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9 Signals that You’re Not In Love With Your Job (And what to do next…)

We’ve had many clients ask us about the big question of whether or not to stay in a job that doesn’t feel right. It can be a challenging decision because… Read More

See 20/20

A few years ago, Briana and I set out to create the ultimate system for planning, goal making, and life-sweetness-maximization. The result was The Dreambook. We launched it as a… Read More

Deeper Self-Care: Making Space for your Essence

So much of what we do through The Dragontree – both at our spas and with our products, courses, and articles – is meant to assist people to prioritize self-care…. Read More

Build belief in your own resilience. Be compassionate with yourself. Notice all the challenging times you’ve already managed.
Foster optimism. Actively reframe your circumstances. Stick to the facts. Choose to be an optimist – it’s a simple habit of thinking and habits can be changed.
Cultivate active coping and self-regulation. Pay attention to your thoughts and behaviors. Look for solutions and help – there are so many good resources available to you.
Find a source of personal meaning. Do you believe in a higher power? A personal mission? A mandate to serve the world and share your gifts? What’s the most important thing to you? Prioritize that.
Boost personal preparedness. Managing crises holistically isn’t a matter of either wearing a mask or believing we’ll all get through this. Hedge your bets. Build resilience, stay positive, and also do some common sense things to enable you to better weather the unexpected.
Support social networks. We need connection to other humans, not just for the psychological support, but the material support (e.g., toilet paper) too!
Connect with parents, family, and other role models. While we generally recognize the powerful stabilizing force the family structure can provide for children, it can be equally valuable for adults. If family isn’t available or doesn’t function that way for you, make your own family and find other role models.
Maintain connections to one’s culture. This is especially important for refugees and new immigrants, but it can also be a valuable constant – and source of stories of resilience – for everyone.

