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When Briana and I were creating the Dragontree Life Coach training program, we had lots and lots of meetings to discuss the curriculum. During one of those meetings I suddenly remembered something that happened in a classroom about 20 years earlier . . .
I was in graduate school for Asian medicine and I was taking a course in a subtle form of healing called Jin Shin Do. It involves touching acupuncture points on a patient’s body with minimal pressure. The idea isn’t to give a massage or manipulate the tissue, but to simply make contact, forming circuits between the points and supporting them to perform their therapeutic functions.
At the same time, I was studying massage, herbal medicine, and acupuncture – modalities where both practitioner and patient could agree that something more “obvious” was being done. In comparison I had some doubts about whether Jin Shin Do would accomplish anything, but I was pleasantly surprised. As the weeks passed and my classmates and I treated each other, we all noticed improvements in our physical and psychological health. And because the intervention was so gentle, there weren’t any side effects.
I was especially amazed at how recipients’ experiences were affected when the practitioners were secretly instructed to hold a certain mental focus during the treatment. For instance, sometimes the instructor would have the practitioners think about what they were going to make for dinner, or about their finances, or to keep the word “love” in mind while touching the recipient.
One focus resulted in the best experiences for the recipients. When the practitioners were told (without the recipients’ knowledge) to hold in mind the phrase “I am here for you,” the recipients reported feeling the deepest relaxation, profound peace, and a sense of trust in the process. (Unsurprisingly, when the practitioners spent the session thinking about dinner or money, the recipients reported that it didn’t feel like the treatment did anything).
Though it was a fleeting experience, it taught me a lot about what humans want and how we can best support each other. When it came to developing the coaching curriculum, this memory shaped our approach. While it may sound great to be able to solve people’s problems for them, often it’s even more supportive to be a steadfast presence for them – to “hold space” so they can safely feel and explore what’s happening for them . . . and discover the solution themselves.
This recognition sometimes comes as a big relief to coaches (or anyone in the healing arts) because it means you don’t have to have all the answers. In fact, I think it’s safe to say you’ll never have them. You can let yourself off the hook.
If you care for people and like to help, if you feel joy from seeing someone grow and develop their superpowers, you can do this. If you’re able to say, “I am here for you,” you’re able to support healing and evolution. And if you’d like some instruction in doing this work – some heart-centered, compassionate, holistic, nature-based, and thoroughly beautiful instruction – please check out our Dragontree Life Coaching Program.
Be well,
Peter
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We recently opened enrollment for this year’s life coach training program, which always feels exciting to me. There’s a buzz of activity as the new participants get oriented and we’re introduced to the next group of open-hearted individuals who are devoting themselves to helping others. First everyone goes through an eight-week program called Sacred Expansion which is kind of like “cleaning house” before we get into the details of how to help others.
Of the many topics we cover in the coaching curriculum, one that people often mention as being both incredibly basic and incredibly life changing is our relationship with agreements. Agreements can be seen as a primary tool of creation. Ideally, the process begins with getting in touch with the impulse to create – what is sometimes called “divine will” – and is informed by your life purpose. This way the effort comes with its own batteries, rather than draining us. Having a clear vision and setting a clear intention of what we want to create are also important.
When we then make an agreement (or agreements) in service to this intention – with ourselves, with others, with the universe – we initiate what my teacher Matt Garrigan called “a contract for fulfillment.” We engage the power of our word. And as we follow through on our agreements, momentum builds and opportunities arise. It never fails.
Except when it does.
The problem is, we often make agreements without any of the consciousness I described above, and then we consider it no big deal to break those agreements. While we might recognize, sadly, that what we intended never materialized, we often have a blind spot around the fact that we didn’t keep the agreements we made to support the intention. One of the things our coaches learn is how to bring clarity to this process for their clients (in a non-blamey way); it’s very gratifying for both the coach and the client. Not only does the client start achieving their goals, most importantly, they learn to trust themselves and their power.
Today I’m going to share with you a basic method for rebuilding the self-trust that’s diminished by broken agreements.
