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Previously I wrote about how community is like medicine. Our circle of fellow humans goes through this amazing journey with us . . . encouraging us, witnessing us, screaming with us on the roller coasters, and holding our hand when we take our last breath. My orientation in that article was toward what community can do for us, but it’s at least as important to look at what we can do for our community.
I was reading about a Native American grief ritual described by Black Elk, and while the ritual itself was interesting, what stuck with me was his assertion that long-held grief isn’t good for a person or the community to which that person belongs. That is, when someone is mired in suffering, this can have a negative impact on their community.
You can probably think of plenty of examples where a glaring state of imbalance, such as rage or terror, could result in behaviors that are detrimental to others. But the effects of less dramatic, often chronic negative states are subtler. What happens – besides their own discomfort – when a person is trapped in depression, anxiety, or grief for years? One repercussion is that they have a diminished capacity to fully show up in their community. We might think, “Well, the community doesn’t really need me to be at my best,” but imagine going to a place where almost everyone was depressed, afraid, or angry. Such places do exist, of course, and you can feel it as a palpable mass degradation of the human spirit.
These days we may feel that we don’t have any real obligation to our community, which is so different from how humans have operated for most of our history. Today community may be seen as an entirely optional part of life. We can live in near isolation while anonymous members of our community manage the utilities that provide us with power, water, and internet, take away our garbage, maintain our roads, even deliver our groceries. It feels like independence, but in truth we’re more dependent than ever on an infrastructure other humans maintain – we just don’t know who those humans are.
We’ve lost our sense of responsibility to our community. It’s due in part to the feeling that our government is huge, remote, and corrupt. But if our response is to disengage, the situation can only get worse. If anything, the sense of disconnection from our elected representatives and neighbors should magnify the need to do what we can to make a positive difference. It’s not just an obligation, it’s also an opportunity. If we can recognize and accept that our quality of presence affects others, this may inspire us to be our best selves. And it’s not just a matter of what we do but also who we are and how we are. Becoming fundamentally well inside helps heal the community. Imagine how healthily a community of fundamentally well people manages challenges.
If you’ve been struggling, I don’t mean to make you feel guilty as well; that won’t help you or your community. Rather than focusing on the negative impact your unwellness might have on your community, consider that getting well is good for you and it’s good for your community. Sometimes it’s easier to do it for others than for yourself.
Years ago, I read A Course in Miracles with friends. If you’re unfamiliar with it, it’s a book on spiritual awakening with a section of scripture and a year-long workbook of daily lessons. It’s not for everyone, but I gained some valuable insights from going through it. One of those insights occurred when I encountered this passage: “Lesson 66: My happiness and my function are one.”
Whereas I had tended to think of my happiness as a personal thing – sometimes even a selfish thing – this spiritual book was telling me that being happy (true, causeless happiness) is one of the greatest things I can do for the world. As I meditated on it, I saw clearly that the happy people I’ve known were like lights in every setting they entered. Without even intending it, they had a therapeutic effect on everyone they encountered. Not only did they tend to uplift those around them, in an unspoken way they communicated that this is a possibility for you, too. Happiness is a perspective, a choice. If I can choose it, you can choose it.
Being happy makes us more peaceful, compassionate, and creative. It gives us the freedom to see a bigger picture, rather than focusing on what’s wrong or bad. Even just one happy person in a room full of scared people can change the whole atmosphere – and the choices that community makes.
So I encourage you to consider this week:
- Who am I and what role do I play in my various communities?
- How have I been affected by the genuinely happy people I’ve known?
- What do I believe stands between me and being one of those happy people?
- What happens when I make a conscious choice of how I’m going to show up in a given setting?
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- How do I feel when I put myself in service to others?
- Where could I dedicate myself to more actively resolve any unhealthy patterns of thought, communication, or behavior?
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- When will I choose happiness?
