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Gratitude

Gratitude is the understanding that many millions of things come together and live together and mesh together and breathe together in order for us to take even one more breath… Read More

Are You Actually Actualizing?

Although we weren’t thinking about it while writing it, our life planner, The Dreambook, is very much aligned with ideas of the Human Potential Movement (HPM). The movement focuses on… Read More

Relationship Repair Step One: Attitude Adjustment

When I’m counseling clients with marital challenges, my orientation is to always try to save the relationship. Especially if the individuals are interested in growing, becoming more self-aware, and healing… Read More

Creativity: It’s Not Optional

Creative people are among our most celebrated historical figures, yet most of us treat creativity as an entirely optional pastime, especially if we see ourselves as “not a creative person.”… Read More

Assume Generously

Even though your grandma told you not to assume because it “makes an ass out of you and me,” assuming is part of life. In fact, if you avoided making… Read More

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It was about five years later that I convinced Briana to join me one evening and we drove to Chinatown to check out his class. Sifu (“master”) Fong, as everyone called him, was probably not more than about five feet tall, but there was something intimidating about him. He welcomed us warmly, then said, “I have two questions for you. First, do you like pain?” Do I like pain? What is the appropriate answer here? I mumbled something like, “Maybe if there is a good reason.” He smiled. “Question two. Do you like to work hard?” Oh boy. I thought about asking him to define the word “like,” but instead responded with, “I guess?” He chuckled. “Alright, you don’t know if you like pain or hard work. Just sit down on that chair then.” He pointed to a wooden folding chair against a wall covered with framed portraits of Chinese men. “Rest your hands on your thighs. Don’t lean back. Lift your feet off the floor just high enough for one sheet of paper to fit under them. See you later.” And he walked away for a long time. You can try that right now if you’re sitting. Years later, having done a lot of hard work and endured much pain in his classes, I reflected that I did in fact like to work hard. I still didn’t like pain, but I had learned the difference between avoiding it versus using it and finding a way through it. And I decided that those two questions are useful preliminaries before almost any endeavor. They came to mind as I was thinking about the upcoming launch of our Sacred Expansion course. It’s a required program for all of our life coaches, and worthwhile for anyone interested in growing beyond their self-imposed limitations and releasing blocks to having an exceptional life. In the context of Sacred Expansion, if I were to ask, “Do you like pain?” what I mean is, are you willing to voluntarily experience discomfort as part of discovering what’s holding you back? Are you willing to experience the tension of psycho-spiritual growing pains? Are you willing to be uncomfortable in the short term in order to release the long term discomfort you’ve gotten used to? Are you willing to use your pain to initiate a breakthrough? As for the question “Do you like to work hard?” what I mean is, are you willing to stick with the work of unraveling your inner knots even when it’s difficult? Are you willing to choose a higher purpose – for instance: freedom, peace, spiritual connection, joy, service to your species and planet – over and over and over? Are you willing to break some habits? Are you willing to challenge your own thoughts? Are you willing to explore parts of yourself you aren’t comfortable with? All of these tasks represent a certain form of work. By liking hard work, I don’t mean that you get points for having a hard life or that there’s merit in making things unnecessarily difficult. In fact, a core principle Sifu taught was that hard work and peace aren’t mutually exclusive. We can be at ease while simultaneously working our hardest. Regardless of the form that our work takes, there’s no getting around the importance of consistent effort in the direction of our dreams if we want them to come to fruition. If you’ve even thought, “I know I have greater potential than this” or, “I feel like I’m missing out on my superpowers” or, “If I could release all this baggage, I could finally feel free!” read more about Sacred Expansion. We’d love to have you join us. Be well, Peter [post_title] => My Favorite Kind of Pain [post_excerpt] => [post_status] => publish [comment_status] => open [ping_status] => open [post_password] => [post_name] => my-favorite-kind-of-pain [to_ping] => [pinged] => [post_modified] => 2022-04-15 20:11:03 [post_modified_gmt] => 2022-04-15 20:11:03 [post_content_filtered] => [post_parent] => 0 [guid] => https://thedragontree.com/?p=8643 [menu_order] => 0 [post_type] => post [post_mime_type] => [comment_count] => 0 [filter] => raw [webinar_id] => 0 ) [1] => WP_Post Object ( [ID] => 7906 [post_author] => 5 [post_date] => 2020-06-19 17:18:57 [post_date_gmt] => 2020-06-19 17:18:57 [post_content] => This article was original published one year ago, and it's one of our all-time favorites about summer and the fire element. Enjoy, and Happy Solstice! A few days ago I was out in the sun in a beekeeping suit for hours, lifting frames of comb that were heavy and dripping with honey. We had to damage the bees’ work because they had “cross-combed” some of their frames together (built comb that bridged multiple “drawers” of their hive), so they were buzzing around us angrily and dive-bombing my face. It was getting very toasty in my suit, and then I started feeling my heartbeat in my head. I turned to Briana and I said, “I think I might pass out.” I remembered a cooling technique one of my first yoga teachers taught me: you curl your tongue and inhale slowly through it like a straw, then exhale through your nose, and repeat. I don’t know if that’s what did it or if it was the Great Bee Spirit yelling into my mind, “Get it together, man! Do NOT drop that box full of thousands of bees!” I am happy to report that I didn’t faint and we finished our work without incident. That convergence of tremendous heat and the beating of my heart reminded me that it’s a good time to revisit the lessons of the Fire Element. Fire presides over summer, when the Sun – the quintessence of Fire – is closest to us. In the human body, each element is represented by an internal organ. Can you guess what the main Fire organ is? I’ll give you a hint. It’s red, it’s constantly pulsating, and it radiates its influence over the whole body. It’s the heart, of course – the sun of the human being. Over the past couple centuries, the brain has largely displaced the heart as the organ people think of as most important – but it would be worthless without constant, uninterrupted blood flow from the heart. In traditional Chinese medical philosophy, each organ has a position in the community of the body-mind, and the heart is considered to be the Emperor/Empress. The ancient Daoists had a lot of wise things to say about leadership (see the classic, Dao De Jing by Lao Zi), and I think these insights are especially valuable at this time – particularly in the U.S. where recent years have brought intense sociopolitical division. The role of the superior leader, Lao Zi wrote, is to integrate, to allow all parts of the kingdom to feel included. Before the throne of the superior leader, everyone is heard; no one is stifled or invalidated. As the Fire organ, we could say it’s like allowing the light and warmth of the sun to spread to and encompass the farthest reaches of the solar system. Even a planet as distant as Pluto is still held in the Sun’s grasp. The role of the heart as an organ is the same – it wants to circulate its blood to all parts of the body. If there’s something sick or objectionable, like a sore on the foot, it doesn’t exclude the foot from its circulation. While that might kill the foot and eliminate the sore, it wouldn’t be real healing. The heart is considered to be the portal by which Awareness (Shen) enters this body and mind. I consider the term Awareness here to be synonymous with Light of Consciousness, Holy Spirit, God, Love, or whatever word feels best to you. Let’s use Love for the moment, since it doesn’t push as many buttons as “God” and it shares a lot of qualities with Fire. Until about 100 years ago, Fire (as the sun, campfires, candles, etc.) was the sole source of light and warmth in our world. When we open our hearts to Love, we feel a similar inner light and warmth. Love could be considered the heart’s greatest power. Love, like Fire, is a unifying force. People of all kinds and in all places look up to the same one light and are sustained by it. And though all manner of things can be fed into a fire, they become one homogeneous pile of ash – all differences rendered indistinguishable. The same is the case for Love. The heart works best when it’s open. An open heart lets love and awareness through. An open heart is inclusive. But we’ve all closed our hearts many times. We do it as a reactive defense mechanism in order to not feel pain or other undesirable feelings. We do it whenever we refuse to accept some aspect of reality (like white supremacists or human trafficking, to name two of the hardest). Sometimes we believe it’s best not to feel at all – because that will make