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animistic perspective

Fixing Our Relationship with the World and Ourselves

If you were birthed by Earth, then every pebble and plant is your sibling. Last week I wrote about animism, the belief that all things possess a spirit. Animistic cultures… Read More

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It’s like there’s a friend who’s been hanging out in the background while you eat and work and exercise, and you’re saying, “Oh, I forgot you were there. Would you like to join me?” Doing so doesn’t require any particular spiritual or religious orientation. Even if you’re an atheist, you can probably still conceive of a Highest Self – an aspect of you that, in a way, is more You than any of the various personalities, thought patterns, or styles you’ve had throughout your life. It’s a stable, enduring, virtuous witness to everything you’ve been and done. Our ability to sense this presence, whatever we choose to call it, waxes and wanes. Same with the degree to which we let it guide us. As these factors increase (more awareness and willingness to be guided), we experience a corresponding increase in trust, an expanded perspective, and less overwhelm. The feeling of being small and helpless in a big scary world diminishes. If you haven’t done this much (or at all) it can feel at first like you’re hanging out with an imaginary friend. Is this real? Are they still in the room? It’s especially common if this is a dimension you’ve barely tuned in to. You’re used to giving most of your attention to relatively tangible and superficial planes of existence – media and culture, your possessions, your body, your thoughts and emotions. Over time the sense of opening to something bigger and subtler becomes more palpable. Simply remembering and intending to invite this Consciousness into more of your experiences makes a difference. To get started, you could just try quieting your mind for a moment and saying hello. Hello, Source. Hello, Highest Self. Hello, Divine Light. Then be still and see if you notice anything. I believe we are that Source experiencing itself as a human being. There is no true separation, only the veil of the mind (which can be quite obscure). Your Highest Self wants to be perceived and known and consciously channeled. Here are some other possible invitations: Come on this hike with me. Help me notice what I usually miss. Show me what I need to see for my healing and evolution. Let me stay present and accepting through this event. Let’s experience the act of eating delicious food together. Let me see this through the eyes of my Highest Self / Spirit / God / Unconditional Love / Awareness. But it’s not just the pleasant things that are worth inviting Spirit into. . . I let you into my fear so that you may share it, illuminate it, transform it. Come into my pain; please be with me in this suffering. I invite you into my grief, as this, too, is part of the human experience. Enter this crazy situation with me, Highest Self, and give me perspective. Join me, Divine Light, in my depression, and hold me. These painful states inevitably change when we open them to the spiritual dimension. It’s the simplest thing to do, yet sometimes the hardest to remember. This message is for me as much as it is for you. Be well, Peter [post_title] => Invite Spirit to Join You [post_excerpt] => [post_status] => publish [comment_status] => open [ping_status] => open [post_password] => [post_name] => invite-spirit-to-join-you [to_ping] => [pinged] => [post_modified] => 2022-10-28 21:03:11 [post_modified_gmt] => 2022-10-28 21:03:11 [post_content_filtered] => [post_parent] => 0 [guid] => https://thedragontree.com/?p=8847 [menu_order] => 0 [post_type] => post [post_mime_type] => [comment_count] => 3 [filter] => raw [webinar_id] => 0 ) [1] => WP_Post Object ( [ID] => 8906 [post_author] => 3 [post_date] => 2022-12-29 21:18:13 [post_date_gmt] => 2022-12-29 21:18:13 [post_content] => Ah, the New Year. It’s fresh and innocent and undefined. Except for the things you already have scheduled for 2023. And everything you have already set into motion that is likely to continue to play out in the coming year and beyond. But besides that, it’s an empty canvas! Last week I recommended keeping your resolutions simple – just choosing a single thing. This week I want to encourage you to put that into a context you define for this year by choosing a theme for 2023. If you have our Dreambook, there’s a section on Theme of the Year and you can write it in there. If you don’t have the Dreambook, or even if you do but wish to make this a bit more special, I encourage you to write your theme on a nice piece of paper with a good pen and frame it or keep it in a place where you’ll see it every day. Here are some questions to help guide you to your theme as you visualize a