Be well,
Peter
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As I explained last week, a few years ago Briana started writing a book that directly speaks about spirituality and the awakening of human consciousness. I like the word awakening because the condition of everyday consciousness is often like being in a dream. A dream in which anxiety and depression are considered normal, and awe and delight are less common than outrage or boredom. A dream in which we lose contact with two of our greatest powers – the power to create and the power to see. That is, the power to create our life as we choose, and the power to see the truth – i.e., reality unadulterated by our thoughts, stories, beliefs and all the human drama.
The book is called Rituals for Transformation. Our aim was to address several facets of the human condition that are instrumental in keeping us in this unempowered “dream state.” We organized the 108 lessons of the book into 14 categories, but didn’t use these categories in the book, because after writing the lessons we decided to mix up the order. We realized the process would be more effective if we returned to each category repeatedly – making a sort of spiral through the lessons over three months. As we get ready to launch the second edition of the book, I thought it might be inspiring and informative to write about these categories now.
1: Body Awareness and Reframing
The body (and, more importantly, how we relate to it) is one of the biggest impediments to human consciousness and potential. Most people have limited body awareness combined with excessive identification with the body. By “limited body awareness,” I mean that we’re disconnected from our bodies – we tune out most of the intelligence and felt experience that are available to us through this physical vessel. And by “excessive identification with the body” I mean that (despite being disconnected from what it’s telling us) we tend to define and judge ourselves based on how our body looks, feels, and performs – especially in comparison to others.
We started with the physical body because it’s the outermost level of our being. (You can read more about this concept here.) It’s also the most tangible or earthiest aspect of who we are. The lessons in this category focus on loving and being grateful for the body while recognizing that it isn’t who we are. We also focus on learning to feel into the body and reside more mindfully in it. We look at ways in which our concept of the body leads to feelings of antagonism – how the body’s vulnerability to injury, aging, and sickness can make us feel threatened by it and hostile toward it. And we invite readers to honor and care for the body while also experiencing freedom from its limitations.
2: Reframing Thoughts and Feelings
We could say the mind (or ego – meaning our mental identity, our story about ourselves, which is informed by our body, thoughts, social roles, history, relationships, etc.) is the greatest obstacle to awareness. Even the ways that we’re limited by our body come down largely to our thoughts and feelings about it. The mind isn’t intrinsically bad – we use it to solve problems, communicate, and performs all kinds of everyday tasks – and its associated feelings are part of the specialness of being a human.
But our thoughts and feelings have a tendency to completely monopolize our awareness, and in effect, they become our identity. That is, we forget that who we really are is something else – and when we forget, we lose our power and we suffer.
So, these lessons are about perceiving the difference between Awareness and thoughts/feelings, learning to make inner space so that we have the perspective that enables us to not be run by them. We learn to recognize our inner critic and other tricks of the ego, to see how it degrades our experiences, and to defuse its survival mechanisms. And we remind ourselves that it’s always possible to choose our Highest Self (Spirit) rather than the ego.
3: Resistance and Letting Go
In these lessons, we look at the mechanism of resistance. It’s a very primal survival mechanism – by resisting things that don’t feel or taste good, we might spare ourselves harm. But most people resist every feeling, thought, image, smell, person, situation, etc., that isn’t pleasant. When we resist, there’s an underlying subconscious thought – “If I resist this, it will get better” – and it’s almost always untrue. Instead, the resistance itself becomes an uncomfortable burden that obstructs the authentic experience of reality. It also squelches our power, our energy, and our freedom.
The lessons in this section begin with noticing all the ways we resist life and perceiving the impact of that resistance. We inquire as to what inner stories perpetuate resistance. Then we look at the opposite of resistance – “leaning in” or “turning toward” the object we’ve been resisting, getting curious about it, allowing it, exploring what we feel in relation to it, and accepting those feelings.
If these ideas sound interesting to you, I encourage you to check out Rituals for Transformation. Of everything we’ve written, I feel the most strongly that this book changes people’s lives.