life easier or will make us strong and manly. So the heart remains mostly or entirely closed. Is it any wonder that the main cause of death is, essentially, closure of the heart and its vessels (we call this stroke, heart attack, and other forms of cardiovascular disease)? The physical implications of closed hearts are relatively minor, though. The psychospiritual implications are where this habit hits us hardest. What are we left with when we exclude Love, Light, and Spirit from our lives? It’s like restricting ourselves to seeing just one color (it’s called Pantone 448 C, by the way). It makes us think of the world in terms of “us and them.” It causes us to focus on what’s wrong instead of what’s right. And it enables us to be willfully ignorant (but not entirely ignorant) of the impacts of our choices on other humans and the planet. I believe the work of the heart (through the power of love) is absolute inclusion. Feel everything. Accept everything – even the things you’re working to change. Accept everyone – even those you condemn (they have something to teach you about your shadow). This is not an invitation to bypass the work before you. It’s a call to step into that work with an open heart. If there’s something you don’t like about the world, or a person you find difficult, consider the likely outcome of rejecting or excluding them. How would you respond to being condemned? Like the sick foot, does this person heal through exclusion? Find the parts of your kingdom (within and without) that you have excluded, and let your love rush into them. If there’s something you don’t like, begin with inclusion. Say, “I completely love, forgive, and accept myself – even though I have this {issue that I find objectionable}” or “I completely love, forgive, and accept you – even though I disagree with your views {or even condemn your actions}.” You may even find your heart saying, “Even though I must stop you from harming others, I completely love, forgive, and accept the essential being that you are, and I welcome the healing of your mind and the re-emergence of that essence.” Saturate and envelop, and draw into your heart, the orphaned and rejected elements of yourself and the world. I believe this is our soul work; this is how we heal the world. Be well, Dr. Peter Borten [post_title] => The Heart of Summer [post_excerpt] => [post_status] => publish [comment_status] => open [ping_status] => open [post_password] => [post_name] => the-heart-of-summer-2 [to_ping] => [pinged] => [post_modified] => 2020-06-19 17:33:40 [post_modified_gmt] => 2020-06-19 17:33:40 [post_content_filtered] => [post_parent] => 0 [guid] => http://thedragontree.com/?p=7906 [menu_order] => 0 [post_type] => post [post_mime_type] => [comment_count] => 2 [filter] => raw [webinar_id] => 0 ) [2] => WP_Post Object ( [ID] => 7321 [post_author] => 3 [post_date] => 2019-04-11 16:27:39 [post_date_gmt] => 2019-04-11 16:27:39 [post_content] => In the past two weeks, I wrote about what I consider to be the basic principles of a cleanse. This week I’ll discuss a few additional practices that can further promote clean spaciousness of the body and mind. We usually focus on the digestive tract, but there are several organ systems involved in the processing and removal of toxins. Besides the intestines, the liver, kidneys, lymphatic vessels, skin, and lungs all play important roles. You can support these systems to make a cleanse more thorough or to promote detoxification even when you’re eating your normal diet. The liver and kidneys are the powerhouses of detox. While the liver actually has around 500 functions, the most well-known is breaking down toxins and things that could become harmful to us if they were to build up – like hormones, drugs, and metabolic waste products. Nutrients and toxins from the digestive tract go directly to the liver (via the portal vein). Our kidneys are a bit simpler, acting primarily as filters that clean our blood, removing toxins and hormones, and balancing fluid and salt levels. There’s a lot of hype around liver and kidney cleanses, and in some cases a fundamental misunderstanding as to how these systems work. Generally speaking, the liver and kidneys themselves don’t need to be “cleaned out.” They don’t become “dirty” when we’re exposed to environmental toxins, though it is possible for them to become injured by such exposure. In these cases, blood tests will sometimes show elevated levels of liver enzymes or creatinine, which indicate impairment of the liver or kidneys, respectively. But most people who do a cleanse don’t have any testing done, nor would testing likely show anything abnormal. Therefore, it’s best to proceed with an aim of protecting and supporting – rather than “cleaning” – these organs. The best way to protect the liver and