WP_Query Object
(
[query] => Array
(
[category__in] => Array
(
[0] => 19
)
[post__not_in] => Array
(
[0] => 6654
)
[posts_per_page] => 50
[ignore_sticky_posts] => 1
[orderby] => desc
[_shuffle_and_pick] => 3
)
[query_vars] => Array
(
[category__in] => Array
(
[0] => 19
)
[post__not_in] => Array
(
[0] => 6654
)
[posts_per_page] => 50
[ignore_sticky_posts] => 1
[orderby] => desc
[_shuffle_and_pick] => 3
[error] =>
[m] =>
[p] => 0
[post_parent] =>
[subpost] =>
[subpost_id] =>
[attachment] =>
[attachment_id] => 0
[name] =>
[pagename] =>
[page_id] => 0
[second] =>
[minute] =>
[hour] =>
[day] => 0
[monthnum] => 0
[year] => 0
[w] => 0
[category_name] => peter-borten
[tag] =>
[cat] => 19
[tag_id] =>
[author] =>
[author_name] =>
[feed] =>
[tb] =>
[paged] => 0
[meta_key] =>
[meta_value] =>
[preview] =>
[s] =>
[sentence] =>
[title] =>
[fields] =>
[menu_order] =>
[embed] =>
[category__not_in] => Array
(
)
[category__and] => Array
(
)
[post__in] => Array
(
)
[post_name__in] => Array
(
)
[tag__in] => Array
(
)
[tag__not_in] => Array
(
)
[tag__and] => Array
(
)
[tag_slug__in] => Array
(
)
[tag_slug__and] => Array
(
)
[post_parent__in] => Array
(
)
[post_parent__not_in] => Array
(
)
[author__in] => Array
(
)
[author__not_in] => Array
(
)
[search_columns] => Array
(
)
[suppress_filters] =>
[cache_results] => 1
[update_post_term_cache] => 1
[update_menu_item_cache] =>
[lazy_load_term_meta] => 1
[update_post_meta_cache] => 1
[post_type] =>
[nopaging] =>
[comments_per_page] => 50
[no_found_rows] =>
[order] => DESC
)
[tax_query] => WP_Tax_Query Object
(
[queries] => Array
(
[0] => Array
(
[taxonomy] => category
[terms] => Array
(
[0] => 19
)
[field] => term_id
[operator] => IN
[include_children] =>
)
)
[relation] => AND
[table_aliases:protected] => Array
(
[0] => wp_term_relationships
)
[queried_terms] => Array
(
[category] => Array
(
[terms] => Array
(
[0] => 19
)
[field] => term_id
)
)
[primary_table] => wp_posts
[primary_id_column] => ID
)
[meta_query] => WP_Meta_Query Object
(
[queries] => Array
(
)
[relation] =>
[meta_table] =>
[meta_id_column] =>
[primary_table] =>
[primary_id_column] =>
[table_aliases:protected] => Array
(
)
[clauses:protected] => Array
(
)
[has_or_relation:protected] =>
)
[date_query] =>
[request] =>
SELECT SQL_CALC_FOUND_ROWS wp_posts.ID
FROM wp_posts LEFT JOIN wp_term_relationships ON (wp_posts.ID = wp_term_relationships.object_id)
WHERE 1=1 AND wp_posts.ID NOT IN (6654) AND (
wp_term_relationships.term_taxonomy_id IN (19)
) AND ((wp_posts.post_type = 'post' AND (wp_posts.post_status = 'publish' OR wp_posts.post_status = 'acf-disabled')))
AND ID NOT IN
(SELECT `post_id` FROM wp_postmeta
WHERE `meta_key` = '_pilotpress_level'
AND `meta_value` IN ('','employee')
AND `post_id` NOT IN
(SELECT `post_id` FROM wp_postmeta
WHERE `meta_key` = '_pilotpress_level'
AND `meta_value` IN ('' )))
GROUP BY wp_posts.ID
ORDER BY wp_posts.post_date DESC
LIMIT 0, 50
[posts] => Array
(
[0] => WP_Post Object
(
[ID] => 6766
[post_author] => 3
[post_date] => 2017-09-26 18:26:41
[post_date_gmt] => 2017-09-26 18:26:41
[post_content] =>
If we hear a saying enough – especially at an impressionable time and/or spoken by someone we respect – we may accept it without applying critical thinking to determine if it’s actually true. For me, one such saying was, “People don’t change.”