You’ll probably notice that some of these ideas feel poignant – likely to provide challenging and rewarding work – while others may not resonate strongly with you. That’s okay. Our intention is to explore multiple avenues for awakening, knowing that, depending on the person, not all of them may be revolutionary.
If you’ve gone through the book, we’d love to hear about your experience in the comments section below. Next week we’ll look at more of these avenues for awakening.
Be well,
Peter
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It’s spring. Here in Colorado we’re grateful for every drop of rain, and we’ve gotten many wet days recently. Once the trees are all in leaf it will be the greenest time of year. So it’s also time for my annual tradition of teaching our readers about the wood element from the perspective of Chinese five element philosophy.
The qualities of wood (I’m italicizing it to distinguish it from wood, the substance and building material) are seen in the characteristics of plant growth, especially in spring, the wood season. They’re within all humans as well, to a greater or lesser degree depending on the individual.
One of the first things we notice as plants come back to life is a certain toughness, a determination to rise, to grow, and to break out of the dormancy of winter. A few weeks ago there were lots of little flowers and tree buds everywhere and I was feeling enchanted by it all. Then we got several heavy snows and hard freezes and I said dramatically to my wife, “It’s not fair! Those tiny baby leaves and flowers! They barely got a chance!” But a week later they were back at it, all the tougher for it.
Within every plant is the gift of vision and a plan. Plants have the “vision” of phototropism, meaning they sense and grow always toward the light. This forms their plan (along with producing new plants that will do the same) and they adhere to it unwaveringly.
Bamboo is considered the quintessential embodiment of these virtues. Not only does it grow rapidly toward its destination without any distraction (no branches), but it remains flexible. That is, despite its determination to get where it wants to go, it doesn’t become rigid or brittle in this pursuit. It’s strong, but it bends in the wind. In addition, its hollowness is considered symbolic of its ability to remain open and unattached to its goal.
A person with healthy wood has a clear vision of where they’re headed in the short term and the long term. They know the plan that’s going to enable them to make their vision a reality.
One of my favorite tools for clarifying your vision, crafting your plan, and staying on track with it is our Dreambook + Planner. It’s on sale now for 50% off.
When needed, someone with healthy wood energy employs the spring qualities of vigor, determination, decisiveness, and tenacity. Yet, there’s nothing ruthless about the pursuit of their plan. Another of wood’s virtues is kindness, specifically the kindness of mutual support which emerges when we recognize that all plans can peacefully coexist.
When we encounter obstacles, healthy wood helps us to not lose sight of where we’re headed. In fact, when I said, “It’s not fair!” previously, that was completely untrue. Fair and unfair are meaningless in nature. Obstacles happen. Little obstacles, like traffic that interferes with one’s plan to be at work on time. And big obstacles, like a fatal illness that interferes one’s plan to live a long life and change the world.
The typical wood response to an obstacle is anger. Ideally, we feel the anger willingly, let it move through us, and even allow the surge of emotional energy to reignite our vision, attain perspective, perhaps modify the plan, and keep growing.
Other (less pleasant) options are to resist, deny, and/or amplify the anger, leading to rage or numbness/depression. We might insist (often subconsciously) that the obstacle shouldn’t have happened. A plan that started out as “to get to the finish line and have fun along the way” might become “to fight this obstacle for as long as it takes” or “to have no plans because what’s the use?” This is what happens when we lose our vision.
In such cases, it’s important to remember that humans, too, have phototropism. Like plants, we also have a natural inclination toward the Light (however we define it). It’s how we orient our vision. When shined inward it may reveal that the personal plan which seems to be lost, stolen, or thwarted is but the spark of a greater soul plan, such as “to fully experience human life, to transmit the light, and be of service to the world.” I believe our soul plan can’t be thwarted because it doesn’t depend on the specifics of our circumstances but on who we choose to be.
I encourage you to spend some time in nature and bring your curiosity. What can you learn about life from the dynamics of the natural world?