kidneys is to avoid exposure to toxic chemicals in the first place. Some of the most common liver¹ and kidney² toxins include pesticides, cleaners, air fresheners, paints and solvents, heavy metals, pharmaceuticals, certain herbs and essential oils³, and alcoholic beverages. It’s important to state that (1) not all of these substances are intrinsically toxic, and (2) many of these substances can be readily metabolized by the liver and/or kidneys with zero harm. They become toxic – i.e., damaging – to these organs when our exposure level exceeds the capacity of the organs, and that’s a factor of the health of the individual and the sum total of all such substances a person is exposed to. Thus, a single dose of acetaminophen in an individual with a healthy liver is completely safe. But the maximum daily dose, taken over a course of weeks, and combined with alcohol or other environmental toxins could be a recipe for liver failure. Keep toxins moving through your body by staying well hydrated (this is especially important for healthy kidneys) and exercising regularly. Consider supplementing with herbs that have an established tradition (ideally supported by scientific research) of protecting and supporting healthy liver and kidney function, if you know you’re going to be exposed to toxins. According to Portland-based naturopathic physician, Tori Hudson, ND, the five most important liver-protecting herbs are: milk thistle, turmeric, licorice, schizandra, and Chinese skullcap (Scutellaria baicalensis). All of these are very safe herbs, though it’s worth reading her article for information on potential interactions. Also, licorice can cause a small increase in blood pressure, which goes away when it’s discontinued. Of these five, milk thistle is the most remarkable, as it has been shown to restore function in damaged livers. For kidney support, again, hydration is crucial. Also, diets that are very high in protein can be taxing to the kidneys, so it’s probably advisable to be moderate with protein consumption especially when you’re dehydrated, doing a cleanse, or managing exposure to toxic substances. The mushroom Ganoderma lucidum, AKA Reishi or Ling Zhi, has been shown to help protect the kidneys from chemical damage. Also, tea of stinging nettle (it doesn’t sting after it’s been dried or cooked) is nourishing and supportive to the kidneys. ~ The lymphatic vessels run throughout the body and carry immune cells, help maintain fluid balance, and facilitate the removal of debris, such as damaged cells, germs, and the waste products of injury and infection. These vessels move fluid from the extremities and trunk toward the heart, though they have no central pump the way the heart pumps blood. Therefore, lymph flow can sometimes become sluggish, especially after injury, during an infection, when lymph nodes are swollen, and when lymphatic tissue has been damaged by surgery. When sluggish lymph causes an area of the body to swell, it’s called lymphedema, and infections on limbs with lymphedema can be slow to heal. Before I get into what you can do to support your lymphatic system, let’s discuss the roles of the skin and lungs, since there’s a lot of overlap. In comparison to the kidneys and liver, these three aren’t major detoxifiers, but their roles aren’t insignificant, so they’re worth enlisting in the cause of internal cleanness. The lungs keep us clean primarily by bringing in fresh oxygen and releasing the waste product carbon dioxide, though they are also capable of expelling certain other toxins through exhalation. The one you know best is alcohol – this is how we can use a breathalyzer (or our nose) to determine how intoxicated a person is – but the lungs also release other volatile organic compounds (VOCs).⁴ The skin is sometimes spoken of as the “third lung” since it “breathes” through its pores. With more and more drugs being delivered through the skin as a cream or patch, it’s indisputable that the skin is highly permeable. A wide range of substances can pass into the body through it. Likewise, our sweat is able to carry toxins out of the body through the skin. Studies have shown that heavy metals and the plastic additive bisphenol-A (BPA) are present in sweat. While the quantity of toxins in sweat and exhaled air is very low, these processes are occurring throughout the day, so some researchers have proposed that over time they actually constitute a significant mechanism for detoxification. Overall, I believe that the fad of “detox through the skin” has been over-hyped, but I have known many people (myself included) who simply feel good from doing these practices. And, in any case, we might as well optimize skin, lung, and lymphatic function, regardless of the actual impact on internal toxins. Practicing self massage with