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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

First, pent up anger can be released without directing it at someone. We often hear that we should express our feelings, but there’s a difference between expressing them responsibly versus spewing them at others. If necessary, make relevant communications in order to get clear, but throughout the conversation, remember your purpose (whatever it is, I’d suggest it should include “to let go and move on”).
Be willing to feel it. It’s safe to let yourself experience how anger feels in your body. Notice where you feel it the most and what it feels like. Be curious. Don’t resist. Surrender to the feeling. Invite it to be felt fully.
Breathe through it. Get into your body. Let your breaths be long and deep, and lengthen your exhale especially, intending to let go.
Intentionally open yourself. Anger tends to have a “closing” effect on us energetically (and even physically). Instead, imagine your heart opening, your throat opening, your jaw opening, your neck and head opening. Put your feet flat on the ground and imagine that life energy is allowed to move through you unobstructedly. You can also repeat the mantra “Open,” emphasizing a long O sound.
Ask for the restoration of your vision. Speak to your Highest Self or Spirit (or whatever term you prefer) and request clarity. Be clear that you would rather see the truth, see the big picture of your journey, than to be right about what you believe.
Practice using language to make requests and convey how you feel rather than resorting to using anger to make your point. For more information, check out Marshall Rosenberg’s Nonviolent Communication.
Journal. As you put the thoughts and feelings into words and get those words out onto paper, you’re processing, learning yourself, getting back into the flow, and making yourself open to a resolution.
Stick to the facts. When telling the stories that make you angry (whether to yourself or others), try stating only the facts of what happened without any interpretation added on. Does this change the way you see it?
Choose the result you want. Obstacles are part of the path. They help us grow. But you probably didn’t choose to invest your time and energy into fighting obstacles (which isn’t to say you never need to fight). You were headed somewhere, remember? Often we caught up in feeling we can’t get there without vanquishing the obstacle in front of us, but there’s almost always a way around it. Sometimes it requires thinking bigger about your goal – are you sure it has to look like the specific outcome you had in mind? What quality of life or experience did you believe you’d have when you achieved that outcome? Isn’t that still possible?
Forgive. Ideally, this means forgiving all involved parties, and virtually always that includes yourself. Don’t expect it to be a single act. Commit to forgiving and re-forgiving every time you find yourself in resentment again.

