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June 22nd is my wife Briana’s birthday. She’s the Dragontree’s founder and fearless leader.
On the way to art school at age 18, she was in a car accident and broke her neck. It changed the course of her life. She never made it to art school, instead spending the following six months in a brace at home in Montana. During her rehabilitation period she received massage and this kindled an interest in the healing arts.
She decided to go to massage school in Portland, and later to California College of Ayurveda to learn the traditional medical system of India. When we met, she was a massage therapist at a little spa in Portland and also a professional belly dancer. Less than a year later, she was opening her own spa. She was just 23 then.
I helped with the planning and painting, but she has always been the engine and visionary. I’ve watched her grow tremendously in the 20 years that we’ve been together. Besides her business acumen, she has an incredible knack for making spaces beautiful. She’s an amazing mother and wife. She is generous and kind and funny. She’s a pretty good guitar player, too.
The funny thing is, for probably the first 15 years we were together she had these moments of insecurity when she would ask me with despair in her voice, “What am I doing with my life?!” It was as if she saw herself as floundering and aimless.
It’s interesting how outsiders sometimes see our gifts more clearly than we do. In this case, my response came so easily. “Well,” I would say, “you have built spas where thousands of people have come to feel better. You’ve created programs and courses to educate, uplift, and support people’s healing. You’ve written books. You’ve provided jobs for probably a thousand people over the years. You’re a mother and wife. You beautify the world. You’re a great friend. You’re always trying to be your best self. You’re good at Boggle – though not as good as me. I think that’s a pretty good start.”
I’m not sure if what I said was helpful in a lasting way. But over time, and especially as she began to do more spiritual and coaching work, there was an ever-growing group of people who said to her, “You changed my life for the better.” And I think it started to sink in. She doesn’t ask me what she’s doing with her life anymore.
From all of us whose lives have been made better by our association with you, Briana Borten, HAPPY BIRTHDAY! We love you.
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In working with the community that has developed around our Dreambook, Briana and I have encountered people looking for many different forms of life-optimization. While there’s plenty of guidance we can offer someone to help them figure out and actualize what makes them happy, we meet quite a lot of people who essentially already have it. They really are living the dream. The main issue is that they just don’t see it.
They often suffer from what my friend Andy Dooley calls “lousy and lazy thinking.” Today I want to talk about the antidote. Whether you’ve already got a great thing going or there’s clearly a gap between where you are now and where you want to be, either way, you’ll benefit from being deliberate with how you use your attention.
Attention is like fertilizer. When you put your attention on something it grows.
This is why panicky thoughts tend to balloon and pain tends to increase when we focus on it. Unfortunately, bad experiences also tend to cut deeper grooves in our inner terrain, causing stronger memories and a tendency to be retriggered. We can easily get into a negative feedback loop as the thought “something’s wrong” demands our attention and then gets fed by it.
Our nervous system is just trying to be helpful; we’re wired this way to ensure our survival. Thus, it’s by design that things that signal danger are able to usurp our attention. But even while the risk of physical danger is lower than ever for most modern humans, we’ve trained ourselves to react similarly to a very broad range of other conditions, like money scarcity and situations that could lead to disapproval by our peers (because we subconsciously associate both money and our tribe’s approval with our survival).
But as humans with highly evolved brains capable of reasoning, we don’t need to be run by our animalistic side. We can change our default programs. One of the best antidotes is get a hold of that mind and put your attention on something else. Your two best options are (1) whatever you are currently engaged with (A.K.A. mindfulness) (2) anything that is good, fascinating, funny, joyous, celebratory, beautiful, loving, trustworthy, kind, generous, or peaceful.
By putting your attention on what is good and what is here and now, you fertilize those parts of life and override your overactive survival mechanisms. Not only does this help heal you of the tendency to focus on the bad (or possibly-maybe-could-be-bad), if you do it enough it actually starts to change your life.
If you’re using the Dreambook, an easy thing to put your attention on is all the goals you achieve. Too often we complete something, barely register it, and move on to the next thing. Just pausing, acknowledging, and celebrating this achievement amplifies the feelings of satisfaction, self-trust, and gratitude.
Revel in those feelings. The satisfaction of completion – like finishing a puzzle or making it to the finish line – is a combination of relief and delight. The feeling of self-trust is like an inner stability and fortitude. You said you were going to do this and you do it. You can rely on yourself. You will always be there for you. Finally, gratitude makes you feel expansive and connected. Consider all the internal powers (your body, your ingenuity, your creativity, your persistence, etc.), external powers (the people and resources that helped you get it done), and spiritual powers (the vision, strength, and gifts of your Highest Self) that made this possible. It’s like saying to your system, “I’m pressing the save button. I’m configuring myself for trust, fulfillment, serendipities, and optimism.”
While it’s especially important to do this with your big quarterly and one-year or longer-term goals, it’s perfectly wonderful to do it with your monthly, weekly, and daily goals too. In fact, the more you celebrate the more you start to notice reasons to celebrate.
Be so well,
Peter
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In past articles I suggested that while it’s common to think that the essence of commitment is staying together no matter what, this is a pretty superficial interpretation. More meaningful is a commitment to a certain quality of relationship. What’s the value in saying “forever” if you’re not going to make it a wonderful forever?
