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Two weeks ago I wrote about ways to ensure success with your resolutions. This week I want to look at ways to think differently about resolutions.
The previous article was focused mainly on resolutions that involve doing something new or different – achieving goals with work or money, exercising regularly, creating art, etc. Now I want to explore resolutions that focus on who you want to be.
First, to clarify, there’s nothing wrong with pursuing abundance and personal excellence. It’s probably worthwhile to avoid getting attached to the money and possessions you acquire or becoming overly identified with your achievements, but these pursuits, especially if they serve a higher cause, provide satisfaction and support happiness. And of course, what you do also demonstrates and reinforces who you are.
But external forms of achievement can’t satisfy us forever. Eventually we must respond to the prompting of our souls – to stretch and expand, to be an ever-greater expression of our divine potential.
In some ways, as we get older it’s simply not possible to do better than before – to play a better game of tennis, to have more sales, or to get more done in a day – but we can always be better.
By “being better” I don’t mean to trigger any stories of “not good enough” or to feed the ego’s attachment to some meaningless measure of superiority. By betterment, I mean more fully embodying our virtues. I mean consciously choosing what kind of person we want to be and being that person.
Here are some examples of being a better version of ourselves:
- Being present to the here-and-now for as much of our waking life as possible.
- Listening and holding space for others.
- Accepting each moment gracefully.
- Being more forgiving.
- Letting go more readily.
- Embodying peace.
- Treating ourselves and others with benevolence.
- Speaking the truth – when kind and necessary, with purpose, and when it improves upon the silence.
- Being generous and helpful.
- Being an enhancement to our environment.
- Living in a way that is harmonious with nature.
- Being a clearer channel for Love.
Obviously, there’s some doing involved in that list, but the being has to come first.
Who do you choose to be? I always enjoy hearing from you.
Love,
Peter
[post_title] => Choose Who You Want to Be
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Recently I wrote about the Fire Element, which governs the summer season, and how as a culture we tend to glorify fire qualities (such as passion, activity, consumption, and drive) while overlooking water qualities (like receptivity, humility, reflection, and stillness). I explained that the natural order is a balance between these two. In parallel with this cultural imbalance, much of the planet is heating up, exhausted of resources, and drying out. Inviting water – and, more broadly, yin – in equal measure to fire is essential for our evolution and survival.
To follow up on this theme I want to clarify that fire isn’t intrinsically pathological. It’s all about how we embody it. In fact, if we tap into our innate fire in a way that’s governed by clarity, balance, and love (rather than fear and short-term pleasure-seeking), it blesses us with its virtues.
Let’s look at some of these virtues. I invite you to imagine each of these qualities in the form of physical fire and then feel into how you embody it as a human virtue.
Expansiveness: Fire’s nature is to expand. Not only does it expand in size as it finds more fuel to consume, but also its light expands into the darkness and its warmth expands into the cold. As the element that rules our heart, it prompts us to expand through acceptance, joy, and love.
Warmth: Warmth is more than a physical property, it’s an expression of our inner fire that engenders comfort, good humor, and connection. Warmth almost always goes along with openness. The ability to kindle genuine warmth in a difficult situation is a gift.
Lightness: With fire, lightness means two things – the quality of being luminous and the quality of being weightless. And it’s so natural that the word has been paired with the heart – lighthearted. (You don’t hear anyone being called light-stomached, do you?) The fact that this virtue can be evoked at any time, no matter how hard life gets, is something we should all remember.
Inclusivity: As the epitome of fire in our world – the Sun – denies its warmth and light to no one, another of fire’s virtues is inclusivity. Open hearts are inclusive hearts. There’s no part of our shadow that fire isn’t willing to illuminate.
Joy: Joy is more than an emotion. It’s an embodiment of truth – that what we are is essentially joyful, and that the Divine Play of life is an act of joyous exploration. The ego can easily shroud this truth; thus, living in joy is a purposeful act of service to ourselves and the world. When we choose joy we are remembering.
Unification: All manner of fuel can be fed into a fire and it’s rendered into one indivisible ash. Likewise, all of the above virtues support fire’s virtue of unification. Expansiveness reminds us that we’re one with everything. Warmth is the magic ingredient in cooking and interpersonal connection that brings different flavors together. Lightness shows us the insignificance of our differences and the undeniability of our kinship. Inclusivity is the invitation to discover our alchemy together and to integrate the fragmented parts of ourselves. And joy is the conductor of this grand reunion.
