Everything is determined, the beginning as well as the end, by forces over which we have no control. It is determined for the insect as well as for the star. Human beings, vegetables, or cosmic dust, we all dance to a mysterious tune, intoned in the distance by an invisible piper.
—Albert Einstein1
NOW THAT WE’VE WEATHERED THE STORMS of denial and fear, I want to start addressing some of the particular questions that can help us tackle some deeper emotional and psychological issues that tend to drain the energy we need to continue our health quest. In order to be more successful this time than you have been in the past, it’s essential that you make sure you have enough energy to climb this mountain. No question, it will take work. So, in addition to the organization and coherence of a solid, skillful plan, you’ll need a significant amount of energy.
Thus, assessing how much energy you have—and where you can recapture some of what you’ve lost—is critical. There are two sides to the energy equation: gaining more and losing less. To help you gain more, in this and the next chapter, I’ll help you align your efforts to tap into the forces of nature that surround you. And to help you lose less, I’ll outline how we can more skillfully deal with regret and resentment, the consequences of holding on to past “mistakes,” and our anger—the main forces that literally suck the life force right out of us.
Along the way, we’re also going to discuss the dualistic ideas of perfection and imperfection, right and wrong, success and failure, and so on, so that we can see how this polarized way of thinking can further paralyze us and prevent growth and extraordinary health. Once again using nature as a model, I’d like to guide you into a more healthy perspective, one from which we can see each obstacle or “mistake” as an opportunity for growth, and thus release unhealthy attitudes.
37. Do You Have an Awareness of Life Energy or Chi?
CYCLES OF LIFE
The energy you need to tackle life begins with getting into alignment with nature, as we’ve discussed. You’ll experience a sense of peace, harmony, and wholeness once you begin that process. Your intuition probably tells you that on many levels, it would feel good to return to a more natural-rhythm-centered state, waking and sleeping with the sun and moon, eating naturally and in season, and spending time outdoors in natural light.
You know by now that I’m particularly interested in what happens when we adjust our unskillful behaviors more into line with nature’s various cycles, which operate in a perfect rhythm over fixed periods of time—not at all like us in the modern world. Think about cycles as the imposition of rhythm over time. As an example, when things are working ideally, we sleep at night and wake up in the morning. What happens in our bodies during this time has a correspondence in nature (roughly approximate to the moonrise to sunrise period).
There’s a long tradition of studying nature’s rhythms to optimize our health and happiness. Just for example, the Taoists divide the 365-day (circannual) cycle of a year into twenty-four solar periods of roughly fifteen days’ duration, each considered a mini-season. Internally, because the Taoists believe in interconnectedness, these periods correspond to the spine’s twenty-four individual vertebrae. Taoism’s two basic polarities of yin and yang balance and complement each other in cycles. Cyclical growth, one of the Taoist principles of nature, addresses all kinds of give-and-take rhythms of the universe. The moon replaces the sun, and then the sun replaces the moon. Light replaces dark, then dark replaces light. The tide comes in, the tide goes out. Arteries take blood away from the heart, and veins bring it back. These basic cycles exist everywhere in nature—it would take a library to catalog them.
From the Taoist viewpoint, the seemingly polar opposites of yin and yang (light and dark, giving and taking, night and day, man and woman, life and death, and so on) are not separate or conflicting but interdependent and complementary. In fact, one creates the other, and a little piece of each exists within the other, the way the yin/yang symbol shows us.
Similarly, in Ayurveda, the traditional Hindu science of health and medicine, we see three cycles (kapha, pitta, and vata). The Ayurvedists break the day into three segments. Like Taoism, Ayurveda aims to integrate and balance the body, mind, and spirit, thereby preventing imbalance (illness) and promoting health (wellness). In Ayurvedic, Native American, and Chinese philosophies, people, their health, and the universe are interrelated on all levels. Health problems result when our relationships with the universe and its rhythms are out of balance, or when we attempt to circumvent natural processes.
Underlying all these philosophies is the basic belief in an invisible, elemental energy force that the Hindus call prana, the Chinese call chi, the Christians call God, and the Native Americans call the spirit world. There’s a basis for this belief in the most modern science: all living and nonliving things are made of vibrating atoms, and we’re all connected in this way, through energy. Keeping that energy flowing, and in alignment with nature, is the basis for extraordinary health in many ancient traditions.
