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We’re about to release the second edition of Rituals for Transformation, so I’ve been writing about the 14 broad themes we cover in the book. Actually, it’s more of a process than a book, with a one-page lesson to read each day, and then the rest of the day to practice the lesson in your life. Let’s continue looking at these “avenues for awakening.”
Forgiveness
There’s so much to say about forgiveness; I’ve written numerous articles about it. Here’s a brief synopsis: The opposite of forgiveness – what we might call resentment or holding grievances or perpetuating inner conflict – is a gigantic impediment to freedom and peace. There’s little, if anything, of greater value than freedom and peace, but we can’t be totally free or peaceful if we’re holding someone or something hostage in our mind.
Most people have much more resentment than they’re aware of. Upon diving in, we usually discover we resent ourselves for all the ways in which we aren’t being who we think we should be, and all the ways we believe we have obstructed our own happiness and success; our bodies for not looking, feeling, or performing the way we think they should; people for not behaving the way we think they should (not just those in our lives, but also politicians, corporations, and the big “they” who pollute, steal, murder, or otherwise make the world less the way we like it); the planet / the Universe / God for letting people die, making earthquakes, wildfires; etc.
Forgiveness is often difficult because we (usually subconsciously) believe that holding onto our grievances will eventually make things better for us – e.g., the world will repent and undo all the suffering it has caused us. It’s just the opposite, though. Withholding forgiveness keeps us trapped in suffering. And true, radical forgiveness is potentially the key to the life of ease and lightness we all want.
Energy Awareness
Some sensitive individuals have an awareness of life energy. This is also true of those who have studied qi gong, tai chi, acupuncture, energy healing, and certain forms of yoga and meditation. They foster an awareness of a dimension of reality that isn’t part of most people’s everyday experience. We believe that such an awareness is gratifying and useful.
When you’re aware of your energy, you can perceive more clearly how you’re influenced by thoughts, foods, and interactions with the world. In this way, you can better understand what supports you and what doesn’t. There’s clarity in being able to recognize what’s affecting to your experience, and power in knowing how to be in harmony with your environment. The lessons in this section are meant to help one cultivate this form of awareness.
Self-Care
When it comes to nurturing ourselves, some of us don’t do any conscious self-care, some approach self-care with a sense of obligation or burden, and some delight in the process. The lessons in this section are intended to help the reader approach it as a sacred and thoroughly enjoyable part of life. This engenders a sense of reverence and gratitude for oneself. It’s an opportunity to slow down and be present. And while such presence, by definition, means doing it for the in-the-moment experience, there are also inevitable benefits to one’s overall life from observing such a practice.
Connection With Nature
Humans are less conscious of Nature than ever before in our existence. It’s easy to live almost entirely indoors, in our minds, and in our little socialized worlds, forgetting how utterly dependent we are on the natural world – and how lost we’d be without it. These lessons are intended to rekindle this connection.
Inviting Nature into our lives does so much for us. It’s a source of constant awe and gratitude. We recognize just how intertwined the web of life is. We see that it provides for us in all ways. We remember that it birthed us. And when we approach it as a student to a teacher, we learn the timeless, balanced Way of the Universe.
I hope the discussion of these themes has whetted your appetite for jumping into this process. We’ve been honored and delighted by all of the stories we’ve heard from users of the book – stories of growth and healing and discovery that go beyond what we could have imagined. If you feel like sharing your thoughts on these themes, or your experience with the book, we’d love to hear from you.
Be well,
Peter
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I was recently geeking out with the Google Ngram tool. You enter a word and it produces a graph showing the prevalence of the word in print over the past few hundred years. Many of the words that have recently spiked in popularity represent modern innovations that simply didn’t exist before, such as miniskirt, internet, and skateboard. But others have been around for perhaps centuries, only they just caught on due to a change in our standards or awareness.