As a young adult I heard it said by a guy I looked up to, and I remember thinking he must be wise. He stated it with triumph and bitterness – as a keen insight that would allow him to never be hurt again.
In writing this article, I googled “people don’t change” and “people can’t change” and got about 4 million hits for each phrase. Clearly this is a prevalent idea. But is it true?
When psychologists Dan Gilbert, Jordi Quoidbach, and Timothy Wilson set out to investigate perceptions of personal change, they discovered something surprising: most people believe that they have gotten all of their changing over with. Interviews with 19,000 participants revealed that young people, middle aged people, and old people all saw themselves as having changed a lot in the past, but believed they had more or less “arrived” at who they would be from now on. The scientists called this the “end of history illusion.” They used the word “illusion” because . . . we’re almost always wrong.
Perhaps this widespread view of ourselves as unlikely to change spills over onto what we expect of others – i.e., that they won’t change either. But we might ask, when someone believes that people don’t change, did it originate as a rational assessment of the likelihood of change? Or did it begin as a way of saving face, as in, “It may look like I got blindsided, but I actually saw this coming – because people don’t change.” Or as ammo for self-punishment, as in, “I’m a fool. I should have seen this coming – because people don’t change.” Or as the basis for blaming others for our pain, as in, “I was relying on you to become different so that I could be happy, but I’m not happy – because people don’t change.”
I happen to be in the business of tracking change. A few folks come to me for health maintenance, but I like to empower people to do most of their maintenance themselves, so the majority of my patient visits are from humans wanting the same thing: change. They want their body to change or their mind to change or their life circumstances to change. Because my task is to help facilitate this change, a significant part of my job is to be a change tracker. As a change tracker, I can assure you, people change all the time, often dramatically. If they didn’t, I’d feel like a charlatan.
But of course, we all have recurring patterns. In Vedic philosophy, these are considered to be expressions of our samskaras – the imprints of past experiences. Samskara literally means “impression” – like a footprint in the sand or a groove cut in the earth – and we tend to fall into them over and over, just as water naturally follows ruts in the land. Likewise, as experiences “flow” through our consciousness, they are manipulated by these contours of our psyche. Our capacity for discernment, called the buddhi, is said to be impaired by the presence of samskaras because they cause us to see things differently than they really are.
Scientists in the field of psychoneuroimmunology discovered that there’s a biological basis for this behavior. The repetition of the same thoughts, feelings, or behaviors strengthens a particular neurological pathway. These neurons “wire together” making a more efficient channel for nerve impulses to flow through, much like a groove in the sand. This increases the likelihood of our continuing to repeat the thought / feeling / behavior and thus to further strengthen the pathway and increase the potential to revisit it.
What can we do about this? There are many useful strategies, most of which amount to the cultivation of clear vision and perspective. Traditionally, this is one of the central purposes of yoga – meditation, specifically – which is said to be like polishing the dirty mirror of the buddhi so that it provides accurate reflections.
Meditation is like walking to the top of a mountain, where we can see the big picture (something impossible to do when we’re stuck in a rut in the ground). Here we can determine our most efficient course of action. Here we see the grooves of samskaras and “fill them in” through forgiveness, love, and acceptance. Here we can see the ways we have changed, and, indeed, see that big change is inevitable for ourselves and everyone else.
Take a few minutes today for a mental fast. Close your eyes and allow yourself to rise above the chattering and judgements, the push and pull of emotions, and perceive what kind of change would bring you into closer alignment with your inner being. Then set an intention to allow this change to happen. Perhaps even ask your highest self to reconfigure you to experience peace more readily. A change is gonna come.
Be well,
Dr. Peter Borten
[post_title] => Can You Change?
