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[post_content] =>
Hi there!
We’re so excited that you’re going to be joining us for 9-weeks of strategic and heart centered action to create a meaningful life.
For years, people have been asking us how we do it. Starting in our 20s, we launched several successful businesses promoting body-mind wellness, including private healthcare practices, three spas, online courses, a magazine, a book, a café, and a company that makes body care products and herbal tinctures. Meanwhile, we have an ecstatic marriage, a light work week, we spend lots of time with our kids and pets, and we have as much fun as possible.
We don’t claim to have all the answers, but we’ve learned a few things along the way. In particular, we’ve discovered that as important as it to teach people things like healthy eating and stretching, most folks need at least as much instruction in putting together a balanced and satisfying life.
When we realized we wanted to help others structure their lives, we talked to many friends and clients and the majority expressed that they felt far from achieving the life of their dreams. When we asked what they were doing to make their dreams come true, we found that most weren’t actively pursuing them.
To begin with, almost no one was clear about what their dreams actually were. They had lost touch with them after deciding (probably unconsciously and long ago) that it’s unrealistic to want an amazing or magical life. Some had even convinced themselves that it was more mature to expect lots of compromises and to learn to be content with whatever hand you’re dealt. But, they weren’t content. They had forgotten what they really wanted out of life or denied that they wanted anything different than what they had.
Many claimed they weren’t pursuing big dreams because they believed this would mean working like a dog and being unhappy. They felt that unless someone was superhuman, the only way to succeed was by sacrificing the enjoyment of life and perhaps losing your soul.
So, what were these folks doing in their free time if not making progress on their goals? Perhaps having fun, being in nature, and engaging in creative projects? Well, no. No, in fact, most felt that not only were they failing to reach their goals, but also that they weren’t making the time to cook, to stretch, to breathe, or to do other soul-nourishing self-care activities that they knew were important.
Those who had chosen to bite the bullet and put their noses to the grindstone in pursuit of their dreams tended to unwittingly ensure that they were unhappy because of how deeply enrolled they were in the belief that achievement demanded sacrifice. The things that make life sweet were often the first to go.
Finally, nearly everyone – whether actively pursuing their dreams or not – felt busy. Too busy. Not just because of their work, but because of their immersion in a relentless data stream that engages them in the job of perpetually checking in and keeping tabs on an endless volume of information. For those who believe they’re not doing enough, it offers a way to feel more busy, but because it’s unceasing, it comes to feel like an obligation. However much time and energy they devote to it, it never feels truly gratifying or productive.
We believe that balance is possible – even in the face of chaos.
And we believe that you can – you must – do the good-feeling, soul-nourishing, body-fortifying activities even while you pursue your dreams. We put these practices under the general heading we call Sweetness. Sweetness not only makes life more satisfying, it also makes us stronger and more resilient.
If you feed your life, your body, and your soul, you become more effective at shaping this life however you choose. If you fill your life with this sweetness, you bring yourself many steps closer to the life of your dreams, regardless of the outcome of any particular goal. If your goals don’t materialize, at least you haven’t spent years of your life immersed in work with little to show for it. No, just the opposite: you will have spent the time doing meaningful work, living your purpose, treating yourself well, enjoying the world, and serving your species. It doesn’t get much better than that.
And when you do achieve your dreams, if you’ve been feeding your soul and growing all the while, you’ll be better able to assimilate the new changes in a healthy way.
While integrating more sweetness adds thrust to our dreams (and even brings our current circumstances closer to our dream life) we knew from coaching others that the biggest hindrance to achievement was problems with structure. They either didn’t know how or never got around to building a structure to get them from point A to point B. Some resisted structure because they seemed to equate it with restriction or conformity. Others had learned about “manifesting” concepts, such as the Law of Attraction, and took this to mean that structure and work are needless or even misguided.
When we looked at the structures people had in place, we found that without much training in life architecture, they were often unclear about how to build stable structures that would get them to their dreams. Some structures were like a bridge made of clothesline suspended over a canyon – they seemed to span the distance, but lacked support. Making it across would depend on a massive amount of personal effort, focus, and luck. Other structures were more like a concrete pipe over a chasm – sturdier to walk through but at the expense of any enjoyment of the scenery. Still other structures were like complicated tangles of trusses, cables, and parapets – more likely to get the traveler lost and confused than to their destination.