If you’re in a committed relationship and are interested in improving it, it’s valuable to write about and discuss with your partner the qualities you’re committed to. If you’re not in a relationship but would like be in an ecstatic one, it’s useful to define these qualities beforehand. Below are some ideas to get you started.
Note that when I say “both people” in these examples, of course you can request that your partner agrees, but it’s important to begin with yourself. You and your partner are different people. If you’re fully participating and your partner isn’t on board with everything you’ve requested, let them explain what exactly they are willing to commit to. Then you can decide whether that works for you.
Be patient with them if you’ve never discussed ideas like these before. They may have some learning and catching up to do. Be tactful to help them understand that your interest in leveling-up the relationship doesn’t mean they’ve done something wrong.
Kindness – A basic starting point for a mutually beneficial relationship is that both people treat each other (and themselves) with kind words and actions. This includes being flexible, forgiving, and striving to understand. To start, take a single day to be acutely mindful of the kindness – or lack thereof – in your words, thoughts, and behaviors (with regard to your partner). This may help you to recognize the potential breadth of kindness.
Honesty – Honesty means more than not telling lies or keeping secrets. High level honesty in a relationship designed for growth and synergy entails a great deal of self-awareness. You must know what’s actually going on within you in order to be honest with your words and actions. Otherwise there’s dissonance. Dissonance doesn’t feel good. It may cause you to subconsciously blame the other person or resent the relationship, and your partner will likely perceive it as a lack of closeness.
Engagement – It’s natural to have times when we’re wrapped up in our work, family responsibilities, or personal pursuits, with little left to invest in the relationship. A healthy relationship can withstand this, though not indefinitely. In order to get the most out of a relationship, both people must routinely (and enthusiastically) invest time, energy, and presence in it. If you’re finding yourself averse to doing so, return to Honesty and figure out what’s actually going on.
Mutuality – It may sound obvious that both people should aim to see and include the other as an equal, conscious being, but it’s exceedingly common to relate to a partner (or anyone else we know) through the internal mental representation we’ve created of them based on past interactions and judgments. In this way, we may treat each other more like objects than vessels of consciousness, light, and love. We may unconsciously regard them as an obstacle, or a thing that serves to give us something or make us happy. (Refer to last week’s article for some direction on authentic relating.)
Maturity – Living in an adult-size body doesn’t have much to do with maturity. Relationships can be great facilitators of growing up (which, by the way, doesn’t mean being serious, rigid, or boring). A commitment to maturity in a relationship might mean that both parties endeavor to show up as responsible adults; doing our best not to let our inner child run us (and being honest about when it is); not blaming the other for our own stuff; not playing parent to our partner; being transparent, brave, and communicative.
Integrity – In a relationship of integrity, we aim to keep our agreements with ourselves and our partner. We are consistent. We are trustworthy. We strive to maintain harmony between who we are and who we say we want to be. Finally, we do these things not out of a feeling of obligation but with a spirit of rising to the occasion.
I hope this article has given you some ideas of the sorts of qualities you wish to commit to in current or future relationships. I can barely imagine the great ways the world would change if we all made such conscious commitments.
Be well,
Peter
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June 22nd is my wife Briana’s birthday. She’s the Dragontree’s founder and fearless leader.
On the way to art school at age 18, she was in a car accident and broke her neck. It changed the course of her life. She never made it to art school, instead spending the following six months in a brace at home in Montana. During her rehabilitation period she received massage and this kindled an interest in the healing arts.
She decided to go to massage school in Portland, and later to California College of Ayurveda to learn the traditional medical system of India. When we met, she was a massage therapist at a little spa in Portland and also a professional belly dancer. Less than a year later, she was opening her own spa. She was just 23 then.
I helped with the planning and painting, but she has always been the engine and visionary. I’ve watched her grow tremendously in the 20 years that we’ve been together. Besides her business acumen, she has an incredible knack for making spaces beautiful. She’s an amazing mother and wife. She is generous and kind and funny. She’s a pretty good guitar player, too.
The funny thing is, for probably the first 15 years we were together she had these moments of insecurity when she would ask me with despair in her voice, “What am I doing with my life?!” It was as if she saw herself as floundering and aimless.
It’s interesting how outsiders sometimes see our gifts more clearly than we do. In this case, my response came so easily. “Well,” I would say, “you have built spas where thousands of people have come to feel better. You’ve created programs and courses to educate, uplift, and support people’s healing. You’ve written books. You’ve provided jobs for probably a thousand people over the years. You’re a mother and wife. You beautify the world. You’re a great friend. You’re always trying to be your best self. You’re good at Boggle – though not as good as me. I think that’s a pretty good start.”
I’m not sure if what I said was helpful in a lasting way. But over time, and especially as she began to do more spiritual and coaching work, there was an ever-growing group of people who said to her, “You changed my life for the better.” And I think it started to sink in. She doesn’t ask me what she’s doing with her life anymore.
From all of us whose lives have been made better by our association with you, Briana Borten, HAPPY BIRTHDAY! We love you.
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