When we make agreements with others, most of us understand the consequences of breaking them. If you break agreements with your boss, you might lose your job. If you break agreements with your friends, you might lose your friends. If you break agreements with family, you might hurt their feelings and lose their trust. In all cases, a relationship will be damaged.
So, what happens when you don’t keep an agreement with yourself? It’s not so different, really. A relationship is damaged, it’s just harder to see. Let’s say you decide to work out every day for a month but you quit after five days. There doesn’t seem to be anyone getting screwed by breaking this agreement. Nobody is mad at you. Of course you’ll let yourself off the hook. But your self-trust is eroded.
If you forgot to pick up your child from school, you would probably make it a priority to regain their trust because you care so much about the relationship. But, chances are, you don’t do that when you break an agreement with yourself. You may be barely aware that an agreement was broken. This matters in many big and small ways.
If you serially break agreements with yourself – you don’t get things done when you say you’ll get them done, you don’t wake up when you say you’ll wake up, you don’t treat your body as healthily as you tell yourself you will – the material consequences are unfortunate, but small. The bigger consequences are things like not being able to count on yourself or giving up your big dreams for ones that are more “realistic” given your history. If you have a habit of breaking agreements with yourself, and now you want to do something big and important, your mind will have a lot of evidence to undermine you.
Here are four important steps for reestablishing self-trust.
1: Become clear about what constitutes an agreement and be conscious of the agreements you make. If you had a passing thought about washing the car and then it didn’t get done, is this a broken agreement? Well, you need to decide that (before it happens). I recommend choosing a format for making official agreements with yourself and sticking to it. If you want to make agreement with yourself to wash the car, you might think to yourself, “I agree to wash the car today,” or you might say it out loud, or you might write it down. Just come up with the terms for what constitutes an actual agreement.
2: Be forthright and clean with yourself. You know whether you meant something to be an agreement or not, and you can’t really hide from yourself. But we pretend to hide, keeping our agreements nebulous, by maintaining a cloudy mental environment. Did I say ONE more game of Candy Crush and then I’d walk the dog? I think I meant to say SIXTY games…Or, I know I planned to work out today, but what I meant was that I would work out unless something more important came up. Be honest. As you distractedly lift your two pound dumbbells while watching The Late Show, ask yourself, Is THIS what I intended when I agreed to work out every morning? Do your best. Think about the quality of participation a boss or client would expect of you, and deliver at that level to yourself.
3: Don’t make too many agreements, especially as you begin this process. If you wanted to get an estranged friend to trust you again after you missed five consecutive lunch dates, you wouldn’t start out by offering to edit their thesis, refinish their floors, and meet them to watch the sunrise every day for a year. You’d be setting yourself up for more damaged trust. Instead, you might ask them earnestly to give you one more chance at lunch, and you’d make sure to get there a half hour early.
The process of reestablishing self-trust starts with baby steps. For the first few days, you might want your only official agreements to be things you’d probably do anyway, like, Wake up by no later than 7 o’clock, and, Have dinner ready by 6:30. Do this so you can become more conscious of your agreements with yourself and the be sure to keep them. Over time, you can add a bit more to your list. But never make an agreement you think you’re likely to break.
4: Clean up broken agreements. Treat yourself like a friend. If you broke an agreement with a friend, you would acknowledge the damage that was done (“I feel terrible about missing your show. I’m really sorry. I cherish you as a friend and I want to be there for you.”). And you might do something special the next time you saw them (like bringing them flowers or helping them with a project) to demonstrate your interest in fixing the relationship.
Likewise, if you break an agreement with yourself, rather than beating yourself up, acknowledge and repair the damage. Believe it or not, there really is a hurt part of yourself – a part of you that takes these broken agreements to mean, I don’t need to keep my agreements with you, because you don’t matter. Affirm to yourself that you do matter and that you can be trusted. Then make a new agreement that goes beyond the one you broke, and be sure to keep it. Or, if you broke the agreement because it wasn’t a realistic agreement (which means you had no business making it in the first place), make a new agreement about something that supports you in another way (some act of self care, for instance), and keep it. Be a person of integrity.
