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How to Be Resilient

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… Read More

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Thus, the “control group” was born. Half of the participants (the “controls”) would get nothing (or some well established intervention the scientists endeavored to compare their new treatment with). Then they could report, “70% improved on our drug and only 20% improved in the control group.” But someone pointed out that perhaps a participant’s expectation that they were getting a new drug (or that they were getting nothing) would influence the outcome. Thus, the “blind study” was born. Those in the control group would be given a sham treatment that would appear to be real, and participants wouldn’t know which group they were in. This revealed just how significant the “placebo effect” is (a positive health effect due to one’s belief in the [non-existent] treatment). Occasionally people even have negative reactions to sham treatments, which is called a “nocebo effect” – such as a headache or dizziness from a sugar pill – presumably because they believe they’re taking a drug. But someone pointed out that if the scientists administering the drugs and the fake drugs knew which pill they were giving to which group, they might somehow convey belief or disbelief to the recipient, potentially affecting the outcome. Thus, the “double blind” study was born. Rather than marking the pill bottles as “Miracle Drug” and “Sugar Pills,” perhaps they’d be labeled as “Drug A” and “Drug B,” and neither the scientists nor the participants would know who was getting which until the end of the study. It was also discovered that the treatment group and control group needed to be composed of similar kinds and ages of people, and they needed to be assigned randomly to one or the other. This progression brought us to the current “gold standard” in biomedical research – the double-blinded randomized controlled trial. (The “gold standard” claim has been hotly disputed lately, but that’s another story). It also raised some big questions about the body-mind connection. Scientists, not usually known for their faith in unseen, immeasurable mechanisms, had to concede that the placebo effect is real. People are able to affect their health – often instantly – through their thoughts and beliefs. Furthermore, we have evidence that people’s feelings about each other (e.g, “You’re lucky you’re in the treatment group,” or “You’re really sick,” or “This isn’t going to do anything”) – despite their best efforts to reveal nothing and remain neutral – also have an impact on others’ health. While these research concepts were explored at great length in the research portion of my education, they were absent from my clinical training. That is, we didn’t talk about how to apply such ideas in the context of the treatment room. But some years into my practice, I began to notice that my thoughts and energy affected my patients. If I bounded into the room full of energy with a smile and full eye contact, the patient would respond differently than if I walked in slowly, scanning their chart and looking pensive. But that’s just a momentary response, isn’t it? Well, it’s hard to say, but I believe not. It’s impossible to measure the depth and duration of impact of any given stimulus on a person. Let’s say you watched a movie with a graphic torture scene (aside: I don’t recommend this). The impact of your reaction to that violence might have subtle repercussions on the rest of your life. Luckily, the same could be true of a beautiful or deeply inspiring story. (However, given your probable aversion and resistance to the former, I’d say it’s [unfortunately] likely to cut a deeper groove in your psyche. But that, too, is another story.) When comparing something as palpable as a Patch Adams persona versus that of a dour clinician who barely regards the patient as a living person, we could easily do an "exit poll" to measure the difference in the patient’s experience. But what about the impact on patients of our thoughts about them – as occurs in single-blinded studies where scientists can’t help thinking, “This might save your life” or, “We’re just wasting what little time you have left”? If scientists are able to skew the results of a study based on their thinking, how are we affecting each other and the world based on our outlook? I decided to control my thinking to the best of my ability: to avoid buying into my patients’ fears and negative self-images, and to see them as the healthy, happy, whole beings I know they can be. I can’t honestly tell you that no one has ever gotten worse or died since then, but I firmly believe it has made a difference. Sometimes we start with a conversation about how bad everything is for them, and I find myself seeing them with pity and despair before remembering my role. Then I attempt to look through the labels of sick and broken. I focus on their light instead. I see their strength and vitality. I see their gifts. And I watch them change before my eyes. Now we’ve finally come to the real topic of this newsletter, which is how we save our world. I’ve been encountering lots of articles and conversations about how bad things are today with climate change, water shortages, wildfires, fake news, political