May all beings be peaceful.
May all beings be happy.
May all beings be safe.
May all beings awaken to the light of their true nature.
May all beings be free.

This is a translation of a Buddhist prayer known as the Maitri (Metta in Pali) Prayer or the Loving-Kindness Prayer. I have seen several versions and translations of these earnest wishes, yet the focus is always the same: developing aspirations for the health, happiness, and liberation of the self and others. The Maitri is a simple invocation that calls us to profoundly focus compassionate attention and intention to all beings.

The development of compassion is central to every major world religion. His Holiness the Dalai Lama, XIV defines compassion as “a state of mind that is nonviolent, nonharming, and nonagressive. It is a mental attitude based on the wish of others to be free of their suffering and is associated with a sense of commitment, responsibility, and respect towards the other…there is also a sense to the word of its being a state of mind that can include a wish for good things for oneself.”

Besides just being a downright awesome thing for us to do as human beings, practicing compassion has some valuable side effects. When we treat others kindly, we experience a greater sense of ease, equanimity, confidence, and self love. These states enable us to more easily and more frequently abide in a compassionate frame of mind and action. Scientific studies have shown compassion to have a positive impact on physical and emotional health. These studies also reveal a correlation between compassion and a stronger immune system as well as increased life expectancy.

I am by no means a master of compassion but I am continuously working on becoming a more loving and caring individual. Here are some guidelines and ideas that I have found to be very helpful in developing a sense of compassion:

Meditation/Prayer. Prayer and meditation are some of the greatest and oldest tools we have for anything having to do with spirituality. Through prayer and meditation, we connect ourselves to stillness and divinity. This sacred connection gives us access to a force that enables us to more solidly and consistently act from a state of love and respect for ourselves and the world.

Mindfulness. This is a practice in itself. The more mindful we are, the more resourceful we are as spiritual beings. We also feel more connected to others. Mindfulness makes it less likely to slip into unconscious judgements, thoughts, speech, or actions. Mindfulness of our body, speech, and mind, allows us to be more consistently compassionate.

Nonjudgement. Judging our selves and others is one of the more hateful things we can do and obviously counterproductive when we are seeking to be compassionate. Something that can be helpful when we find ourselves in judgment is to create a counter-thought or a reframe. For example, if your friend does something you don’t like and you find yourself thinking “Ahh! She’s such a stupid idiot!” Take a step back and evaluate your judgment, reverse it, or reframe it to something like “I don’t appreciate how my friend is acting, but I love her, and wish her the greatest bliss.”

Silent Blessings. Silently bless everyone you can. This is a profound practice that quickly creates clarity and happiness in your mind and gives you a strong sense of connection to humanity. Whoever you encounter, even if you dislike them, just silently think to yourself, “May you be liberated. May you be free.” I do the same to homeless people, drivers, and anyone I might pass on the sidewalk. It’s good stuff.

Focus on our equality. This is a practice I learned from the Dalai Lama. Judgement and hatred stem primarily from “othering” individuals. We see them as so different from ourselves, so unequal, and so removed from us that it’s easy to not love them. Instead, we can focus on our similarities. Then we can grow in our kindness. We are all human beings. We all suffer. We all want the best for ourselves and our families. We all hurt. We all cry. We all laugh and smile. We all yearn for comfort and freedom. Just because someone is different in some way, does not devalue their needs, innate beauty, and their inherent right to happiness.

Instead of hatred and judgement, I intend to practice love and compassion. It will likely get me a lot more out of life and, if nothing else, I’ll be a much happier person. I invite you to join me in this endeavor!

Recommended Reading

How to Practice,By Tenzin Gyatso, His Holiness the Dalai Lama, XIV

The Art of Happiness, By Tenzin Gyatso, His Holiness the Dalai Lama, XIV

Destructive Emotions , by Tenzin Gyatso, His holiness the Dalai Lama, XIV and Daniel Goleman

I received my Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in Linguistics from UC Santa Cruz. Linguistics is a funny sort of science, as it is based on empirical data (corpora of real linguistic utterances from real speakers of real languages), yet at the same time the theoretical models that it generates are, on the whole, not meant to reflect the actual physiological and neurological processes that are generating those data. That is to say, except for in specific cases, theoretical linguistics does not generate theories about what the brain itself is doing, it models language generation as an object.

All of this is to say that my formal education trained me in building abstract models (almost like mental machines or programs) of real world phenomena. Making models in my head of how things might be working, refining the model when presented with new data, proceeding as though that model were true until presented with new data that doesn’t fit the model, and constantly looking for data that the model doesn’t predict are deeply ingrained habits now.