Eventually, you’ll have an impressive mental dossier on your trustworthiness. In essence, you will have demonstrated to yourself hundreds or thousands of times that what you say is going to happen … happens. Then your word will be as good as law. When you say to yourself, I’m going to change the world, there will be a mountain of evidence to indicate that big things are coming. If anything is out of whack in your life, turn back to your agreements, start keeping them, and watch how things fall into place.
If you’re intrigued by the idea of teaching this to others, guiding them through the process of coming into their power and sharing their gifts with the world – then check out our coaching program. Enrollment will be open until April, but Early Bird Pricing ends Tuesday Feb 23rd at midnight!
Be well,
Peter
P.S. One more hint: when you’re in a state of trust, your heart will feel open. When you’re not trusting, your heart will feel tight, clenched, or closed. Tune in.
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In Part One of this article, I introduced a system for understanding foods, herbs, and drugs based loosely on the way certain systems of herbal medicine classify herbs. In short, at one end of the spectrum are substances that are completely benign to virtually all humans. In terms of their energetics (moisture, temperature, and other qualities), they are entirely neutral. This means they are harmless, but they also have almost no potential to correct imbalances of health. You’d find water and rice near this end of the scale.
At the other end of the spectrum are substances that are so strong or “polarized” in one or more respects that they are always damaging. This means they have huge potential to change major imbalances of health, but they tend to do so at a high price. Most chemotherapy drugs fall near this end of the scale. They might destroy all the cancer cells in one’s body, though they may kill the body in the process.
I’ll direct you again to this diagram:
If we define drugs by the same characteristics as herbs, we’d find that a drug with the main quality of being drying – like a nasal decongestant – will tend to be extremely drying in comparison with any herb, nutrient, or food. This means that it’s likely to work faster than an herb, it’s likely to be stronger than an herb, and it’s much more likely than an herb to produce side effects. When you feel “drugged” on cold medicine, it’s due to the relatively unbalanced nature of the substance. However, depending on how bad your cold symptoms are, this may be a tolerable side effect.
Besides the fact that herbs usually have a less extreme nature than drugs with comparable properties, most herbs in their whole state contain complementary compounds that make them less prone to cause imbalance, whereas drugs are usually single compounds without any built in balance. Thus, many drugs with the potential for great value, due to their strong and rapid effects, also have the worst side effects.
When we make extracts from herbs, modifying them to potentiate a certain action, this tends to shift them toward the red/right end of the diagram. Meaning, they’re generally stronger, more rapidly acting, and also less balanced with a somewhat higher potential for side effects. I used to have a patient who needed tincture of opium for chronic diarrhea, and it was quite a valuable and balanced medicine for her. It barely affected her mood and did an excellent job of slowing her bowels down. But one day, her insurance stopped paying for it, and she was required to use a cheaper and more common alternative – morphine. Whereas tincture of opium is a relatively complete extract of the seed capsule of the opium poppy, morphine is a single isolated chemical. Consequently, it’s much less mild and balanced. It didn’t work well for her diarrhea, but she became addicted to its euphoric effects. It took us years to wean her off it.
While herbs are my preferred medicines, my background is as a scientist, so I’m not one of those alternative medicine zealots who dismisses everything about biomedicine and drugs. If I happened to be one of a small group of lucky humans who survived an apocalyptic event, you can bet one of the first places I’d go would be a hospital, where I would load up on antibiotics, epinephrine, prednisone, and a few other emergency drugs for short term life-saving use.
But when it’s not an emergency (and even occasionally when it is), I almost always opt for herbs over drugs, and part of the reason is this: for any given therapeutic purpose, if we were to compare the appropriate drug to a comparable herb (or, more likely, a formula of herbs), the herbs would fall to the left of the drug on this scale. That is, they would produce the same effect, but with a much lower potential for harm. Furthermore, in the way that I use them, I expect most good herbal formulas to support one’s deeper health in a way that tends to be more lasting than the benefits of a pharmaceutical.