corruption, fracking, mass shootings, poverty, high fructose corn syrup, and so on. So, there must be a lot of people out there who see the world as a very sick patient. I know I do sometimes. And if we (the most powerful, most sentient beings) believe this– if we believe that the world is in a dire state - how is the world affected? It’s not an answerable question, but I’d guess the net effect is negative. Sure, there’s a bit of positive impact when we feel momentarily spurred to act. But the overall effect of viewing the world as “going to hell” can’t be good for our consciousness or the planet itself. So, this newsletter is a request – an experiment, actually. I ask that we all commit for one week to holding in mind an image of the world as healthy, balanced, light, loving, peaceful, and beautiful. Ask all your friends to do it with you, too. When you catch yourself focusing on the bad, shift your perspective. The worst case scenario is that you miss out on a week’s worth of pessimistic thoughts. Of course, you can continue to take positive action toward helping the world, but see if you can do it from a mindset of “Yes, my beloved world! I believe in you!” rather than, “Oh no, oh no, oh no!” Meanwhile, and as you do this experiment, look for signs that we’re making a difference. Be well, Peter P.S. If all is going well after one week, commit to a month. If all is going well after a month, commit to a year. And if all is going well after a year, commit to the rest of your life. P.P.S. Thanks. [post_title] => A Sugar Pill for the Planet [post_excerpt] => [post_status] => publish [comment_status] => open [ping_status] => open [post_password] => [post_name] => 7128 [to_ping] => [pinged] => [post_modified] => 2020-07-28 21:30:02 [post_modified_gmt] => 2020-07-28 21:30:02 [post_content_filtered] => [post_parent] => 0 [guid] => http://thedragontree.com/?p=7128 [menu_order] => 0 [post_type] => post [post_mime_type] => [comment_count] => 9 [filter] => raw [webinar_id] => 0 ) [1] => WP_Post Object ( [ID] => 8116 [post_author] => 1 [post_date] => 2020-11-20 20:51:11 [post_date_gmt] => 2020-11-20 20:51:11 [post_content] => Over the past several weeks, we’ve been looking at the factors that make for a longer, richer, more alive life.: (1) Loving life and living for the present (2) Working, stretching, and relaxing all parts of yourself (3) Dancing with consciousness (4) Reducing media consumption (5) Paying attention to your breathing (6) Eating less (7) Prioritizing community and service (8) Exchanging love and touch. You can read more about all these topics on our blog (there’s a lot more to them than the list you just read!). Today I’ll add a couple more items to the list. #9: Optimize Your Sleep. There are people who live long lives but don’t sleep well or much, but they tend to be outliers. Virtually everyone lives better, if not also longer, with good sleep. One of the leading causes of death has always been accidents and we’re a lot more likely to have them when we’re tired or mentally cloudy. Furthermore, when we’re well rested, we’re more likely to operate from the “evolved human” part of the brain (the prefrontal cortex) – thinking rationally and broadly. When we’re tired, we often default to the primitive “animal brain” and make decisions based on survival, pleasure-seeking, and pain-avoidance. There’s really no substitute for adequate, replenishing sleep. If you want to learn something, you need sleep to imprint what you’re learning in a lasting way. If you want to get stronger, you need sleep to turn all that exercise and protein into muscle tissue. If you want emotional intelligence, patience, and mature communication, you need sleep in order to be non-reactive. If you want optimal performance in anything – music, chess, gymnastics, or foosball – you need sleep to recharge your nervous system. If you want to kick an infection, you need sleep to give your body a chance to do its work without demanding other things from it. #10: Laugh More. When I recommend laughter, I mean two things. First, just laugh more – because it’s fun and it’s good for your body and mind. Listen to stand-up comedy, share jokes, exchange tickles, join a laughing club, choose funny media over bitter. Do whatever it takes for you to have more belly laughs in your life. Second, take a light-hearted attitude toward life. And death. In my opinion, there’s nothing that can’t be laughed at. I don’t mean derisive, mean-spirited laughter. I mean the laughter that comes from the recognition that life is funny, that there is humor in everything – including the seriousness in which so many of us hold everything. And I also mean delighted laughter – the laughter that arises from simply paying attention to how much beauty, magic, and profundity there is. Which leads us to… #11: Keep Your Heart Open. It’s a natural but unfortunate impulse to close our hearts when life is unpleasant – like raising our arms to shield ourselves against an incoming attack. What I mean by “closing our heart” is a subtle contraction around the center of the chest that occurs on multiple levels simultaneously – physical, emotional, and energetic. We do this as an instinctive act of self-preservation, but it becomes a habit of not feeling. Living with a closed heart is like narrowing the spectrum of reality we allow