In the self-improvement/self-help/spiritual growth circles that I’ve moved in and had the opportunity to observe, I’ve noted a common theme of “growth takes a lot of hard work.”

This is true, as far as it goes, but I think that in our particular North American, Puritan-derived, Protestant-work-ethic-GO culture, too much emphasis is placed upon the work, and not enough on the easiness of growth, the playfulness of it, and the effortlessness of it.

You can think about it this way: when was the last time you saw a tree putting in extra hours to its growth? How often do you see kittens attending workshops to learn to develop properly? Do you ever see a flower breaking a sweat when preparing to bloom, worried that it might not?

Looked at this way, working to grow makes no real sense. Growth is something that simply happens in living things of its own accord, without any special concentration or striving. Does that mean I think we should stop putting energy into our growth? Obviously not! If a tree, a kitten, or a flower stopped putting energy into growing, it wouldn’t survive for long. At best, it would be outcompeted by those organisms that are still growing. At worst, it would simply die from lack of energy and nourishment.

As human beings, we are possessed with the peculiar and endlessly fascinating ability to consciously and willfully direct how we expend our energy (at least to some degree). The way in which we grow through life seems to be something that we can steer toward and away from, but not something that we can cease altogether. We’re growing if we’re alive, because that’s what life does.

Have you ever noticed that, when learning a new skill, the amount of work that it takes to get just the basics down seems huge, but after a time, it gets easier? Of course you have! That’s what learning is! Beyond just the exercising of the skill, though, have you ever noticed that it gets easier to motivate yourself to do the work needed in order to learn or grow your skill as you build the habit of practicing? Beginning an exercise program starts out difficult, but as the habit becomes ingrained, it becomes easy to get moving and do the workout. It becomes less exhausting and more energizing as it becomes a part of how you live your life.

This is the art of effortless effort. Choose the direction you wish to grow in, take action, and sit back and relax and enjoy for a minute. Your growth is already happening, it’s already on its way, stop and notice it, savor it, soak it up before you start pushing yourself onto the next step. See how easy taking bigger and bigger steps becomes. You’re already there, you’re already growing, just bring the energy and watch!

Recommended Reading:

Relax, You’re Already Perfect, by Bruce Schneider

One of my beliefs has long been that sadhana, or spiritual practice, can infuse and enliven every aspect of one’s life. God can be worshipped daily and everywhere, not only on Sundays at church. It is possible for meditation to include more than a 20-30 minute daily practice. Our entire lives can be infused with mindfulness, presence, and the sacred.

A little over a month ago I came to the realization that I tend to be very unconscious while I’m at the gym and it need not be that way. I’m usually somewhat preoccupied by what’s on the TV, regardless of my actual interest in the program. There’s also some people watching involved, maybe some self-imposed intimidation and envy with each very attractive and in shape gym bunny who passes by. My mind is busy striving to get to the end of my cardio, “Just 30 minutes, 20 more, 10, 5, then cooldown” it tells me. Then it’s time for some weight lifting, one set after another, each as a means to an end — to get home and start my day. Finally, I made it, but I was never actually there to begin with.

I decided that I didn’t like that kind of workout. I didn’t want to be so enraptured in the ego, I didn’t want exercise to be just a means to an end, nor did I want to feel intimidated by people who were in better shape than me (and who were more than likely not even noticing me). I decided that I could be present and simultaneously, have a profound meditation and some great physical activity. Endorphins coupled with the mental clarity provided by meditation — awesome!

Instead of a scattered mind, fear, and unconsciousness, I bring consciousness with me to the gym. I close my eyes, focus on my body, being in it, the movements, and my breathing (which is usually the yogic ujjayi breath. But that’s not nearly as important as simply watching the breath). I’m there, moving and feeling my body and breath, present to each breath and movement. Dynamic and yet very still within. I have found this to be extremely beneficial, energizing, and clarifying. And, as with every aspect of life, bringing in mindfulness, consciousness, and presence to our actions will make the gym a much more enjoyable and fulfilling experience.

The peculiarities of the American public education system imprinted on me (and many of you, I suspect) the contradictory and frustrating notion that the teacher is the repository of information, and the student the empty vessel, waiting to be filled at the teacher’s discretion. The problem with this notion is that it discounts the faculties of enthusiasm and inquisitiveness that the student must bring in order for the educational process to be meaningful. It also implicitly communicates that the teacher is somehow “done” with the learning process, because he or she is in the position of the Authority. The entire philosophical approach leads to a breakdown of the process it is meant to be facilitating.