I don’t bring up these philosophies, as valuable as I believe they are, with a mind to convert you. The idea behind Skillful Living is not necessarily to transport these systems to our culture, but rather to apply their theories of rhythms, cycles, and unity to our disjointed lives, to improve our way of life and our individual and collective health.
38. Do You Have More Than Enough Energy to Deal with Your Daily Responsibilities?
Nature never stands still. Night becomes day and day becomes night; tides ebb and flow; flowers bloom and wither; yin becomes yang and yang melds into yin. Inside you, your blood is always circulating; your body is constantly regenerating cells within its own organs; and the skeletal system is exchanging and remodeling its minerals. There’s still flow even after your physical body dies.
Meanwhile, nature wastes nothing. A water buffalo is born, matures, and dies. Death might have come naturally from age, or naturally at the fangs and claws of a leopard. Once the predator has eaten its share, scavengers feed on the remains. What’s left provides a feast for flies and other insects, then microorganisms like bacteria and fungi assimilate the rest. All things that were once alive eventually become part of the earth again. When the great white oak in my backyard drops its leaves in the fall, the soil welcomes this annual feeding by breaking down the leaves for the tree’s own nourishment. There’s a flow.
And this concept of flow is just another way of thinking about energy. Beyond this common appreciation of the flow of events in the physical world, scientists now accept as fact that space and time are intertwined, and that matter itself is inseparable from an ever-present energy field connected to the past, future, and other dimensions. This is the sole reality underlying and binding all things. And physicists now believe that the universe is connected in ways that we have yet to incorporate into our understanding of personal health. And while it’s more conventional and convenient to leave this discussion out of the conversations we have about health, it doesn’t mean that’s the wisest, most skillful way to leave it. For now, all I want to suggest is that there’s a vast pool of energy that you can tap into if you wish to. Conversely, keeping closed to the possibility, while not wrong per se, is potentially limiting. Remember the basic tenets of systems theory in question 16, which emphasizes the interconnectedness of the parts with the whole of the bike? Well, that same theory can help us appreciate the unity of all life and matter. We and all the stuff around us are part of the same great energy field.
Rabbinical Jews developed a concept called tikkun olam, which roughly translates as “healing the world.” Today, this ancient kabbalistic concept finds its way into the prayers of observant Jews no less than three times a day. The argument goes like this: we are responsible for remaking the world whole, putting the broken pieces of the world back together into something cohesive, the way our creator intended it. The kabbalah teaches us to think of the world as a fire to which we all contribute a spark, in order for the flames to keep burning.
From a health perspective, this means that if we are hurting (not whole), then the whole world is hurting and not whole either. To heal ourselves, we must heal the world, and vice versa. This is very similar to Hindu, Buddhist, Christian, and Jainist philosophies, and that’s no coincidence. Let me give you some examples.
IT’S ALL CONNECTED
As you can see, the recognition of the interconnectedness and interdependence of all things dates back to mankind’s earliest and best-known spiritual traditions—and it persists in our major religions today. The ancient Buddhist text called the Avatamsaka Sutra proposes, “All is one . . . every being in the universe depends on every other thing and every other being for their existence.” This sutra also illustrates the timelessness of past, present, and future as “infinite time and endless space . . . each containing each other and depend on one another for existence and are not separable.”2 Closer to Western tradition, Abraham in the Old Testament defined belief in a single God as the unity underlying the entire natural world. Farther east, Sufism, a mystic tradition that originated in the teaching of the prophet Muhammad, builds a foundation around the idea of knowing that all things in the world operate as one—and we are part and parcel of that one great energy field. Chief Seattle, leader of the Suquamish and Duwamish Native American tribes in the mid-nineteenth century, preached, “Humankind has not woven the web of life. We are but one thread within it. Whatever we do to the web, we do to ourselves. All things are bound together.”3 The Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. used this web of interconnectedness to make one of the most poignant and successful arguments ever about the state of our spiritual and cultural health:
All this is simply to say that all life is interrelated. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality; tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly. Strangely enough, I can never be what I ought to be until you are what you ought to be. You can never be what you ought to be until I am what I ought to be. . . . This is the interrelated structure of reality.4
The idea here is not to adopt specific religious or political doctrines that might seem foreign to us. It’s to look at the similarities in the wisdoms that span many thousands of years and across diverse continents, and to understand that it’s all connected. The parts of our body. Our bodies and our minds and spirits. Ourselves to each other. All of us to the world around us. The world we can see and whatever unseen world might be out there, even if we don’t understand it yet. It’s all one perfect web of interconnections. When we thrum just one thread, the whole web shakes. And when we ignore this reality, we lose our strength. Herein lies the heart of slow medicine.
