Dr. Dale Archer is a charismatic psychiatrist who’s got a lot to say about education and the idea of what is considered “normal” in America today. We discussed anxiety, depression, education, and ADHD among many other things. He’s a delightful man and is really great to listen to. Here’s the archived show:
If we could all live on a dream beach somewhere in the tropics, would we still have stress? Most people believe that the answer to this is “No”, but I would have to disagree. Sure, we’d be pretty good for a couple of weeks- maybe even a month bu then what? We’ll have dragged our busy minds along with us and, after a short amount of time, will be loading old thoughts, emotions, and memories that have been plaguing us for years.
How does this stress get booted in so easily? Think of a computer. We have our operating system and then we have applications. If we get a good night’s sleep, we generally tend to wake up with a free desktop. What happens then? We start opening windows. We click application after application, trying to load everything at once. Within the first hour or two, we have too many windows open and things are starting to hang up. Our system slows down and we are diverting valuable resources to the multiple open windows and have precious little left for our immunity.
Stress, anxiety, and depression are all symptoms of disconnection to our inner source of peace and tranquility. Here, Pedram discusses how it is through our loss of connection with nature that we have become fixated on abstract concepts and separated ourselves from our original connection with nature.
Talking about life and time management with Alberto Villoldo, I had a chance to get a brief story from him about how he deals with time. As I had mentioned in a previous post, time management is event management. This is for people who are looking to learn about how to manage their affairs better. In this conversation, Alberto Villodo and I speak about another aspect of this- what about when you have time to waste?
Time Management is an art of Event Management. When we become conscious of the events we commit to in life, we learn that we are the ones who have allowed the stress in. In the video above, Pedram discusses some of the main hangups people have and how people will get into trouble by not realistically managing their expectations of themselves. Time Management is an art and it requires awareness of what we are signing on to. Setting priorities in life and establishing value for the important people in our lives will help us navigate these waters much better.
Anxiety, depression, and stress are all byproducts of our inability to negotiate our interface with time well. Learning to meditate and do yoga or qi gong is helpful but it is impossible to offset the root of the stress which leads to the anxiety and depression without effective understanding of time management. This, again, should be more accurately called event management!
Have you ever noticed that when you are stressed or afraid, you stop breathing? It happens all of the time. Our emotional state overtakes our energy field and we stop circulating the flow of vital energy throughout our bodies. This locks up the coherent flow of our Vitality and entraps thoughts, emotions, disease, and toxins in our system. We start to breathe in a shallow fashion and we feel compressed- actually we literally are. The torroidal field of our vital energy starts to collapse and we densify- losing the flow of the Levity inducing charge that keeps us young and vibrant. It is one of the most common ways we ail- something so simple.
Hanging out with Leonard Orr this summer, he and I discussed his form of circular breathing and how he uses prescriptions for people who come to him for a whole host of ailments. This is very similar to what we do in my Qi Gong tradition- breath work for homework. It is so easy yet so difficult. Why so hard? Because we don’t want to feel what has come up- breathing life to a thought or emotion dislodges it and moves it through our field. If we learn to observe it with equanimity and an open heart, it simply passes and is gone. The problem- we freak out and hang on- then the repressed charge gets so strong that we can hardly breathe.
The fix is easy- deep lower abdominal breathing for ten minutes or so and then breathe to the area of repression.
Find a track here and get to work!
post continued from Part I…
…Continued from [this post]
… Think of it like math. Most people hate math growing up. There is a given problem and we all think- oh no! Problem! But the answer to this problem is a given solution set that teaches us about the nature of this query and it teaches us how to come to a solution for this problem. Once solved, not only is the problem over, we also have learned how to solve similar problems to it! Imagine that- we actually develop a skill set that renders us more efficient at this kind of problem- we are a problem solver!
As we get better and better, we move to higher math and more complicated “problems”. So, back to your life- once you crack the code and learn how to get things done, the next thing gets easier and easier. The path to mastery starts with baby steps and, the solution set I put to you, hides in our relationship with time. Learn to adjust your expectations of yourself in time and you can do anything. This is what we see when a master performs a task effortlessly. It is a state of complete relaxation- effortless action. How we get there is (more…)
Most people I meet in the West are never truly happy because they are caught up in the cycles of aversions and cravings. No matter how much money they have, they always have some unfulfilled desire that keeps them longing for something. I’ve sat with billionaires and I’ve sat with paupers in India, and having now done so for so many years, can firmly state that maybe the Buddha was right.
We want too many things. We have goals, aspirations, dreams, and desires…most of which don’t get fulfilled. Now- is there anything inherently wrong with wanting to achieve things in life? No- but the motive becomes the issue. Are we trying to better ourselves and become more compassionate people, or are we trying to gratify our egos by proving something to the world. It becomes a question of consciousness and motives. Again, wanting to achieve something excellent is great- it helps us understand our Divine potential and the power of Spirit, mind over matter, healthy intention, and focused mindset. Assuming we are not trying to gratify our egos then (to be discussed in another blog), how do we set goals that are reasonable and sensible?
The answer lies in… (more…)
How is it that we don’t know the difference between the songs of different birds anymore? If you were to see animal tracks on the ground, would you be able to tell:
Or maybe even “What is it doing right now?”
Well, our ancestors did and we somehow forgot. That is why we’re in Africa. We’re navigating by the stars at night, studying animal behavior, learning survival skills, and interviewing medicine men. The project revolves around reconnecting man with Nature and re-establishing our innate understanding of who we are and how we fit into the ecosystem. Survival is an interesting phenomenon. Although most of us are not running from lions on a daily basis, the notion of survival plays are central role in most of our lives. How? It’s called mortgage. Taxes, salaries, rising costs, hospital bills…all of these concepts that are tied to money are conceptually related to our survival. We stress about it every day and it consumes much of our attention.
So what does this have to do with Africa? (more…)
Walking away from the movie Avatar, I felt something interesting in my consciousness. It was almost like the film had “seeded” a holographic imprint of that reality into my consciousness. I could see images from the movie for a few hours in MY 3D reality. It got me thinking and I had a long conversation with Sharron Rose about it today. She referred me to this blog post by a friend of her’s.
http://www.davidandlilatresemer.blogspot.com/
Interesting points made. I still feel that the overall value of the film was good and that it serves as a wake up call for humanity. That being said, the use of such a medium for horror movies and the like remains to be evaluated. We must be very careful with our simulations of reality. I nice walk in the forest still trumps all of this CGI in my opinion.
