Align Your Minds

19/04/2024

17/11/2023

I just made my first fresh Tapenade, the luscious spread with olives and other goodies. It's easy, healthy, and lively so maybe make your own and turn a piece of toast into a feast!

01/09/2023

Hello,

I want to confess something. I made some mistakes in the past and didn't fulfill my commitments to three people. I deeply regret my actions, and I've blocked them out of shame. I’m a cheater.

04/06/2023

We visited the seaside Jurmala area of Latvia

24/12/2022

Warm wishes to all from our bright little (live) tree, Naila and I whatever these holidays mean to you. We hope it's better than you hoped and the springboard to a wonderful 2023!

10/08/2022

The Joy of Stress

Human beings evolved in a world of stressful, even life-threatening conditions. Millions of years of this created built-in psychological and physical systems to not only deal with stress but benefit from it. The trick is stress that helps, not hurt.

Our muscles, bones, and hormones only get stronger during exercise, which is just a form of stress. Similarly, fasting helps us live longer and better since the body sees fasting as stress and improves almost every aspect. The famous “Iceman”, Wim Hof, uses the stress of extreme cold to energize his immune system.

We can easily prepare for stress by activating the nervous system that serves us best in a particular situation. A) The sympathetic system is our action center. When you want more energy or get off your butt to deal with a stressful situation, use “fire breath”: breath in naturally then instantly exhale very strongly, back and forth, for 30 seconds or more. B) The parasympathetic system helps us relax and recover. To chill out, feel serene, or get ready to sleep and dispel stress, breathe out slowly and deeply for twice as long as you inhale. Evey day should balance sympathetic (reacting) and parasympathetic (rejuvenating) nervous systems.

With so many stresses surrounding us, we can use these and other techniques to make stress our friend. That starts with changing the way we understand it. Almost everything that creates stress for us is more imaginary than real.

“Stress” usually suggests a threat we should avoid. True, we should avoid harmful and long-term stress that really hurts is long-term, acute stress. But stress that we control, and doesn’t really threaten us, is healthy. Most stress in our lives is temporary, not really threatening, just based on old habits or assumptions.

For example, it’s stressful to say hello to a stranger at a party because we never learned that skill-- but we can. Simply going to my online bank account stresses me if I allow it to, even though I have the money, because of a few bad memories that became set habits.

Ironically, much of our stress comes from doing something positive that we want. It’s stressful to change our career, propose an innovative program, or learn a new skill. In fact, the aspects of our life that we remember and appreciate virtually always involve stress.

Other stressors are passing aspects of something that, overall, is very positive. Even the best marriages and jobs include moments of stress that improve our love, effectiveness, and commitment.

What’s true about stress in our bodies is equally true of our mind, spirits, and emotions. Intense curiosity keeps us young, even though satisfying our curiosity involves some momentary discomfort and risk.

It might seem counterintuitive to say that we should not only accept stress but embrace and even seek it out. After all, a day without stress is a day wallowing in the safe but familiar and static. Boring!

Where there’s no stress, there’s no growth. As soon as we remind ourselves that we will learn and grow from a difficult or uncomfortable situation, we can see beyond the momentary to the memorable.

For example, rappelling, running river rapids, and skydiving give us life-saving controls that let us safely have the adrenaline rush of stress with little or no physical danger. I can’t forget or regret the first time I did all three of these.

Less dramatic stress is part of adventurous travel, new cuisine, and self-disclosure. These are more everyday ways that we grow. Usually, the stress itself is only part of the appeal; we want the experiences that automatically involve stress.

In the same way that nervous systems and muscles need both stress and repair, our lives are richer when we alternate both. Sadly, modern life tells us to only value comfort and control. This assumption keeps us stuck where others place us, not where we want to be.

Another healthy source of stress is questioning our spiritual, cultural, or intellectual assumptions. Simply repeating what we’re told is comforting, not enriching.