Plotting the word condom, for instance, I found that even though it was coined in the early 1700s, it was barely used until the mid-1980s, when it suddenly took off – which happened to coincide with the soaring prevalence of a new term: HIV. Another late bloomer was stress, which was coined around 1300, but remained almost nonexistent until about 1930, when it began a steady climb upward. Before then, it was mostly used in a mechanical sense, to describe the force exerted by one thing upon another. But this new usage came about through a growing understanding that it is very much a biological reality as well.
For several reasons, it’s a really good thing that we’re learning this. First, it’s important that we recognize that stress is a factor in virtually all illness. It contributes to our susceptibility to disease and it hinders our recovery. Whereas certain other factors, like genetics, are out of our control, this one is something we can modify.
Second, understanding how stress works has expanded our sense of connection to our environment. Health isn’t guaranteed simply by taking our vitamins. We’re increasingly aware of how much we’re affected by the people, politics, and pollution we invite into our lives – both for better and worse.
Third, our recognition of the workings of stress has contributed to a wider acceptance of the body-mind connection and a willingness to examine our thoughts and emotions. While medical science has in many ways contributed to a reductive or “small picture” view of health, research into stress has provided valuable contrast to this trend, pushing us to broaden our perspective.
A big reason for the increased prevalence of the word stress in the second half of the 20th century was the work of a scientist named Hans Selye. Selye explained stress as any force that threatens our homeostasis – our fundamental state of balance and stability. It doesn’t matter whether we’re worried about it or not; if a condition demands something extra from us, it acts as a stressor. Stressors include environmental factors like weather (cold, heat, dryness, etc.), noise, pollution, and radiation; psycho-social factors like finances, relationships, school and work performance; physiological factors like aging, illness, trauma, sleep deprivation, and nutritional deficiency; and biological invaders such as viruses, bacteria, fungi, and parasites.
Selye developed a model for explaining the impact of stress on us over time, called the General Adaptation Syndrome. It consists of three phases. When we are first exposed to a new stressor, we enter the alarm phase. Distress signals activate survival mechanisms. The reasoning part of the brain relinquishes control to the animalistic “fight or flight” response as our best bet for not dying.
Next, if the stress persists, we move into the resistance phase. Our system attempts to adapt to the stressor since it’s not going away. We may need to raise blood pressure, change metabolic rate, shift resources toward certain organs and away from others, etc. In this phase, we may appear to be successfully managing the stressor, but it’s a very demanding state to maintain.
Finally, if we don’t succeed at eliminating the stressor and returning to homeostasis, we eventually move into the third phase: exhaustion. Selye stated that we have a limited amount of “adaptation energy” and we simply can’t maintain aroused stress mechanisms indefinitely. When these mechanisms give out, we’re left depleted and out of balance. In this state, we may experience depression, anxiety, poor immune function, fatigue, insomnia, pain, poor concentration, skin problems, digestive upset, or other symptoms.
Many of us are frequently or perpetually in some phase of this syndrome, and it degrades our quality of life. When we find ourselves always craving stimulants, like caffeine, sugar, and media, it may be because we’ve taxed our adaptation resources.
Rest assured, there’s much that can be done to favorably intervene in this cycle. I’ll discuss this in detail in my next article. But let me leave you with this: while there are supplements and procedures that can relax us and restore our energy, the most valuable interventions are ones that target our perception. Selye said, “Adopting the right attitude can convert a negative stress into a positive one,” and I believe that we can often go even further, converting a negative stress into a non-stress.
Next time a potentially stressful situation arises, try taking a step back in your mind, and tell yourself, “It’s not worth getting stressed about this and dumping unnecessary energy into it. I choose to conserve my energy and to find the path of least resistance to managing this.” We can be light or heavy about whatever comes up – the choice is always available.
Be well,
Dr. Peter Borten
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I once took a required course in a subtle form of bodywork called Jin Shin Do. Rather than pressing, kneading, or stroking, the practitioner simply rests her fingers on specific combinations of acupuncture points and intends for healing to occur. During the first few classes, I thought, “I have all these other healing tools. Why would I waste my time on this? Who can even tell if anything is happening?!”
