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Harnessing the Power of Love-Sponsored Desire

Desire is a confusing idea. We’re taught that desire is what leads us astray, that it makes us materialistic and unsatisfied with our lot. To be free from desire implies… Read More

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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 ever-growing document. Originally, the purpose was to have an easy way to remind myself of the value of my work if I were ever questioning my purpose or having a moment of low self-esteem. Eventually I realized that I don’t build up a tolerance to positive feedback; even if I glanced at these messages every day it wouldn’t stop having a beneficial effect on my consciousness. When I was last looking at these notes, I was struck by how amazing people are. Yes, they needed some help to get to the next level and they felt our guidance made a difference, but they were invariably awesome to begin with. While some of them went looking for assistance because of a sense that their lives were dysfunctional, many of them clearly recognized that things were already pretty great – and they also saw room to grow and improve. One woman wrote to us that she had a thriving clothing import business when she got our Dreambook. In the self-exploration section, she realized she desired an avenue for greater creative expression. She set a goal, identified all the steps involved, followed through, and within a year she was receiving the first shipment of clothes she had designed herself! Another Dreambook user told us it empowered her to move to Hawaii. She wrote, “My soul thrives there!” For decades she had visited and thought of it as a magical place … but only for vacations. It didn’t seem possible to live there full time. But, she said, “The book asked, ‘What would make life feel ridiculously fun?’ and I wrote, ‘Living in Hawaii’ and suddenly it was on the table and I started facing my excuses.” She realized the potential quality-of-life impact it could have for her, so she mapped out the logistics. She asked the thriving Dragontree community, “What do you think?” And one by one, all of her obstacles disappeared. “Someone knew of a cool place to live – on a cacao farm! Someone else connected me with a job. Another person was moving from Hawaii back to the mainland to take care of her mother and she gave me all of her furniture – and some chickens!” What are the critical factors in leveling up? Chances are, you don’t need to win the lottery or receive some other external windfall. It starts with having a vision of what “next level” would look like. The Dreambook provides the framework – all you need to do is fill in the blanks and follow through. Our 2023 edition comes out soon and it’s the best version ever. Check it out here! Also, I highly recommend keeping some sort of file like the one I described above. Whenever you receive a positive message, whether as an email, text, social media comment, or birthday card . . . copy it, screenshot it, take a picture of it, or print it and stick it in a document, onto or dreamboard, or in a folder. It’s like stocking a medicine cabinet with bottles that will never go empty (plus it won’t upset your stomach). Be well, Peter [post_title] => Level Up with the Dreambook [post_excerpt] => [post_status] => publish [comment_status] => open [ping_status] => open [post_password] => [post_name] => level-up-with-the-dreambook [to_ping] => [pinged] => [post_modified] => 2022-09-01 21:56:08 [post_modified_gmt] => 2022-09-01 21:56:08 [post_content_filtered] => [post_parent] => 0 [guid] => https://thedragontree.com/?p=8787 [menu_order] => 0 [post_type] => post [post_mime_type] => [comment_count] => 0 [filter] => raw [webinar_id] => 0 ) [1] => WP_Post Object ( [ID] => 8698 [post_author] => 3 [post_date] => 2022-07-08 21:24:12 [post_date_gmt] => 2022-07-08 21:24:12 [post_content] => Imagine you’re brought to a beautiful place where you’ll be meeting a person with whom you’ll share an incredible, lifelong love – a romantic love or a powerful friendship, or both. If such a person already exists or existed in your life, you can use them for this exercise. Whomever it is, know that they completely love and accept you. The environment is perfect for you – airy or cozy, with a fire or open windows, vases of flowers, your favorite music, and curtains blowing in the breeze. Maybe it’s a garden, or the top of a mountain, or at the fanciest bowling alley in the world. Try feeling into this. You’re in this lovely space, about to meet someone who makes you feel both strong and at ease. Imagine you’re facing this person and walking toward them. As you do so, consider your posture. Sit up, lift your head, open your heart, carry yourself as if fully welcoming this fun and inspiring partnership. Take a moment to ride this visualization forward. Feel it in your body, let a smile spread across your face as you imagine coming together and hugging or laughing or dancing because you find each other delightful. Now, come back to your posture. Feel that straight spine, that open chest, that “lifting” energy? Our posture is an expression of how we’re carrying our lifeforce and meeting the world. How might life be different if you met each situation with the same posture that you’re meeting this beloved person? Too often, we collapse, clench, or curl in on ourselves as an unconscious reflection of feeling burdened, apprehensive, untrusting, timid, or vulnerable. Consequently, we feel tired, weak, indecisive, and unconfident. We also use posture to show dominance and submission, and to indicate prowess. But rather than “posturing” like a puffer fish in an arrogant or animalistic way, I’m suggesting we use posture as a conscious