) in preparation to “fall back” you could potentially wake a little later each day until you’re waking an hour late. (The only issue, of course, is that with the spring time change your bedtime will suddenly change, too, but you can gradually adjust to that, too, after the change happens.)
Hope that helps.
Thank you so much for your wonderful articles! I really resonated with bringing more conscious awareness to these cycles and am enjoying a deeper connection to my body’s rhythms from this new knowledge. Amazing!
You’re welcome, Esme. I’m glad these articles have benefited you!
Be well,
Peter
Thank you so much for this series! I ran into this concept a little while before you published part 1, and you’ve really clarified a lot for me. I’m wondering, is it different in any way for children? And is there an ideal time for lunch or is that excluded? Thank you!
You’re welcome. The same general flow applies to kids. Lunch isn’t specifically addressed by this system, but I think having it around noon makes sense for two reasons. One is that in Ayurvedic medicine, the sun, as a ball of fire, is considered to parallel the rise and fall of our digestive fire; so the digestive fire is seen as strongest when the sun is highest in the sky. Second is that Small Intestine time is from 1-3, and it takes some time for the food to get to the small intestine after consuming it.
Be well,
Peter