ourselves to experience. For what it’s worth, though, I don’t believe the heart only has two states – open or closed – it’s a range. I recommend consciously living through your heart. Feel through your heart. Breathe through your heart. Listen through your heart. Keep it open even when you’re in pain, even when you’re afraid, even when you’re angry. You can do this just by intending it. Put your attention there, soften, and let it open like a flower. Be well, Peter [post_title] => Three Ways to Invite More Life into Your Life [post_excerpt] => [post_status] => publish [comment_status] => open [ping_status] => open [post_password] => [post_name] => three-ways-to-invite-more-life-into-your-life [to_ping] => [pinged] => [post_modified] => 2020-11-20 21:11:27 [post_modified_gmt] => 2020-11-20 21:11:27 [post_content_filtered] => [post_parent] => 0 [guid] => http://thedragontree.com/?p=8116 [menu_order] => 0 [post_type] => post [post_mime_type] => [comment_count] => 6 [filter] => raw [webinar_id] => 0 ) [2] => WP_Post Object ( [ID] => 7994 [post_author] => 3 [post_date] => 2020-08-07 21:28:29 [post_date_gmt] => 2020-08-07 21:28:29 [post_content] => One of the things I love about Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) is its ability to distill complicated problems down to simple ones. If you were to look in a textbook of TCM pathology, you’d find a list of probable causes (“etiologies”) for every disease, and before long you’d notice that there’s a fairly small number of root causes. These are things like overwork, trauma, and exposure to harsh climatic conditions. One interesting cause that comes up with great frequency is “imbalance between movement and stillness.” Historically, this imbalance usually referred to too much physical exertion (in the form of manual labor) and not enough rest. But in the modern world, we almost always see the reverse. Huge portions of our lives are spent sitting, and exercise has become optional for many. It’s an oddly unnatural trend, where physical fitness must be scheduled into our calendar and is often performed indoors on machines. Meanwhile, there’s an opposite form of movement/stillness imbalance that’s equally unhealthy and often harder for us to remedy. While we’re more physically immobile than ever, on a mental level we’re constantly running marathons. Humans in the developed world are epidemically overworking our minds, processing huge amounts of data, trying to make sense of all the news, while managing an increasingly complex burden of psychological stress. In the past, most people engaged in much less mental activity (“movement”) and had much more opportunity for mental stillness than we do today. Unfortunately, the simultaneous trend toward physical inactivity means we miss out on the calming and stabilizing effect that physical activity provides for the mind. Because uneasy minds are prone to look for more data to engage with, this can make for an unhealthy cycle. For optimal health and balance, we need periods of mental stillness during waking life – a deliberate practice of resting the mind that’s different from sleep. In a word, I’m talking about MEDITATION. It functions as both self-care and training. As an act of self-care, it’s the quintessential fix for a mind that's imbalanced by excessive movement and not enough stillness – and all the health repercussions of that stress. As a form of training, it builds the valuable skills of holding our focus and shifting our awareness. Our awareness is the broader consciousness within which the mind is contained. It’s vast. In comparison, the mind is tiny. But our experience is powerfully influenced by where we put our attention. If our attention is habitually focused on our own mind, the mind can feel like the whole world. If we just swim around in our thoughts all day, we start to believe that our thoughts are who we are, or at least a very important part of who we are. We can’t imagine ourselves without our thoughts. But, in actuality, when we stop giving our attention to the mind and “step back” from it, into our broader awareness, we begin to remember something of tremendous value – who/what we really are, and what’s possible for us. Do you remember those old school arcade machines from the 1980s? The screen was set deep within the machine so that when you leaned in, the sides acted like blinders, and it was just you and the game. If you were really absorbed, “you” even disappeared and all that seemed to exist was the game. When we allow our mind, body, and possessions to be the lens through which we experience life, it’s like being immersed in one of those arcade machines. In my case, it could be called “The Peter Game.” In your case, maybe it’s The Emma Game or The James Game. Once in a while we pull back from the machine and look around. Whoa. What time is it? How long was I playing? We remember: life isn’t really just this game. We’re in a room with a whole bunch of other people, all immersed in their own games, but there’s something bigger and more real. Sometimes this broadening of perspective occurs through spontaneous spiritual revelation. Unfortunately, as far as I know, there’s no reliable way to cause such an experience to happen. Sometimes it comes through psychedelic (or entheogenic) drugs, though it doesn’t tend to be self-sustaining when