What I have noticed recently is that this habit of refining my mental models of how complicated systems work is one of the most powerful spiritual practices I have. We all have core models of how we perceive the Universe to work. Some of these models are functional because they predict useful things for us, such as “I believe that gravity will keep me attached to the Earth.” This belief is accurate enough to serve most people in most circumstances. If you’re an astronaut or rocket scientist, this is not a functional enough model of the Universe for your daily life, because your daily life involves forces that are great enough to overcome gravity’s ability to keep you attached to the Earth.

Some of the models we hold are less functional. I suspect we’ve all met people who carry models that include beliefs like “everyone who loves me will eventually betray me,” and others who use models that include beliefs like “the Universe is conspiring to shower me with blessings.” The thing about models of complex systems (such as, for instance, the Universe!) is that they tend to be self-reinforcing. People who believe on a core level that everyone that they love will betray them will tend to disregard evidence to the contrary as being outlying and insignificant data (if they even notice it at all) and use any evidence that supports their belief to reinforce their model of reality as being correct.

This is what brings me to my real point about my spiritual practice: we are all operating, eventually, only on models of reality. Our minds aren’t capable of conceiving of the totality of the Universe all at once and making all of our decisions from that understanding, so we model reality based on our experiences. Having a model of reality that explicitly includes its own constant revision and refinement by the actively seeking data that lies outside of the model’s ability to handle them creates an ever-expanding model which is capable of dealing with ever-greater and more complex circumstances.

I don’t know about you, but I’d like every experience I have to reinforce the idea that the Universe is a pretty good place to be, so I have intentionally structured my model of reality to be more like “the Universe is conspiring to get me what I want” and less like “the Universe screws me over consistently.” How have I been doing this? I consistently look for patterns of synchronicity, of getting what I need when I need it, and of always having what I need. I spend time picking through difficult and painful experiences to find the exact way in which the painful event was actually, somehow, exactly what I really wanted, and then I made a conscious and concerted decision to stay focused on the good I was getting from the experience. This not only keeps the pain or hurt valid and real (instead of dismissing or ignoring it), but it charges it with the power to transform my life even further into what I want. My model of reality is no more accurate than someone who believes the Universe is out to get them; the Universe is infinite, and all models that remain experientially consistent are, for all intents and purposes, equally accurate. My model just feels nicer to me than I imagine models that hinge upon the idea that the Universe is a horrible place to be would feel.

What beliefs do your models of reality contain? Do you like what they’re getting you, experientially?

Recommended Reading:

Pronoia Is the Antidote for Paranoia, by Rob Brezsny

When the word yoga is mentioned, most of us in the West think of a physical and mental exercise wherein the practitioner places his or her body in a series of poses (asana) while controlling the breath and focusing the mind. This type of yoga is known as hatha yoga (properly pronounced as ha tuh). Studios that teach various forms of hatha yoga are everywhere and we have all either tried it or know someone who has. However, hatha yoga is but a small component of the rich and ancient practices of yoga.

So what exactly is yoga and where did it come from? What is its aim? In this article I’ll attempt to answer these questions by providing a brief history of yogic philosophy and descriptions of some of the various forms of yoga.

Yoga is one of the world’s oldest spiritual traditions. This family of practices was born in India but the precise date of their origination is unclear. According to traditional yoga philosophy, the entire cosmos consists of a state of duality between the eternal and abiding purusha and prakriti. Everything in the universe can be classified as either purusha or prakriti or consists of a combination of both. Purusha is the formless, pure realm of spirit (for lack of a better term) and consciousness. Prakriti is the realm of nature and physical materiality. As humans, we are simultaneously composed of both these essences. Our body is physical, and thus is part of prakriti. Our soul (jiva) is non-physical, pure consciousness and is purusha. Traditional schools of yoga hold that because our purusha, our true self, is part of prakriti, it becomes so caught up in the physical nature of reality that it forgets its true being, that of pure, formless essence and consciousness.

This is where yogic practice comes into play. The word yoga comes from the Sanskrit root yuj, meaning to yoke or restrain. Early yogic applications focused on restraining and controlling the senses in order to realize separateness from one’s purusha and prakriti so that the true self, pure consciousness, could be known. Ultimately one would experience nirvikalpa samadhi where the purusha no longer has any ties whatsoever to the prakriti. In this state, the purusha is free, completely liberated.

As I stated before, it is unclear when yoga first began. There are seals from the Indus Valley civilization (c. 3600 - 1900 B.C.E) that clearly depict beings in various asanas. It is highly probable that early forms of yoga, like tantra, were developed by the Dravidians (the indigenous people of India) long before the Aryans came into India and brought with them the Vedas (holy books of ancient Hindus dating to at least 1500 B.C.E.) and what we call Hinduism. However, these forms of yoga probably would not be very recognizable to us today. There is no mention of yoga in Hindu scripture until it is passively alluded to in the Upanishads (c. 900 - 300 B.C.E.) and clearly described in the Bhagavad Gita (c. 200 B.C.E.). This suggests that by 200 B.C.E. Hinduism, like it did with so many ancient Dravidian beliefs, practices, and philosophies, had married and adopted yoga.

