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Now that we know eclipses don’t mean the end of the world, we can reframe them however we choose. If you didn’t do anything special for the solar eclipse, it’s not too late consider the symbolism of the event and use it as an opportunity to grow.
The most obvious characteristic of an eclipse is a darkening of the light. I believe lightness is a fundamental characteristic of every sentient being. When we encounter someone whose light shines brightly, it’s like they illuminate the room and elevate those around them. So, what’s dimming – or even eclipsing – your light? Do you hide it? Are there unresolved conflicts that keep you in the darkness? Is it hard for you to even perceive the light within you? What happens when you invite your light to spread? When you allow it access to all parts of you?
What kind of effect do you have on your community and environment? Are you a force of light or do you cast a shadow? What facets of the world do you withhold light from because you feel they’re somehow wrong or undeserving? What happens when you deny light to something or someone you judge negatively – and then what happens when you shine your light on it anyway?
Another way to interpret an eclipse is that it’s symbolic of the shadow coming to the forefront. How is your relationship with your shadow side? What parts of yourself have you kept suppressed, unaccepted, or denied? Denial of our shadow is inevitably uncomfortable and squelches our potential. How can you rise to your full power if there’s a part of you that isn’t integrated or acknowledged? It can only undermine you. This is a good time to notice what you’ve kept in the shadows and offer it acceptance and forgiveness. You are all of this.
In a similar way to the internal shadow, you may have noticed a recent emergence of our collective shadow in the sociopolitical world – more blatant corruption, racism, and warmongering. Though such events can be distressing to witness, they’re sort of like a symptom that has just gotten unpleasant enough to cause people to respond. These times have prompted so many people to become engaged in their community and local government, to vote, to share their gifts, to stand up for what’s right and to shine their light.
Letting our virtuous highest selves lead the way is like coming into alignment – and that’s another unique property of eclipses. They’re a time of extraordinary alignment, when the three main celestial bodies in our lives – Earth, Moon, and Sun – line up perfectly. What are YOU choosing to align with? Do you have a guiding light that helps you make decisions and remember what matters? If not, spend some time in nature, journal about what inspires you, and meditate with the intention of reaching beyond your mind. It’s best if you discover this for yourself, but if you have a hard time feeling it, try aligning yourself with this: Love. Let love guide you and your light will naturally shine forth and light the way. No special glasses necessary.
Be well,
Dr. Peter Borten
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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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During a particularly hard break-up in my 20s, a friend advised me, “The more present you are during this process, the bigger the present you’ll get out of it.” And though I barely understood what that meant, I gave it a try and an odd thing happened. I saw that I was choosing the big, dramatic grieving process I was going through. And that meant it was entirely optional.
In The Art of Presence, Eckhart Tolle says, “Through thought you cannot possibly grasp what presence is.” But he gives some clues to point us in the right direction. He says it’s there, “when you’re not thinking about the last moment, or looking to the next one.” And he uses phrases like “a state of relaxed alertness” and “a spacious stillness,” to describe it.
Thich Nhat Hanh said, “The most precious gift we can offer others is our presence.”
Our presence is tremendously rare and hugely valuable. Especially in this age of epidemic distraction, it’s increasingly difficult and uncommon to choose a voluntary time-out from technology, data, and our own mental analysis. But unlike the artificial value of a coin that accidentally got stamped with a head on both sides, our presence can do for us what nothing else can. And we can make it more abundant by simply choosing it.
Although it may not put food in our belly, most other problems disappear with presence. The need to fix or relive the past disappears. The need to avoid certain unwanted events in the future disappears. Even if were working on something now that will benefit us in the future, with our presence, we work on it now in order to work on it now. And that’s enough.
The allure of distraction, which so often threatens our presence, dissolves when we practice being present. Do you know the word obviate? I like to write using words that everyone understands, but there’s only one word I can think of that means “to make unnecessary,” and that word is obviate. Learning to deepen our presence obviates the need for distraction and mental departure from the activity at hand.
With presence, we perceive all kinds of intelligence and detail that we’re otherwise deaf and blind to. We know when to eat and when to stop eating. We know how to move our body in a way that doesn’t cause pain or injury. Our work becomes more interesting. Our relationships become healthier. We listen better and we feel heard.