Yet, I was pleasantly surprised. This class gave me an appreciation for the power of subtlety in medicine. I now believe that subtle healing techniques often succeed where others fail, because there’s less potential for the recipient’s mind or body to object to the intervention, less potential to exacerbate an existing condition, plus an opportunity to “slip under the radar” and initiate a deeper healing.
Frequently, the professor broke us into pairs – a giver and a receiver – to try experiments. And there was one experiment that I’ll never forget.
While the givers’ hands rested on the receivers, she would circulate through the room whispering a variety of words into the givers’ ears. Some of the phrases I remember were, “I love you,” “You are safe,” “You are healed,” and “Everything is good.” The givers were instructed to hold each set of words in their consciousness without changing anything about what they were doing with their hands. Sometimes they were directed to think about what they were going to have for dinner or to ponder a current problem in their life. After a few minutes, both the giver and the receiver would report about what they experienced.
Nearly all the receivers, without knowing what the givers were focused on, reported feeling better when the givers were focused on a positive intention rather their own “stuff.” They weren’t always able to articulate what exactly felt better about it, but some felt more “held” by the giver, or more energy, or an alignment of their skeleton, or a reduction in pain.
There were minimal differences in the effect of the various positive intentions – except one. Everyone in the room reported that the best, most “connected” experience occurred when the giver held the phrase “I am here for you” in their mind. In fact, when the giver thought, “I am here for you,” there were sighs around the room from the receivers. Their breathing deepened and they relaxed more.
I’ve thought about this a lot in the years since. It reminds me of an anxious phase I went through as a tween. When I was 12 I had some panic attacks, and afterwards I always wanted one of my parents to be near me. That need for physical proximity eventually passed – I actually preferred to be alone much of the time – but as I got clearer about it, I realized that I what I really wanted was to know that someone would be available to give me their full presence if I ever needed it. (Kind of like the ease that comes from having a Xanax in your pocket, even if you never take it.)
This realization eventually led to the understanding that attention is an exceedingly valuable thing. We all know that “time is money” because there’s a finite amount of it in the workday. But attention (or presence) is even more precious. How often do you feel that you have someone’s complete, undivided attention?
Back in my angsty tweens and teens – before the Internet, and when it used to cost a lot to make a long-distance phone call – if there wasn’t someone nearby, it might be difficult or expensive to find a human connection. Today, it’s much easier and cheaper. We can Skype or Facetime with someone on the other side of the planet for free! We’ve made great gains in bridging distance with technology.
And yet, it seems even more uncommon to find someone who can give you their presence in a sustained way. Based on my conversations with patients, people feel busier and more distracted than a few decades ago. We have shorter attention spans and less ability to focus. (I believe the phenomenon I’ve dubbed the Human Data Stream – that massive flow of information in the form of texts, calls, videos, social media, emails, etc., and the devices that transmit it – is largely to blame.) You could be sitting across the table from someone, engaged in a conversation, and still feel that they’re not really “here for you.”
HERE. FOR. YOU.
Think about what it means to really be present for someone you care about. As in, I offer you my total presence. And consider how good it would feel if you could allow yourself to fully trust and relax in the presence of a loved one who’s holding the space for you. What a gift! I encourage all of us to practice offering our presence to others – setting aside our personal agendas and giving our full attention to the one in front of us.
Now, there’s a little more to the story. So, I realized that I didn’t need someone always holding my hand, but I wanted to know I had a support system in my family and community. I gathered folks who would be here for me if I needed it (and I for them). And I will always prioritize family and community for the rest of my life.
However, I came to understand that even that level of support was still external in a way. I don’t mean to diminish its value, but I recognized that there was a deeper or closer trust available, a closer presence, that wouldn’t require calling a friend.