The social experiences we most treasure usually happen when we share stress with someone we trust and can laugh with, like during a camping trip or visiting a new city.

As another reason to embrace stress, it is essential for staying healthy, young, and disease-resistant. This is literally true: stress increases life-lengthening Human Growth Hormone.

Unfortunately, we’re taught to focus on external causes, and internal costs, of stress, but ignore our natural abilities to confidently face and benefit from stress. People who feel confidently aware of their deep strengths and adaptability can face very stressful situations-- and enjoy them.

Yes, some experiences were overwhelmingly negative. Although I regret these in the abstract, they are a small occasional price to pay for a life that’s intense and meaningful.

By treating stress as a source of growth, we can use and even somewhat enjoy it. A powerful response to many situations is “Well, why not?” This attitude has led to most of my most wonderful and door-opening experiences-- such as returning to University in middle age to get my B.A. then M.A. then Ph.D. Plenty of stress but mountains of payoff. I’m in the middle of the huge stress of preparing and starting a completely new career at 74. But I start every day looking forward to all I learn and attempt.

My adventurous life around the world has included many stressful situations that ended up being empowering and beneficial. For example, in Kathmandu I made friends with Tibetans, who invited me to trek with them from Nepal to their village in Tibet. They dressed me as a Tibetan and gave me food that was beyond memorable. I had to walk at their fast pace, accompanied by yaks, across a frozen landscape. The whole expedition was full of laughter, and the village was a lively experience. It only added stress to know we’d be treated very harshly if caught by Chinese authorities. OK, I was a clueless twerp, but that doesn’t change the fact that I’ve rarely felt more alert and alive!

Many people don’t feel secure and resourceful enough to accept stress, but anyone can learn to. Our stress responses are a kind of muscle that, every time we flex, gets stronger and more confident.

I suggest that you try to arrange, say, three slightly-stressful moments every day, and a major one at least once a month. This will keep you healthier, active, and stimulated. Growing, not shrinking.

This might involve learning to play a new musical instrument or speak a new language, risking rejection by saying hello to a stranger, questioning a belief, or taking a new road to work.

We repair the foundations of life every time we recognize stress, and our responses to it, as a set of surprisingly-helpful supporters.

Pexels photo by Ries Bosch

22/07/2022

Lessons from Public Nudity

I was naked and unmoving while a room of strangers inspected me.

The Naked Teenager

What sounds like a recurring nightmare was enlightening, boring, satisfying… and mindstretching. Obviously, lessons about our character and conventions come from unpredicted times.

At 17, I had just arrived in summery Rockport, Massachusetts with my girlfriend AJ. We needed some cash and I had no marketable skills, so I answered a newspaper ad for an artist’s model at the town art school.

I was open to the idea for many reasons. As a long-time competitive swimmer, I was used to being almost naked, and took my body for granted. I had my fair share of teenage narcissism and wondered how artists would see me. My mother was a rebel.

With all of this and more, saying “yes” to new experiences has always come easily to me.

I was glad to get the few dollars for a couple of hours of work, but still felt a little anxious and unsure about how doing it. I had partly grown up in a family so traditional that I had to wear a tie to family dinners. The US, especially my home state of Georgia, hadn’t yet been exposed to explicit sexuality in the media.

All this brought me to the art school near Rockport’s docks with a mix of shyness, comfort, and curiosity.

I was feeling a little more nervous just before the first session, especially when a large, middle-aged women asked me, brusquely, to take off my clothes in a small closet and leave them there. Then I walked out to a semicircle of maybe 25 painters and up onto the small platform. Unsure how to stand, I was relieved when the instructor suggested a pose. This cued the artists to start switching between looking intently at me and even more intently on the charcoal lines, then paint, they applied to their canvases.

At first, I briefly wondered if any of them found me attractive, but very quickly realized that the situation was asexual, which helped prevent my main concern. For them, I was a bowl of fruit, or one of the quaint boats they were really there to paint. My nudity was the only sexual, or even social, component. It was confusing to separate this one sexuality code from all others, since our only goal was improving artistic skills.