[post_excerpt] =>
[post_status] => publish
[comment_status] => open
[ping_status] => open
[post_password] =>
[post_name] => change-is-coming
[to_ping] =>
[pinged] =>
[post_modified] => 2017-09-26 20:12:22
[post_modified_gmt] => 2017-09-26 20:12:22
[post_content_filtered] =>
[post_parent] => 0
[guid] => http://www.thedragontree.com/?p=6766
[menu_order] => 0
[post_type] => post
[post_mime_type] =>
[comment_count] => 28
[filter] => raw
[webinar_id] => 0
)
[1] => WP_Post Object
(
[ID] => 6648
[post_author] => 5
[post_date] => 2017-04-25 19:29:33
[post_date_gmt] => 2017-04-25 19:29:33
[post_content] =>
Some years ago, I was apprenticing under an elder practitioner, and we stepped into the treatment room to meet a tan, muscular guy with a crushing handshake, a loud voice, and a surplus of confidence. “I just need a tune up,” he yelled immediately, lest we consider for even a moment that there could be anything wrong with him. He went on describe a life of conquest and wealth, from climbing Mount Everest to buying, selling, and merging companies. He was also kind enough to share his personal credo: that everyone should maintain a “cash cushion” of at least a million dollars – just in case. The only health issue he could think of was an old ankle injury.
But my mentor was a healer of spirits, not ankles. And I could sense, as he felt the patient’s pulses and asked polite questions, that he was smelling, seeing, hearing, and feeling information on another dimension. We stepped out of the room and he said, “The bigger the front, the bigger the back.”
I’m sure you get the gist of this expression even if you’re not familiar with it. You’ve heard about the preacher who foams at the mouth about moral depravity and then gets caught with a prostitute. In this patient’s case, we didn’t uncover anything scandalous, just a cowering core of insecurity and isolation that made all his accomplishments feel worthless. He had so much invested in the “front” in order to avoid revealing or confronting the “back.” To use the Japanese terminology from last week, we could see these fronts and backs as jitsu (“jit-soo”) and kyo (“kee-oh”).
If a kyo is an inner weakness, instability, or deficiency, a jitsu is the resulting drive to protect, acquire, and resist. Greed is always a jitsu emanating from some misunderstood or unrecognized kyo, and the same is usually the case with other strong drives that benefit only the individual’s ego or pocketbook.
Psychologists and philosophers have been digging for the secret kyos behind pathological behaviors for centuries. Many kyos would fall under what Carl Jung referred to as the “shadow aspect” – that usually hidden part of the personality where we keep everything we regard as wrong or bad. Jung said, “Everyone carries a shadow, and the less it is embodied in the individual's conscious life, the blacker and denser it is.”
It’s interesting to consider this front/back dynamic in an age when obesity is epidemic, military spending is outrageous, and people stab each other for Black Friday deals. What’s the hole we’re trying to fill or protect with so much acquisition and armor?
Whatever our individual kyos, I’m inclined to believe there is a deeper, central kyo embedded in the collective unconscious. It’s the kyo of the kyo, a core weakness that’s the same for everyone even if it’s expressed uniquely by each of us. While it’s gratifying when our jitsu activities lead to the recognition and treatment of our personal kyo, it’s monumental when we uncover and heal the one primal kyo.
As I see it, the fundamental kyo is the belief that we are separate from our world. Separate from God, Nature, Spirit (or whatever other term you like), separate from other humans, and separate even from ourselves, i.e., ultimately alone. This apparent separation is what allows us to perceive a world of attack and defense; a world in which our gains come at the expense of another’s loss; a feeling of guilt (for separating from our source) and blame; and an endless drive to find something that will correct this unsettled feeling.
All these expressions of the kyo are confused except possibly the last – a drive to find something that will correct this unsettled feeling. Of course it’s possible, if this drive is outwardly directed, for it to lead to overeating, gambling, hyper-acqusition, drug addiction, and more instability. But it’s also possible that it might direct us to uncover the truth: that we’re not actually separate or alone, and that we need nothing but to wake up.
Oneness with everything – sometimes called Self realization or unity consciousness – is a theme common to so many spiritual traditions and described by so many thoroughly rational, nonzealous people, that it would be difficult for an intelligent and open-minded person to dismiss it, even if the mind has no point of reference for it. In fact, I’ve noticed that once the seed of this concept is willingly invited into one’s mind, it tends not to leave. It’s compelling, because it would mean an end to so much conflict, an opening to such deep peace, and a resolution of our core kyo.
Over the week, I encourage you to feel into the underlying instability that compels you to seek for things outside yourself. Feel into the vulnerability that makes you want to attack others and defend yourself. Are these kyos different? Or do they emanate from one central idea? Can you determine what that idea is? If so, is it true? Tell me what you discover.
Regardless of your ability to unearth these feelings or beliefs, just arousing the spirit of curiosity is valuable. At the least, it’s better than being at the mercy of below-the-radar impulses.