According to Encyclopedia of Hinduism* the earliest structured form of yoga was likely practiced by the Jains (c. 900 B.C.E) and involved severe worldly denial and physical restraint. “The early Jain monks and Thirthankaras (perfected beings) would train themselves to ignore the body completely and train the mind to ignore even the strongest positive and negative stimuli.” Renunciation and worldly denial is still quite prevalent in many forms of yoga today. “Yoga of this sort is ultimately about controlling all bodily functions, so that even the autonomic nervous system can be under the adept’s control. When Swami Rama first traveled to the United States in the 1970’s, he demonstrated such control by stopping his heart completely for more than a minute while being attached to a heart monitor.”

This is a very extreme path of yogic practice and not all schools are quite so severe. When Buddhism was founded (c. 600 B.C.E.) it promulgated another view that did not advocate bodily denial. Its focus was that of mental control where the practitioner focused on the breath and physical sensation in the body.

After Buddhism, other forms of yoga began to develop in Hinduism. In the Bhagavad Gita there is a lot of emphasis on devotional yoga or bhakti yoga. Here primary mental focus on the deity is the goal. There is also karma yoga where one’s attention is ideally placed solely on good worldly conduct. Astanga yoga, the eight-limbed yoga of Patanjali, from whom we get the Yoga Sutras, “…involved a sitting yoga, sometimes called raja yoga, which focused on breathing. As one observed the breath, one developed ways of concentrating the mind and eventually controlling the mind”.

Next we come to the ever popular hatha yoga that “…is an amalgam of practices that may have emerged separately and were later combined”. The primary progenitors of hatha yoga were the Nath Yogis, a group who sought physical immortality through alchemy, the ingestion of mercury, and asana. Hatha yoga today does not involve alchemy or mercurial ingestion, but combines the teachings found in Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras, such as breath control with asana. Hatha yoga is, essentially, an active meditation and within its scope there are various schools with differing postures, techniques, and philosophies. Examples of these are Iyengar, Vinyassa, and Yin. Kundalini yoga is another popular school of hatha yoga that focuses on awakening the serpent Goddess-energy at the base of the spine (kundalini) and moving this force through the energy centers along the spine, or chakras (pronounced as a “ch” as in Chalk as opposed to “sh” as in ship).

Hatha yoga is quite profound and beneficial. I have been practicing for at least 12 years. I sometimes jokingly refer to myself as a fundamentalist yogi because I love it so much and feel that everyone could benefit from it.

Breath control is the foundation of hatha yoga. This, coupled with asana practice, produces such an amazing feeling of peace and compassion. It also develops concentration, ease in the body, relieves tension, and makes overall spiritual practice easier.

The beauty of hatha yoga is its adaptability. In yoga, there is no place to go, except for where we already are. The point is to strive to improve ourselves bit by bit, moment to moment. The postures have ideal forms, but these forms are only pointers. In practice, we simply try to get as close to these forms as we can. It is a continuous push to better ourselves, our bodies, and our minds. It doesn’t matter how physically flexible we are, insofar as we engage the body while focusing the mind and the breath.

Essentially all yogas are ancient Indian sciences that we can use to invoke our own inner power, to better ourselves as human beings, and to realize the divinity of ourselves and the world. These are practices that we can harness to live deeper, more meaningful, and more compassionate lives infused with zest and vitality.

*All quotes are taken from pages 511 and 512 of this encyclopedia.

Reccommended Reading

The Alchemical Body, by David Gordon White
Yoga: Immortality and Freedom, by Mircea Eliade
Encyclopedia of Hinduism, by Constance A. Jones and James D. Ryan
Yoga Spandakarika, by Daniel Odier
The Shape of Ancient Thought, by McEvilley
Light on the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali, by B.K.S. Iyengar
Light on Yoga, by B.K.S. Iyengar

In my previous post, I talked about how your brain maps out the space immediately around you. Neurologists who study this phenomenon refer to this space as peripersonal space. Think about this: your brain literally knows not only where your body is in space, but how the area immediately around your body is relating to the rest of your environment, and it knows this through the same mechanisms that it knows where your limbs are and what they’re doing.

Conjure up the feeling of having someone stand too close to you, or even stand at arms length with one hand a few inches from your body. The sensation is clearly not the same as that of being touched, but it shares many common elements, most particularly the feeling of having someone in personal territory. Imagine, now, what this space looks like. Where are its edges and boundaries? How far out does it extend from your body? How does it move when you move? Does it change size depending on how much attention you’re paying to it? There are real, testable, neurological answers to these questions.