We noticed that those who avoided structure weren’t as free and unfettered as they would have liked. Instead, they often felt scattered and preoccupied, as if they were juggling all the ideas and tasks that they weren’t building into a plan. We wondered if the reason for their resisting Structure was that it wasn’t married to sweetness; Structure without sweetness could feel cold and meaningless to people, like striving for advancement in a factory run by robots.
We also observed an unusual trend toward over-structured lives, even among people who seemed to have very little going on. It was as if the structure developed independently of a guiding vision – structure for the sake of structure – with very little breathing room. Both the desire to eschew structure and the trend toward hyper-structure highlighted the necessity of Space.
Space is one of those things we tend not to value until it’s been missing for a while. Few people would identify it as a priority, and yet, it’s an essential factor in a healthy, happy, and fulfilling life. Without space, there is no perspective or clarity. Imagine there’s a large mural painted on the side of a building, but because the adjacent building is just a foot away, you have to stand in a tight alley in order to look at it, so you’re only able to see one small section at a time. This is how we view our lives when space is lacking. Space allows structure to breathe.
Space is the crucible in which sweetness and structure interact to yield a life that feels inspired, meaningful, and fun. Through our background in Asian philosophy, we both came to appreciate the preeminence of the “emptiness” from which everything is born. In Taoism, it is called Wuji, the limitless, boundless, or most literally, the non-polar. That is, it’s where our expanded consciousness resides, which isn’t polarized, doesn’t need to take a position, and is simply open. In Buddhism, it is Sunyata – emptiness, openness, or spaciousness – the space in which the soul is unconfined by the mind. In Ayurveda, it is Akasha – space or ether – the origin and essence of the entire material world.
Alignment and healing can’t occur without the openness that space provides. Sweetness needs space in order to be rooted in authenticity and to penetrate, engage, and feed the deepest parts of ourselves. And space is the solution to our addiction to the data stream which attaches us to our devices and disconnects us from the magic of the natural world around us.
Together, structure, space, and sweetness are the underpinning of this course.
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[post_content] => Years ago, I read a book on the theory of homeopathic medicine that changed the way I thought about health and inspired me to go into medicine. One of the most interesting concepts regarded a hierarchy of systems and layers within human beings. According to the Greek teacher and author, George Vithoulkas, the human organism can be understood in three layers: Mind, Emotion, and Body.
The deepest and most vital is the mind layer, through which we understand life and the world, and have the means to process stimuli and thoughts and to connect to others. The next layer out is the emotion layer, through which we experience feelings, such as hope, happiness, fascination, inspiration, and also sadness, frustration, and anger. Finally, the outermost layer is the physical layer, which includes our muscles, bones, blood vessels, skin, and internal organs.
When there is some sort of disorder, Vithoulkas said, the human organism will do its best to express this imbalance in a way that impacts us as little as possible. If the symptom shows up on the mind layer, the best case scenario would be, say, mild forgetfulness or distraction. Worse might be something like difficulty with language, or misunderstanding basic social cues, and the worst would be total confusion or even loss of consciousness. Since the mind is critical to grasping meaning, core mental function represents the highest level on the most core layer of the self. We sometimes refer to the lack of such function as a “vegetative state,” and most of us would want the plug pulled if we became this way.
If the symptom manifests on the emotional layer, at best, maybe we would feel just a bit irritable or uneasy. At a more critical level, perhaps we would develop a tendency to get angry about all sorts of minor things, or we would cry at the drop of a hat. At the highest level on the emotional layer, we could be disabled by crippling depression, total numbness, or relentless fear.
If the symptom is expressed on the body layer, the worst would be a disease of organs we have only one of – such as the brain, heart, and liver. Disease of a single kidney or lung wouldn’t be quite as bad, since we have another. Issues with more superficial tissues, like skeletal muscles, are generally fairly minor. And the least critical layer to the overall function of the organism is considered be the skin. So, Vithoulkas wrote, if the organism is healthy enough, if will manifest a problem as a skin rash, since this would spare the mind, the emotional body, and all of the critical physical structures and processes. Our skin is the outermost layer, the farthest-removed from our core structures and systems.