wonderful, productive, peaceful, playful, successful coming year. Who do you want to BE this year? What aspect of your potential do you want to cultivate this year? What will you bring to your community? How will you be a positive influence on your environment? What will you be a channel for? How will you speak intentionally? How will you grow this year? How will the world respond to your love and light? Take plenty of time with this and consider writing your answers down to see what comes through. Out of all these inspirations, which feels like it’s coming from your Highest Self? Which feels the most compelling? Which would benefit both you and your community? What is the emerging theme? Here are some examples: The Year of Loving Myself Completely. The Year of Living my Purpose. The Year of Learning to Trust. The Year of Shining my Light Upon the World. The Year of Owning My Power. The Year of Healing my Body. The Year of Playfulness. The Year of Lightheartedness. The Year of Remembering We’re All Connected. The Year of Forgiveness. The Year of Great Healing. The Year of Simplicity. The Year of Living Through My Heart. After you refine your theme and write it down, try to read it ever morning, and if you’ve got a minute, feel into how life will be as you embody this theme, tell yourself, “I’m already on my way. Today I choose to stay conscious of this theme and to find ways to live it.” Wishing you your best year yet, Peter [post_title] => The Theme of 2023 [post_excerpt] => [post_status] => publish [comment_status] => open [ping_status] => open [post_password] => [post_name] => the-theme-of-2023 [to_ping] => [pinged] => [post_modified] => 2022-12-29 21:19:21 [post_modified_gmt] => 2022-12-29 21:19:21 [post_content_filtered] => [post_parent] => 0 [guid] => https://thedragontree.com/?p=8906 [menu_order] => 0 [post_type] => post [post_mime_type] => [comment_count] => 0 [filter] => raw [webinar_id] => 0 ) [2] => WP_Post Object ( [ID] => 8933 [post_author] => 3 [post_date] => 2023-01-19 19:24:36 [post_date_gmt] => 2023-01-19 19:24:36 [post_content] => When I first delved into cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) as a psychology major, I remember thinking, “This is an evolution for humans.” CBT focuses on examining and challenging one’s thoughts and beliefs, changing related behaviors, and building coping skills and emotional regulation. Of course, there is a long philosophical tradition of examining the nature of human thought and behavior, but the advent of cognitive and behavioral psychology in the past couple centuries infused these concepts into mainstream culture in a profound way. It’s now common for people to talk about their thoughts as something separate from themselves, and to routinely employ behavior modification techniques in all areas of life. I had a mentor in my early 20s who was a big advocate of CBT, and at the time I told her I had been exploring methods for healing the memories of traumatic events. I felt both rebuffed and inspired when she said, “You’re wasting your time. We don’t need to go back and relive our childhood or spend the rest of our life lying on some shrink’s couch analyzing everything that ever happened to us! All that matters is, right now, are you going to be at the mercy of your thoughts and automatic behaviors, or are you going to manage whatever comes up in a conscious, intentional way?” I’ve thought a lot about this in the decades since. My mentor was of the mind that we don’t need to figure out why these painful or dysfunctional patterns keep coming up, we just need to change our response to them, and eventually we’ll transform our psychological makeup in a permanent way. I believe there is real value to this approach, and also . . . sometimes I think we need to go back. When it comes to our healing and growth, here are three good reasons to revisit your past: (1) If you’re constantly managing your response to a recurrent pattern, it might be more efficient to get to the root of the pattern and dismantle it (or at least mitigate it) so that it doesn’t come up much, if at all. Of course, you can also use cognitive and behavioral strategies if it does arise. (2) There is potential for deeper self-awareness, insight, and growth through visiting your past and coming to understand the factors that went into making you who you are. These are opportunities to forgive, correct misunderstandings, reframe our stories, and revise or erase beliefs. While it’s totally possible for many people to be happy without going there, it’s probably not possible to be self-actualized without making peace with your past. There are some caveats. Analyzing your past can be taken to a self-indulgent degree. It can retrigger old trauma. And most common, it can make us feel worse as we work through it (and experience it without resistance, perhaps for the first time) – though this usually