And this brings us into the teaser I gave in the last post about so-called psychic perceptions. It is reasonable to assume that some people have tuned their awareness onto their own peripersonal space to the degree that they have a fairly constant perception of it. In fact, according to the Blakeslees, there are even some tribal cultures that say that people are surrounded by a bubble that connects them to their environment and to each other. Couple this perception with various sorts of synaesthesia effects and it’s not difficult to imagine otherwise normal and ordinary people seeing colored fields around people, or auras.

I don’t wish to be a reductionist and claim that this is the true nature of these perceptions without exception. What I do wish to do is offer an opportunity for perceptual systems (such as psychic abilities) to be realistically examined from a dispassionate perspective, without getting bogged down in the vocabulary and jargon of any one particular model of reality.

And speaking of models, in my next article I will be discussing a functional mindset I’ve been playing with lately that teases apart the notion of “theory” from the notion of “model.” I’ve found this distinction to be a useful tool, and hope you will as well!

One of my favorite recent reads was The Body Has a Mind of Its Own, by Sandra and Matthew Blakeslee. The book does a beautiful and elegant job of explaining some very difficult neurological concepts in a clear and straightforward way. The concept I’m focusing on for this article has to do with tool use. According to the Blakeslees’ research, we have areas in our brains dedicated to mapping our bodies in both motor function and sensory data. These “body maps” respond dynamically to our environments and the tools we use.

When you pick up a tool, the body maps associated with your arms and hands expand to include the shape of and a set of potential uses for the tool (i.e., a stick comes loaded with concepts like “poke things with,” “reach things with,” etc.). When you pick up a simple tool, the map of your hands extends into that tool, and the tool becomes, for all intents and purposes, a part of you. The map includes the tool as long as you’re holding it, and different tools have different sets of potential uses loaded into them. Further, the more you use a tool, the more likely you are to develop permanent tool maps. This can be thought of as (at least part of) the brain’s role in muscle memory.

Bear in mind that these maps are physiological regions of the brain, dedicated to “virtualizing” our bodies and environments. These internal representations of our bodies don’t end at our skin, however. Simply having someone stand too close and noticing the deeply invasive feeling of being almost touched is enough to demonstrate that.

In my next article, I’m going to discuss some of the ramifications of this observation about personal space as I perceive it to relate to what are often called “psychic” perceptions.

Recommended reading:

• The Body Has a Mind of Its Own, by Sandra and Matthew Blakeslee

One of the most pervasive menaces in the home is clutter. It makes the house feel cramped, uninviting, stagnant, and dirty. It stresses us out. It causes us to feel trapped by possessions. It’s ugly and unappealing.

In our capitalist buy, buy, buy culture, the tentacles of clutter slowly seep into our environments. One day our house is bright, sparkly, and new. Before we know it, we take a look around the living room and think “Wow! I don’t have a single clear surface in this place.” Then we go to put some things away in the bedroom or kitchen only to find that the cupboards and closets are already overflowing with belongings, some of which we’ve neither seen nor used in years. When it reaches this point, the presence and the prospect of getting rid of the clutter can be quite overwhelming. However, all is not lost.

Here are some useful tips for getting rid of and preventing the accumulation of clutter:

1. Have a regular “spring clean” or de-cluttering party. Every six months to a year, go through all of your cupboards, closets, surfaces, bookshelves, and anywhere else you might collect clutter. Donate old books to the local library. Give old clothes, nick knacks, and anything else you’re not using to charity, a friend, or a family member who could get use out of it. If the item is broken throw it out. My general rule is that if I’ve not used something for a year or more, I get rid of it. If I’ve gone that long without needing it, I clearly can live without it and I don’t want it taking up space in my mind or environment.

2. Your possessions are not your emotions. Many people hold on to things for emotional significance. This is fine if it’s an item you genuinely love, use, and brings you happiness to have around. However, if you’re just keeping it because you feel like you “should” or “have to” due to the emotions surrounding it, it’s just an energy block that’s not benefitting you. You don’t need it. Memories are not held in physical objects. If you need something to remember an event, then that event probably isn’t that important. Let it go. If you have issues about this address it with your therapist or life coach.

3. Collections. Collecting certain items is fine as long as they’re not running you out of your home. If you’ve come to the point that your precious dolls are just sitting around collecting dust and you no longer have room in your house to place a cup of tea, then it’s time to stop and assess the situation. Thin down the collection to a healthy level in which you can tastefully display the collected items. You could even find some fun in having a cyclic display of your collection where whenever you get a new item, you donate an old one. This could add life to the collection while making it more interesting. Don’t let your collectibles consume and control you. Your mental clarity is worth more than that and your value as a human being is not contingent on having physical objects around you.