Be well,
Dr. Peter Borten
P.S. If you didn’t read last week’s article on jitsu, kyo, and amoebas, you can check it out HERE.
[post_title] => The Bigger the Front, the Bigger the Back
[post_excerpt] =>
[post_status] => publish
[comment_status] => open
[ping_status] => open
[post_password] =>
[post_name] => bigger-front-bigger-back
[to_ping] =>
[pinged] =>
http://www.thedragontree.com/2017/04/18/heal-embracing-inner-amoeba/
[post_modified] => 2020-07-28 21:21:07
[post_modified_gmt] => 2020-07-28 21:21:07
[post_content_filtered] =>
[post_parent] => 0
[guid] => http://www.thedragontree.com/?p=6648
[menu_order] => 0
[post_type] => post
[post_mime_type] =>
[comment_count] => 7
[filter] => raw
[webinar_id] => 0
)
[2] => WP_Post Object
(
[ID] => 6644
[post_author] => 5
[post_date] => 2017-04-18 18:45:43
[post_date_gmt] => 2017-04-18 18:45:43
[post_content] =>
I grew up in the 1980s, when some of the most common insults we used were “homo,” “faggot,” “queer,” and “gay.” Clearly, we were deeply fearful of what we didn’t understand – and the ostracism that went with it. Even though I wasn’t gay, this uptight culture caused me to avoid doing anything that might be construed as gay – like touching other males. It wasn’t until college, when we all relaxed a bit, that I recognized how much I enjoyed casual touch.
Given my past, it didn’t come naturally to me. I knew warm people for whom touch was easy and comfortable. But anytime I was in contact with another human, my attention would be drawn to that point of contact. If we were talking I might just stop mid-sentence if the other person rested their hand on my shoulder (people tend to think that’s weird).
Maybe this inability to multitask with touch was a product of my American socialization. There was a fascinating study of touch done by a psychologist named Sydney Jourard in the 1960s. He watched friends in conversation in cafés in different countries. In England, there was zero touch over the course of an hour. In the United States, friends touched an average of two times. In France, there were 110 touches in an hour. And in Puerto Rico, friends touched an average of 180 times! Doesn't it seem like Americans and Brits are missing out?
In grad school, as I practiced physical exams and bodywork techniques, I had a forum to safely and thoroughly explore the potential of touch. I got a lot more comfortable with it, and for the first time in my life, people told me, “You have healing hands.” My professor of Zen Shiatsu (a Japanese form of massage) noticed this aptitude, too, but saw it merely as a prerequisite. “You’re pretty good at finding the jitsu,” she said. “Now you need to work on the kyo.”
She explained these words, jitsu and kyo, in terms of an amoeba. The amoeba, she said, departs from a state of balance through the emergence of a need – hunger, for instance. This is its kyo – an emptiness, weakness, instability, or deficiency. In response to this kyo, the creature bulges itself toward something it perceives to be edible. This bulging, the action of attempting to acquire and consume, becomes its primary focus and drive, its jitsu. Jitsu is also translated as hardness, protectiveness, fullness, or stagnation. When the amoeba’s bulge encompasses the food, its kyo – and the jitsu that arose in response – are resolved.
Humans aren’t that different from amoebas, we just like to make things more complicated. We mostly see each other’s jitsus, which are the outward responses (tension, volition, drive, armor, etc.) to an inner kyo. At best, the things we're prompted to do are accurately connected to our kyo, and we achieve something that restores balance - at least temporarily. More often, we feel an urge (jitsu) without an understanding of the kyo beneath, and we deal with it in a misguided way that never truly heals the core issue.
In the context of massage, my professor was trying to convey that the places that are begging for attention – the knots, like the amoeba’s bulges – are expressions of jitsu, a hardening of the surface in response to an inner weakness. Pressing on them is a bit like pushing that bulge of the amoeba back inward. It makes things look more balanced from the outside for a little while, but it usually doesn’t get to the root cause.
If we’re exhausted from stress (kyo) we might mount tight shoulders (jitsu). When our lower back locks up (jitsu), it might stem from weak abdominal muscles (kyo). While most practitioners work exclusively on the jitsu – the tight shoulders or back – my professor emphasized the value of addressing both the jitsu and the kyo. When a shiatsu practitioner works on a patient’s kyo, specifically intending to fill it up and stabilize it, this causes an immediate softening and opening of the jitsu.