Vithoulkas explained that in the healing process, the expression of an imbalance moves to a less critical level and/or a more superficial layer of the organism. If we’re lucky enough to have a skin problem, we should understand this as a good thing, and avoid doing anything to
suppress its expression, because the only possible result would be expression on a deeper layer and/or a more critical level. Thus, if you suppress a skin rash and get cranky or distracted, you’ve driven it inward.
This was especially interesting to me when I first read about it, because I had grown up with eczema – an itchy red rash on my elbows and knees – and from the age of 10, I had been using a suppressive therapy to treat it: corticosteroids. Corticosteroids are drugs that mimic the anti-inflammatory hormone cortisol that is normally produced by our adrenal glands. The most popular steroid for skin rashes is hydrocortisone. The ones I was using were much stronger.
So, if you have a chronic skin issue, I encourage you to approach it as
holistically as possible – that is, emphasizing your overall health and addressing the internal mechanisms that may be contributing, rather than treating the skin as disconnected from the rest of oneself. Here are some general first steps worth taking:
- Hydrate. Skin suffers from dehydration. Water is essential for optimal clearance of toxins and distribution of nutrients. Divide the number of pounds you weigh in half, and drink at least this many ounces of water per day – ideally evenly over the course of the day. More water should be the first and most basic intervention for chronic skin problems.
- Cut Back on Sugar. Sugar suppresses the immune system, impairing control of skin disorders with a bacterial and fungal component. Second, it feeds simple microorganisms, especially fungus (this includes yeasts), often making them worse. Third, it promotes inflammation, exacerbating skin problems with an inflammatory component (anything red and itchy).
- Each Plenty of Vegetables. For several reasons, eating more veggies, cooked cleanly, can help. First, they contain a wide range of nutrients, many of which are anti-inflammatory. Second, they contain fiber, which can help bind up and remove toxins from the gut, which may be a contributing factor in certain skin rashes.
- Take Probiotics and/or Eat Cultured Foods. The lining of the gut has a close relationship with the skin and our beneficial gut bacteria or “flora” play an important role in fortifying this membrane. They also help control populations of harmful microbes that may excrete toxins into the gut. If the intestinal lining is inflamed, it can lose its structural integrity, leaking intestinal contents – including the “endotoxins” released by bacteria and fungi – directly into the bloodstream, where they should never be.
- Try an Anti-Inflammatory Diet. Reduce inflammation throughout your body by limiting consumption of: fast food, processed food, flour (bread, pasta, crackers, etc.) and refined grains, sugars (agave, honey, corn syrup, etc.), refined cooking oils, red meat (less of a concern if you’re getting high quality, grass fed, hormone free meat), and regular quality dairy products (less of a concern if you’re getting high quality, hormone free, cultured dairy products from grass fed animals). Meanwhile, eat plenty of vegetables (especially dark leafy greens), fruits (especially berries), herbs and spices (like ginger, garlic, turmeric, onions, rosemary, and oregano), beans, and healthy fats (coconut, flax seed, walnuts, avocados, chia seeds, hemp seeds, oily fish, etc.). Check out one of the many books on this subject for more information.
Following these strategies will benefit you even if you don’t notice an improvement in your skin. In coming articles, I’ll give you more specific strategies for alleviating skin problems and promoting beautiful skin.
Be well,
Dr. Peter Borten
[post_title] => Skin: The Final Frontier
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[post_content] => “I just feel sad every night. It’s like I can hold it off until dark, and then it all comes pouring in,” I said in tears.
I was in Mexico with a group of close girlfriends and I should have felt elated: it was beautiful, I was with friends I love, and there was plenty of guacamole and margaritas.
But instead I felt like I was completing the final unraveling of a comfortable sweater that I had been wearing to keep me safe and was now coming off no matter how much I resisted. It had been almost a year of this profoundly challenging experience of feeling lost. Really lost.
“Go inside. What wants to come through? Something is shifting that you’re resisting, what if you allowed it to become?” whispered one of my sisters in the circle.
What if I allowed myself to become?