gives way to greater freedom. Thus, it’s important to do this work when you’re feeling relatively stable, with a clear sense of why (what you hope to accomplish), and with the tools and/or support to do it in a way that’s likely to turn out well. (3) Finally, some people seek total liberation from our programming, i.e., the ego. Once this urge awakens in us, it often never goes fully back to sleep. If you’re in this boat, you may find value in recapitulation. I read about recapitulation in a Carlos Castaneda book when I was 18 and it seemed unfathomable. Castaneda, a Peruvian anthropologist-turned-apprentice of shamanism, was instructed by his teacher to write down his entire life story, from his very earliest memories, including every person he had ever met. This process, he was told, was necessary to free him from his worldly attachments. It took him years. I remember thinking, “I could never do that.” Since then, I’ve encountered various forms of recapitulation in my other studies of shamanism, and I now feel it’s more doable than I previously believed. Could it take years? Absolutely. But you’ve got time, and it’s not an all-or-nothing proposition. Every time we release some piece of baggage, it’s like dropping a sandbag from a hot air balloon. We’re that much lighter and freer – even if we’re not “done.” As we go through our history, we find countless moments that have a certain weight or charge. They exist in a state of incomplete resolution. Taken together they have a powerful influence on how we show up in the present. They can make us dwell in the past and fear the future. They can cause us to live within a fraction of the spectrum of what’s possible. In short, they limit our freedom. As we loosen our history’s grip on us, we thus loosen the grip of our ego, and we more readily access our true essence and potential. I stumbled upon my own recapitulation process while doing somatic releasing practices. In a nutshell, all our history with a charge – everything that doesn’t sit neutrally in us – can be experienced through the body. There is a physical expression and felt experience to all of it. And in willingly visiting it, experiencing it without resistance, and accepting it, we promote its resolution. If this is unfamiliar territory for you, just try this: Bring up something about your current life or your past that you wish were different. While holding this in mind, expand your awareness to include what you feel in your body. You will perceive a certain unease. As you meet it and even invite it, the unease loosens. (Sometimes this takes a little practice, especially if you’re not accustomed to feeling your feelings. If you’re interested in diving deeper into this process, check out our workbook called Freedom.) When we do this work we inevitably find layers of holding. We release one layer and discover another layer, and so on. In my case, I began to recognize the layers faster than I could process them, so I started writing them down. Hundreds of cords, linking me to my past, pulling on me, distorting my present self. The list grew at the same rate that I crossed things off it. I’m not nearly done, but I feel much lighter. I’m not saying a person can’t show up in a clean and authentic way until they release every conflict or resentment they’ve ever had. What I mean is that a thorough recapitulation facilitates ego liberation – something that’s beyond the scope of CBT and, frankly, not of interest to most people. In my own process, I found that I was sometimes inspired to move my body in certain ways to assist the release of a sticky pattern, which is an integral part of some somatic therapies. Interestingly, it’s also a technique used in shamanic recapitulation. As Sandra Ingerman and Hank Wesselman explain in their book, Awakening to the Spirit World, we can facilitate the “unraveling” of a memory (or the emotional charge attached to it) by spinning. This can also be accomplished by turning the head or twisting the body from side to side, and the authors say they believe this is also why EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing) works. They recommend spinning or turning while breathing deep into the memory and its associated emotions, accepting it, and intending to release it. I believe recapitulation also occurs to some extent automatically, especially when we’re ready for it: in dreaming; in meditation, when we are sometimes spontaneously presented with something from the past that needs to be “cleared”; in yoga and exercise; and very often under the influence of entheogenic (psychedelic) substances, especially when used intentionally as medicine. This is why psilocybin mushrooms are rapidly gaining a reputation as one of the most effective therapies for attaining peace at the end of life. I’m curious to hear from readers about your experience with the different approaches