September 21, 2023
Over the last several months, I’ve gone through a series about ways to nourish the different aspects of ourselves. Today, I want to give a summary of the entire series to recap for those of you who have been with me, and also to fill our new readers in to catch them up. Heads up… this summary is a bit long… and still well worth the read as repetition of the core concepts always helps retention, and therefore applicability. And as the Buddha said, “if any of this has meaning for you, then use it, and if not then let it go.”
I’ve taught courses in the past on a Transpersonal Approach to the Human Experience, and in doing so, I cover aspects of the whole person: Body-Mind-Heart-and Soul. They’re usually covered in that order because that’s what we’re most familiar with in our culture, dealing with the body and mind first, and then deepening into the arenas of heart and soul.
However, when we appreciate our own innermost beauty and gifts that we have to bring forth, we must begin with the Soul. This is because once we get in touch with our soul-level calling–we might call that dharma, purpose, or what brings us most to life–everything else falls into place more readily.
If we’re feeding our soul first, then the other aspects of life tend to get fed more naturally downstream. To know our dharma, or our unique gift we’re meant to give to the world, is perhaps the greatest desire within each of us. And yet, how many of us can say with absolute certainty, that we know what this unique gift is, what our purpose is?
To help with this process, I add some framing, specifically through the lenses of two amazing books on the subject. The first is The Great Work of Your Life by Stephen Cope, and the second is by a heroine of mine, Lynn Twist, called Living A Committed Life.
When we combine both frameworks into a summation, I find the synthesis to be really direct, clear, and useful:
- Get clear on our gift, and offer that fully.
- Meet the challenges that lie ahead and persevere through them.
- Let go of the outcome and give it over to something higher than ourselves.
- Put it into action and rally the support necessary.
So, if we basically follow these four primary concepts, there’s going to be a clearer script that outlines what we’re here to do, how to do it, and how to offer it to the world in the best way.
The hardest part of all of this, in my experience, is that first concept–identifying what our dharma or soul-level calling is. In order to do that, we have to really commit to listening. We commit to slowing down and being in the unknown for a longer period of time, rather than grasping at something, doing something that somebody else thinks we should do, or following what somebody else is doing.
What have you come to offer that will benefit the larger community?
How do you commit to it?
How do you implement it?
How can you hold it, protect it, and nurture it during its gestation period?
If you don’t yet know what it is, how do you create the time and space to get curious and allow it to be revealed?
Next, we move from the soul to the heart.
The heart is all about relational fields. What are we becoming intimate with?
When talking about the heart, there are four aspects of intimacy classically described from many wisdom traditions. One of these wisdom traditions in particular was shared with me by a dear brother, Aubrey Marcus, in the teachings of “the Song of Songs” from the lineage of King Solomon. The “song” of these four aspects of intimacy are like Russian Dolls nested within each other.
From the inside out, the innermost core is our relationship with ourselves. Within this deep intimacy of self, we’ve got the known, egoic self, the “me in the day-to-day,” i.e. who I know myself to be through my perceptions, beliefs, and emotions. Then, I see the deeper aspects of my more true self–you could say my intimacy with my soul. Lastly, I see the relationship with Creator God, or Source, which I’ll speak about more as you read on.
In many historic tales, the hero/heroine descends into their own psychic depths, the darkness of the inner shadow realm, in order to become more mature, transformed, and authentically whole. This process will typically reveal to me my own dharma, including what I’ve come to do, what I’ve come to offer the greater world, and who I’ve come to be.
Getting intimate with our soul implies the willingness to go into our shadow and to be in the trenches of our own healing process. It’s the willingness to go into those areas we may not like about ourselves, in order to harvest all of our beauty and step into our fullest expression.
Opening up this aspect of intimacy with ourselves asks us to get current and bring all of our parts home, including the shame, guilt, trauma, grief, loss, fear, and regret, anything from our past, fears of the future. All of it.
Next is our relationship with our partner and our family. Intimacy in our closest relationships largely deals with the topic of attachment, or attachment styles. There’s an excellent book called Attached by Amir Levine, which looks at attachment theory, our early upbringing, and our constitutional orientation to life.
Essentially, there are three different attachment styles that can develop in our early childhood, based on the relationship models we felt and saw around us. These attachment styles are: anxious, avoidant, and secure. Anxious attachment is often preoccupied with relationships and tends to worry about their partner’s ability to love them back. Avoidant attachment equates intimacy with a loss of independence and constantly tries to minimize closeness. Secure attachment feels comfortable with intimacy, which usually feels warm and loving and can acknowledge tendencies towards anxious or avoidant styles without getting consumed by them.