Every twenty minutes they said I could take a brief break. I felt slightly self-conscious as soon as I stepped down from the platform, when I could put on my long t-shirt, which shows the power of context (which I sensed then but couldn’t have defined).

It slightly bruised my vanity but didn’t really bother me that no artists showed the slightest interest in me as a person. I loved art, so feeling I was making a tiny contribution was an unexpected bonus. It was also a little satisfying to make this new demand on my body. So this had some small, unexpected payoffs.

By the end of the first session, I began feeling a little proud of my ability to hold a pose and help the painters. This increased at the end when the instructor said, gruffly, that I’d done a good job, the painters were satisfied, so I could return the next afternoon. At the end of every session, she gave me the few promised dollars.

The next day was more boring but also very comfortable, and even made me feel slightly like a professional. I guess this was my first such experience.

Keeping a rigid pose for twenty minutes is much harder than it sounds... muscles are designed to move, not freeze. I'm sure that swimming every day improved my body control, but also made it feel less natural to stay still.

I felt slightly cheated that the instructor wouldn’t let me look at any portraits… apparently, it was more important to protect their privacy than mine! But, after all, they were paying and I was an employee.

Back in our small apartment, AJ asked how it went, was glad it went well, then lost interest.

Ten days of n**e modelling taught me much more than I could have expected.

Disrobing a few Lessons
Staring at a stranger is considered rude… being naked in front of them is taboo. And yet I was doing both, not only acceptable but useful and slightly profitable. What would normally be illegal and shocking was treated blandly and calmly-- a tiny testament to the flexibility of conventions and attitudes. I’m sure that this tug between conventions made me notice and think more about psychology and society, my main focus for many years.

The lack of control and self-determination exposed me, so to speak, to a new aspect of myself. The new body awareness was intense and stimulating. I didn't feel vain because, to them, I was just a piece of meat, but by the third day that was fine, also.

This neutral nudity made me notice and think much more about clothes and related societal conventions, like jewelry.

Mostly, it opened my mind because it forced new awareness. To be appreciated but not desired, to be n**e but not sexual, to be used but not abused, and to be passive but actively observed, are all unfamiliar. Surely nothing else shapes up like confronting and learning from the new.

I only did this for two weeks, then I got a better-paying job renovating a barn (that’s another story!). But while modelling, I was constrained within my own body yet controlled from outside it. Those days slightly challenged my attitudes toward mind, people, and body in ways that were spiritual and educational. This is a very rare opportunity.

Surely, nobody needs to try n**e modelling to change the familiar into an expedition or adventure. I believe that everyone should to at least consider saying yes to a similar formative opportunity.

The proof of its impact is that, even 57 years on, my distinct memory of this small job and its lessons are still fresh.

21/07/2022

We all love to hear someone speak eloquently, evocatively, and intriguingly. Even more impressive is someone who listens deeply.

Our world desires influencing over connecting. Millions take classes– I've taught many - that train clear and persuasive public speaking. This is valuable, but what about offering even more courses on productive listening?

As recent years confirm, the world now needs this lesson because it's harder to really listen than to speak.

Why is listening harder? Because, when we speak, we say what we already feel we know. Comforting but boring.

True listening is hard work. We need to actively comprehend and process new information, link and distinguish its elements, and go to the effort of comparing it all to what we know, believe or feel. Listening deeply takes exceptional yet productive effort because that is how we grow. Deep listening means integrating new information, in the broadest sense, into our lives.

One of our greatest fears is not being “heard.” So the best gift we can give anyone is to truly listen… to not only hear and understand, but spin what’s said into the gold of meaning.

Listening is profoundly active and interactive, which is why deep listening is both rare and beloved. People feel honored when someone makes the extra effort of listening deeply.

