Cart

Conversations with Briana: What If

How much do you what if? What if, what if, what if. Do you ever find yourself stuck in a cycle of “what iffing” your whole future and fearing that all sorts of bad things will happen and everything will go wrong…even though you have no logical reason to entertain all these exaggerated worries over and over in your mind? We all do it. In this video, Briana shares a simple yet very effective approach to getting out of these what if mental ruts.

If you have experience with this common problem, or tactics that have helped you shift your trajectory towards a more positive state, please share in the comments below!

4 thoughts on “Conversations with Briana: What If”

07 / 04/ 18 | Linda

Briana,
What if I hadn’t listened to this and deleted it?! I’m so glad I did! It’s simple, realistic and to the point and really got me thinking. Just wanted to say thank you for sharing this. I loved it and will share it with people I am close to also. 🙂

Reply
1. 07 / 04/ 18 | Briana Borten
  
  Thank you Linda.
  
  Reply
07 / 05/ 18 | Jennifer

Thank you, I just emailed my boss about wanting a raise and all I could think was a ton of “What if’s”. This really made me think and calm down. Thank you so very much!

Reply
1. 07 / 12/ 18 | Briana Borten
  
  Wonderful!
  
  Reply

Leave a Comment Cancel reply

***UPDATE: The workshop below is now closed, but stay tuned because we will have a whole new Free Workshop Series for 2020!***