4. Stay away from the “Unitasker”. The unitasker is a “gadget,” usually, but not exclusively, found in the kitchen. The unitasker serves only one limited function. Examples of these are hot dog warmers, waffle makers, and pasta machines. Typically, we use these items once or twice a year and they otherwise sit around and take up space. We don’t need them.
There are times when unitaskers can be useful and worthwhile. For example, I have an iced tea maker. All it does is make iced tea, but it does it much more quickly and conveniently than I could otherwise. However, I love iced tea and drink it all the time, just about every day. So, if you really do use your unitasker regularly and find it makes your life easier, then hold on to it. If you can count the number of times you use the object per year on one hand, then you can probably live without it and would be better off doing so.

Be brave and pick a day and go through your house and just get rid of “stuff” you no longer use or like. I promise that you’ll find it extremely liberating and you’ll be much happier and vibrant for doing so!

Reccommended Reading
Living with Less: The Upside to Downsizing Your Life, by Mark Tabb

I am a self-identified phobophile. I love my fears. Fear is a powerful teacher, because fear marks resistance, and resistance is a good place to discover breakthroughs. “Here be dragons!” the signpost reads. But here also be treasures, if you have the patience, trust, and willingness to look.

Fear is a billboard, a mark on the map. Fear is as clear a signal that you’re going the right way as pain is a signal that you’re going the wrong way. As usual, let me employ some metaphor to clarify what I mean:

When you burn your hand on a stove, your immediate reaction (mediated mechanisms in the spinal column itself, not the brain) is to jerk your hand away from the hot stove. Contrarily, when you’re afraid of burning your hand on the stove, your (brain-mediated) reaction will probably make it very difficult to get your fingers to touch the surface you know to be hot. In this sense, the pain response is like suddenly throwing your car in reverse, while fear is like hitting the brakes hard. Technically speaking, both of these cause the car to undergo negative acceleration (acceleration in the opposite direction of current movement), even though the results are quite different. The distinction is in some sense one of degree, and result. Pain leads to movement away from the source of pain, fear leads to reduced movement toward the object of fear.

Pain is a signal from your body that something is wrong, fear is a signal from your body that something might go wrong, based on previous experience of pain from something going wrong. And that, ultimately, is what makes fear such a profound teacher; fear is fundamentally not a feeling that happens in the Now. Fear is based on either a perceived future threat or a recalled prior threat.

When I’m feeling afraid, rather than taking a tip from Rogers and Hammerstein and whistling a happy tune, here are the steps that I go through:

1. Clarify precisely what I’m afraid of. Being stung by that hornet buzzing around me? Looking foolish flirting with an attractive stranger?
2. Identify what I’m avoiding experiencing by going into fear; ie, I’m avoiding experiencing pain with the fear of the hornet sting. I’m avoiding rejection with the fear of looking foolish to the hot stranger.
3. Identify the potential benefits of avoiding the experience the fear is tied up in. The benefit of not being stung is not being in pain. The benefit of not being rejected is not being in pain.
4. Identify the potential benefits of having the experience the fear is tied up in. The benefit of being stung by a hornet escapes me just now. The benefits of approaching the stranger is learning to handle rejection without taking it personally, possibly getting the stranger’s number, making a friend, making a networking contact, etc etc.
5. Optionally spend a moment identifying where the fear came from. Knowing the source of a problem, the painful previous experience that led to fear of similar experiences in the future, can sometimes be helpful in getting the rational mind to step in and override the fear. Sometimes. As often as not, however, I find that I get bogged down in finding the details and understanding why I’m afraid instead of simply taking action. The fear of being stung by a hornet probably comes from being told that it hurts at least as badly as a bee sting, and I know I don’t really enjoy those. The fear of being rejected could come from any number of previous experiences, social programming about how bad rejection is, how mommy wouldn’t let me have ice cream when I was 7 and really wanted it… I think it’s ultimately not that interesting an endeavor, despite traditional psychotherapy’s position.
6. Make a decision about how to handle the fear. I decide to avoid the hornet, moving calmly away from it so as not to excite it. I decide that I’m powerful enough to handle rejection if it comes, and attractive enough to merit a phone number if that comes, and remind myself that whatever reaction I get, it’s not about me (see The Four Agreements for more on that!).
7. Take action! This is the most important step. Intellectualizing is useful only for making sure I’m doing what’s really in my best interest. Running screaming from the hornet reinforces an intense and phobic reaction, so I walk calmly. Telling myself I’m strong enough to handle rejection but not asking for the stranger’s phone number is sending mixed messages to myself, and actions speak louder than words (or thoughts) to the subconscious.
8. Acknowledge myself. I always give myself a little mental high-five when I take considered action in response to fear, instead of just reactively avoiding it. Even if the considered action I take is not to push into the fear, and I don’t talk to the attractive stranger, I make sure to acknowledge myself for at least weighing the pros and cons and making a decision. This reinforces a feeling of having personal power, making it easier to tackle future fears as they arise!