light strokes, moving from the extremities toward the heart, can help move stagnant lymph. It can also be performed with a dry skin brush: using small circular motions or long strokes, always directed toward the heart, work your way from the ends of your extremities to your trunk, and then from the belly and back toward the heart. Dry skin brushing is exfoliating and invigorating to the circulation, which may help with detoxification through the skin. We can facilitate sweating through exercise and use of sauna. Exercise, as you know, has many health benefits beyond whatever detoxification value sweating may offer. However, if you’re depleted or weak, such that vigorous exercise makes you feel exhausted or worsens your condition, the use of a sauna can be preferable. With a sauna, I believe it’s best not to strive for an intense, profuse sweat, but rather, a mild glistening sweat for a longer period of time (say, half an hour). Always remember to re-hydrate. Bathing seems to offer modest support for detoxification through the skin. Some bath additives that are used for this purpose include Epsom salts (magnesium sulfate), apple cider vinegar, and clay. It’s questionable just how deep the cleansing through these agents might be, or what exactly the mechanism is, but if nothing else, baths clean the skin and might therefore facilitate better clearance through sweating. Also, the heat helps open our blood vessels, and baths are just plain relaxing – and metabolism and elimination work better when we’re relaxed. To support lymph movement, be sure to avoid clothing that’s overly tight (unless you need compression stockings) – especially around the underarm and groin areas. Sleep always in loose fitting pajamas. In addition, shaking the body – as in Qigong Shaking, using a trampoline, or standing on a vibration plate – appears to facilitate lymphatic circulation. Breathing deeply as a regular practice is supportive to the lungs. We can train ourselves to inhale more deeply and to exhale more fully. Try making the exhale as long as possible, and then, when you feel there’s nothing more to exhale, push out a little bit more, and a little bit more, until your lungs are absolutely empty. If you feel your breathing is weak, you can buy a cheap spirometer which will let you see clearly the strength and duration of your breaths. Using it over time, you’ll see and feel a difference. Also, there are many specific breathing practices that are meant to cleanse and oxygenate the body, such as Rebirthing or Conscious Breathing, and pranayama exercises such as “breath of fire” and Kapalabhati. Finally, forgiveness, as I see it, is the most valuable psychological instrument for cleansing. I’m talking both about everyday forgiveness and radical forgiveness. By everyday forgiveness, I mean forgiving and releasing the various grievances you have with others and yourself that are relatively easy to perceive. For example, this means forgiving others for: not letting you in when you wanted to change lanes in your car; saying something unkind to you; showing up late; sleeping with the milkman/milkwoman; etc. And it means forgiving yourself when you have a pimple; when you botch a presentation; because you’re overweight; when you accidentally slap your boss three times in a row; when you yell at your kids; and really, even when you do something that’s severely hurtful to yourself or others. By radical forgiveness, I mean large-scale forgiveness of the world and life for not always being the way you’d prefer them to be. Forgiving the world for the presence of violence and greed; forgiving humans for damaging the environment; forgiving God or the Universe for allowing you to suffer; and so on. When we harbor these grievances instead of accepting, forgiving, and releasing them, it’s like holding onto toxins. I believe that the impact of all of our hundreds and thousands of mini- and mega-grievances often amounts to a “toxic burden” that more significantly degrades our lives than any physical toxins do. As usual, I love to hear about your personal experiences. Please share below. Be well, Dr. Peter Borten [1] The National Institutes of Health’s LiverTox site allows you to search for drugs and herbs for data on potential liver toxicity. [2] The most common causes of serious kidney damage, it should be noted, are not environmental toxins, but dehydration, high blood sugar (diabetes) and high blood pressure. [3] There are a small number of herbs and essential oils containing compounds that are toxic to the liver or kidneys. There have also been some cases of poisoning from herbal supplements in which the toxicity was due to a chemical adulterant rather than the herb itself. On the one hand, these relative outliers are sometimes used to make sweeping claims