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Dragontree Dreambook

The Main Ingredients in a High Level Quality of Life

When we read about historical figures or people in the news, it’s easy to get the message that it’s big things that make a life exceptional, that the individuals who… Read More

The Antidote: Celebration

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… Read More

Level Up with the Dreambook

You are amazing. Let’s take it to the next level. I am always delighted to get unsolicited positive feedback about our books and courses. I save it all in an… Read More

How to Make Your Resolutions More Effective

As 2022 approaches, perhaps your mind has been on certain lifestyle changes you plan to make or some goals you intend to achieve over the next year. It’s important to… Read More

Turn Your Dreams into Choices

Several years ago, Briana asked me, “What are your dreams?” and I discovered there was a hitch in my thinking about dreams. Somehow “dreams” had come to represent crazy or… Read More

What I Don’t Want You to Know About Me

I once participated in a weekend training that included a process called “What I Don’t Want You To Know About Me.” We took turns standing up and telling the rest… Read More

Best Dreambook Ever

I’m not really an excitable type of person. I can’t remember the last time I jumped up and down while clapping my hands and making whooping noises (generally I perform… Read More

Make Good Habits Stick

A few years ago, we added a simple habit-tracking system in our ever popular Dreambook. Users can track up to four habits at a time, marking their progress on each… Read More

You are the Certainty in Uncertain Times

This time last year we were in the midst of the covid crisis, a race crisis, and an intense presidential race. I wrote that a good plan and a strong… Read More