So try it. If you’re afraid of embarrassing yourself by dancing in public, eating too big a steak in front of your boyfriend, or pickles, then go through, step-by-step, what you’re telling your subconscious with your actions, and make a decision. You can’t choose wrong, but consider why you’re choosing fear very carefully, when you do!

Recommended reading:

• The Four Agreements, by Don Miguel Ruiz

A lot of contemporary communication skills workshops and programs focus on finding where your boundaries are and how to defend them. While the first of these goals seems like a very useful one to me, it strikes me that training people how to protect their boundaries is an unfortunately misguided way of approaching them.

First, let me clarify what I mean by “boundaries” with some situational examples.

• You are at a party and an inebriated guest makes an uncomfortably vulgar pass at you.
• You are out to dinner and one of your dining companions makes a racist, sexist, homophobic (name your bigotry) remark.
• A pushy salesperson won’t take no for an answer, persistently trying to sell you a product or service you’re clear you don’t want.
• A close friend or family member drops by unexpectedly, comes in without waiting for an invitation, and stays for hours without taking the many hints you drop (”Well, I have to get in the shower now,” you say. “Oh, that’s all right, I’ll just play Wii Sports!” they reply).

The common theme in the above examples is that Something You Don’t Want to be happening to you is happening to you. Many contemporary communication experts recommend learning how to be clear and assertive about your boundary violations without being aggressive (see Marshall Rosenberg’s Nonviolent Communication, NVC, for instance). Others recommend disregarding social conventions of politeness as being ultimately dishonest, and simply speaking your unfiltered honest truth, such as “get out of my house, you’re annoying me, Mom.” (see Brad Blanton’s Radical Honesty method).

I’ve had some experience with both of these techniques, and for me they missed the point of discovering boundaries. Boundaries are our ideas of What We Don’t Want in our life. They can be things like “I will not tolerate racism or sexism in my home in any form,” or “I must have 3 days advance notice before my spouse’s mother can stay the night with us.” I’m sure you can come up with some personal boundaries you’ve had violated recently with just a few moments of thought.

Notice that the way we find these boundaries is generally to have them violated. Most people don’t spend much time sitting around thinking about what they will not tolerate that hasn’t happened, coming up with lists of What They Don’t Want. I’d wager that people who do this tend to lead less happy and productive lives, in fact. Instead, it is when we are suddenly confronted by our discomfort that our boundaries present themselves for our scrutiny. For example, one of your friends laughs at you for believing in Fairies, and you suddenly realize that you simply can not abide by being laughed at.

Radical Honesty’s approach would have you say “you’re a jerk for laughing at me.” You’re speaking your unfiltered truth to their trespassing upon your interior space, without trying to frame it nicely or filter it for acceptability. “This is my experience, in my terms: you’re a jerk.”

NVC would approach the matter differently, asking for synthesis on your part of the other person’s perspective before speaking. “I’m feeling discomfort because of my belief that friends shouldn’t laugh at each other. Without making you wrong, I’d really appreciate it if you would honor that belief that I hold by not laughing at me.”

My critique of Radical Honesty is that your message is highly unlikely to be received well unless every person you’re communicating with has agreed to the same principles of complete lack of filtration. It is a wonderful way of alleviating everyone of the burden of having to hedge every statement with “this is just my opinion/feeling/experience, but…” On the other hand, unless you have an agreement that that’s how communication works, people are generally extremely put off and annoyed by you for not bothering to show them the courtesy of expressing yourself in a way they can hear.

In the example I gave above, where “without making them wrong” you ask that they honor their belief that friends shouldn’t laugh at each other by not laughing at you is, I think, a beautifully formulated communication of a fundamentally psychologically weak stance. It’s like repeating to yourself “I am not strong enough to be laughed at without taking it personally and feeling deeply wounded.” Why would you wish to adopt that mantra? Please understand; I don’t believe that NVC is the problem here. The problem isn’t in how the idea is being structured and presented (which I feel NVC does a beautiful job of providing a framework for), it’s the idea itself!

So what do you do with boundaries? If your friend is laughing at you, do you say something or not? Of course your answer will depend on context (who is this friend? How close are you? How intensely uncomfortable are you?). What’s clear to me, however, is that your discomfort is no one else’s responsibility to handle but your own. And handling your discomfort by making sure that nothing happens to you that makes you uncomfortable, such as “no one must ever laugh at me,” is fundamentally impossible. If you’re clear that someone laughing at you is What You Don’t Want, congratulations, you’ve successfully identified a boundary. Now what?