With two kids, my presence is requested almost incessantly. I hear the word Papa at least 100 times a day. Often, I hear it ten or more times in quick succession. We all yearn for someone’s total presence with us. These are the moments of connection between what is the same in both of us. Presence uncovers what’s real in this moment. And that’s refreshing, exciting, and affirming.
When we’re all so busy that we see time as a commodity, it can seem that giving our presence to someone else is like giving away our treasure. But, are we actually giving something away?
Of course not. When we “give” our presence we gain the present. To withhold our presence means both we and the other person miss out.
So, how can you learn to be more present? It takes practice. If you’re new to this, I don’t recommend making a goal like, “I’m going to be more present from now on.” I don’t want to discourage you, I just want you to be realistic about what you’re up against – a lifetime of habits and a sea of tantalizing distractions.
Try something a bit less ambitious, such as this: Once a day, as you begin some activity – whether it’s buying groceries, playing Candyland, eating a meal, and listening to a friend’s problems – select this activity as an exercise in presence. In your mind, identify what exactly you’re doing – “I’m vacuuming the floor” – and devote yourself to that. Don’t run away in the middle of the activity. This means don’t pick up your phone, don’t depart in your mind to explore other thoughts and ideas, don’t visit the past, don’t anticipate what’s next, don’t judge. Just dwell in the present. Be saturated by the present. Feel everything. Accept everything. And let each next moment come.
Over time, quicker than you might think, you’ll start regaining your attention. You’ll be able to focus on something for more than five seconds. You’ll begin to yearn for this, which will make your practice much easier. And as you start willingly selecting more and more moments to be completely present, you’ll experience an unending offering of presents.
Be well,
Dr. Peter Borten
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Now that we know eclipses don’t mean the end of the world, we can reframe them however we choose. If you didn’t do anything special for the solar eclipse, it’s not too late consider the symbolism of the event and use it as an opportunity to grow.
The most obvious characteristic of an eclipse is a darkening of the light. I believe lightness is a fundamental characteristic of every sentient being. When we encounter someone whose light shines brightly, it’s like they illuminate the room and elevate those around them. So, what’s dimming – or even eclipsing – your light? Do you hide it? Are there unresolved conflicts that keep you in the darkness? Is it hard for you to even perceive the light within you? What happens when you invite your light to spread? When you allow it access to all parts of you?
What kind of effect do you have on your community and environment? Are you a force of light or do you cast a shadow? What facets of the world do you withhold light from because you feel they’re somehow wrong or undeserving? What happens when you deny light to something or someone you judge negatively – and then what happens when you shine your light on it anyway?
Another way to interpret an eclipse is that it’s symbolic of the shadow coming to the forefront. How is your relationship with your shadow side? What parts of yourself have you kept suppressed, unaccepted, or denied? Denial of our shadow is inevitably uncomfortable and squelches our potential. How can you rise to your full power if there’s a part of you that isn’t integrated or acknowledged? It can only undermine you. This is a good time to notice what you’ve kept in the shadows and offer it acceptance and forgiveness. You are all of this.
In a similar way to the internal shadow, you may have noticed a recent emergence of our collective shadow in the sociopolitical world – more blatant corruption, racism, and warmongering. Though such events can be distressing to witness, they’re sort of like a symptom that has just gotten unpleasant enough to cause people to respond. These times have prompted so many people to become engaged in their community and local government, to vote, to share their gifts, to stand up for what’s right and to shine their light.
Letting our virtuous highest selves lead the way is like coming into alignment – and that’s another unique property of eclipses. They’re a time of extraordinary alignment, when the three main celestial bodies in our lives – Earth, Moon, and Sun – line up perfectly. What are YOU choosing to align with? Do you have a guiding light that helps you make decisions and remember what matters? If not, spend some time in nature, journal about what inspires you, and meditate with the intention of reaching beyond your mind. It’s best if you discover this for yourself, but if you have a hard time feeling it, try aligning yourself with this: Love. Let love guide you and your light will naturally shine forth and light the way. No special glasses necessary.
Be well,
Dr. Peter Borten
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