Be well, Peter [post_title] => How to Have a Healthy Relationship With Anger [post_excerpt] => [post_status] => publish [comment_status] => open [ping_status] => open [post_password] => [post_name] => how-to-have-a-healthy-relationship-with-anger [to_ping] => [pinged] => [post_modified] => 2021-05-28 20:58:05 [post_modified_gmt] => 2021-05-28 20:58:05 [post_content_filtered] => [post_parent] => 0 [guid] => https://thedragontree.com/?p=8271 [menu_order] => 0 [post_type] => post [post_mime_type] => [comment_count] => 1 [filter] => raw [webinar_id] => 0 ) [1] => WP_Post Object ( [ID] => 8447 [post_author] => 3 [post_date] => 2022-01-09 00:16:00 [post_date_gmt] => 2022-01-09 00:16:00 [post_content] => This year I’ll be writing a book about reconnecting with the natural world. This was the subject of my doctoral thesis years ago, but while that was a 500-page document that few people would want to slog through, I’m finally revising it into a work that’s shorter and accessible. The crux of it is the idea that we belong to Nature – though we’ve forgotten this. Nature isn’t just scenery; it’s the substances and forces that created us and provide for all our needs. It also isn’t just a bunch of resources; it’s our greatest teacher. It’s constantly displaying lessons on how to be in balance and have a fruitful life, and it demonstrates a vast palate of virtues that are available to us. All we need to do is remember. Today I’m going to share a little blurb from the section on Water. Here I discuss the virtue of clarity or transparency. As you read the following, see if you can call up an image of the clearest water. Imagine that every water molecule in your body (and it’s about two-thirds of what you are) contains the virtue of clarity – it’s already in you. One of water’s most striking characteristics is its transparency. Just as clarity is the foremost measure of quality in a jewel, so is there something magical about clear water. Have you ever visited water that’s so lucent you can see the rocks and fish below as if looking through a window? If we're going to drink it, the clearer the better, since this tends to signal purity. If we plan to swim or bathe in it, clarity means safety - it has nothing to hide. And if we aim to be refreshed, clear water is the ticket for cooling us, moistening us, and cleaning us out. When we embody clarity, it has a similar effect on our experience of life and others’ experience of us - pure, clean, refreshing, nothing hidden. Few things are as conducive to both power and peace as a clear mind. With clarity, we avoid most conflict. Our energy can be invested more wisely. When we’re transparent, we know ourselves. We’re aware of our strengths and weaknesses. We know what we're capable of and to what extent we’re channeling or obstructing our potential. We have a realistic accounting of our resources. We see clearly how we’re utilizing them and what kind of return we get on this expenditure. With a clear mind the process by which our authentic will expresses potential through us proceeds in a healthy, efficient, and beautiful way. If fear and social programming degrade our clarity, we may override the will, investing ourselves instead in behaviors that secure our safety and approval. When we’re transparent around agreements, we commit ourselves only to what we know we can follow through on. We keep all the agreements we make - both with others and ourselves - and this builds self-trust. The unknown is less frightening when we know we can trust ourselves. If we break an agreement, we recognize immediately the clouding effect this has on our inner waters and we clean it up. If we keep secrets or try to hide things from ourselves (such as the truth of how well we’ve followed through on an agreement), it fragments us and makes transparency impossible. It also makes us less trusting of others. When we instead prioritize clarity and stop the hiding and secrecy, we dispel potential sources of fear. Clarity makes us less prone to being controlled by our emotions - especially fear. Sometimes we can be manipulated by fear even while avoiding it or pushing it away. This can form a certain cloudiness around the fear which might make it less intense, but also results in a chronic, vague anxiousness. When we insist on clarity, this means facing the fear and being with it willingly. It can be daunting, but the shift in attitude - from avoidance to curiosity and bravery - immediately changes the experience. The emotional volume diminishes and we can rationally ask ourselves, “Is this something to be afraid of? To be concerned about? Of no concern at all?” And if it warrants action we can clearly ask, “What am I going to do so that I’m reasonably protected from harm if such-and-such should happen?” In a fearful state, one of the most useful things we can do is to tell ourselves the pure, unmanipulated truth about our circumstances. No “what ifs,” no stories. Just the facts. This gets us quickly to clarity. While it's possible to be afraid even in a clear state, the majority of our fears are unreal except in the murky waters of an unclear mind. Just as a lack of clarity creates shadows where fear can develop, fear further distorts our clarity, like a storm over the sea that makes the water too choppy to see through. When we feel uncertain about what’s beneath, we tend to stay on the surface, but this only keeps us immersed in the turmoil. Though it may seem counterintuitive, diving deeper takes us to an underlying stillness that’s unaffected by the waves on the surface. I encourage you to spend some time soon with clear water. Let it arouse the virtue of clarity within you, and invite that clarity into all corners of your life. Be well, Peter [post_title] => The Virtue of Clarity: A Gift from Water That's Available to Everyone [post_excerpt] => [post_status] => publish [comment_status] => open [ping_status] => open [post_password] => [post_name] => the-virtue-of-clarity-a-gift-from-water-thats-available-to-everyone [to_ping] => [pinged] => [post_modified] => 2022-01-09 00:23:45 [post_modified_gmt] => 2022-01-09 00:23:45 [post_content_filtered] => [post_parent] => 0 [guid] => https://thedragontree.com/?p=8447 [menu_order] => 0 [post_type] => post [post_mime_type] => [comment_count] => 11 [filter] => raw [webinar_id] => 0 ) [2] => WP_Post Object ( [ID] => 8349 [post_author] => 3 [post_date] => 2021-09-16 21:22:46 [post_date_gmt] => 2021-09-16 21:22:46 [post_content] => 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 of the group, “What I don’t want you to know about me is...” And then we’d proceed to reveal something we’d rather not reveal. I noticed that the more resistance someone had to sharing something, the more potentially cathartic was the experience of doing so. (Note to anyone planning to try this at the dinner table tonight: this was in an intimate and highly supportive setting.) Those on the receiving end of each confession were instructed neither to recoil in disgust nor to smile reassuringly. The process continued until no one had anything left. In this email I’m going to detail some of the juiciest things I heard. Hey, don’t get so excited. It was all confidential, of course, and it was 20 years ago. I don’t even remember what any of us said. But I do intensely remember the feelings. First, when the instructor announced how the process would go, I felt panic and nausea. Then when I had nothing left to share, I felt FREE. One of our most common fears is being rejected by the people we care about, and we often believe they would reject us if they knew our secrets or if we didn’t behave a certain way. We’re usually wrong about this (they probably won’t reject us). But even when we’re right – and they do reject us – we get the opportunity to explore whether this matters to us (and why), to see how we’re affected by a desire for others’ approval, and to learn about self-approval (which we often withhold). In this spirit, I’d like to share something