against the safety of natural medicine. On the other hand, it’s naïve to assume that herbs and essential oils are universally safe. Caution is important with essential oils (see this study) and especially whenever ingesting any essential oil. That said, there are also herbs and essential oils which have been shown to protect the liver or kidneys from damage. [4] See Human Breath Emissions of VOCs and Exhaled Breath Analysis: from Occupational to Respiratory Medicine [post_title] => More Ways to Make a Clean Space Within Yourself [post_excerpt] => [post_status] => publish [comment_status] => open [ping_status] => open [post_password] => [post_name] => more-ways-to-make-a-clean-space-within-yourself [to_ping] => [pinged] => [post_modified] => 2019-05-28 19:50:30 [post_modified_gmt] => 2019-05-28 19:50:30 [post_content_filtered] => [post_parent] => 0 [guid] => http://thedragontree.com/?p=7321 [menu_order] => 0 [post_type] => post [post_mime_type] => [comment_count] => 8 [filter] => raw [webinar_id] => 0 ) ) [post_count] => 3 [current_post] => -1 [before_loop] => 1 [in_the_loop] => [post] => WP_Post Object ( [ID] => 8643 [post_author] => 3 [post_date] => 2022-04-15 20:06:13 [post_date_gmt] => 2022-04-15 20:06:13 [post_content] => I had been hearing about an impressive tai chi teacher named Gregory Fong since moving to Portland in 1997. It was about five years later that I convinced Briana to join me one evening and we drove to Chinatown to check out his class. Sifu (“master”) Fong, as everyone called him, was probably not more than about five feet tall, but there was something intimidating about him. He welcomed us warmly, then said, “I have two questions for you. First, do you like pain?” Do I like pain? What is the appropriate answer here? I mumbled something like, “Maybe if there is a good reason.” He smiled. “Question two. Do you like to work hard?” Oh boy. I thought about asking him to define the word “like,” but instead responded with, “I guess?” He chuckled. “Alright, you don’t know if you like pain or hard work. Just sit down on that chair then.” He pointed to a wooden folding chair against a wall covered with framed portraits of Chinese men. “Rest your hands on your thighs. Don’t lean back. Lift your feet off the floor just high enough for one sheet of paper to fit under them. See you later.” And he walked away for a long time. You can try that right now if you’re sitting. Years later, having done a lot of hard work and endured much pain in his classes, I reflected that I did in fact like to work hard. I still didn’t like pain, but I had learned the difference between avoiding it versus using it and finding a way through it. And I decided that those two questions are useful preliminaries before almost any endeavor. They came to mind as I was thinking about the upcoming launch of our Sacred Expansion course. It’s a required program for all of our life coaches, and worthwhile for anyone interested in growing beyond their self-imposed limitations and releasing blocks to having an exceptional life. In the context of Sacred Expansion, if I were to ask, “Do you like pain?” what I mean is, are you willing to voluntarily experience discomfort as part of discovering what’s holding you back? Are you willing to experience the tension of psycho-spiritual growing pains? Are you willing to be uncomfortable in the short term in order to release the long term discomfort you’ve gotten used to? Are you willing to use your pain to initiate a breakthrough? As for the question “Do you like to work hard?” what I mean is, are you willing to stick with the work of unraveling your inner knots even when it’s difficult? Are you willing to choose a higher purpose – for instance: freedom, peace, spiritual connection, joy, service to your species and planet – over and over and over? Are you willing to break some habits? Are you willing to challenge your own thoughts? Are you willing to explore parts of yourself you aren’t comfortable with? All of these tasks represent a certain form of work. By liking hard work, I don’t mean that you get points for having a hard life or that there’s merit in making things unnecessarily difficult. In fact, a core principle Sifu taught was that hard work and peace aren’t mutually exclusive. We can be at ease while simultaneously working our hardest. Regardless of the form that our work takes, there’s no getting around the importance of consistent effort in the direction of our dreams if we want them to come to fruition. If you’ve even thought, “I know I have greater potential than this” or, “I feel like I’m missing out on my superpowers” or, “If I could release all this baggage, I could finally feel free!” read more about Sacred Expansion. We’d love to have you join us. 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