I saw that I rarely offered myself my own total presence, choosing instead, almost incessantly, to give my attention to my mind’s constant stream of thoughts. I saw that I rarely told myself, I AM HERE FOR YOU! (By “I” in this phrase, I mean my Authentic Self, my Divine Self, my Absolute Self, or what many people simply call a Oneness with God.) It’s at once tragic and glorious to recognize this self-deprivation.
Sometimes I have difficulty remembering it or accessing it, but I know it’s always there. That is, I am always here. And, because you and I are one, I am always here for you, and you are always here for me. Let’s remember together, and dispel the illusions of separation that cloud our vision.
Be well my friend,
Peter
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We’re about to release the second edition of Rituals for Transformation, so I’ve been writing about the 14 broad themes we cover in the book. Actually, it’s more of a process than a book, with a one-page lesson to read each day, and then the rest of the day to practice the lesson in your life. Let’s continue looking at these “avenues for awakening.”
Forgiveness
There’s so much to say about forgiveness; I’ve written numerous articles about it. Here’s a brief synopsis: The opposite of forgiveness – what we might call resentment or holding grievances or perpetuating inner conflict – is a gigantic impediment to freedom and peace. There’s little, if anything, of greater value than freedom and peace, but we can’t be totally free or peaceful if we’re holding someone or something hostage in our mind.
Most people have much more resentment than they’re aware of. Upon diving in, we usually discover we resent ourselves for all the ways in which we aren’t being who we think we should be, and all the ways we believe we have obstructed our own happiness and success; our bodies for not looking, feeling, or performing the way we think they should; people for not behaving the way we think they should (not just those in our lives, but also politicians, corporations, and the big “they” who pollute, steal, murder, or otherwise make the world less the way we like it); the planet / the Universe / God for letting people die, making earthquakes, wildfires; etc.
Forgiveness is often difficult because we (usually subconsciously) believe that holding onto our grievances will eventually make things better for us – e.g., the world will repent and undo all the suffering it has caused us. It’s just the opposite, though. Withholding forgiveness keeps us trapped in suffering. And true, radical forgiveness is potentially the key to the life of ease and lightness we all want.
Energy Awareness
Some sensitive individuals have an awareness of life energy. This is also true of those who have studied qi gong, tai chi, acupuncture, energy healing, and certain forms of yoga and meditation. They foster an awareness of a dimension of reality that isn’t part of most people’s everyday experience. We believe that such an awareness is gratifying and useful.
When you’re aware of your energy, you can perceive more clearly how you’re influenced by thoughts, foods, and interactions with the world. In this way, you can better understand what supports you and what doesn’t. There’s clarity in being able to recognize what’s affecting to your experience, and power in knowing how to be in harmony with your environment. The lessons in this section are meant to help one cultivate this form of awareness.
Self-Care
When it comes to nurturing ourselves, some of us don’t do any conscious self-care, some approach self-care with a sense of obligation or burden, and some delight in the process. The lessons in this section are intended to help the reader approach it as a sacred and thoroughly enjoyable part of life. This engenders a sense of reverence and gratitude for oneself. It’s an opportunity to slow down and be present. And while such presence, by definition, means doing it for the in-the-moment experience, there are also inevitable benefits to one’s overall life from observing such a practice.
Connection With Nature
Humans are less conscious of Nature than ever before in our existence. It’s easy to live almost entirely indoors, in our minds, and in our little socialized worlds, forgetting how utterly dependent we are on the natural world – and how lost we’d be without it. These lessons are intended to rekindle this connection.
Inviting Nature into our lives does so much for us. It’s a source of constant awe and gratitude. We recognize just how intertwined the web of life is. We see that it provides for us in all ways. We remember that it birthed us. And when we approach it as a student to a teacher, we learn the timeless, balanced Way of the Universe.
I hope the discussion of these themes has whetted your appetite for jumping into this process. We’ve been honored and delighted by all of the stories we’ve heard from users of the book – stories of growth and healing and discovery that go beyond what we could have imagined. If you feel like sharing your thoughts on these themes, or your experience with the book, we’d love to hear from you.
Be well,
Peter
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