Incidentally, depending on the herb and the dose used, herbs can, of course, cause side effects and damage (see how far that yellow bar labeled “HERBS” stretches to the right?). Most of the herbs that we think of as poisonous also have strong medicinal properties. Usually the difference between medicinal and toxic is just a matter of dose. Also, as with pharmaceuticals, sometimes a certain degree of toxicity is considered tolerable in trade for the medicinal value.
So, think about the cost of the medicines you take. Even if you’re not experiencing side effects, remember that with longer term use there is an increasing tendency for a substance to start to push you out of balance. Next week, I’ll discuss foods – where they fall on this spectrum, and their potential to harm and heal.
Be well,
Dr. Peter Borten
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When Briana and I were creating the Dragontree Life Coach training program, we had lots and lots of meetings to discuss the curriculum. During one of those meetings I suddenly remembered something that happened in a classroom about 20 years earlier . . .
I was in graduate school for Asian medicine and I was taking a course in a subtle form of healing called Jin Shin Do. It involves touching acupuncture points on a patient’s body with minimal pressure. The idea isn’t to give a massage or manipulate the tissue, but to simply make contact, forming circuits between the points and supporting them to perform their therapeutic functions.
At the same time, I was studying massage, herbal medicine, and acupuncture – modalities where both practitioner and patient could agree that something more “obvious” was being done. In comparison I had some doubts about whether Jin Shin Do would accomplish anything, but I was pleasantly surprised. As the weeks passed and my classmates and I treated each other, we all noticed improvements in our physical and psychological health. And because the intervention was so gentle, there weren’t any side effects.
I was especially amazed at how recipients’ experiences were affected when the practitioners were secretly instructed to hold a certain mental focus during the treatment. For instance, sometimes the instructor would have the practitioners think about what they were going to make for dinner, or about their finances, or to keep the word “love” in mind while touching the recipient.
One focus resulted in the best experiences for the recipients. When the practitioners were told (without the recipients’ knowledge) to hold in mind the phrase “I am here for you,” the recipients reported feeling the deepest relaxation, profound peace, and a sense of trust in the process. (Unsurprisingly, when the practitioners spent the session thinking about dinner or money, the recipients reported that it didn’t feel like the treatment did anything).
Though it was a fleeting experience, it taught me a lot about what humans want and how we can best support each other. When it came to developing the coaching curriculum, this memory shaped our approach. While it may sound great to be able to solve people’s problems for them, often it’s even more supportive to be a steadfast presence for them – to “hold space” so they can safely feel and explore what’s happening for them . . . and discover the solution themselves.
This recognition sometimes comes as a big relief to coaches (or anyone in the healing arts) because it means you don’t have to have all the answers. In fact, I think it’s safe to say you’ll never have them. You can let yourself off the hook.
If you care for people and like to help, if you feel joy from seeing someone grow and develop their superpowers, you can do this. If you’re able to say, “I am here for you,” you’re able to support healing and evolution. And if you’d like some instruction in doing this work – some heart-centered, compassionate, holistic, nature-based, and thoroughly beautiful instruction – please check out our Dragontree Life Coaching Program.
Be well,
Peter
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I like what you said: “You can control only your own experience.” This is key to resolving conflict. I cannot control the other person’s behavior. You also mentioned “being curious” about the other’s perception and goals. The key to this is to try to state the other’s point of view in a way that he or she says, “Yes, that’s right.” You don’t have to agree with it, you just have to understand it. And encourage the other person to express the same about your perception and goals. Mutually doing this slows down confrontation and speeds up conversation. Thanks for posting this.
Thank you for being so wonderful.
Great thoughtful processes to consider. Thanks for sharing.
Thank you for your kind words
Great advice. Brilliant and simply put -direct. Thank you. I will definitely take your suggestions forward.
Thank you so much.
Really helpful Brianna. Thanks so much for sharing.