I’d like to close with two more. First, mindfulness practices build resilience, specifically in that “springing back into shape” way. Mindfulness puts us firmly in the here-and-now – the truth – over and over and over and over throughout every day. Second, finding ways to serve also “springs us back” because it’s our nature to love, to care, and to offer oneself to the greater Whole to which we all belong. We’re naturally oriented in this way when we feel free. Therefore, even if you don’t feel altogether free, acting as if you’re free – by finding ways to help others rather than being hyperfocused on your own survival – will facilitate that freedom. So much love, Peter [post_title] => How to Be Resilient [post_excerpt] => [post_status] => publish [comment_status] => open [ping_status] => open [post_password] => [post_name] => how-to-be-resilient [to_ping] => [pinged] => [post_modified] => 2020-04-24 19:21:22 [post_modified_gmt] => 2020-04-24 19:21:22 [post_content_filtered] => [post_parent] => 0 [guid] => http://thedragontree.com/?p=7862 [menu_order] => 0 [post_type] => post [post_mime_type] => [comment_count] => 1 [filter] => raw [webinar_id] => 0 ) [1] => WP_Post Object ( [ID] => 8137 [post_author] => 1 [post_date] => 2020-12-19 21:16:30 [post_date_gmt] => 2020-12-19 21:16:30 [post_content] => Welcome to the final installment in my series on longevity. We’ve covered a lot over the past few months! Here’s a recap: (1) Love life and live for the present (2) Work, stretch, and relax all parts of yourself (3) Dance with consciousness (4) Reduce media consumption (5) Pay attention to your breathing (6) Eat less (7) Prioritize community and service (8) Exchange love and touch (9) Optimize your sleep (10) Laugh more (11) Keep your heart open (12) Simplify (13) Go with the flow / don’t resist (14) Be one with Nature. (15) Keep growing (16) Know your pain body (17) Invite the spiritual dimension into your life. And now for my last three recommendations. #18: Be an Optimist. Optimism has measurable positive impacts on physical and psychological health. Some people are born optimists and it comes naturally for them to always look on the bright side. What a**holes, right? 😉 If you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em. The fact is, even if you were born such a curmudgeon that you can’t see the bright side of a lightbulb, you can choose to become an optimist today. Remember that “growth mindset” we talked about? Sure, optimism is a lucky inheritance for some, but that doesn’t mean it can’t be cultivated. To a great extent optimism and pessimism are habits of attention, and what you put your attention on grows. If you want to be an optimist, start putting your attention on what’s working, what’s good, beautiful, fascinating, or fortuitous. Pick something and take a moment to appreciate it. Hit your inner “save button.” Amplify it. Comment on it out loud – to yourself or whomever is nearby. Feel how it lifts you up a little. Then go with this springiness and see if there’s another good thing you can be aware of. Bounce from one gift to the next. If nothing sweet or wonderful jumps out at you, create a sweet event. Hand someone a flower, pay someone’s bus fare, offer a compliment. Meanwhile, as important as focusing on the good is noticing when you’re focusing on the bad. Then, as efficiently as possible, pick up your attention, put it on something else, and let go of whatever you were focusing on. You can change your habits. #19: Forgive. Little consumes life force as much as holding onto grievances, whether they’re with ourselves, other people, or the world. Withheld forgiveness is a primary expression of the pain body (our addiction to pain and conflict) we talked about last week, but I chose to cover forgiveness as a separate item on this list because it’s just so important. Our resentments cause us pain while stealing our power and attention. Moreover, everything we resent eventually hardens within our physical and/or energetic being as a sort of concretion. You might think of it as a knot or blockage. Conversely, forgiveness is the relinquishment of a false idea – the idea that condemnation is a force for constructive change – and it opens and frees us. Like the concept of resistance I discussed in part nine of this series, I feel I could write a whole book about forgiveness, but in the interest of your time, I’ll bottom line it. Opportunities for forgiveness are everywhere. Start noticing your grievances with all sorts of elements of your life – from the obvious to the very subtle – and forgive them. Don’t expect it to be something you’ll do once and it will never come back. Forgiveness is a commitment to keep forgiving. Over and over. Let it go, let it go, let it go. Feel the peace that comes from this act. Set yourself free and set the world free. #20: Love Yourself. If you seek longevity, I believe it’s worth looking closely at who it is that you wish to have a longer life and how you feel about this creature. Look in a mirror. Do you love that being dearly? Have you forgiven and accepted them in their entirety – for everything they are and all they’ve ever done? Do you want the best for them in all situations? Do you treat them lovingly in terms of how you feed them, how you groom them and clothe them, how you exercise them, how you regard them and speak inwardly to them? Are you your own biggest cheerleader? If the answer is “no” to any of these questions, sadly, you’re in excellent company with most of the world. What a tragedy that we’re given a life and a vehicle for that life, and from such an early age we learn to withhold love from it. The withholding of love from ourselves is mostly fueled by an internalization of the parent/child dynamic (where the parent role could be informed by any adults from our early life). We become our own inner parent (more like a vicious tyrant at times), deeming ourselves underserving of love for all the ways in which we don’t match some unattainable template of perfection. Withholding love from certain parts of us while conditionally loving the other parts (as long as they don’t get pimples or say the wrong thing) fragments us. The path to self-love involves a lot of forgiveness. What parts of yourself have you disapproved of, rejected, or even denied the existence of? Find all the unloved pieces, forgive them, and let your love enter them, envelop them, and include them in your emerging sense of self. Forgive yourself for condemning and withholding love from these parts of yourself. Visualize your reintegration. Use your broader forgiveness practice to learn where you may be withholding self-love. What aspects of the world do you condemn? What qualities in others do you resent? Can you find those same qualities within yourself? Yes, it’s work. But it’s work worth doing. This concludes our exploration of the factors that contribute to longevity and life enrichment. There are always exceptions – like the rare centenarian who drinks whiskey for breakfast and doesn’t abide by any of the recommendations on this list – but I figure we might as well hedge our bets and follow these practices to the best of our ability. Also, my focus all along has been to help you get more life out of this life right now – regardless of how much longer it lasts. I always love getting into conversation with you. Did I miss a good one? What do you plan to do with your newly lengthened life? Share your thoughts about this subject with me and our community. Be well, Peter P.S. If you’re someone who likes to see everything in one place, here’s the whole list for review:

Love life and live for the present
Work, stretch, and relax all parts of yourself
Dance with consciousness
Reduce media consumption
Pay attention to your breathing
Eat less
Prioritize community and service
Exchange love and touch
Optimize your sleep
Laugh more
Keep your heart open
Simplify
Go with the flow / don’t resist
Be one with Nature
Keep growing
Know your pain body
Invite the spiritual dimension into your life.
Be an optimist
Forgive
Love yourself