THE ZONE
You needn’t be a religious zealot or even a particularly spiritual person to find amazement at some of these connections. Just think of the human eye with all its complexity, and how it interacts inexplicably through its rods and cones and other complex machinery with the light of the sun and with the amazing webwork of the brain. All around us, we can find ample evidence of these connections, the flow of energy “in and through all things” that the Romantic poets and quantum physicists alike have written about.
Despite some cursory appreciation for this interconnectedness, though, many individuals still think of themselves as separate—able to manage their lives with some kind of objective, impersonal approach, scientific or otherwise. To live skillfully, though, one should begin to address the whole: the whole of our bodies, their interconnectedness to our minds and spirits and to the greater environment around us. Yes, this approach demands much greater awareness of details on many levels beyond the simplified, conventional way we deal with our health: “My toe hurts. Gimme a prescription to make it feel better.” This holistic approach requires a willingness to do more work yourself, and to take more responsibility for yourself and the world around you. Admittedly, this could be an overwhelming project, which leads many to turn the other way. However, if we first consider the concept of flow—and particularly how we align ourselves with the flow of energy in the universe—we might find a practical and rewarding way to ease into it.
Let’s start by examining the state of “effortless effort” that athletes commonly refer to as being in the zone. Is it possible to achieve a state of intense focus and awareness in your life, during which you block out extraneous distractions and somehow become “at one,” at least for stretches of time, with some intense power? Like a great tennis player, could you find yourself in such a balanced state of flow that every part of your body is moving in perfect rhythm; each shot is dropping inside the lines; every little tennis ball appears as big and clear as a basketball; and every outside noise and potential diversion is a mere blur? Is this moving meditation, which some people refer to as being “in the flow,” really possible? Can you imagine how effective you could be at your job in this state, how pleasurable this zone would make your pastimes? Can you imagine how this state would improve your relationships, your lovemaking, your self-confidence, and your health? I can.
Many people believe that such complete immersion in an experience—whether reading, studying, playing chess, singing, or dancing—reflects the ideal state. Can you remember a time when you’ve experienced this? When you were so immersed and in tune with a conversation or a project that time passed without your awareness? It’s worth recollecting why and how you achieved this state, so you can get there again, get there faster, and get there more often.
But is this zone of effortless effort, which many people describe as a highlight of their life (and which religious leaders call “ecstasy”), really an ideal state? A healthy state? I don’t think so. There are two significant drawbacks. The first is that it isn’t sustainable over the long term as part of a healthy and balanced life, and in a sense, unrealistic. The second is that it expresses an inherent—if inadvertent—selfishness: Often it fails to take into consideration those around us. While it might feel like we’re connected to others and the thrum of the world, in the mundane, we’re really just experiencing a personal and temporary high.
Although rewarding and valuable as an experience, then, this kind of flow is not skillful to pursue as a goal in and of itself. Nearly all of us are familiar with people who get into trouble this way. After the initial thrill or high, the person needs more. They begin to seek the feeling for the feeling. When the admiring throngs and cheering crowds dwindle, celebrities, in particular, face a whole slew of problems that often follow such feelings. Perhaps more important, the skill or special talent that brought the celebrity the feeling—not to mention the attendant fame and adulation—eventually, inevitably, fades. What’s left once the talent disappears? Even worse, what happens if the talent is lost through injury or illness, such as the football player who becomes paralyzed or the painter who loses his eyesight?
Single-minded, passionate obsession is a recipe for unhealthy living. The fiery genius that fueled Caravaggio’s enigmatic and beautiful paintings, the singular focus that inspired the visionary music of Mozart, and the raw physical skills that propelled Lance Armstrong’s feats of superhuman athleticism were also the vehicles that ultimately led each of these talented men down the road to personal destruction. There are thousands of others like them.
I would even debate the value of the commonly used archetype of “flow” as that of the great athlete or artist in the ultimate state of functionality. This portrayal doesn’t really describe an individual living in harmony with other people or his environment over the course of his entire life.