I discussed. Have you used CBT, and did it help? Have you dug into your past to heal yourself? What methods did you use, and how did it go? Have you done a large scale recapitulation? What was the outcome? Please share. Be well, Peter [post_title] => Are You Willing to Go All the Way Back? [post_excerpt] => [post_status] => publish [comment_status] => open [ping_status] => open [post_password] => [post_name] => are-you-willing-to-go-all-the-way-back [to_ping] => [pinged] => [post_modified] => 2023-01-19 19:47:15 [post_modified_gmt] => 2023-01-19 19:47:15 [post_content_filtered] => [post_parent] => 0 [guid] => https://thedragontree.com/?p=8933 [menu_order] => 0 [post_type] => post [post_mime_type] => [comment_count] => 5 [filter] => raw [webinar_id] => 0 ) ) [post_count] => 3 [current_post] => -1 [before_loop] => 1 [in_the_loop] => [post] => WP_Post Object ( [ID] => 8847 [post_author] => 3 [post_date] => 2022-10-28 21:03:11 [post_date_gmt] => 2022-10-28 21:03:11 [post_content] => One of the most basic ways to grow the spiritual dimension of your life is to consciously invite Spirit into whatever you’re doing. It’s like there’s a friend who’s been hanging out in the background while you eat and work and exercise, and you’re saying, “Oh, I forgot you were there. Would you like to join me?” Doing so doesn’t require any particular spiritual or religious orientation. Even if you’re an atheist, you can probably still conceive of a Highest Self – an aspect of you that, in a way, is more You than any of the various personalities, thought patterns, or styles you’ve had throughout your life. It’s a stable, enduring, virtuous witness to everything you’ve been and done. Our ability to sense this presence, whatever we choose to call it, waxes and wanes. Same with the degree to which we let it guide us. As these factors increase (more awareness and willingness to be guided), we experience a corresponding increase in trust, an expanded perspective, and less overwhelm. The feeling of being small and helpless in a big scary world diminishes. If you haven’t done this much (or at all) it can feel at first like you’re hanging out with an imaginary friend. Is this real? Are they still in the room? It’s especially common if this is a dimension you’ve barely tuned in to. You’re used to giving most of your attention to relatively tangible and superficial planes of existence – media and culture, your possessions, your body, your thoughts and emotions. Over time the sense of opening to something bigger and subtler becomes more palpable. Simply remembering and intending to invite this Consciousness into more of your experiences makes a difference. To get started, you could just try quieting your mind for a moment and saying hello. Hello, Source. Hello, Highest Self. Hello, Divine Light. Then be still and see if you notice anything. I believe we are that Source experiencing itself as a human being. There is no true separation, only the veil of the mind (which can be quite obscure). Your Highest Self wants to be perceived and known and consciously channeled. Here are some other possible invitations: Come on this hike with me. Help me notice what I usually miss. Show me what I need to see for my healing and evolution. Let me stay present and accepting through this event. Let’s experience the act of eating delicious food together. Let me see this through the eyes of my Highest Self / Spirit / God / Unconditional Love / Awareness. But it’s not just the pleasant things that are worth inviting Spirit into. . . I let you into my fear so that you may share it, illuminate it, transform it. Come into my pain; please be with me in this suffering. I invite you into my grief, as this, too, is part of the human experience. Enter this crazy situation with me, Highest Self, and give me perspective. Join me, Divine Light, in my depression, and hold me. These painful states inevitably change when we open them to the spiritual dimension. It’s the simplest thing to do, yet sometimes the hardest to remember. This message is for me as much as it is for you. Be well, Peter [post_title] => Invite Spirit to Join You [post_excerpt] => [post_status] => publish [comment_status] => open [ping_status] => open [post_password] => [post_name] => invite-spirit-to-join-you [to_ping] => [pinged] => [post_modified] => 2022-10-28 21:03:11 [post_modified_gmt] => 2022-10-28 21:03:11 [post_content_filtered] => [post_parent] => 0 [guid] => https://thedragontree.com/?p=8847 [menu_order] => 0 [post_type] => post [post_mime_type] => [comment_count] => 3 [filter] => raw [webinar_id] => 0 ) [comment_count] => 0 [current_comment] => -1 [found_posts] => 245 [max_num_pages] => 5 [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] => eaa84a9ad31325a5e0ce96f54a6ff6a8 [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 ) )

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