We need to understand listening now more than ever because so much of our communication is “zoomed” from a distance. Computer screens change the listening game in ways that we need to understand and harness.

A major payoff from listening actively is that it’s much more interesting than repeating what you already know and believe. To really connect with people, we need to show enthusiasm, which comes from feeling the excitement of expanding our knowledge and insights, then learning from them.

It’s even selfishly valuable to listen better. When we listen, we can understand other people and gain new perspectives, then support our own goals and purposes, dramatically improve how we respond, and add power to what we decide and do.

Unspoken but Meaningful
As we speak, we constantly watch someone as we evaluate whether or not they are listening. We reassure and engage them by offering a quiet flow of tiny, welcome recognitions of what they're saying. This might be facial expressions, leaning forward, or briefly demonstrating interest and understanding.

It doesn’t mean much to simply say "wow, that’s awesome.” But people love it when a listener takes what they are saying and runs with it by, for example, expanding their point to your experience or thought.

Note: what I write here is just as relevant for all of our other senses… we are hyper-verbal creatures so we usually think of “listening” as only a response to spoken words. That’s why I frame my points in that way. But I invite you to adapt all these points to all of your senses, for example by “listening” to the new design of a friend’s livingroom.

Or, if you care about music, try thinking of dialog as two or more instruments creating a flow of meaning and truly listen. When one instrument becomes quieter, that doesn’t make it less important or expressive. The same is true of listening to what people say.

Signs of Listening
You already know that we convey many or most meanings without words. Smiling, nodding, showing thoughtfulness, and hundreds of nonverbal indicators help say what we mean.

Some of these invite speakers to “tell me more.” When I interview people, by showing sincere approval they want to open up, often with more info than they seemed to plan on.

A good way to understand this is with the idea of “social space.” This means inviting someone’s input, like when we ask a question. This essential element of dialog is easy to learn and invaluable to use. If you want someone to explain more, decide a way to can give them the social space. If you want them to stop talking, I bet you close social space by relaxing your face into indifference and looking away or at your watch.

Probably the most powerful example of social space is silence— the most underestimated aspect of communication, and the sine qua non of listening. The “pregnant pause” is a good example: many wise spouses read and respect the silence they hear in response to their question, then live to tell the tale!

We convey respect and interest by waiting for someone to gather their thoughts, pause so they can finish their point, and so on. This strengthens and expands the relationship.

Although we usually want to show we’re listening to approve, we can, and should, also use subtle negative responses. These are less confrontational than direct verbal contradiction and so, often, more powerful. This will be as constructive as you mean it to be-- we all need correction. When we say something stupid and a friend tries to correct us nonverbally, we should accept that as a welcome help.

When anyone says anything you disagree with, you can use a tiny frown, cross your arms, or a glance away, to convey your perspective without interrupting. These negative subtleties let them continue while giving them wordless feedback. It might take more time to gradually let them know what you think, but this tactic is almost always more helpful and lasting than verbal confrontation.

It's possible, but surprisingly difficult, to fake interest as you listen. A much better tactic is finding some aspect of what’s said that does matter to you, then contributing your own passion while staying on a related track. Respond to what they say not as an inert fact, but as part of a dialog.

Deep Listening
Listening means much more than simply staying silent as we face someone. Since being heard is so precious, we are supersensitive to glazed eyes that instantly, if subconsciously, show that the other person is only listening in a superficial and nominal way.

Listening is obviously important, but how can we deepen it? Unfortunately, it doesn’t help much to just tell someone just to “listen better.”

I recently developed a practical way to better understand how people talk to themselves, which in turn helps us understand and talk more helpfully to anyone else.

We are smothered by the conventional “conscious/subconscious” model of the mind. This doesn’t help us fully listen because it insists that our only viable option is the conscious, analytical mind. The problem is that most communicating isn’t conscious or analytical.

When someone is speaking mostly of facts and logic, they will feel much more appreciated if you respond in their language, with equally analytical comments.