embodiment of who we choose to be and how we choose to relate to life. In a happy moment, our posture often automatically improves, and it also works the other way around. When you carry yourself with a combination of strength and ease, your mood improves, you relate more positively to the world, and the world responds more willingly to you. What are your values? What are your gifts? What’s your life purpose? If you have our Dreambook, revisit these sections to remind yourself of what’s most important to you and what you have to share with the world. Who do you want to be? How do you want to relate to life? With kindness? Openness? Trust? As if it’s an incredible game? As an opportunity to experience a splendiferous palette of flavors, sights, and experiences? Write a bit about who you choose to be and how to choose to relate to life. Now imagine embodying these intentions and surrender to how your body wishes to reconfigure itself in order to be a cleaner, more accurate and aligned vehicle for this spirit. Throughout the day, bring yourself back to this intention and take just a moment to again reconfigure your body to express this attitude toward life. Notice how this reconfiguration process changes over time. Sometimes it may be a gross adjustment – your head lifts, your ears come in alignment with your shoulders, your shoulders drop and draw back, your chest opens, your belly relaxes, your jaw unclenches, your breathing deepens. Other times, you may experience it as a subtle unraveling of inner constraint, or as a ripple that emanates through you, bringing all your parts into harmony. The hardest part is simply remembering to do it. I’d love to hear what you notice about the positive in negative ways your posture affects you. Feel free to share in the comments section below. Be well, Peter [post_title] => How You Hold Yourself Can Change Everything [post_excerpt] => [post_status] => publish [comment_status] => open [ping_status] => open [post_password] => [post_name] => how-you-hold-yourself-can-change-everything [to_ping] => [pinged] => [post_modified] => 2022-07-08 21:24:12 [post_modified_gmt] => 2022-07-08 21:24:12 [post_content_filtered] => [post_parent] => 0 [guid] => https://thedragontree.com/?p=8698 [menu_order] => 0 [post_type] => post [post_mime_type] => [comment_count] => 0 [filter] => raw [webinar_id] => 0 ) [2] => WP_Post Object ( [ID] => 8668 [post_author] => 3 [post_date] => 2022-05-26 20:45:28 [post_date_gmt] => 2022-05-26 20:45:28 [post_content] => If you were birthed by Earth, then every pebble and plant is your sibling. Last week I wrote about animism, the belief that all things possess a spirit. Animistic cultures are incredibly widespread – chances are, if you didn’t grow up in one, you’re descended from one. But these sensibilities have been largely supplanted by science. Science and spirituality are often at odds, and the science-oriented developed world generally disbelieves in spirituality – especially in a form so different from our monotheistic religions. This might not be a problem if a reductive, nonspiritual orientation met all our needs, but I believe we’ve lost something along the way. Scientists and animists alike can agree that a rock isn’t biologically alive in quite the same way that, say, a bird is. But the scientist wouldn’t be scientific if they assumed that this means we can’t be in relationship with both. A person who believes a rock doesn’t possess a spirit has no understanding of what life would be like if they did. The animistic perspective transforms a thing we use into someone we relate to. Our surroundings turn from scenery into family members. Just as it’s relatively easy to perceive the personality of a pet and recognize it as a member of the family, an animist would extend such personhood to all aspects of their world. Could you be open to experiencing the personality of your favorite tree or stream or mountain? Have you ever felt inexplicably drawn to a certain place in your yard, your home, or the park? It’s where you feel naturally most comfortable, maybe also safer, more focused, even more powerful. What is it that your inner compass is tuning in to? Beyond the ways in which such an orientation might enrich your subjective experience of your surroundings, there are potentially global repercussions to remembering and being reverent of the spirit of the world – even if we don’t fully embrace the animistic view. Dr. John Reid of the Ngai Tahu Research Centre in New Zealand explains that when we mistreat the world through disregard for the spirit within, it becomes a vicious circle. Lacking a conscious relationship with nature, we take from pristine resources with no restraint, then we dump our waste back into them. This diminishes what the Maori call its mauri (lifeforce), and the reduction in its vitality makes it less supportive to humans. This willfully ignorant behavior and the hardship that results from it diminishes the mana (dignity / power / authority) of the humans involved.