Learning is complex. Until very recently, it was believed that the brain didn’t change at all once we were past about 21 years old, and that learning after that somehow imparted new ideas into an unchanging landscape of brainstuff. Now we have come to understand that the brain itself is plastic; it constantly changes its physical structure to handle new information coming in.

Recall the old adage that “to teach is to learn.” This axiom is, to my way of thinking, even better expressed implicitly in some of the Celtic languages, which use the very same verb for both “to learn” and “to teach.” Incidentally, it was through immigrants and English-learners translating phrases from these Celtic languages that vernacular English ended up with expressions like “well, that’ll learn ya!”

Real teaching is not the installation of collections of facts, but is the facilitated development of the faculties of reasoning, understanding, and synthesizing facts into new ideas. Ideas are nebulous things. They can’t really be expressed in words, because words encode not just the idea, but the speaker’s entire belief system that surrounds the idea. Teaching is the generation of multiple expressions of the same idea, multiple ways of saying the same thing, until the student has that “a-ha!” moment. The lightbulb goes on, and the idea has been transferred.

The reason teaching and learning are equivalent, then, is that the teacher invariably learns more about the subject by explaining it in a new way to a new mind, of course. Further, if the teacher is attempting to teach the student how to learn (the only lesson of real significance, for me), then the teacher is in the fortunate situation of learning more about how the mind works, how the mind learns, and how, therefore, learning happens, every time he or she meets with a student.

The learning arises from the lesson, the student, and the teacher.

For the past few days I’ve been helping my mom unclutter her house. Throughout the years, with a husband and three kids, she’s accumulated a lot of things that she just doesn’t need. At one point during the process I thought of something that I read in The Happiness Hypothesis by Jonathan Haidt, that is, people often believe that more money and more possessions will lead them to happiness. Research shows otherwise.

Many people with little money and few possessions tend to be happier than their wealthier counterparts. In a recent study of the world’s happiest countries by the University of Leicester and the Perspectives of Psychological Sciences, the United States, one of the world’s wealthiest countries, ranks 16th. Long term data shows the level of happiness in the U.S. is stagnant. Denmark was ranked first and, along with Bhutan, consistently ranked very highly in the happiness scale. According to the University of Leicester, Puerto Rico and Colombia were second and third this year.

According to the United States’ culture of consumerism, the more we buy, the happier we will be. Arguably, consumerism is our national religion. However, Denmark, Puerto Rico, and Colombia are poorer countries whose level of consumerism is far less voracious. Clearly, the more we buy, the more we have, does not make us happy.

Of course, we all have necessities and all do need to consume. However, the case remains in our society, that we consume far too much because we think it will make us happy to buy and to have certain objects. And, for a short time, it does. This kind of consuming is unconscious and heavily ego-induced. We are trying to find happiness in identification with an object or trying to have an object that someone else does not in order to elevate our status, to feed our ego. Then, after that short lived happiness has subsided, we must buy something else… the ego is hungry again and must maintain its illusory status. In truth, objects will fulfill basic needs of survival and comfort, but will not provide for lasting happiness. Lasting happiness can only come from and be sustained by the self.

Next time you’re out shopping, ask yourself why you want to buy a certain item. Are you going to purchase that 4,000 square foot house because you actually need that much space or are you doing so because it will be bigger, and therefore, better than everyone else’s house at work? Do you want that new Hummer H3 because you actually are going to go off road, through snow, water, and wilderness, or are you doing it because it shows a level of status as both an expensive car to buy and to fill up with gas? If everyone had a Hummer H3 would you still want one? Are you going to buy a specific brand of shirt because you actually like the look and feel of it, or is Hugo Boss telling you to buy it so you’ll be better in some way than others who can’t afford it?

Consumerism is a necessity in our country. However, we can bring consciousness to it and stop using it to perpetuate a false sense of ego and of being better than others. Not only are we harming our personal and collective sanity with it, but our entire planet is suffering due to our incessant appetite to have more.

It goes almost unquestioned in business culture that a consistent delivery of a consistent product is one of the primary hallmarks of a successful business plan. We can see how successful this model is quite clearly: McDonald’s was built on the premise of delivery the same McDonald’s experience in every store in the world. Wherever you go, it’s always the same quality of food, it tastes the same, it looks the same, it’s delivered in the same fashion. It works because of the predictability of it; you know that if you like a meal at McDonald’s, you’ll enjoy what you get at all of them, because it’s the same experience.

It’s no different within healthcare in general or chiropractic specifically; there is a strong impetus for healthcare practitioners to be able to deliver the same service to every patient or client every time. On the surface, it certainly seems like a wise decision: you can rest assured that if you’re delivering the same service every time, patients who have the condition you’re trained to treat will get better in a predictable fashion. It’s just good business sense.