But what about when someone is expressing their faith, their passion, their symbols, their emotions, their drives? Responding to these with logic and facts won’t just prevent good listening, it will threaten the relationship because they won’t really feel “heard.”

Understanding the full range of our minds will help anyone listen more closely and proactively by making them aware of the balance of minds the other person is using to communicate.

Even in our own activities, it doesn’t help to restrict ourselves to analytical thought… “overthinking”, anyone?

Listening with Four Minds
My research uncovered a much more complete, dynamic, and common-sense view of the human mind. I’ve used it to train people how to listen more deeply and connect more constructively.
We have four functional minds.

I explain the “Four Mind Model” in detail elsewhere. At its simplest, this explanation distinguishes our spectacular yet limited conscious mind (logical, linguistic, analytical) from the supposedly unreliable “subconscious” black box that, we are told, mostly wants to sabotage our trustworthy conscious.

Sorry, it makes no sense to claim that most of our mental processes are counterproductive, since we ceaselessly depend on them to survive and succeed.

Four seems to be the minimum number of minds to address the full dynamic of human experience, according to my research results.

I’ve identified the other three minds as a) Idealistic (moral, spiritual, visionary), b) Guardian (meaningful, symbolic, social), and c) Natural (competitive, resilient, instinctive).

Each offers its own strengths, depending on our style, purposes and situation. In other words, an artist will usually depend on the Guardian mind for creativity but still rely on the Analytical mind for balancing her bank account.

Of course, the minds communicate and collaborate with each other… these are the constant voices in our heads. Many of their messages are not verbal or mathematical, but come in images, emotions, associations, memories, etc. This means that we need to use all our senses to take full advantage of our minds.

The first step of deep listening, then, is to learn to truly listen to yourself and appreciate the rich dialog within you. That will let you notice and respond to dialog with others. With little effort, anyone can become a listener so skilled that it seems like magic to others. People I've worked with sometimes say that I seem to know that they think and want more quickly and completely than they do.

This task is too complex to be accomplished only with our conscious minds— we need to intuitively and naturally align with our minds. This is a life-long process but starting is very quick, because we are born to use all our minds and must be taught to block and mistrust most of them.

Very briefly, by drawing on all of our minds, we can master deep listening and really understand and connect with someone.

The first step is connecting with your own team of four minds. That will let you identify and respect the balance of minds someone else is using to communicate at that moment. Then you can use the action or words that strengthen any relationship and achieve any goals.

In other words, you can quickly learn to listen deeply and master situations whenever you want.

So…
Active listening is a skill and power we can and should learn. If you are a parent, this might be the most important way you can help your children grow.

Anyone who can really hear what others say— going beyond surface meanings to implications and linkages-- will immediately be appreciated and taken more seriously.

Nothing could be more connective, constructive, or persuasive than that.

13/07/2022

Flames and Doors

I love learning from students. One of my favorite examples was an advising session with Aigul. She was my Kazakh graduate advisee in Almaty, whose name means “moon flower.” After I casually mentioned my interest in local spiritual culture, she invited me to several events.

The most dramatic of these was a sense-churning shamanic ceremony.

“Shaman” is the Central Asian term for someone who teaches, leads and practices the ancient, animistic traditions that blend the spiritual, cultural, natural, and educational.

It tells us that all of life is imbued with spirits, around and within us. People are able to access this usually-unseen dimension by altering their consciousness through music, herbs, fire, and prayer. A shaman leaves everyday life to team with good spirits against the malicious spirits said to cause disease.

Despite Soviet efforts to eradicate it, and Islamic efforts to replace it, the timeless steppe faith often called “Tengrism” remains strong. Almost every village and neighborhood in Kazakhstan has a shamanic healer, while others focus on cultural and spiritual aspects. A walk though many parks across Central Asia often includes seeing someone (usually an old woman) hugging a birch tree to connect with a spirit or loved one.