Our challenges are part of our path. Click here to RSVP to Briana's free Heart Service workshop and share your path to Heart Service. [post_title] => Conversations with Briana: Learning From Challenges [post_excerpt] => [post_status] => publish [comment_status] => open [ping_status] => open [post_password] => [post_name] => conversations-briana-learning-challenges [to_ping] => [pinged] => [post_modified] => 2019-06-28 19:19:31 [post_modified_gmt] => 2019-06-28 19:19:31 [post_content_filtered] => [post_parent] => 0 [guid] => http://thedragontree.com/?p=6969 [menu_order] => 0 [post_type] => post [post_mime_type] => [comment_count] => 12 [filter] => raw [webinar_id] => 0 ) [1] => WP_Post Object ( [ID] => 7794 [post_author] => 3 [post_date] => 2020-02-11 19:53:39 [post_date_gmt] => 2020-02-11 19:53:39 [post_content] => As a younger adult, I often had mixed feelings about Valentine’s Day. If I was single, I felt left out. If I was in a relationship, I felt obligated to participate in all the Hallmarky ways. But over the years I’ve come to a place of ease and enjoyment around it. Being married to someone who loves holidays and freely reimagines them, I’ve learned to appreciate the opportunities they provide (to tune in, to remember the sweetness, etc.) and to take liberties to personalize them. I choose to experience Valentine’s Day as a celebration of LOVE in all its forms. The V-Day industry focuses mainly on the passionate, romantic type of love (lingerie and roses anyone?) – known in Greek as eros. And eros is delicious, but it’s just one of the many kinds of love. Next there’s familial love – AKA storge – that love between parents and children, between siblings, between cousins, between aunts and uncles and nephews and nieces. It’s often called an “instinctual” love because it so naturally occurs between those who share blood and living space. There’s usually an unspoken sense of safety within the storge container. There’s a unique bond to having shared the same recipes, the same challenges, the same vacations, the same clothes, etc., with these folks. Then there’s the love of friends, or platonic love – AKA philia – sometimes called “brotherly love,” though more in the way that your friends become like brothers and sisters. We don’t always have romantic partners, and we sometimes lose or become estranged from family, so for many people platonic love is the most stable, abundant, and important form in their lives. The great potential of platonic love is that we can include so many souls in it. We’re limited as to how many family members we can add, and most romantic relationships are monogamous, but it’s fully possible to have brotherly/sisterly love for hundreds or thousands of humans – and in so doing, to dissolve the sense of separation between ourselves and the rest of the world. Some make a separate distinction for hospitality – guest love (xenia) – or the way we treat strangers and visitors when we’re in the position of host. While it may seem less significant than the previous forms of love – eros, storge, and philia – there’s something beautiful and virtuous about rising to this occasion. Think of someone you know who is the quintessential host – you feel cared for, you feel your needs are being anticipated, you never feel unwelcome. Can you humble yourself and serve in that way? This form of love is one of the main driving forces behind the Dragontree and to a great extent it arose from my wife’s natural aptitude for it. If you haven’t been to one of our spas, come experience it sometime! Next is Divine love or unconditional love – agape. Agape describes a kind of love that transcends any causes or conditions. It transcends our humanness – it doesn’t come with any strings and it isn’t stoked by the needs of the body or mind. It’s the broadest form of love. In religious contexts, it’s the term for the love of God – from God to human, from human to God, and from God through human to all of the universe. Finally, there’s love of oneself – philautia. Self-love has often been regarded with some scorn, especially in the past, before the advent of modern psychology and the great leap in understanding of human needs that came with it. It was previously conflated with arrogance and pride, but pure self-love is entirely positive. It’s the way all of us should feel about ourselves – and I don’t use the word “should” to mean that you’re bad or wrong if you don’t love yourself. I mean it to indicate that if you were able to sweep away all of the sad, outdated, judgmental – and ultimately meaningless – criticisms of yourself aside, you would have no reason to deny yourself love. You would see how it only hurts you to withhold love from yourself. So if you’re looking for a fresh and expansive experience this Valentine’s Day (or anytime) I invite you to consider these various forms of love and devote yourself to one of them. Is there one that you’ve had trouble with? What gets in the way of letting the love arise freely in you and flow outward? Can you let the love itself melt the blockages and do its loving thing? Please share about your experience below! So much love, Peter [post_title] => The Six Forms of Love [post_excerpt] => [post_status] => publish [comment_status] => open [ping_status] => open [post_password] => [post_name] => the-six-forms-of-love [to_ping] => [pinged] => [post_modified] => 2020-02-11 20:00:13 [post_modified_gmt] => 2020-02-11 20:00:13 [post_content_filtered] => [post_parent] => 0 [guid] => http://thedragontree.com/?p=7794 [menu_order] => 0 [post_type] => post [post_mime_type] => [comment_count] => 7 [filter] => raw [webinar_id] => 0 ) [2] => WP_Post Object ( [ID] => 6828 [post_author] => 3 [post_date] => 2017-12-06 20:40:56 [post_date_gmt] => 2017-12-06 20:40:56 [post_content] => In August, Briana and I released a book called Rituals for Transformation. It’s a three-month process in which you read a short lesson each day about the body, mind, or spirit; meditate on it; write a bit about it; and be open to having your life change. I expected people to have transformative experiences with