This week let’s all choose one of these virtues to cultivate. Sit with a fire and seek to understand what this virtue has to do with fire. Invite the fire in front of you to activate the fire inside you. Ask to be an effective channel for this virtue, and intend to embody it with an attitude of play and service. Then share with us in the comments section about how it went.
Love,
Peter
[post_title] => Six Virtues of Fire That Will Change Your Life for the Better
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Early in my practice, people told me I should choose one area of medicine to specialize in, but I was resistant to it because of the lack of variety. Also, it seemed that the natural specialization for me would be pain since I have a knack for treating it, and that sounded, well, kind of boring.
But I gradually began focusing in that direction, and over the years my understanding of pain broadened. I became interested in the whole human experience of suffering, which was like finding a loophole because it’s a pretty vast spectrum.
Suffering is fascinating.
As much as humans hate suffering, we have a curiously complicated relationship with it. We watch movies and read books about it for entertainment. We ache when we see others suffer, but we kind of like the ache. We try it out intentionally (ghost peppers anyone?) and we’re compelled to learn the graphic details of a tragedy just so we can feel it more richly. Often we simultaneously generate it and resist it. And sometimes, we turn it into an incredible, life-changing blessing.
To an extent, it seems that when good outcomes happen after a period of suffering, it's evidence of healthy adaptive mechanisms that help us make the best of a bad situation. But occasionally the suffering appears to be a kind of magic ingredient that provokes an evolution (or a revolution) that wouldn’t have otherwise occurred.
Few people would ask to suffer, but studies show that when they look back on how suffering ultimately facilitated a great favorable change, most say they wouldn’t change anything.
Well, maybe one thing.
If only they could have trusted, they reflect, it could have been a different experience.
On top of the discomfort of suffering we often add an additional dimension of discomfort in the form of resistance (which is often triggered by fear). When the resistance stops – because we just can’t keep it up any longer, or through a conscious choice to trust and relinquish the resistance – this is when something else enters the equation. What do you call it? Grace? Clarity? Insight? And the suffering becomes a portal to a new way of being.
Today, when you encounter some suffering – maybe it will just be a little micro-suffering – what happens if you don’t resist it? What happens when you say, “I choose to trust” and dive into it?
I’d love to hear your thoughts on this (in the comments section below). Have you had experience where suffering facilitated something good? What was the pivotal point, when it turned from suffering into grace? Did that change your relationship with suffering? Do you trust more? Why or why not?
Love,
Peter
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Two weeks ago I wrote about ways to ensure success with your resolutions. This week I want to look at ways to think differently about resolutions.
The previous article was focused mainly on resolutions that involve doing something new or different – achieving goals with work or money, exercising regularly, creating art, etc. Now I want to explore resolutions that focus on who you want to be.
First, to clarify, there’s nothing wrong with pursuing abundance and personal excellence. It’s probably worthwhile to avoid getting attached to the money and possessions you acquire or becoming overly identified with your achievements, but these pursuits, especially if they serve a higher cause, provide satisfaction and support happiness. And of course, what you do also demonstrates and reinforces who you are.
But external forms of achievement can’t satisfy us forever. Eventually we must respond to the prompting of our souls – to stretch and expand, to be an ever-greater expression of our divine potential.
In some ways, as we get older it’s simply not possible to do better than before – to play a better game of tennis, to have more sales, or to get more done in a day – but we can always be better.
By “being better” I don’t mean to trigger any stories of “not good enough” or to feed the ego’s attachment to some meaningless measure of superiority. By betterment, I mean more fully embodying our virtues. I mean consciously choosing what kind of person we want to be and being that person.
Here are some examples of being a better version of ourselves:
- Being present to the here-and-now for as much of our waking life as possible.
- Listening and holding space for others.
- Accepting each moment gracefully.
- Being more forgiving.
- Letting go more readily.
- Embodying peace.
- Treating ourselves and others with benevolence.
- Speaking the truth – when kind and necessary, with purpose, and when it improves upon the silence.
- Being generous and helpful.
- Being an enhancement to our environment.
- Living in a way that is harmonious with nature.
- Being a clearer channel for Love.
Obviously, there’s some doing involved in that list, but the being has to come first.
Who do you choose to be? I always enjoy hearing from you.
Love,
Peter
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