That’s when I started to live that question: what if I allowed myself to become . . . fully me?
Over the next year I went deep inside to find answers and to continue with curiosity, and in that exploration I discovered so much: my soul purpose, unshakable happiness, and a strong devotion to the Truth.
It wasn’t a magical pill, or even an “aha!” moment, it was a seed that was planted that grew and blossomed over time. It was my own curiosity and dedication that brought me on a journey for the evolution of my soul… and to this work to waking people up to their gifts and true calling.
It finally clicked.
“Oh! This is what I’m here for!”
Got it.
The gentle nudges and messages from a deeper source had been guiding me all along to show me my seat in the web of the Universe. And even though it wasn’t comfortable, still isn’t (where’s that damn sweater from before!?), it feels like fully living.
Magic everywhere.
Delight in my work.
Lightness.
Here. Learning. Growing. Ever evolving. Student of love.
So, what about you?
Are you feeling called to do or be something more? Is there some persistent inner voice begging for you to step into your full potential?
That’s the work we’ll do together: align you with your Highest Self.
What that looks like:
. . . where you want to go in your life is clear.
. . . your relationships develop and unfold with ease.
. . . anxiety, fear, and worry fall away as you create deep trust of your soul to lead the way.
. . . abundance flows in to support your life and purpose.
. . . your health and self-care find a significant place in your day-to-day, knowing that it’s an honor to live in this body.
Can you check all those boxes?
If so - high five!
If not - do you want to?
Now, I do this work for you and others every day in my
Soul Sessions– I help you wake up to your own calling, to hear your soul’s voice arise within you and direct your life, to give you clarity and fill you with purpose.
In
Soul Sessions I’ll help you discover who you really are, find clarity, and move beyond the noise that distracts from your most authentic self. If you’re feeling stuck, hindered, or afraid in life, business, or love – let’s work together and set you free of these limitations so you can really soar.
You have so much potential.
It’s time to tap into it.
You are ready.
[post_title] => What Would Make You Click?
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Hi there!
We’re so excited that you’re going to be joining us for 9-weeks of strategic and heart centered action to create a meaningful life.
For years, people have been asking us how we do it. Starting in our 20s, we launched several successful businesses promoting body-mind wellness, including private healthcare practices, three spas, online courses, a magazine, a book, a café, and a company that makes body care products and herbal tinctures. Meanwhile, we have an ecstatic marriage, a light work week, we spend lots of time with our kids and pets, and we have as much fun as possible.
We don’t claim to have all the answers, but we’ve learned a few things along the way. In particular, we’ve discovered that as important as it to teach people things like healthy eating and stretching, most folks need at least as much instruction in putting together a balanced and satisfying life.
When we realized we wanted to help others structure their lives, we talked to many friends and clients and the majority expressed that they felt far from achieving the life of their dreams. When we asked what they were doing to make their dreams come true, we found that most weren’t actively pursuing them.
To begin with, almost no one was clear about what their dreams actually were. They had lost touch with them after deciding (probably unconsciously and long ago) that it’s unrealistic to want an amazing or magical life. Some had even convinced themselves that it was more mature to expect lots of compromises and to learn to be content with whatever hand you’re dealt. But, they weren’t content. They had forgotten what they really wanted out of life or denied that they wanted anything different than what they had.
Many claimed they weren’t pursuing big dreams because they believed this would mean working like a dog and being unhappy. They felt that unless someone was superhuman, the only way to succeed was by sacrificing the enjoyment of life and perhaps losing your soul.
So, what were these folks doing in their free time if not making progress on their goals? Perhaps having fun, being in nature, and engaging in creative projects? Well, no. No, in fact, most felt that not only were they failing to reach their goals, but also that they weren’t making the time to cook, to stretch, to breathe, or to do other soul-nourishing self-care activities that they knew were important.
Those who had chosen to bite the bullet and put their noses to the grindstone in pursuit of their dreams tended to unwittingly ensure that they were unhappy because of how deeply enrolled they were in the belief that achievement demanded sacrifice. The things that make life sweet were often the first to go.