it, but I’ve still been amazed by all the inspiring stories our readers have shared. I also expected people to experience some pushing of their buttons, and I haven’t been disappointed. We set up an online discussion group where participants share their challenges, and as much as I enjoy hearing about healing and revelation, I’m just as pleased to hear about the hurdles and to see the ways people support each other. Although it has become clear that not every person is ready for every teaching at any given moment, it’s also clear that those who are the most resistant to a certain lesson are often the most “ripe” for it. Speaking of resistance, one reader was stuck on this lesson: Who would I be if I had no resistance? Today’s lesson lies entirely in what you can learn from asking yourself a single question and being willing to hear the answer. Ask yourself as often as you think of it – especially when you feel uncomfortable, bored, upset, critical, disappointed, impatient, unhappy, tired, blocked, or anything other than peaceful. We encourage you to direct the question not just to your mind, but also your body, your soul, and your Highest Self. There is no additional explanation to offer; let the question go deep within you and receive the guidance that comes. What his mind came up with was that without resistance he would have no ambition, he would become irresponsible, he would get taken advantage of by others, and he would lose his physical fitness. It was a great response because it highlights just how much our minds are invested in resistance, and therefore, in conflict. But is it really resistance that drives us? There is a lot of energy in resistance because it engages our survival mechanisms. If we feel we’re involved in a conflict, it gives our mind something to fight with and turns on stress responses which liberate reserves of energy. (Incidentally, these reserves are best saved for legitimate survival situations, and tapping them habitually eventually leads to exhaustion.) It’s exciting, in a way, to have something to resist, so we’re enticed by stories of things that outrage us. But is this the source of our will to actualize our potential, or does it actually get in the way? I don’t want to assign you an answer to that question, because it’s important to experience it for yourself and come to your own understanding, but I would like to introduce a concept from the Tantric texts of India as food for thought. I like this philosophical framework because it’s so clear, and, because it’s relatively unknown in the West, people have fewer preconceptions about it. In this system (Nondual Shaiva Tantra) the Supreme Consciousness (AKA God, Goddess, Universe, Dao, or whatever other term you like) has two main forms: Shiva is the term for the Divine in transcendent form – timeless, formless, ungraspable (note that this use of Shiva differs somewhat from the concept of Shiva as a Hindu deity). And Shakti is the term for the Divine in immanent form, meaning perceivable through the senses and mind. Shiva and Shakti are one interdependent whole, but it’s sometimes useful to be able to discuss them separately. The term Shakti also means power, and there are five main expressions of this power. For our purposes, I’ll discuss three. Iccha Shakti is the term for creative impulse. Jnana Shakti means the power of knowledge. Kriya Shakti means the power of action. Thus, the Iccha Shakti, the urge for expression, is the basic will to play in this world. Jnana Shakti, the power of knowledge, shapes this urge through any of myriad structures – music, words, dance, art, devotion, etc. And Kriya Shakti, the power of action, makes this expression a reality. If you have set up your life in such a way that these powers have the freedom to move through you, through your work and deeds, then there’s no need to engage your stress mechanisms for an extra trickle of energy. It’s possible that this power may direct you to do work that involves some degree of conflict. For instance, you may find yourself moved to provide access to clean water for people who don’t have it, and in that capacity, you may discover that you are in opposition to corporations who seek to control water sources. Yet even in such a scenario, it’s worth considering, is it the resistance to such corporations that drives you, or is it something else? What parallels to this scenario exist in your life? Where have you found yourself seeming to derive power from resistance? Does the resistance make you more – or less – effective at taking purposeful action? Is it actually the fight that moves you, or is it something deeper? If the conflicts disappeared, would you just lie in bed drooling on yourself, or might there be something that still motivates you? Let me know what you discover. Be well, Dr. Peter Borten [post_title] => What Drives You? [post_excerpt] => [post_status] => publish [comment_status] => open [ping_status] => open [post_password] => [post_name] => what-drives-you [to_ping] => [pinged] => [post_modified] => 2019-07-02 22:49:08 [post_modified_gmt] => 2019-07-02 22:49:08 [post_content_filtered] => [post_parent] => 0 [guid] => http://www.thedragontree.com/?p=6828 [menu_order] => 0 [post_type] => post [post_mime_type] => [comment_count] => 5 [filter] => raw [webinar_id] => 0 ) ) [post_count] => 3 [current_post] => -1 [in_the_loop] => [post] => WP_Post Object ( [ID] => 6969 [post_author] => 5 [post_date] => 2018-04-09 17:27:34 [post_date_gmt] => 2018-04-09 17:27:34 [post_content] => In this video, Briana offers some potent illumination on a new way of experiencing challenging times in our lives for maximum benefit...without avoiding them or bypassing them.

***UPDATE: The workshop below is now closed, but stay tuned because we will have a whole new Free Workshop Series for 2020!***

You may also be interested in:

Conversations with Briana: Learning From Challenges

The Dragontree

Conversations with Briana: What If

4 thoughts on “Conversations with Briana: What If”

Leave a Comment Cancel reply

The Dragontree and its Founders have been Featured in