I don’t want you to know about me. The longer I do this teaching/healing work, the more I find myself in a position of sharing guidance, and I very much want to be seen as someone who walks his talk. So it’s uncomfortable to admit that although my wife and I created the Dreambook (the world’s best organizer/planner/life-transformer), I can still be a very disorganized, messy, and planning-resisting person. There have been many days when my own Dreambook is completely blank! However, I inevitably begin to feel somehow “off” when I’m not organized in my mind and schedule. I get more stressed, I lose track of things, I have unproductive days, but most disturbing is a difficult-to-describe feeling that things just aren’t right. Luckily, life always falls back into place when I return to good planning. As soon as I begin planning, treating my plan as a set of agreements with myself, and honoring those agreements, it’s like a magical alignment happens. I feel more at ease, serendipities occur, and I’m optimistic. So I’m calling myself out (with forgiveness, of course) for neglecting the practices that would make me happier. In doing so, I hope to encourage all of us to reclaim the energy we’ve been investing in suppressing feelings of hypocrisy or hiding what we think others would disapprove of. I also mean this as a reminder to me and you that the benefits of healthy practices are ours again as soon as we return to them. And if you don’t yet have a copy of the 2022 Dreambook+Planner, I hope you’ll get one and try it – it’s our best version yet. Be well, Peter [post_title] => What I Don't Want You to Know About Me [post_excerpt] => [post_status] => publish [comment_status] => open [ping_status] => open [post_password] => [post_name] => what-i-dont-want-you-to-know-about-me [to_ping] => [pinged] => [post_modified] => 2021-09-16 21:22:46 [post_modified_gmt] => 2021-09-16 21:22:46 [post_content_filtered] => [post_parent] => 0 [guid] => https://thedragontree.com/?p=8349 [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] => 8271 [post_author] => 3 [post_date] => 2021-05-28 20:58:05 [post_date_gmt] => 2021-05-28 20:58:05 [post_content] => Previously I wrote about spring and the role of the wood element in our lives (from the perspective of Chinese five element philosophy). We all contain this and the other four elements, and healthy wood empowers us with the virtues we see in a young seedling in spring: vision and planning (it always knows where it’s headed and how to get there); flexibility (this helps it bend in the wind without breaking and find its way around obstacles); determination and vigor (even the occasional spring snow storm won’t stop it); courage (like the upright posture of every tree, it stands up for the life it chooses and embodies). When we encounter an obstacle to anything in life, a healthy response usually means maintaining the vision of where we’re headed and finding a way to grow around it. We make an adjustment to the plan and keep flowing. (By “plan” I mean everything from the small scale plan of how you intend your everyday life to go to the grand plan of the overall arc of your life.) One of the main reasons Briana and I were inspired to create our Dreambook + Planner was because of all the times we’d seen ourselves and others get thrown off course by life obstacles and take days, weeks, or years to find our way back. The Dreambook is designed to help users get crystal clear about their plan(s) and then stay connected to the big picture on a daily basis. Even though we should expect obstacles they usually catch us by surprise, and we often feel disappointed or even angry. In these instances, anger frequently plays a pivotal role in what happens next. If we willingly feel and accept the anger, it passes through us pretty quickly and we can get back to our plan. We might even find that we’re able to harness and transform the anger into determined action, or to use it to inspire a creative solution. However, many of us were raised to feel that anger is bad – that our own anger was too much, too hurtful, or too loud, and/or that others’ anger was scary, unsafe, or destructive to the family. Consequently, we may resist and suppress it. But anger is just a certain “flavor” or frequency of emotional energy. It’s not anger itself but what people do with it that makes us afraid of it. Suppressing this energy is like saying to spring, “You’re too intense!” and pushing it back into winter. This can result in numbness, depression, or powerlessness. And when we stop suppressing it, we may alternate to being totally dominated by it. There is a healthy middle ground. Among those who freely experience anger, some do it responsibly: recognizing it as their own, not weaponizing it, and fully utilizing their powers of vision and communication to aim for resolution. But often it’s a tool we wield to dominate a situation and an impetus to engage in power struggles. We might use it when we believe someone won’t give us what we want unless we show our anger. If you’ve ever yelled at a customer service representative and then got your way, perhaps you concluded that your anger was instrumental in the outcome. Frequently anger becomes an excuse to rail against our obstacles rather than pursuing a goal we’re afraid to fail at . . . or to achieve. Sometimes anger can help us to access courage, but the association can lead to the false belief that we need to be angry in order to be courageous – or that our anger entitles us to be a bully. Of course, it’s totally possible to be courageously loving, courageously benevolent, and courageously unattached. In fact, without these virtuous qualities, courageous anger won’t often achieve real resolution. On the flip side, when anger is suppressed, we often unintentionally block our access to courage as well. When we’re carried away by anger, we may believe it arose automatically in response to a certain situation – like reading a snarky comment on social media. But is this true? Did the circumstance directly cause anger in us? Almost always the anger is a response to a thought of resistance, injustice, or conflict, such as: “This wasn’t supposed to happen,” or “I don’t like this,” or “This is unfair,” or “That person thinks I’m wrong and that they’re right.” While these are understandable positions, they are also, after all, arguments against reality. We can’t often control whether or not our thoughts are accurate or rational, but we can choose whether to believe them and act on them. To be clear, anger itself isn’t wrong, and feeling angry isn’t immature or unevolved. And of course, there are times when fighting for change is the best thing to do. But if we endeavor to be free, to know ourselves, and to grow, it’s useful to become aware of how and when anger arises in us, what it feels like, and what we’re doing with it. If anger is conspicuously absent from your emotional palette, maybe you have a gift of perspective. But more commonly – especially if you struggle with depression or numbness – the anger is being suppressed. If so, you’ll usually find that it’s not just the emotion that’s suppressed, but the whole energy of the wood element – vigor, flexibility, tenacity, vision, courage, determined growth, etc. In order to have a life of balance, happiness, and freedom, it’s important to let these energies – anger included – move through you. It doesn’t have to express itself as rage, nor does it need to take you over. If you tend to get angry a lot, it may be worth looking at how you use the emotion and what you get out of it. There’s a lot of energy in anger and that can be addictive. If your anger keeps you in a state of conflict and gives ammo to your power struggles, that can be addictive too. There’s something satisfying about winning a power struggle, convincing someone that they’re wrong and you’re right. But there are more important things in life! Here are some ways to let in (and out) a healthy experience of anger:

First, pent up anger can be released without directing it at someone. We often hear that we should express our feelings, but there’s a difference between expressing them responsibly versus spewing them at others. If necessary, make relevant communications in order to get clear, but throughout the conversation, remember your purpose (whatever it is, I’d suggest it should include “to let go and move on”).
Be willing to feel it. It’s safe to let yourself experience how anger feels in your body. Notice where you feel it the most and what it feels like. Be curious. Don’t resist. Surrender to the feeling. Invite it to be felt fully.
Breathe through it. Get into your body. Let your breaths be long and deep, and lengthen your exhale especially, intending to let go.
Intentionally open yourself. Anger tends to have a “closing” effect on us energetically (and even physically). Instead, imagine your heart opening, your throat opening, your jaw opening, your neck and head opening. Put your feet flat on the ground and imagine that life energy is allowed to move through you unobstructedly. You can also repeat the mantra “Open,” emphasizing a long O sound.
Ask for the restoration of your vision. Speak to your Highest Self or Spirit (or whatever term you prefer) and request clarity. Be clear that you would rather see the truth, see the big picture of your journey, than to be right about what you believe.
Practice using language to make requests and convey how you feel rather than resorting to using anger to make your point. For more information, check out Marshall Rosenberg’s Nonviolent Communication.
Journal. As you put the thoughts and feelings into words and get those words out onto paper, you’re processing, learning yourself, getting back into the flow, and making yourself open to a resolution.
Stick to the facts. When telling the stories that make you angry (whether to yourself or others), try stating only the facts of what happened without any interpretation added on. Does this change the way you see it?
Choose the result you want. Obstacles are part of the path. They help us grow. But you probably didn’t choose to invest your time and energy into fighting obstacles (which isn’t to say you never need to fight). You were headed somewhere, remember? Often we caught up in feeling we can’t get there without vanquishing the obstacle in front of us, but there’s almost always a way around it. Sometimes it requires thinking bigger about your goal – are you sure it has to look like the specific outcome you had in mind? What quality of life or experience did you believe you’d have when you achieved that outcome? Isn’t that still possible?
Forgive. Ideally, this means forgiving all involved parties, and virtually always that includes yourself. Don’t expect it to be a single act. Commit to forgiving and re-forgiving every time you find yourself in resentment again.

You may also be interested in:

How to Have a Healthy Relationship With Anger

The Virtue of Clarity: A Gift from Water That’s Available to Everyone

What I Don’t Want You to Know About Me

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