As an artist as well as a healer, I have a few questions and qualms about this assumption, however. The gist of my questions comes down to this: how much do I want to ensure for myself that I get the same experience over and over again? My answer is unequivocally no. I can think of a few circumstances where I want to know exactly what kind of experience I want to have in advance and know that I’ll get it exactly, but for the most part, I recognize that desire within myself as being entirely based on my fear of the unknown.

Is the guarantee of a predictable experience worth the loss of variety?

The subject of religion utterly fascinates me. Religion is a perhaps the most powerful and influential force throughout history that has taken us to the heights of our sublime and beautiful feats and to the depths of our most despicable and gruesome acts.

In the past three weeks several friends have asked me about my thoughts on various branches of Christianity as well as other world religions. My thoughts on any religion are basically the same: they are all good at their core, but are often filled with corruption and a lust for power which shrouds the truth of the original teachings in fear, greed, and hatred. I have been reading The Power of Now and A New Earth by Eckhart Tolle and he really helped me solidify my thoughts on religions when he said “All religions are equally good and equally bad. It just depends on how we use them.”

All prophets from Christ, Buddha, Mohammed, and Krishna teach the same basic message and have all realized and tried to point to the same ultimate truth. Consequently, all religions seek the same thing, the Absolute, our truest nature, the Ultimate, or God. The nouns differ, as do the methods of attaining what is sought, but in essence, it is always the same end — getting away from our pain inducing, false, ego-derived sense of self, and realizing our true nature, that is pure being. In Christianity this is the attainment of the Kingdom of Heaven or knowing God through Jesus the Christ, which is becoming free of pain and illusion of the ego self through God. In Buddhism it is the realization of Sunyata and Nirvana, which are complete dissolutions of the ego-self through the realization of emptiness and nothingness where nothing else but pure, unadulterated consciousness and bliss exist. Schools of Hinduism, such as Advaita Vedanta, speak of attaining the Absolute from the opposite end of the spectrum, that is fullness, rather than emptiness. All is full of God, all is God. The totality of reality is nothing more than the divinity. Here, the ego self is dissolved in the realization that there is no “me” or “I” but only the fullness of God.

Nowhere is the commonality between all religions so obvious as it is when reading mysticism. There are branches of mysticism in every major world religion: Dzogchen in Buddhism, Gnosticism of Christianity, Sufism of Islam, Kabbalism in Judaism, Kashmir Saivism and Advaita Vedanta of Hinduism. It is often difficult to tell just by reading passages from the world’s mystics which religion they adhere to because their words are so similar.

Why then, if the ultimate aim is the same, are there such disputes between religions of the world? When the founders of these religions were still alive, the message was still true to the founder’s experience. However, over time, religions begin to be controlled by people who have not experienced their true self. These people start to take the words of the prophets, beliefs, and dogma as absolute truth rather than signpost pointing to the Absolute. The Absolute cannot be truly grasped with language or thought. Politics and fear come into play, and religion is used as a means of inducing fear and oppression, by frightened people who are, themselves oppressed. Religion becomes a divisive tool to say that “We have the truth and no one else does”. It becomes a game of “us” versus “them”. This othering and separation then allows for violence and murder. This is evidenced most strongly in every form of religious fundamentalism today. This is clear with the inquisition, the crusades, and with Fred Phelps. The basic messages of love, acceptance, knowing God and the true self are lost to fear, hatred, and greed.

So, what are my thoughts on religion? That, intrinsically, they are all good, but most of the time they are so covered in ego that they only serve to entrench the followers further into the world of form and illusion rather than taking them to their goal of finding the true self. Branches of mysticism, which are often lacking in this thirst for power and politics, and are often marginalized as a result, are the closest and truest aspects of the incarnations of the prophet’s original message.

Recommended Reading:

The Power of Now and A New Earth, by Eckhart Tolle

What if the Internet had no users? Can you picture it? Can you imagine what the Internet would be if there were no user input on it? To be sure, there is some implicit structure or form to the Internet that arises from the fact that there are these large domain name servers that figure out that when you type www.anadiholistics.com into your web browser, you should get content from some particular server at some particular physical location, and there are technical documents describing how languages that are used on the Internet (like html, php, etc) are designed to work and interact with each other and with your browser. Without the content, what are we talking about beyond the implicit, though?

It’s not until people put stuff on the Internet for you to interact with that the internet has any real meaning. And conversely, imagining the content without the context of the Internet is similarly meaningless. All of its meaning is derived, either directly or indirectly, from the fact that it has someplace to be in the first place!