Finally, nearly everyone – whether actively pursuing their dreams or not – felt busy. Too busy. Not just because of their work, but because of their immersion in a relentless data stream that engages them in the job of perpetually checking in and keeping tabs on an endless volume of information. For those who believe they’re not doing enough, it offers a way to feel more busy, but because it’s unceasing, it comes to feel like an obligation. However much time and energy they devote to it, it never feels truly gratifying or productive.
We believe that balance is possible – even in the face of chaos.
And we believe that you can – you must – do the good-feeling, soul-nourishing, body-fortifying activities even while you pursue your dreams. We put these practices under the general heading we call Sweetness. Sweetness not only makes life more satisfying, it also makes us stronger and more resilient.
If you feed your life, your body, and your soul, you become more effective at shaping this life however you choose. If you fill your life with this sweetness, you bring yourself many steps closer to the life of your dreams, regardless of the outcome of any particular goal. If your goals don’t materialize, at least you haven’t spent years of your life immersed in work with little to show for it. No, just the opposite: you will have spent the time doing meaningful work, living your purpose, treating yourself well, enjoying the world, and serving your species. It doesn’t get much better than that.
And when you do achieve your dreams, if you’ve been feeding your soul and growing all the while, you’ll be better able to assimilate the new changes in a healthy way.
While integrating more sweetness adds thrust to our dreams (and even brings our current circumstances closer to our dream life) we knew from coaching others that the biggest hindrance to achievement was problems with structure. They either didn’t know how or never got around to building a structure to get them from point A to point B. Some resisted structure because they seemed to equate it with restriction or conformity. Others had learned about “manifesting” concepts, such as the Law of Attraction, and took this to mean that structure and work are needless or even misguided.
When we looked at the structures people had in place, we found that without much training in life architecture, they were often unclear about how to build stable structures that would get them to their dreams. Some structures were like a bridge made of clothesline suspended over a canyon – they seemed to span the distance, but lacked support. Making it across would depend on a massive amount of personal effort, focus, and luck. Other structures were more like a concrete pipe over a chasm – sturdier to walk through but at the expense of any enjoyment of the scenery. Still other structures were like complicated tangles of trusses, cables, and parapets – more likely to get the traveler lost and confused than to their destination.
We noticed that those who avoided structure weren’t as free and unfettered as they would have liked. Instead, they often felt scattered and preoccupied, as if they were juggling all the ideas and tasks that they weren’t building into a plan. We wondered if the reason for their resisting Structure was that it wasn’t married to sweetness; Structure without sweetness could feel cold and meaningless to people, like striving for advancement in a factory run by robots.
We also observed an unusual trend toward over-structured lives, even among people who seemed to have very little going on. It was as if the structure developed independently of a guiding vision – structure for the sake of structure – with very little breathing room. Both the desire to eschew structure and the trend toward hyper-structure highlighted the necessity of Space.
Space is one of those things we tend not to value until it’s been missing for a while. Few people would identify it as a priority, and yet, it’s an essential factor in a healthy, happy, and fulfilling life. Without space, there is no perspective or clarity. Imagine there’s a large mural painted on the side of a building, but because the adjacent building is just a foot away, you have to stand in a tight alley in order to look at it, so you’re only able to see one small section at a time. This is how we view our lives when space is lacking. Space allows structure to breathe.
Space is the crucible in which sweetness and structure interact to yield a life that feels inspired, meaningful, and fun. Through our background in Asian philosophy, we both came to appreciate the preeminence of the “emptiness” from which everything is born. In Taoism, it is called Wuji, the limitless, boundless, or most literally, the non-polar. That is, it’s where our expanded consciousness resides, which isn’t polarized, doesn’t need to take a position, and is simply open. In Buddhism, it is Sunyata – emptiness, openness, or spaciousness – the space in which the soul is unconfined by the mind. In Ayurveda, it is Akasha – space or ether – the origin and essence of the entire material world.
Alignment and healing can’t occur without the openness that space provides. Sweetness needs space in order to be rooted in authenticity and to penetrate, engage, and feed the deepest parts of ourselves. And space is the solution to our addiction to the data stream which attaches us to our devices and disconnects us from the magic of the natural world around us.
Together, structure, space, and sweetness are the underpinning of this course.
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