Be well,
Dr. Peter Borten
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Previously I wrote about how community is like medicine. Our circle of fellow humans goes through this amazing journey with us . . . encouraging us, witnessing us, screaming with us on the roller coasters, and holding our hand when we take our last breath. My orientation in that article was toward what community can do for us, but it’s at least as important to look at what we can do for our community.
I was reading about a Native American grief ritual described by Black Elk, and while the ritual itself was interesting, what stuck with me was his assertion that long-held grief isn’t good for a person or the community to which that person belongs. That is, when someone is mired in suffering, this can have a negative impact on their community.
You can probably think of plenty of examples where a glaring state of imbalance, such as rage or terror, could result in behaviors that are detrimental to others. But the effects of less dramatic, often chronic negative states are subtler. What happens – besides their own discomfort – when a person is trapped in depression, anxiety, or grief for years? One repercussion is that they have a diminished capacity to fully show up in their community. We might think, “Well, the community doesn’t really need me to be at my best,” but imagine going to a place where almost everyone was depressed, afraid, or angry. Such places do exist, of course, and you can feel it as a palpable mass degradation of the human spirit.
These days we may feel that we don’t have any real obligation to our community, which is so different from how humans have operated for most of our history. Today community may be seen as an entirely optional part of life. We can live in near isolation while anonymous members of our community manage the utilities that provide us with power, water, and internet, take away our garbage, maintain our roads, even deliver our groceries. It feels like independence, but in truth we’re more dependent than ever on an infrastructure other humans maintain – we just don’t know who those humans are.
We’ve lost our sense of responsibility to our community. It’s due in part to the feeling that our government is huge, remote, and corrupt. But if our response is to disengage, the situation can only get worse. If anything, the sense of disconnection from our elected representatives and neighbors should magnify the need to do what we can to make a positive difference. It’s not just an obligation, it’s also an opportunity. If we can recognize and accept that our quality of presence affects others, this may inspire us to be our best selves. And it’s not just a matter of what we do but also who we are and how we are. Becoming fundamentally well inside helps heal the community. Imagine how healthily a community of fundamentally well people manages challenges.
If you’ve been struggling, I don’t mean to make you feel guilty as well; that won’t help you or your community. Rather than focusing on the negative impact your unwellness might have on your community, consider that getting well is good for you and it’s good for your community. Sometimes it’s easier to do it for others than for yourself.
Years ago, I read A Course in Miracles with friends. If you’re unfamiliar with it, it’s a book on spiritual awakening with a section of scripture and a year-long workbook of daily lessons. It’s not for everyone, but I gained some valuable insights from going through it. One of those insights occurred when I encountered this passage: “Lesson 66: My happiness and my function are one.”
Whereas I had tended to think of my happiness as a personal thing – sometimes even a selfish thing – this spiritual book was telling me that being happy (true, causeless happiness) is one of the greatest things I can do for the world. As I meditated on it, I saw clearly that the happy people I’ve known were like lights in every setting they entered. Without even intending it, they had a therapeutic effect on everyone they encountered. Not only did they tend to uplift those around them, in an unspoken way they communicated that this is a possibility for you, too. Happiness is a perspective, a choice. If I can choose it, you can choose it.
Being happy makes us more peaceful, compassionate, and creative. It gives us the freedom to see a bigger picture, rather than focusing on what’s wrong or bad. Even just one happy person in a room full of scared people can change the whole atmosphere – and the choices that community makes.
So I encourage you to consider this week:
- Who am I and what role do I play in my various communities?
- How have I been affected by the genuinely happy people I’ve known?
- What do I believe stands between me and being one of those happy people?
- What happens when I make a conscious choice of how I’m going to show up in a given setting?
- When I give, what do I receive?
- How do I feel when I put myself in service to others?
- Where could I dedicate myself to more actively resolve any unhealthy patterns of thought, communication, or behavior?
- How will I be different as I heal, and how will I affect my community differently as I release my baggage?
- When will I choose happiness?
Be well,
Peter
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