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It was also common to see a group of students hitting themselves and each other. They were training in the toughening exercises of martial arts, which I had never witnessed before. This entailed repeatedly knocking the edges of their shins or forearms against each other, or whacking their bodies with a thick bundle of metal wires (called an “iron bundle” or tetsutaba). As I tentatively tried hitting myself with this implement, one of them told me, “You really want to feel your bones rattle when you do it.” Needless to say, they had lots of bruises. They finished every session by taking out a jug of some pungent brown liquid and rubbing it all over the impacted parts of their bodies. As an herbalist, this was the most interesting part for me. Each guy actually had his own jug of brown stuff, and they often argued about whose was the best. The brown stuff was called dit da jow (AKA die da jiu) which means something like “hit fall wine” and it’s sometimes just called a hit formula or training formula by martial artists. The purpose of the stuff is to help one recover faster after taking a bunch of kicks and punches. It’s made from a variety of herbs, resins, and minerals that have been soaked in alcohol for about a month. Famous teachers and martial arts schools often have their own recipes, many of which have been in continuous use for centuries and are often held in great secrecy. Over years of begging and pleading with my fighter friends and hunting down obscure texts, I managed to procure about a dozen different recipes, then proceeded to spend more years studying them. I had hundreds of jars of my own “brown liquids,” made out of countless combinations and permutations of these formulas. Since most of my patients weren’t fighters I expanded the application to include the various ways we’re battered by modern life – athletics, poor posture, sitting for way too long at a desk, carrying kids around, using backpacks, sleeping on a crappy bed, standing on hard floors, wearing heels, etc. By tracking people’s responses, I gradually moved toward what would eventually be our Muscle Melt liniment. It features a gigantic number of ingredients, but every one is in there for a reason. My high-performance athlete patients regularly tell me that it makes it possible for them to do a super intense workout and be back in action the next day with minimal downtime. If you’re feeling beat up by life, give it a try and tell me what you think. Be well, Dr. Peter Borten [post_title] => Dit Da Jow: Healing Elixir or Ancient Myth? [post_excerpt] => [post_status] => publish [comment_status] => open [ping_status] => open [post_password] => [post_name] => dit-da-jow [to_ping] => [pinged] => [post_modified] => 2023-05-17 16:11:28 [post_modified_gmt] => 2023-05-17 16:11:28 [post_content_filtered] => [post_parent] => 0 [guid] => https://thedragontree.com/?p=9035 [menu_order] => 0 [post_type] => post [post_mime_type] => [comment_count] => 0 [filter] => raw [webinar_id] => 0 ) [1] => WP_Post Object ( [ID] => 8727 [post_author] => 1 [post_date] => 2022-08-26 20:25:14 [post_date_gmt] => 2022-08-26 20:25:14 [post_content] => Imagine if you had the opportunity to create the perfect planet. What would you come up with? Let’s brainstorm together! To start, you’d probably want plenty of water. We all know that water is a fundamental prerequisite for life. So let’s make crystal clear water in springs and lakes and rivers for drinking and bathing and cleaning and growing plants. Then you’d probably like to have vast seas to hold more water as a source of precipitation to moisten the land. And these seas would also keep the planet cool and generate air movement. They could house infinitely fascinating creatures and would be full of mystery and beauty. Then you’d want stable land to live on and maybe you’d cover the land with soil – a miraculous substance that would feed the creatures that live upon it and is relatively easy to dig in. It would be smart and beautiful to cover most of the soil with an incredible carpet of vegetation. There would be grasses and other low-growing plants to hold the soil together and blanket it with a lovely softness and a variety of shapes and colors. And why not also make it capable of rippling in breezes and adorning the land with flowers? You would probably also want taller vegetation – elegant, noble trees. They would offer shade and shelter, create their own ecosystems, and support innumerable creatures. With their spreading, upright growth, they would seem to parallel the human journey, rooted in the earth and rising toward the heavens. All this plant matter would turn sunlight into biological life and provide the planet’s inhabitants with oxygen, food, lumber, clothing, paper, pigments, and nearly everything else we need. Of course, you’d want to share the planet with a great variety of animals, each of which would be lovely in its own way. They would be fascinating and inspiring and sometimes cuddly. They would be our companions, teachers, resources, and part of a perfect, balanced web of ecology. You would probably want to make the atmosphere just the right temperature and gas composition for all these lifeforms. It would be super smooth to breathe it. And maybe you’d choose to fill the soil with treasures – metals and minerals to fortify our bodies, and the raw materials for tools, glass, machines, jewelry, and microchips. If it were up to you, you would make it absolutely gorgeous, right? Maybe you’d choose glorious blue skies that would make you feel free and expansive, and they’d change color in the morning and evening. You’d perhaps fill the skies with an ever-changing display of clouds that would look like swishes and dollops of paint made by a giant paint brush. And they’d provide shelter from the hot sun and would deliver water to the creatures and the land. For interest, you’d make the land rise up in places to create chains of mountains, some of them covered with snow, and there would be lush valleys and canyons between. You would throw out the occasional rainbow as a sweet surprise. Maybe you’d create some kind of natural laser light show for people to watch at night, called aurora borealis. Could you imagine if such a place existed?! You would look around at all of it and say, "This is perfect! It’s the greatest imaginable treasure!” And you’d feel lucky and grateful. You’d feel inspired and awestruck. You’d feel in love with the magic and majesty of it all. You’d feel honored to get to live in such a place, and reverent of the power and grace and grandeur evident in such a place. You’d feel taken care of. You’d feel home. Let’s all remember this and treat the planet like the miracle it is. Be well, Peter [post_title] => The Miracle Planet [post_excerpt] => [post_status] => publish [comment_status] => open [ping_status] => open [post_password] => [post_name] => the-miracle-planet [to_ping] => [pinged] => [post_modified] => 2022-08-26 20:25:14 [post_modified_gmt] => 2022-08-26 20:25:14 [post_content_filtered] => [post_parent] => 0 [guid] => https://thedragontree.com/?p=8727 [menu_order] => 0 [post_type] => post [post_mime_type] => [comment_count] => 4 [filter] => raw [webinar_id] => 0 ) [2] => WP_Post Object ( [ID] => 8654 [post_author] => 3 [post_date] => 2022-04-29 22:22:06 [post_date_gmt] => 2022-04-29 22:22:06 [post_content] => As a weight-obsessed culture, we don’t often want to think of ourselves as big, but there’s an expression you hear once in a while – “That’s big of you” – and it means something good. TheFreeDictionary.com defines it as: “Noble or commendable” (unfortunately it adds, “this phrase is often said sarcastically”). It’s as if we experience a person as somehow bigger when they embody their virtuousness. In contrast, when someone acts from animalistic drives, out of selfishness, fear, rigidity, or spite, we often see them as small. These perceptions make sense because when we’re acting from our “big self,” we have access to a broader palette of options. We have the perspective to step back from the charged elements of a situation and choose who we want to be. When we’re in our “small self” we have few options; our emotions and narrow beliefs are in the driver’s seat. This is why Briana and I so often lean on the words growth and expansion when discussing the work we do and the processes by which people overcome limitations. And it’s why we chose the name Sacred Expansion for our upcoming course. When our kids were little, they would sometimes talk to us about getting older and what that meant. They’d proudly point out that they were older or bigger than some other kid, as if this signified a higher level of importance. And they would proclaim that when they got to be 20, or 30, or 100 years old, they’d be SO big and SO grown-up. Usually I would just enjoy this fantasy with them, but once in a while I’d explain that we don’t actually get much taller after our teen years . . . and many people don’t really continue to “grow up” after that age either. The latter point was probably lost on them, but I think it’s important that they understand it as they get closer to being adults: our psychological makeup doesn’t necessarily get upgraded as our body matures. There are plenty of children in the world operating through adult bodies. Knowing this can make it easier to find compassion for each other. This arrested development is mostly the result of our animalistic wiring (survival, pain avoidance, and pleasure-seeking) combined with restrictive programming from our parents and community. Each generation indoctrinates the next in both the wisdom and limitations of those who came before us. Often our socialization holds us back, instilling so many with a message that amounts to “life is a struggle; just get through it.” But we can help each other. One inspired person can light up another, and from there the illumination can continue to spread. We all have the ability to liberate ourselves from the programming that holds us back. Often requires improving our self-awareness, honestly examining the ways we’re restricted, and choosing to release the beliefs and baggage that are degrading us. While this isn’t easy, it doesn’t have to be terrifying or tedious. It can even be a process full of beauty and grace. That’s the idea behind Sacred Expansion. My wife, Briana, leads participants through a process of self-exploration that’s utilizes the imagery of the seasons and the language of the natural world that’s deep within each of us. Though it entails some work, the rewards come pretty quickly. While you recognize that you have a lifetime of growth and expansion ahead of you, you also know that you’ve got this. And it just gets better and better. I heartily encourage you to join us. We start this Tuesday! And we always provide replays for those who can't make it to the live sessions. Be well, Peter [post_title] => That’s Very Big of You [post_excerpt] => [post_status] => publish [comment_status] => open [ping_status] => open [post_password] => [post_name] => thats-very-big-of-you [to_ping] => [pinged] => [post_modified] => 2022-04-29 22:22:19 [post_modified_gmt] => 2022-04-29 22:22:19 [post_content_filtered] => [post_parent] => 0 [guid] => https://thedragontree.com/?p=8654 [menu_order] => 0 [post_type] => post [post_mime_type] => [comment_count] => 0 [filter] => raw [webinar_id] => 0 ) ) [post_count] => 3 [current_post] => -1 [before_loop] => 1 [in_the_loop] => [post] => WP_Post Object ( [ID] => 9035 [post_author] => 5 [post_date] => 2023-05-17 15:12:58 [post_date_gmt] => 2023-05-17 15:12:58 [post_content] => When I was in grad school for Chinese Medicine, I’d often see students hanging around campus engaged in related ancient Chinese arts, such as tai chi, qi gong, calligraphy, studying Chinese astrology or feng shui. It was also common to see a group of students hitting themselves and each other. They were training in the toughening exercises of martial arts, which I had never witnessed before. This entailed repeatedly knocking the edges of their shins or forearms against each other, or whacking their bodies with a thick bundle of metal wires (called an “iron bundle” or tetsutaba). As I tentatively tried hitting myself with this implement, one of them told me, “You really want to feel your bones rattle when you do it.” Needless to say, they had lots of bruises. They finished every session by taking out a jug of some pungent brown liquid and rubbing it all over the impacted parts of their bodies. As an herbalist, this was the most interesting part for me. Each guy actually had his own jug of brown stuff, and they often argued about whose was the best. The brown stuff was called dit da jow (AKA die da jiu) which means something like “hit fall wine” and it’s sometimes just called a hit formula or training formula by martial artists. The purpose of the stuff is to help one recover faster after taking a bunch of kicks and punches. It’s made from a variety of herbs, resins, and minerals that have been soaked in alcohol for about a month. Famous teachers and martial arts schools often have their own recipes, many of which have been in continuous use for centuries and are often held in great secrecy. Over years of begging and pleading with my fighter friends and hunting down obscure texts, I managed to procure about a dozen different recipes, then proceeded to spend more years studying them. I had hundreds of jars of my own “brown liquids,” made out of countless combinations and permutations of these formulas. Since most of my patients weren’t fighters I expanded the application to include the various ways we’re battered by modern life – athletics, poor posture, sitting for way too long at a desk, carrying kids around, using backpacks, sleeping on a crappy bed, standing on hard floors, wearing heels, etc. By tracking people’s responses, I gradually moved toward what would eventually be our Muscle Melt liniment. It features a gigantic number of ingredients, but every one is in there for a reason. My high-performance athlete patients regularly tell me that it makes it possible for them to do a super intense workout and be back in action the next day with minimal downtime. If you’re feeling beat up by life, give it a try and tell me what you think. Be well, Dr. Peter Borten [post_title] => Dit Da Jow: Healing Elixir or Ancient Myth? 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You may also be interested in:

Dit Da Jow: Healing Elixir or Ancient Myth?

The Miracle Planet

That’s Very Big of You

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