the drug wears off. Perhaps you remember Ram Dass’s 1971 book Be Here Now, in which he explained that no matter how long he spent in a drug-altered state of consciousness, he always eventually “came down” and returned to being Harvard professor Dr. Richard Alpert with all his neuroses and materialism. Meditative arts, in my opinion, are the only way to reliably cause this change of perspective in a sustainable and self-empowering way. The empowering part comes from the recognition that you are choosing this and working at it, day in and day out. By meditative arts, I mean certain forms of yoga, certain forms of qi gong and martial arts, and especially seated meditation. The thoughts, whether we attach to them or not, tend to continue to stream by – just like the video game, which runs continuously in “demo mode.” And, lo and behold, even if we decide not to focus on them, we feel quite alright! Better than alright. We see from this perspective that our attachment to these thoughts, like our unconscious attachment to the imperiled main character in a thriller movie, makes us uneasy. Divesting our attention from the mind is therefore refreshing. Despite the mind’s resistance and apprehension to being deprived of such importance, it’s quite the opposite of being lobotomized. So, please try it. Sit down comfortably, close your eyes, and rather than squeezing your consciousness down to the size of a peephole that’s focused on your own thoughts, imagine that the peephole is broadening. Let your breathing deepen, but without manipulating it. Open your perception. Not only can you perceive your thoughts, you can also perceive your body. Your perception can go much bigger, but for now that’s big enough. Becoming aware of your body still counts as a break from your incessant focus on the mind. If you’re unpracticed at shifting your attention, it can be tricky to focus on something as seemingly boring as how it feels to be in this body. The mind seems so entertaining in comparison. Not just entertaining, but compelling – like a tragic news story. It screams, “You’d better pay attention to this! Your survival depends on it. Seriously!” Do you realize what a shameless liar your mind is? It’ll say anything to get your attention. Luckily, we’re all equipped with an expanded-reality-remembrance-device, AKA the breath. You can just watch it – watch how it expands you, watch how it subsides, watch how you don’t need to do anything to make it happen. Just watch, don’t manipulate. If you find your awareness narrowing around a thought, go broad again, open to the perception of your body, and stay with it. Notice how your everyday consciousness is changed by this practice. I’d love it if you’d share about your challenges and experience in the comments section. Be well, Dr. Peter Borten P.S. Our book Rituals for Transformation has been instrumental in helping so many people establish a daily meditation practice. Going through the book after it was printed even helped me make meditation a more consistent routine. Check it out. [post_title] => What’s Better than Video Games? Peace, Balance, and Perspective. [post_excerpt] => [post_status] => publish [comment_status] => open [ping_status] => open [post_password] => [post_name] => whats-better-than-video-games-peace-balance-and-perspective [to_ping] => [pinged] => [post_modified] => 2020-08-09 15:54:31 [post_modified_gmt] => 2020-08-09 15:54:31 [post_content_filtered] => [post_parent] => 0 [guid] => http://thedragontree.com/?p=7994 [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] => 7128 [post_author] => 3 [post_date] => 2018-09-18 15:44:37 [post_date_gmt] => 2018-09-18 15:44:37 [post_content] => In early scientific experiments, scientists would give a drug to a group of test subjects and then report, for instance, that “70% of the participants improved due to this drug.” But some smarty pointed out that some of those people might have gotten better without treatment. Thus, the “control group” was born. Half of the participants (the “controls”) would get nothing (or some well established intervention the scientists endeavored to compare their new treatment with). Then they could report, “70% improved on our drug and only 20% improved in the control group.” But someone pointed out that perhaps a participant’s expectation that they were getting a new drug (or that they were getting nothing) would influence the outcome. Thus, the “blind study” was born. Those in the control group would be given a sham treatment that would appear to be real, and participants wouldn’t know which group they were in. This revealed just how significant the “placebo effect” is (a positive health effect due to one’s belief in the [non-existent] treatment). Occasionally people even have negative reactions to sham treatments, which is called a “nocebo effect” – such as a headache or dizziness from a sugar pill – presumably because they believe they’re taking a drug. But someone pointed out that if the scientists administering the drugs and the fake drugs knew which pill they were giving to which group, they might somehow convey belief or disbelief to the recipient, potentially affecting the outcome. Thus, the “double blind” study was born. Rather than marking the pill bottles as “Miracle Drug” and “Sugar Pills,” perhaps they’d be labeled as “Drug A” and “Drug