When I started studying Eastern Philosophy and Religion (indirectly, through Scott, who is getting his PhD in just that!), I abruptly realized that the internet-without-content is an excellent metaphor for understanding the concept behind the Hindu God, Shiva.

Say what?

Shiva is, at least in some traditions, the God who represents the Implicit forces of the Universe. He is the Unmanifest becoming Manifest. He represents the very ground of being, from which all of our experiences of physical reality arise. He undergoes this Becoming through his Divine Union with Parvati, sometimes referred to as Shakti. Shakti is the Feminine Principle, the outsurging of Life from the Unmanifest into Form.

The concepts are peculiarly analogous to the Empty Internet, the field upon which we play, and its “divine consort” the user Input.

Understanding this led me to realize that the mythology that Joseph Campbell has claimed our society is so sorely needing to put us into accord with Nature and the world is, at last, emerging in a way that we can recognize. The way to view mythology, both according to Campbell and to some Hindu texts that he cites from as early as 900 BCE, is to see all of the Gods, Goddesses, Heroes, and Powers that move through those stories as being reflections of psychological Powers that are in you. Shiva, as a Yogi and renunciate, can be read as being meant to show the path to spiritual liberation. Identify yourself with the entire field of consciousness, and you are free. Identify with the forms of the world, and you are stuck in the cycle of life and rebirth.

The Internet has no features except in the context of its content. Mythologically, for the sake of this experiment, it can be read as the formless ground of being, the field of consciousness itself.

The next time you find yourself becoming angry or emotionally unsettled at something someone on the Internet says to you, ask yourself this simple question: How would the Internet feel about this?

We’ve all noticed someone who’s got that certain magnetic something that everyone seems to respond to. I’ve always wanted to have the kind of presence that inspires a feeling of safety, calm, and wonderment, but have historically fallen pretty short of my goal. Recently, something’s changed, though. Instead of focusing on the kind of presence I project, I’ve been focusing on being extraordinarily present to what’s happening around me.

I’ve heard people in the self-help and new-age communities talking about being present to themselves and their environments before and even felt like I understood what they were talking about, but at the same time was constantly distracted by patterns of thinking and behaving that left me anything but present. Think about it this way: when you’re listening to someone talk and they make an interesting point, do you ever find yourself missing a few minutes of what they said after the interesting point because you’re off and running through your mind with this new and exciting notion? I know that this has been one of my patterns for as long as I can remember, and I also know that it no longer helps me get what I want.

Breaking old habits is a part of becoming more present to the world as it is. I’m talking about habits of getting lost in thought, of getting mired in details, of doing anything but simply paying absolute and unwavering attention to whoever you’re talking to or whatever you’re doing.

The solution? Practice being present. Instead of letting my mind wander, I focus on my breathing and noticing everything I can about what I’m doing or who I’m talking to. If I’m in a conversation, when I’m not talking, I’m listening with rapt attention, not just to what my conversational partner is saying, but to how they are saying it. I’m still working on this!

The major power of NLP for me has been precisely this: I am able to be more present by simply allowing myself to notice whatever patterns I notice about whoever I’m speaking with. I’m more present because I’m paying attention not to my thoughts about what they’re saying, but to what they’re saying and how they’re saying it. This increased presence has had huge payoffs for me. Firstly, I’ve noticed that people enjoy talking to me more, because I’m really listening to them instead of jumping ahead to what my response is. Second, I’ve found that the more I practice being present with people, the more present I’m able to be with myself, meaning I’m less judgmental, happier, and find myself often filled with a child-like wonder at the whole world.

And if child-like wonder isn’t a selling point, I don’t know what is!

In Indian cosmology the Sanskrit language has immense power. It is a magic and divine force of creation, preservation, and destruction. Each letter of the alphabet is assigned a divinity. In Vedic times, the ritual, performed in Sanskrit, was believed to uphold the entire cosmos. There was even a class of priests who oversaw the ritual to make sure that each and every syllable was pronounced correctly and to remedy a mistake should one occur. It was believed that a misspoken ritual could lead to the unraveling of reality.

In some Hindu cosmologies everything was brought into existence when Lord Brahman spoke the everything into being. He did this through the power of Vac, the goddess of speech, who lent Lord Brahman her supreme creative force — the word.  The power of word is by no means exclusive to India and is evidenced in every spiritual tradition with which I am familiar. For example, in Judeo/Christian cosmology the Lord God speaks the world and man into existence in the book of Genesis chapter 1.