My recommendation is to take the opportunity to explore your discomfort, and the reasons for it. Instead of defending your boundary and your right to it, explore why it’s there and what you can learn about yourself from the fact that you have it. This will desensitize you to the discomfort that other people’s social gaffs may cause, which is probably a worthy goal. If being laughed at rankles you, I think you primarily have the following options:

• live your life periodically uncomfortable at being laughed at
• live your life constantly expressing the unacceptability of being laughed at
• learn what it is in you that finds it so infuriating and painful and learn to release the feelings of discomfort. They only represent your internal representation of other people’s motivations, and what a strange thing to be living your life avoiding that is!

Your happiness and comfort are too important to allow other people’s opinions, words, and actions to be able to shake you out of a state of contentment and peace, and telling them not to have them, express them, or be near you because of them simply isn’t functional. Striving instead to be unshaken by What You Don’t Want will help you maintain your equanimity in all circumstances, and allow you to communicate the thoughts and ideas that are really important to you in a way that they can hear and understand and respect. Instead of asking for a behavioral change from others, create one in yourself that makes you stronger.
Ultimately, you are the audience and the star of the movie of your life. Think about what message you’re sending your non-conscious mind (the audience) when you act. If you want the audience to walk away with the idea that the main character is incapable of handling adversity, then the appropriate action is to constantly tell people that you have boundaries, where they are, and defend them like they’re incredibly important. If, however, you want your non-conscious to behave like the star of the show is powerful, capable of handling any situation calmly and with poise, you have to take responsibility for acting capable and strong in every circumstance, and one appropriate way of doing that is by looking only to what you really know and can understand, yourself, to pave the way.

Don’t defend your boundaries; expand them.

Recommended Reading

• Radical Honesty, by Brad Blanton
• Nonviolent Communication, by Marshall Rosenberg

There are very few things that I love more than a clean house. I’ve even been (jokingly… I hope) accused of being obsessive about it. Having a clean house just makes me feel good, more energized, healthier, and happier.

Have you ever noticed that one of your favorite ways to procrastinate is to clean your desk or apartment? Have you noticed that you work more productively and think more clearly when you’re in a clean environment? I certainly have. I don’t have any hard scientific proof, nor do I know if science has even looked into this phenomenon, but my hypothesis is that our outer space is a reflection of our inner space. When our work and living spaces are orderly, so are our minds. We are less distracted and we can work and live better, with increased clarity.

When I clean, it’s an active meditation. Not only am I cleaning my surroundings, I am cleaning and clearing my mind. It’s an utterly empowering, rejuvenating, and fun process. I actually get excited about cleaning!

One of my favorite television shows is How Clean is Your House? In this program, the Cleaning Queens of Britain, Kim Woodburn and Aggie MacKenzie, scrub and declutter some of the filthiest abodes you could ever imagine. I’m not even kidding. Piles and piles of junk in every corner, the floors are nowhere to be seen, bugs are breeding in the kitchen, and the occupants are so entrapped in their situation that they don’t even know how to begin reversing it. A good number of these people suffer from asthma and allergies (with all the mold and bacteria in these houses, it is not at all surprising). Nearly each of these houses harbors large colonies of klebsiella, e. coli, and staphyllococcus. Gross!

Once the house is cleaned, Kim and Aggie give the occupants two weeks to acclimate to their new surroundings and lifestyles. It warms me to see how these peoples’ lives have changed for the better: more romance, families getting along better, reduced or alleviated symptoms of allergies and asthma, greater senses of pride, confidence, self love, and happiness. All this from a clean house!

I know that the examples in How Clean is Your House are extreme cases and that most of us don’t have these problems. However, we can all benefit from living and working in a clean atmosphere.

Here are some of my tips for cleaning your house and keeping it that way:

1. Create and stick with a cleaning schedule: Every Friday I go through my house and clean every room. I vacuum, sweep, do laundry, dust, and put displaced things where they belong. I have a systematic approach where I move from the patio, to the living room, dining room, the kitchen, the bathroom, and then the bedroom. Each room getting cleaned top to bottom. Then, I sweep and vacuum, as I don’t want to track things from room to room or knock crumbs and dust onto a clean floor while dusting or cleaning kitchen and bathroom counter tops. Finally, I burn some incense, candles, and essential oils to add a nice little cherry to the top of my calm and clean atmosphere sundae. I find this systematic approach optimal for me, but others may want to try something different. The important thing is to have a regular schedule and stick to it.