Attachment theory suggests that these early models of relationship and attachment styles will strongly inform our attachment style as we mature into adulthood. Through awareness, introspection, and relational tools offered in texts like Levine’s Attached, we can identify which attachment style we exhibit the most and then work to release ourselves from certain behavioral and emotional patterns that have kept us locked in that attachment style.
I’ll also note that I find boundaries to be of the utmost importance when navigating this particular relational sphere, because our partners and family members tend to press our buttons and test our shadows in the deepest and most triggering ways. Setting clear boundaries around your own needs, coupled with the honesty of being able to meet your loved ones where they are, can typically allow for a more graceful navigation of these relational and familial dynamics.
Third is our relationship with community and culture. There’s a particular book that I want to highlight here, which is Coming Back To Life by Joanna Macy and Molly Young Brown. Coming Back To Life is about becoming intimate with the entire world, through the experience of what they describe as dependent co-arising.
Dependent co-arising is a Buddhist term which means that we are all immeasurably interwoven within the whole. You can’t separate the individual from the whole. There is no isolated individual. We’re all completely interwoven into this fabric of humanity with astounding beauty and complexity.
In the past, we may have described this in terms of tribes or smaller bands of societies, rather than as large nations and transnational cultures, but in 2023 we live in a more global community. There’s less demarcation between myself, my family, my community, and the rest of the world.
Fourth is intimacy with all of life, the cosmos, and with the Creative Source of All that Is. I mentioned this briefly as the upper pillar of the first sphere, and I just want to note how intimacy with self and intimacy with Source are so intertwined. The innumerable names for this creative force could be a theistic, God-facing spirit of divinity, or perhaps a non-theistic divinity like Gaia or Mother Earth, or a kind of less-identified, impersonal creative spark.
The whole crux of the matter here is that regardless of which aspect of divine creative spark we are each most aligned with, it has come to be recognized that those of us who have a relationship with some creative intelligence larger than ourselves tend to live a more fulfilled life.
Simply put… by having an experience of one’s own existence being an intimate part of the greater divine orchestration of life, which is supported by a benevolent intelligence that governs the evolution of life as a whole, each of us can more easily recognize the immeasurable beauty of this precious, hyperconnected web of “all our relations.”
After the soul and the heart, we’ve got the mind. We’ve all very likely experienced the oftentimes hostile internal dialogue, nasty judgments about oneself and others, loops, and traps of the mind, etc. So… what to do?
Mind training.
Much of my background in mind training comes from Vajrayana and Tibetan Buddhism, which is essentially a spiritual tradition and discipline based around cultivating the “awakened” mind. My experience of Buddhist wisdom is that it weaves together an understanding of the mind and implements practices that untangle mental knots, allowing us to settle into a calmer space with the mind as a vehicle for personal empowerment.
When we talk about mind training, I like to describe it as a way to create the experience of greater empowerment, of moving from victim to participant in our life story. You may have heard me say on a podcast that this path takes us out of the mindset that “life is happening to me” and into the mindset that “life is happening for me.” This subtle yet profound shift can help us accept whatever is happening in our lives – as uncomfortable as it may be – as an opportunity for growth and personal development.
So if we look at personal empowerment, this is very much around our beliefs: what we believe about ourselves, what we believe about other people, and what we believe about life. Can I sum this belief, or set of beliefs, up into one belief statement?
Sufficiency, often spoken about by Lynne Twist (author of The Soul of Money and Living a Committed Life), is the belief that I am enough, and that my life is enough. My contribution is enough. This doesn’t mean I can’t continue to improve and contribute more, but it’s coming from a place of abundance first and foremost, versus scarcity.
When the mind is going around and around on the hamster wheel, the internal dialogue is oftentimes around issues of not being enough. Begin with really listening to your internal dialogue to investigate any limiting beliefs or negative belief statements around lack or scarcity. The invitation here is to cultivate a witness perspective and just get curious.
Once you’ve identified some of the programs or limiting belief systems, continue to investigate them with a sense of curiosity. How long have those statements been running your thoughts? Do they serve you well? Are you willing to engage in practices that release them and/or shift them into statements of empowerment?
Once we recognize the limiting beliefs, we are conscious of them and can begin a process of training the mind toward empowerment. Excavating our subconscious beliefs and alchemizing their limiting components into empowerment is a process that takes time, commitment, and curiosity.