B,” and neither the scientists nor the participants would know who was getting which until the end of the study. It was also discovered that the treatment group and control group needed to be composed of similar kinds and ages of people, and they needed to be assigned randomly to one or the other. This progression brought us to the current “gold standard” in biomedical research – the double-blinded randomized controlled trial. (The “gold standard” claim has been hotly disputed lately, but that’s another story). It also raised some big questions about the body-mind connection. Scientists, not usually known for their faith in unseen, immeasurable mechanisms, had to concede that the placebo effect is real. People are able to affect their health – often instantly – through their thoughts and beliefs. Furthermore, we have evidence that people’s feelings about each other (e.g, “You’re lucky you’re in the treatment group,” or “You’re really sick,” or “This isn’t going to do anything”) – despite their best efforts to reveal nothing and remain neutral – also have an impact on others’ health. While these research concepts were explored at great length in the research portion of my education, they were absent from my clinical training. That is, we didn’t talk about how to apply such ideas in the context of the treatment room. But some years into my practice, I began to notice that my thoughts and energy affected my patients. If I bounded into the room full of energy with a smile and full eye contact, the patient would respond differently than if I walked in slowly, scanning their chart and looking pensive. But that’s just a momentary response, isn’t it? Well, it’s hard to say, but I believe not. It’s impossible to measure the depth and duration of impact of any given stimulus on a person. Let’s say you watched a movie with a graphic torture scene (aside: I don’t recommend this). The impact of your reaction to that violence might have subtle repercussions on the rest of your life. Luckily, the same could be true of a beautiful or deeply inspiring story. (However, given your probable aversion and resistance to the former, I’d say it’s [unfortunately] likely to cut a deeper groove in your psyche. But that, too, is another story.) When comparing something as palpable as a Patch Adams persona versus that of a dour clinician who barely regards the patient as a living person, we could easily do an "exit poll" to measure the difference in the patient’s experience. But what about the impact on patients of our thoughts about them – as occurs in single-blinded studies where scientists can’t help thinking, “This might save your life” or, “We’re just wasting what little time you have left”? If scientists are able to skew the results of a study based on their thinking, how are we affecting each other and the world based on our outlook? I decided to control my thinking to the best of my ability: to avoid buying into my patients’ fears and negative self-images, and to see them as the healthy, happy, whole beings I know they can be. I can’t honestly tell you that no one has ever gotten worse or died since then, but I firmly believe it has made a difference. Sometimes we start with a conversation about how bad everything is for them, and I find myself seeing them with pity and despair before remembering my role. Then I attempt to look through the labels of sick and broken. I focus on their light instead. I see their strength and vitality. I see their gifts. And I watch them change before my eyes. Now we’ve finally come to the real topic of this newsletter, which is how we save our world. I’ve been encountering lots of articles and conversations about how bad things are today with climate change, water shortages, wildfires, fake news, political corruption, fracking, mass shootings, poverty, high fructose corn syrup, and so on. So, there must be a lot of people out there who see the world as a very sick patient. I know I do sometimes. And if we (the most powerful, most sentient beings) believe this– if we believe that the world is in a dire state - how is the world affected? It’s not an answerable question, but I’d guess the net effect is negative. Sure, there’s a bit of positive impact when we feel momentarily spurred to act. But the overall effect of viewing the world as “going to hell” can’t be good for our consciousness or the planet itself. So, this newsletter is a request – an experiment, actually. I ask that we all commit for one week to holding in mind an image of the world as healthy, balanced, light, loving, peaceful, and beautiful. Ask all your friends to do it with you, too. When you catch yourself focusing on the bad, shift your perspective. The worst case scenario is that you miss out on a week’s worth of pessimistic thoughts. Of course, you can continue to take positive action toward helping the world, but see if you can do it from a mindset of “Yes, my beloved world! I believe in you!” rather than, “Oh no, oh no, oh no!” Meanwhile, and as you do this experiment, look for signs that we’re making a difference. Be well, Peter P.S. If all is going well after one week, commit to a month. If all is going well after a month, commit to a year. And if all is going well after a year, commit to the rest of your life. P.P.S. Thanks. 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