It’s not even necessary to clean the entire house at once. Perhaps you only have time to clean one room a day. If so, assign yourself (or your kids or roommates) certain days to clean each room. Have a plan and stick to it.

2.Get rid of clutter: Clutter is a clean house’s nemesis. If you don’t use something, get rid of it. Put it on craigslist.org, give it to a friend, or give it to charity. Above all, don’t keep it. Get it out of the house and forget about it. (This is a topic deserves an article itself. I’ll hit on this next time!).

3.Enjoy the process: Many people despise cleaning and find it boring. My suggestion is to find joy in it by focusing on how good it feels to be in a clean room. Put your attention on how great your house looks when it’s tidy. Concentrating your energy on the end result will propel you to spotless bliss.

4.Use cleaning items that you love: Find cleaning products that you enjoy smelling and using. Don’t buy a cleaning product if you can’t stand its smell or it doesn’t work well. You won’t want the smell of your house to be an assault on your nose, nor do you want to use twice the elbow grease because of a crappy product. You’ll be less likely to use it and less likely to clean. There are countless environmentally friendly products available now that leave your house smelling fresh without killing your olfactory senses. Two of my favorites brands are Method and Seventh Generation.

5.Keep up with the little things: It doesn’t take long to go from immaculate to garbage heap. Throughout the week, keep up with little things like dishes, vacuuming, and putting things away as you use them. It will only take 5-10 minutes a day and will streamline your cleaning routine, making your weekly clean up faster and easier to maintain.

Once you get into a habit of keeping a clean house, you’ll find that it’s almost effortless, even enjoyable. Notice how much more comfortable, clearer, happier, and confident it makes you. Create your own routines and practices, play with the process, and bask in the joy of chilling out in a sparkling, clear abode. Happy cleaning!

The Goals in Chiropractic

I can’t make claims about the goal of Chiropractic universally, because different Chiropractors have different objective criteria that they’re trying to meet. On the other hand, I can make claims about what some of the major themes that you’ll see among philosophically-grounded Chiropractors’ goals. Many talk about liberating the nervous system from bony and soft-tissue restrictions so that the body can heal itself. One of the big-picture goals that I’ve heard a number of Chiropractors, teachers, and students talk about is the increase of the conscious expression of Life.

For the sake of simplicity and clarity, let us take these two goals and apply an understanding of the goals of the Alexander Technique and a highly simplified understanding of the goals of a yoga practice to them, and note the similarities.

Alexander Technique and Yoga, as their goals relate to Chiropractic

Alexander Technique, briefly, seeks to train the student to consciously inhibit habitual movement (and cognitive) patterns in order to allow greater conscious use of the Self. Its underpinnings are epiphenomenological (meaning based on the internal states and processes of the students’ body and mind) and underscores the individual’s ability to consciously reconstruct their habits (clenching the jaw before rising from a chair, for instance), thus creating intelligent habits of movement (keeping the muscles of the face relaxed while standing up) to replace the old, dysfunctional ones.

Yoga is a slightly trickier to quickly and easily define. In the West, yoga is generally understood to be a physical practice of exercise that emphasizes breathing and stretching. This is not an entirely inaccurate characterization, but it misses the philosophical underpinnings of the practice and the much larger spiritual framework from which it sprang. To grossly simplify, yoga is any practice (physical, devotional, what have you) that leads the yogi through the layers of the Self toward an inner understanding that liberates the spirit from the weight of the body and the machinations of the mind.

Chiropractic removes interference from the nervous system that can produce all manner of disease symptoms, anxiety, tension, and pain. In so doing, a greater feeling of stillness and peace are more often experienced. We are able to think more clearly when we’re not distracted by extraneous sensation.

All three practices have at their core, in some sense, an aim to create a greater feeling of stillness in the body in order to cultivate a greater feeling of stillness in the mind, so that the Self that is the observer, the formless and featureless Atman (in Yogic terms), or Innate Intelligence (in Chiropractic) can experience only itself, without the distraction of the material world’s distractions. This stillness has inherent within it a greater capacity for movement in any direction (such as yoga is particularly well-known for giving its practitioners).

From this perspective, Chiropractic can serve to function, in many ways, like assisted yoga. The goals are very similar, only the methods differ. By receiving regular, skilled Chiropractic care, a yogi or meditator or student of the Alexander Technique can expect to deepen and accelerate their practice, allowing them to make more strides in less time and with less effort.

For those not practicing yoga, Alexander, meditation, or any other technique that serves to still the Body/Mind complex, Chiropractic can be a wonderful way to achieve many of the results that these techniques achieve with less time investment.

Recommended Resources:

• How to Practice, by His Holiness the Dalai Lama (XIV)
• Body Learning, by Michael Gelb