Over time, with diligent practice, we notice that our belief systems are beginning to evolve into more expansive, open ones that feed our lives with awe and gratitude. At a certain point down the line, this becomes unconscious and our entire mental map of ourselves and the world reflects limitless potentiality, self-love, and abundant belief statements.
So how does one actually engage in that practice of mind training in real life? It’s quite similar to training the body in the gym and doing the reps. We’re building a strong mind, so to speak, and this process is greatly aided by what we call “self-regulation” practices. If we can self-regulate, then we can be more masterful at orienting our minds toward the positive self-empowerment beliefs and the reflections that we choose.
For me, the best self-regulation practice is breathwork, or pranayama. The breath is the most available and immediate resource for calming our nervous systems and centering our minds. A simple and effective breathing technique is “box breathing.” It’s important to develop competence in these self-regulation techniques regularly when things are going well, so that they are available in times of challenge or crisis.
Along with breathwork, a favorite of mine is “contrast therapy,” or hot/cold exposure therapy. It really engages the mind around a practice of needing to be quiet when it wants to freak out. As long as we’re following recommended guidelines for temperature and duration, we can settle the mind and remain centered with our breath.
Now let’s work out this process of self-regulation and mind training through an example I gave in the previous email with the belief statement: First and foremost, we have to be aware of when our minds are spiraling in a loop or caught in the midst of recovering old trauma. Once we notice this is happening, then we can implement a breathing technique such as box breathing.
In those real-life moments when I recognize I’m projecting onto a person or situation because of a negative belief, I slow down my breath to self-regulate, and ask myself if there’s a more empowering, expansive belief I can adopt that will help to de-fog my perception and connect to what’s really happening. I can unwind all of those faulty programs and adopt new programs that hold myself and others in a more loving, accepting embrace.
Our beliefs change over time, because our personal truths evolve and change over time. It is a natural, beautiful part of the human experience, so we’ll want to consistently investigate our beliefs so that we can release and replace any that are no longer in alignment.
Lastly, after nourishing the soul, heart, and mind, we end with the body. At the body level, there are 4 core fundamentals as I see it: sleep, movement, play, and nutrition.
Sleep is easily number one for me, particularly restful, renewing sleep. I, along with so many clients and patients over the years, have felt firsthand the power of quality sleep for absolutely everything, especially in contrast to a period of poor sleep.
Second, we’ve got to move our bodies. Movement is key for the health of practically every bodily system, and is a primary way to nourish our bodies as temples that house our soul. I see four main areas or aspects of movement: strength, flexibility, endurance, and coordination.
Play, I’m finding, is essential. Play is this constant opportunity to be in our childlike selves, to be in a creative force, and to have a fun time celebrating this human experience.
If people are regularly engaging in play, then they tend to be more joyful, kinder, and more productive. What we need in this day and age is for people to be kinder, and more productive not for productivity’s sake, but for addressing the current needs of the day.
The last major category of body nourishment involves diet and nutrition, which is a massive topic full of variance and nuance. Identifying what feels best to your body is a great first step toward nourishing it correctly. It’s helpful to have a variety of foods in our diet, and a balance that includes the macronutrients of protein, carbs, and fat.
Going further, I’m a big proponent of eating seasonally. When I look at the natural world, at mammals in their natural habitats, there are seasonal cycles that affect eating, because different foods are available during different parts of the year.
The last piece of nutrition to mention is the use of supplements, such as adaptogens. Adaptogens are known to help imbalances related to stress, anxiety, and fatigue mainly, though they act in different ways depending on what the person’s imbalances are.
And with that, we’ve explored this Transpersonal Approach to the Human Experience from soul, heart, mind, and body levels. I hope it’s been activating and has piqued your curiosity a bit.
After reading this recap and getting all caught up, we’ve got a great opportunity for self-reflection where we can start to get curious about all these different areas. I invite you to get your journal out and take some time to contemplate each of the aspects we discussed: soul, heart, mind, and body.
Where do you feel you’re doing really well in each of those areas?
Where do you feel like you’ve been a bit limited or haven’t given enough attention?
Through this awareness, can you develop a plan to improve those areas in need and commit to achieving that plan over time?
Thank you all for being along for this ride with me. I’m grateful to each and every one of you for receiving my thoughts and contemplations with such love. I will be shifting the topic of conversation in these blog posts a bit moving forward, so stay tuned for these developments.
To your health,
Dr. Dan
Get healthy. Stay present. Help out.