I know a leading surgeon who mixes western and shamanic treatments. My wife Naila, who grew up in a village not far from the dynamic Altai and Tuva regions, carries out her own ceremonies at home every day.

So I was grateful to Aigul for generously introducing me to her vibrant culture when she invited Naila and I to a ceremony in the nearby foothills of the continent-spanning Tien Shan mountains.

Ceremonial Valley

The short drive to the ceremony, from city to village to valley, was like passing through a door into an unfamiliar room. Even though everyone was welcoming, I felt like a friendly intruder. Even so, I felt that buzz of a new experience. This one was led by the celebrated Siberian musician and teacher Nikolai Oorzhak (see below for a link to a video of one of his performances). He is a master of the mysterious Tuvan “throat singing” that pairs deep throaty sounds with a high-pitched tone.

The short-grass hills were softening in the evening sun as we reached a simple parking area. About a dozen people were already gathering-- some advanced students, others newcomers to a tradition that merges spiritual, natural, cultural, and eternal.

I arrived with little sense of what to expect. At first I regretted my ignorance, but quickly felt that it helped me experience the evening more directly and deeply.

After ambling up a small valley footpath for 15 minutes, we arrived in an open area with bear-sized stones, beside a stream and a small tree. Aigul told us this power-rich spot was often used for ceremonies. Another leader, Olga, asked us to gather firewood to feed the flames that would be the hub of the ceremony.

As dusk settled in, Oorzhak arrived in the full traditional shamanic suit of skins, long fringe, beads, and a feather headdress. Olga returned wearing her own traditional clothes. 19th century visitors to the American west painted identical outfits on dancers in tribes like the Arikara.

The third leader was the kindly Kazakh man who gave us a ride, in white Buddhist robes for this ecumenical gathering.

A Mystical Door

Then Oorzhak pushed wide open the doorway. He led with prayers in the ancient Tuvan language, beating a sacred drum. He switched to song while playing the two-stringed traditional instrument called a “kobuz.” This is said to bridge a shaman to the cleansing forces of spirit and nature, especially to the main god Tengri.

The lilting music, chant-like and dramatic, wove among the crackling flames and into the darkness.

The sensation that tugged at me was both jarring and comforting. I couldn’t really join in the singing, but welcomed its connection to nature and culture. I was only a clumsy guest, but could see this was a kind of homecoming for Naila.

After a while, Oorzhak’s singing trailed into silence. Each of us selected a colored ribbon from a leather bag, carrying it across a stream to the small tree just below the bonfire. We tied our ribbon on a branch as a fluttering prayer to someone we felt inspired to care about.

The prayer ribbon tradition is exactly the same in sacred Plains Indian spots, like Bear Butte in South Dakota.

After returning for another hour of singing, we shared snacks then prayed a while longer. Returning down the path to the cars, we said goodbye, then drove back to the city. The road felt hard and strange after the resonant warmth of the ceremony.

Intellectually, I understood almost nothing about the ceremony. Beyond that, it lit a bond with spirits of nature and community. This lingered, reassuring, as we reentered the city’s cement and steel craziness.

At its best, travel and cross-cultural connections are new keys to being human-- the most memorable are usually completely unexpected. A casual comment to Aigul during an advising session opened another doorway into the little-known region that I can never completely leave.

Nikolay Oorzhak - masters of Tuvan throat singing - Bing video (control-click to open or paste in YouTube)

26/06/2022

photo that didn't attach to my "fasting" post

26/06/2022

Every month I fast for three full days, which is very good for my health. Strangely, the hard part isn't feeling hungry, which passes quickly and turns into a sense of bodywide integration. I do miss the stimulation of taste and texture. But what's hardest is the little activities of preparing, organizing and eating food. This involves mindful, semi-automatic actions and sensations whose pleasures I didn't recognize until I started putting them aside. Interesting!

Pexels photo by Katerina Holme