[post_title] => Three Final Keys to Living Longer and Happier [post_excerpt] => [post_status] => publish [comment_status] => open [ping_status] => open [post_password] => [post_name] => three-final-keys-to-living-longer-and-happier [to_ping] => [pinged] => [post_modified] => 2020-12-19 21:31:26 [post_modified_gmt] => 2020-12-19 21:31:26 [post_content_filtered] => [post_parent] => 0 [guid] => http://thedragontree.com/?p=8137 [menu_order] => 0 [post_type] => post [post_mime_type] => [comment_count] => 2 [filter] => raw [webinar_id] => 0 ) [2] => WP_Post Object ( [ID] => 7887 [post_author] => 3 [post_date] => 2020-05-29 17:17:46 [post_date_gmt] => 2020-05-29 17:17:46 [post_content] => I got a new sleeping bag for our camping trip this weekend. I didn’t go to REI because I wanted the wide, old-fashioned kind with flannel inside. If the temperature drops below 50, I’ll probably be chilly because it’s not much more than a tube-shaped blanket, but I like it. As I was recycling all the extraneous stuff that came with it, a little slip of paper fluttered into the bin and the words on it caught my eye. It had the name of the small company that made it, and below that: “We appreciate you, dear customer!” I see these things a lot and wouldn’t usually give it a thought, but this one made me pause. I’m looking forward to the road trip to our camping destination. I love road trips – especially in areas I’ve never explored. As I’m passing through a new town, if there’s one thing that makes me think, “I could live here,” it’s the presence of small businesses. Driving through miles of Walmarts, Home Depots, Targets, and Subways doesn’t do it for me. Seeing “Millie’s Coffee” or “Bud’s Hand-Carved Lawn Animals” or “Aunt Sissie’s Famous Pies” – that’s the stuff that makes me want to pull over. Small businesses were already at a disadvantage before the pandemic. Now they’re really in peril. But there’s something about the experience of visiting a small business and the customer/purveyor relationship that many people really value. When we shop with a small business, not only are we choosing that “small business experience,” we’re also saying, “I want businesses like this to continue to exist.” It works in both directions. My wife and I are also choosing the “small business experience” – from the purveyor’s side – and we really understand the sentiment of appreciation on that slip of paper. We feel grateful every time someone purchases something from us (I doubt Mr. Starbucks feels that way) and it goes a lot farther than you might think. The most obvious reason we appreciate your business is because it allows us to feed and provide for our family. But it also enables us to devote ourselves to this work – it makes it possible for us to spend time writing uplifting articles to counter all the bad news out there. It makes it possible for us to invest ourselves in learning all that we can to be better educators and healthcare practitioners. It supports a team of dozens of others to earn a good living doing their healing and service work for the wellness of our community. It enables us to direct our earnings into the non-profit we started – the Well Life Foundation – to support women in vulnerable populations. And beyond the monetary aspects, we appreciate that so many of you have touched our hearts, inspired us, and taught us. Every single day we get messages from members of the Dragontree community telling us what you’re passionate about, what you’re creating, and how you’re making the world a better place. I’m sure the makers of my sleeping bag do appreciate my business, but I doubt they get to have this kind of experience through their clients. I know it may be hard to swallow that it’s an honor to serve you, but it really is. We feel so blessed to have this avenue for helping people heal, grow, and connect. As a business based largely on physical touch, it’s difficult to know what the future will hold for us. More than ever we’re focusing on ways to serve you without being in your six foot bubble. And when the time is right, we’ll reopen our doors (with masks on) and welcome you back into our spas. Thanks for being in our lives, Peter, Briana, and Everyone at The Dragontree [post_title] => Thank You [post_excerpt] => [post_status] => publish [comment_status] => open [ping_status] => open [post_password] => [post_name] => thank-you-2 [to_ping] => [pinged] => [post_modified] => 2020-05-29 17:17:46 [post_modified_gmt] => 2020-05-29 17:17:46 [post_content_filtered] => [post_parent] => 0 [guid] => http://thedragontree.com/?p=7887 [menu_order] => 0 [post_type] => post [post_mime_type] => [comment_count] => 0 [filter] => raw [webinar_id] => 0 ) ) [post_count] => 3 [current_post] => -1 [in_the_loop] => [post] => WP_Post Object ( [ID] => 7862 [post_author] => 3 [post_date] => 2020-04-24 18:03:43 [post_date_gmt] => 2020-04-24 18:03:43 [post_content] => Almost every year I witness the same tragedy in Boulder. The daffodils emerge, the trees put forth tender leaves and delicate flowers, and my heart swells with the natural resurrection of life. Then we get a snowstorm and all the new growth dies. So much for spring. But wait! As the snow melts, I’m reminded that these plants are hardier than I thought. The flowers return, more leaves grow, and it turns out they’re all the tougher for the hardship. It’s tempting to hope for a life without hardship. But it’s neither realistic nor good for us. We’re better served by resilience. Resilience isn’t just the ability to withstand hardship, it’s the ability to utilize hardship as a means for growth. Let’s look into why we need it and how to build it. Modern humans were already epidemically stressed. Now we’re pandemically stressed. Even if you’re healthy, you’re not scared of coronavirus, you don’t feel especially affected by what’s going on, it’s still likely that you’re going through a heightened state of nervous system arousal to adapt to these unique circumstances. And of course, if you are worried about your health or finances or loved ones or the overall state of the world, then you’re in an even more heightened state of arousal. We can attribute today’s common usage of the word “stress” to an endocrinologist named Hans Selye who first described how organisms respond to chronic stress in what he dubbed the General Adaptation Syndrome. Most of us are going through this syndrome right now. Here’s how it works. When we first encounter a stressor, we enter the “alarm phase.” The system is temporarily shocked, our body produces stress hormones, the nervous system gets more vigilant, and our fundamental homeostasis is compromised. Next, if the stressor persists, we enter the “resistance phase” in which the body/mind makes adaptations to manage the ongoing burden. We may feel like we’re getting used to it, but we’re actually chronically hyper-aroused and this demands a lot of energy. Eventually, if the stress continues, we enter the third phase: “exhaustion” – we just can’t maintain the constant adaptation and things start to collapse (we get sick, fatigued, anxious, depressed, etc.). We’re probably hanging out in that resistance phase, but may get repeatedly re-alarmed when we hear more bad news. Some of us are already in exhaustion. What can we do? In his popular 1994 book, Why Zebras Don’t Get Ulcers, neuroendocrinologist Robert Sapolsky explains why it’s different for animals than it is for humans. They’re exposed to episodic stress – like the appearance of a predator. They react, the stressor goes away, and they return to a relaxed state and replenish from the toll of the stress. In contrast, the chronic stress we experience is taxing without any breaks. As I see it, true resilience doesn’t just mean being able to stay in the resistance phase for a long time without getting exhausted. That might be evidence of resilience, but it could just be the sign of a strong constitution. Indeed, one definition of resilience is simply “toughness.” But the definition I find more compelling is this: “the ability of a substance or object to spring back into shape.” I interpret “into shape” to mean the restoration of a state of fundamental wellbeing (not a state of active resistance). To me, resilience entails returning to balance or freedom not just after, but throughout, an experience of hardship. I like the word freedom because it implies that we’re not fighting, not pushing back. Instead, at least for a moment, we’re liberated from our stress. In my opinion the single most powerful way to achieve this kind of resilience is through a daily meditation practice. A few years ago, the American Psychological Association released a guidance document on the mental health impacts of climate change. It’s impressively holistic in its scope. One section offers great suggestions for building resilience, and I think they apply well to the current pandemic. Although these strategies we’re meant to be introduced by counselors, I believe you can apply them on your own (and reach out to us if you need further guidance).