I went through a recalibration period as I learned to look deeper, and I saw that this dynamic goes way beyond massage. It could be expressed, for instance, as a relentless pursuit of money, food, or possessions due to a deep inner void. And of course, it might show up as boys perpetually attacking each other as “gay” because of their own insecurity.
This learning process affirmed my belief in the value of touch and humans’ need for it. And, despite my training, I don’t think there’s anything wrong with getting those shoulders or back massaged - even if the practitioner knows nothing of jitsu and kyo. But I would like to encourage you, the next time some part of your body is screaming for attention, to look inside and see if there’s an even deeper place that needs to be touched.
Stay tuned for more.
Be well,
Dr. Peter Borten
[post_title] => How To Heal By Embracing Your Inner Amoeba
[post_excerpt] =>
[post_status] => publish
[comment_status] => open
[ping_status] => open
[post_password] =>
[post_name] => heal-embracing-inner-amoeba
[to_ping] =>
[pinged] =>
[post_modified] => 2017-04-19 03:13:45
[post_modified_gmt] => 2017-04-19 03:13:45
[post_content_filtered] =>
[post_parent] => 0
[guid] => http://www.thedragontree.com/?p=6644
[menu_order] => 0
[post_type] => post
[post_mime_type] =>
[comment_count] => 28
[filter] => raw
[webinar_id] => 0
)
)
[post_count] => 3
[current_post] => -1
[before_loop] => 1
[in_the_loop] =>
[post] => WP_Post Object
(
[ID] => 6766
[post_author] => 3
[post_date] => 2017-09-26 18:26:41
[post_date_gmt] => 2017-09-26 18:26:41
[post_content] =>
If we hear a saying enough – especially at an impressionable time and/or spoken by someone we respect – we may accept it without applying critical thinking to determine if it’s actually true. For me, one such saying was, “People don’t change.”
As a young adult I heard it said by a guy I looked up to, and I remember thinking he must be wise. He stated it with triumph and bitterness – as a keen insight that would allow him to never be hurt again.
In writing this article, I googled “people don’t change” and “people can’t change” and got about 4 million hits for each phrase. Clearly this is a prevalent idea. But is it true?
When psychologists Dan Gilbert, Jordi Quoidbach, and Timothy Wilson set out to investigate perceptions of personal change, they discovered something surprising: most people believe that they have gotten all of their changing over with. Interviews with 19,000 participants revealed that young people, middle aged people, and old people all saw themselves as having changed a lot in the past, but believed they had more or less “arrived” at who they would be from now on. The scientists called this the “end of history illusion.” They used the word “illusion” because . . . we’re almost always wrong.
Perhaps this widespread view of ourselves as unlikely to change spills over onto what we expect of others – i.e., that they won’t change either. But we might ask, when someone believes that people don’t change, did it originate as a rational assessment of the likelihood of change? Or did it begin as a way of saving face, as in, “It may look like I got blindsided, but I actually saw this coming – because people don’t change.” Or as ammo for self-punishment, as in, “I’m a fool. I should have seen this coming – because people don’t change.” Or as the basis for blaming others for our pain, as in, “I was relying on you to become different so that I could be happy, but I’m not happy – because people don’t change.”
I happen to be in the business of tracking change. A few folks come to me for health maintenance, but I like to empower people to do most of their maintenance themselves, so the majority of my patient visits are from humans wanting the same thing: change. They want their body to change or their mind to change or their life circumstances to change. Because my task is to help facilitate this change, a significant part of my job is to be a change tracker. As a change tracker, I can assure you, people change all the time, often dramatically. If they didn’t, I’d feel like a charlatan.
But of course, we all have recurring patterns. In Vedic philosophy, these are considered to be expressions of our samskaras – the imprints of past experiences. Samskara literally means “impression” – like a footprint in the sand or a groove cut in the earth – and we tend to fall into them over and over, just as water naturally follows ruts in the land. Likewise, as experiences “flow” through our consciousness, they are manipulated by these contours of our psyche. Our capacity for discernment, called the buddhi, is said to be impaired by the presence of samskaras because they cause us to see things differently than they really are.