¹ The weakened mana of the humans causes them to act in increasingly desperate and irreverent ways, and the cycle continues. It's possible to transform this situation into a virtuous cycle, but it requires coming into right relationship with our planet. This means humbling ourselves and perhaps taking a cue from animistic cultures. If that sounds good to you, I encourage you to take another week to relate to your surroundings differently than usual. What happens when you ask before taking? What happens when you give thanks to everything you encounter? What happens when you open yourself to the existence of a spiritual world? What happens when you feel into the dynamic between your body and the elements around you? What happens when you bring greater awareness to the act of consuming something? What happens if you do the same when throwing something away? What happens when you listen? I believe that bringing consciousness to these relationships yields great benefits. Perhaps we stand to make our planet habitable by humans for longer, but for certain we enrich our mana as we re-weave ourselves into the living tapestry of this exceptional, gorgeous planet. Be well, Dr. Peter Borten ^{1. Informative Maori dictionary here: https://maoridictionary.co.nz/} [post_title] => Fixing Our Relationship with the World and Ourselves [post_excerpt] => [post_status] => publish [comment_status] => open [ping_status] => open [post_password] => [post_name] => fixing-our-relationship-with-the-world-and-ourselves [to_ping] => [pinged] => [post_modified] => 2022-05-26 21:46:15 [post_modified_gmt] => 2022-05-26 21:46:15 [post_content_filtered] => [post_parent] => 0 [guid] => https://thedragontree.com/?p=8668 [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] => 8787 [post_author] => 1 [post_date] => 2022-09-01 21:45:46 [post_date_gmt] => 2022-09-01 21:45:46 [post_content] => 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 ever-growing document. Originally, the purpose was to have an easy way to remind myself of the value of my work if I were ever questioning my purpose or having a moment of low self-esteem. Eventually I realized that I don’t build up a tolerance to positive feedback; even if I glanced at these messages every day it wouldn’t stop having a beneficial effect on my consciousness. When I was last looking at these notes, I was struck by how amazing people are. Yes, they needed some help to get to the next level and they felt our guidance made a difference, but they were invariably awesome to begin with. While some of them went looking for assistance because of a sense that their lives were dysfunctional, many of them clearly recognized that things were already pretty great – and they also saw room to grow and improve. One woman wrote to us that she had a thriving clothing import business when she got our Dreambook. In the self-exploration section, she realized she desired an avenue for greater creative expression. She set a goal, identified all the steps involved, followed through, and within a year she was receiving the first shipment of clothes she had designed herself! Another Dreambook user told us it empowered her to move to Hawaii. She wrote, “My soul thrives there!” For decades she had visited and thought of it as a magical place … but only for vacations. It didn’t seem possible to live there full time. But, she said, “The book asked, ‘What would make life feel ridiculously fun?’ and I wrote, ‘Living in Hawaii’ and suddenly it was on the table and I started facing my excuses.” She realized the potential quality-of-life impact it could have for her, so she mapped out the logistics. She asked the thriving Dragontree community, “What do you think?” And one by one, all of her obstacles disappeared. “Someone knew of a cool place to live – on a cacao farm! Someone else connected me with a job. Another person was moving from Hawaii back to the mainland to take care of her mother and she gave me all of her furniture – and some chickens!” What are the critical factors in leveling up? Chances are, you don’t need to win the lottery or receive some other external windfall. It starts with having a vision of what “next level” would look like. The Dreambook provides the framework – all you need to do is fill in the blanks and follow through. Our 2023 edition comes out soon and it’s the best version ever. Check it out here! Also, I highly recommend keeping some sort of file like the one I described above. Whenever you receive a positive message, whether as an email, text, social media comment, or birthday card . . . copy it, screenshot it, take a picture of it, or print it and stick it in a document, onto or dreamboard, or in a folder. It’s like stocking a medicine cabinet with bottles that will never go empty (plus it won’t upset your stomach). Be well, Peter [post_title] => Level Up with the Dreambook [post_excerpt] => [post_status] => publish [comment_status] => open [ping_status] => open [post_password] => [post_name] => level-up-with-the-dreambook [to_ping] => [pinged] => [post_modified] => 2022-09-01 21:56:08 [post_modified_gmt] => 2022-09-01 21:56:08 [post_content_filtered] => [post_parent] => 0 [guid] => https://thedragontree.com/?p=8787 [menu_order] => 0 [post_type] => post [post_mime_type] => [comment_count] => 0 [filter] => raw [webinar_id] => 0 ) [comment_count] => 0 [current_comment] => -1 [found_posts] => 245 [max_num_pages] => 5 [max_num_comment_pages] => 0 [is_single] => [is_preview] => [is_page] => [is_archive] => 1 [is_date] => [is_year] => [is_month] => [is_day] => [is_time] => [is_author] => [is_category] => 1 [is_tag] => [is_tax] => [is_search] => [is_feed] => [is_comment_feed] => [is_trackback] => [is_home] => [is_privacy_policy] => [is_404] => [is_embed] => [is_paged] => [is_admin] => [is_attachment] => [is_singular] => [is_robots] => [is_favicon] => [is_posts_page] => [is_post_type_archive] => [query_vars_hash:WP_Query:private] => 1116267dd6a333099dd7e480749d27a4 [query_vars_changed:WP_Query:private] => [thumbnails_cached] => [allow_query_attachment_by_filename:protected] => [stopwords:WP_Query:private] => [compat_fields:WP_Query:private] => Array ( [0] => query_vars_hash [1] => query_vars_changed ) [compat_methods:WP_Query:private] => Array ( [0] => init_query_flags [1] => parse_tax_query ) )

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Level Up with the Dreambook

How You Hold Yourself Can Change Everything

Fixing Our Relationship with the World and Ourselves

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