Build belief in your own resilience. Be compassionate with yourself. Notice all the challenging times you’ve already managed.
Foster optimism. Actively reframe your circumstances. Stick to the facts. Choose to be an optimist – it’s a simple habit of thinking and habits can be changed.
Cultivate active coping and self-regulation. Pay attention to your thoughts and behaviors. Look for solutions and help – there are so many good resources available to you.
Find a source of personal meaning. Do you believe in a higher power? A personal mission? A mandate to serve the world and share your gifts? What’s the most important thing to you? Prioritize that.
Boost personal preparedness. Managing crises holistically isn’t a matter of either wearing a mask or believing we’ll all get through this. Hedge your bets. Build resilience, stay positive, and also do some common sense things to enable you to better weather the unexpected.
Support social networks. We need connection to other humans, not just for the psychological support, but the material support (e.g., toilet paper) too!
Connect with parents, family, and other role models. While we generally recognize the powerful stabilizing force the family structure can provide for children, it can be equally valuable for adults. If family isn’t available or doesn’t function that way for you, make your own family and find other role models.
Maintain connections to one’s culture. This is especially important for refugees and new immigrants, but it can also be a valuable constant – and source of stories of resilience – for everyone.

You may also be interested in:

How to Be Resilient

Three Final Keys to Living Longer and Happier

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