Scientists in the field of psychoneuroimmunology discovered that there’s a biological basis for this behavior. The repetition of the same thoughts, feelings, or behaviors strengthens a particular neurological pathway. These neurons “wire together” making a more efficient channel for nerve impulses to flow through, much like a groove in the sand. This increases the likelihood of our continuing to repeat the thought / feeling / behavior and thus to further strengthen the pathway and increase the potential to revisit it.
What can we do about this? There are many useful strategies, most of which amount to the cultivation of clear vision and perspective. Traditionally, this is one of the central purposes of yoga – meditation, specifically – which is said to be like polishing the dirty mirror of the buddhi so that it provides accurate reflections.
Meditation is like walking to the top of a mountain, where we can see the big picture (something impossible to do when we’re stuck in a rut in the ground). Here we can determine our most efficient course of action. Here we see the grooves of samskaras and “fill them in” through forgiveness, love, and acceptance. Here we can see the ways we have changed, and, indeed, see that big change is inevitable for ourselves and everyone else.
Take a few minutes today for a mental fast. Close your eyes and allow yourself to rise above the chattering and judgements, the push and pull of emotions, and perceive what kind of change would bring you into closer alignment with your inner being. Then set an intention to allow this change to happen. Perhaps even ask your highest self to reconfigure you to experience peace more readily. A change is gonna come.
Be well,
Dr. Peter Borten
[post_title] => Can You Change?
[post_excerpt] =>
[post_status] => publish
[comment_status] => open
[ping_status] => open
[post_password] =>
[post_name] => change-is-coming
[to_ping] =>
[pinged] =>
[post_modified] => 2017-09-26 20:12:22
[post_modified_gmt] => 2017-09-26 20:12:22
[post_content_filtered] =>
[post_parent] => 0
[guid] => http://www.thedragontree.com/?p=6766
[menu_order] => 0
[post_type] => post
[post_mime_type] =>
[comment_count] => 28
[filter] => raw
[webinar_id] => 0
)
[comment_count] => 0
[current_comment] => -1
[found_posts] => 185
[max_num_pages] => 4
[max_num_comment_pages] => 0
[is_single] =>
[is_preview] =>
[is_page] =>
[is_archive] => 1
[is_date] =>
[is_year] =>
[is_month] =>
[is_day] =>
[is_time] =>
[is_author] =>
[is_category] => 1
[is_tag] =>
[is_tax] =>
[is_search] =>
[is_feed] =>
[is_comment_feed] =>
[is_trackback] =>
[is_home] =>
[is_privacy_policy] =>
[is_404] =>
[is_embed] =>
[is_paged] =>
[is_admin] =>
[is_attachment] =>
[is_singular] =>
[is_robots] =>
[is_favicon] =>
[is_posts_page] =>
[is_post_type_archive] =>
[query_vars_hash:WP_Query:private] => bf17e1dfeeb40a37ba7d240dcfaf59b4
[query_vars_changed:WP_Query:private] =>
[thumbnails_cached] =>
[allow_query_attachment_by_filename:protected] =>
[stopwords:WP_Query:private] =>
[compat_fields:WP_Query:private] => Array
(
[0] => query_vars_hash
[1] => query_vars_changed
)
[compat_methods:WP_Query:private] => Array
(
[0] => init_query_flags
[1] => parse_tax_query
)
)
Loved this. Was just what I needed today.
Thank you!
You’re welcome, Erin
Thank you for your work. It is exactly the refreshments and reminders I need as I continue on my journey.
You’re welcome, Rachel. I’m glad these words are helpful.
Thanks, Leslie!
Thank you.. simply said and so much easier for me to integrate!!
You’re welcome, Annie. Happy you’re able to integrate it.
I’m not going to find the cheese in the way I thought I was…not sure how I’m going to find it now but I believe it was moved so I could find a better way, and trust that I will still find it. Great video, thank you!
None of us are going to find the cheese the way we thought. We’ll probably also discover that the cheese isn’t what we expected – nor that it’s outside of us at all. You’ll find it, though, I’m sure of it.
Timing of this was perfect for where I am in my personal journey
I love when that happens.
I let myself receive all the support I need as I face the reality of my Mum’s death. With nature as my greatest ally, I process what life brings, steadied through the shaky moments by my connection with all life.
Hang in there, Shealagh. Yes, you absolutely are connected and held.
This was very mind-opening, thank you! When you said “obstacles are not injustices” the proverbial scales fell from my eyes. I need to step back and look at my obstacles from the perspective of the Big Picture and see how I can grow around them. I figured they were insurmountable, but maybe they aren’t.