Everyone is acquainted with the sacred Sanskrit word, Om, which is comprised of a nasalized “m” known as visarga or bindhu. “Bindhu” means “drop” and it is believed that this drop is the primordial and eternal sound from which all creation sprang. Even to say the Sanskrit word for “I”, aham, is a sacred act. Aham begins with the first letter of the Sanskrit alphabet, the vowel “A”. The second letter of aham is “Ha” which is the last letter of the Sanskrit alphabet. Finally we end with the nasalized “M”, the visarga or bindhu. Thus, to say aham we go through the beginning and end of reality and culminate with visarga, the primordial sound of being.

Today we tend to forget that language has any power and are often unconscious of the words we use. In reality, language has a strong influence on our world view, attitude, and our actions. Positive thinking and speaking produces positive actions as negative words and thoughts will engender negativity. In order for us to evolve and connect with the ground of being, it is incumbent that we bring more consciousness to our language. We must be mindful and speak in a way that is congruent to the positive, powerful world and lives which we aspire to have.

I just completed a week-long intensive training in Coaching, Neurolinguistic Programming (NLP), Hypnotherapy, and Timeline Therapy® in Monterey with Success Allies, a coaching and training company that Scott also has trained with. It was a very intense week (hence no post from me last week! Sorry!) and I learned a huge number of new skills and tools that I can use with my clients as well as in my personal communication with other people.

The most fundamental of the skills that I have begun mastering as a result of this training is one referred to in the NLP community as “establishing rapport.” Rapport is a state of openness and connection that arises from feelings of safety and clarity in communication. When you feel like someone really gets what you’re saying, even really gets you, you’re in rapport with that person. I think we’ve all had the remarkable experience of meeting someone for the first time and just “clicking” with that person; knowing that you can build a great friendship easily because you’re on the same wavelength, in some way: you’re in rapport.

Establishing and building rapport is skill that can be learned, developed, and mastered. When you’re able to connect with people in a systematic way, you can talk more directly to their experience of the world, because you’re paying attention to how they’re expressing what their experience of the world is!

The Basics

I in no sense wish to build a comprehensive article on the details of building rapport here - there are nearly infinite details that one could observe and interact with in another person to build good rapport. Instead, I just want to give you a couple of thoughts to chew on and some things to notice next time you’re having a conversation with someone.

Mirroring and matching

Mirroring is the act of consciously adopting another’s behaviors, postural and verbal, when speaking with them. If I’m standing, talking to Sally and facing her, and Sally is resting most of her weight on her left foot, and has her arms crossed over her chest, when I talk to her, if I rest most of my weight on my right foot (as a mirror image) and cross my arms over my chest, providing Sally doesn’t consciously wonder why I’m standing in precisely the same position that she’s standing in, she’ll feel more relaxed and comfortable talking with me, because my body language is showing her that I know where she’s at, how she’s feeling, and what’s going on with her. She feels safer talking to me because I get where she’s coming from. Matching is slightly less powerful for building rapport than mirroring - it’s basically the same concept, but instead of standing on my right foot, I stand with most of my weight on my left foot, just like Sally is.

Mirroring (and matching) are really the key component to all rapport-building, because more than just posture can be mirrored. It’s possible to mirror someone’s word choice, vocal tone, speed of speaking, breath-rate… you name it! If you can identify a pattern in the way someone is doing anything, you can mirror it and make them feel safer, more listened to, more seen, and more deeply understood.

Pacing and leading

The second basic concept in building rapport is pacing and leading. When you consciously mirror someone’s behavior, you build rapport. This is called pacing; you’re putting yourself in sync with their rhythms, their patterns, and their way of interacting with the world. Once you’re pacing them well and trust and rapport are established, you can begin leading them: when you move your arms from across your chest to on your hips, they’ll want to copy you without even noticing that they’re doing it. When you step a little away from them, they’ll follow you without really noticing that they’re doing it. This is due to the fact that our conscious mind occupies so little of our cognitive faculties, and when you’re doing a good job of matching and mirroring, you’re speaking directly to the unconscious mind.

Try it at home! Impress your friends!

The wonderful thing about mirroring is that it’s a very natural thing to do. Try just emulating the body language of the next person you talk to (subtlely! wait 5-10 seconds before copying any major movements), and aim to keep your head angle and vocal tone matching theirs as much as you can. Don’t be surprised to notice that the conversation somehow feels more alive, more connected. The communication may feel clearer. If you can keep your attention really focused on both what they’re doing, and what you’re doing to match and mirror them (and this takes a good deal of practice and presence!), see if when you start to move a bit, they don’t automatically want to follow you.

Recommended Reading:

Unlimited Power, by Anthony Robbins

Mirroring People, by Marco Iacoboni