I believe they are always surmountable. Though from a big enough step back, “surmounting” them may take on new meaning.
Loving the way you explain the Five Elements! Thank you for your wonderful insight. Keep ’em coming!
You’re welcome! I did record 5 of these, though I think we’re going to spread out publishing them, so the next one may not be for a month or so.
Thank you for this insight. I’ve had the cheese moved on my path many times in this life. Each time, the new path has led to greater things. My path now is not clear, so this reminder in a beautifully stated way was perfect information to ingest! In gratitude!
Glad to hear it, Sherry. Yes, it seems when the cheese moves, we’re presented with ever higher grades of “cheese.”
Great video. I will continue to practice my breathing and taking yoga, tap dance and jazz dance classes. I take 4-1/2 hours of yoga weekly. These classes help me stay strong and they help with the muscle and joint pain too. Your muscle melt plays a big roll in my pain management too. The tap dance and jazz classes also keep me moving and are super fun to take. I’m about to turn 71, so being able to move and enjoy life is important to me.
I’m inspired by your commitment to your fitness, Judi. Especially later in life, it’s so essential.
I love and look forward to each of your teachings. Kind of you to do a video! Special to learn “face-to-face” or face-to-screen, seems the same on this end :-). I read the small book you reviewed and forgot about the “getting angry/upset” portion. Your reminder gave me more personal gain than reading the popular book did.
I am working this year on growing with “The Well Life” you and Brianna signed when in PDX. One happy gal here.
Hi Susan, thanks for supporting our work. I’m glad to hear it’s been helpful for you. Be well.
Thank you, and speaking of Who Moved my Cheese, you may be interested in this book: I Moved Your Cheese …for those who refuse to live as mice in someone else’s maze…by Deepak Malhotra.
Namaste
Thanks, Alecia. I love the title “I Moved Your Cheese”! In truth, I’ve only browsed “Who Moved My Cheese” – I mostly appreciate the core concept regarding how humans respond to unexpected change. From what I can garner from reviews, it seems that Malhotra’s book stems from a criticism that “Who Moved My Cheese” encourages people to to be slaves to the maze and chase the “cheese.” He seems to be offering a way to transcend the maze altogether. I can’t tell whether that’s an accurate characterization of the first book, nor am I sure that any of us need to read either one. The key, to me, is to continuously inquire as to WHAT, REALLY is the ultimate “cheese,” – is it actually outside of us at all? And what are we willing to let go in order to experience “cheese consciousness”? 😉
This is my 1st look into “The Dragontree”. Your analogy on “Who Moved My Cheese”, is quite insightful. However, I’ve reached a point in my life where I don’t even know “What My Cheese Is”, let alone “Who Moved My Cheese”. I’m at a time in my life that is physically, medically & emotionally draining. The thought of another maze in life, along with going around more obstacles, seems paralyzing to me. I know I need a new mindset and probably a different book to peruse.
I’m going to delve deeper into “The Dragontree” in hopes of acquiring a better outlook and direction.
Many thanks,
Julia
thanks, Julia. I’m sorry to hear life’s not feeling fun at the moment. You might get some insight into what your “cheese” is through the book I wrote with my wife – The Well Life. Perhaps your library has a copy. Maybe consider starting with what kinds of *qualities* would your ideal life have, rather than the material specifics.
Be well,
Peter
Great analogies made the points so simple to understand and envision. Thank you!
You’re welcome, Diane!
Thank you for the insightful teaching today. It will be especially helpful for me as I head into a meeting at work where I will be making suggestions and requesting some changes regarding our policies and procedures. This helps me to remember that I don’t have to right and that the obstacles encourage growth in new ways.
You’re welcome, Dori! I hope those conversations went smoothly!
I enjoyed this and look forward to hearing about the other elements. Thank you for posting it!
Thanks, Jen. And you’re welcome.
“Our obstacles aren’t injustices” beautifully stated Peter. I’m going to let this one percolate in my soul all weekend. Thank you for your teachings.
You’re welcome, Lilah. I hope you’ve been well.
The tree -especially one that is narled and twisted is a good visual for me. Its canopy will receive sun and still experience being a tree but those are, for me, the most interesting trees
They’re interesting trees to me, too!
Thank you for sharing your wisdom with us! I enjoy learning as I travel along this path of life.