The skillful path is not to overemphasize this kind of flow state, but instead to seek something more akin to resonance. Consider this image: It’s opening night at Carnegie Hall and there are literally thousands of eyes (and ears) upon a young, brilliant musician cradling her cello. Yet she seems oblivious to the packed theater, filled with discriminating patrons and tough critics listening for the slightest mistake. Within moments, she’s lost in the midst of the most wonderful Dvořák concerto. Her playing is so magnificent that the audience is drawn into a story she’s telling with her cello. She’s definitely in the zone. However, there’s just one slight problem: very soon, it becomes apparent that her orchestral colleagues are totally off-tempo. The promise of an evening’s worth of great music suddenly dissolves into cacophony.
On the other hand, a more skillful player would have sensed the problem in the orchestra, and quickly adjusted her own playing to compensate. Such a person is more in tune with her surroundings, rather than just playing solo. Such a player’s experience of flow is multidimensional, and this expression of the flow state might be better described as “resonance.”
Physicists describe resonance as the specific fundamental frequency created by one object in response to another (all those vibrating atoms vibrating in harmony). And as the physicists discovered, beings do not create resonance. Rather, it comes into play when they tap into the underlying unity, coherence, rhythm, and flow around them. We can feel resonance as a physical level of connection—as when a couple dances the tango, or when a mother cradles an infant in her arms for the first time.
The word “resonance” literally means “resound,” which indicates a vibrational flow between two or more things. The commonly used expression “I feel your vibe” could also mean “I feel your resonance.” “Resonance” is used in many contexts, such as in psychology, where it connotes empathy, or in the spiritual realm, where it implies a wholeness or unity of things, or a connection to a creator. Through a constant feedback loop, your body will send you physical signals when you’re not resonant with your environment. Think about what it feels like to be in love—or to feel “out of tune” with your partner.
Greater awareness and amplification of this level of connection between people and between groups and other forces might help us find our way back to the knowledge and experience of our fundamental connections to one another and our environment. This, in turn, could help us make greater progress toward our common human goals, with extraordinary health at the top of the list. We could play in a symphony rather than as a bunch of soloists.
This does not mean that we shouldn’t march to the beat of our own drummer sometimes. I’m not backpedaling to suggest you follow the herd all the time. But surely we can strive to be on the same wavelength as our bosses and coworkers, in sync with our spouses and children, in tune with our community’s goals, and feeling the vibe of our environment. That’s a healthy way of living.
Maintaining such connection to all things is ideal. This is not to say you should avoid the short-term goal of flow in individual areas such as teaching, writing, gardening, or sports—as long as you keep the broader context of resonance in mind. Are you really in the teaching zone if you’re not connecting deeply with your students? Are you really in the flow of an Indy car race if you’re ignoring what the other drivers are up to? Can you be in the flow of your gardening if it’s all about you—and not nature?
39. Do You Maintain Peace of Mind and Tranquillity?
40. Can You Reevaluate Your Financial “Needs” So That You’re Not Working So Hard for Things That Aren’t Important?
THE WEALTH OF CONTENTMENT
When we start humming more in tune with the natural order, we can approach the kind of peace of mind that’s necessary to reap the reward of extraordinary health. But how many of us do that? And how many get sidetracked in the pursuit of illusory goals like money and material goods? Despite what our culture promotes, the true essence of extraordinary health and happiness has nothing to do with extraordinary wealth—nor will even a relative lack thereof prevent you from attaining it, if you ask the right questions and strive to answer them with good sense, good science, and intuition.
Lots of studies by economists and psychologists have concluded that, assuming you have enough money to cover your basic needs, you will not grow happier as you grow more materially wealthy. In fact, I would argue that as you pursue more and more material wealth, you’re likely to get out of balance, out of sync with the real valuable rhythms of the universe—and you’ll wind up far less happy and healthy. Instead, you can attain a tremendous peace of mind, starting soon, if you change your thinking about contentment and what that would mean to you.
Taoism’s sacred book, the Tao Te Ching, says, “He who knows contentment is rich,”5 a phrase echoed ages later by Henry David Thoreau: “A man is rich in proportion to the number of things which he can afford to let alone.”6This is true contentment—and lately, it’s rarer than diamonds. Money is wonderful in that it allows us to afford the things we need and even want. I will admit that I enjoy my beautiful home in my beautiful town. And I will tell you transparently that I find joy in having the security to be creative and enjoy some of the material trappings I can afford. But truthfully, I understand that “trappings” are called that for a reason. I know the less we want and crave—the less we get used to the “stuff” around us—the happier we will be. As I write this, a few blocks away from me, in the barn on one of the loveliest (and most expensive) estates in Bedford, the police this morning cut down the hanging body of Mary Kennedy, surely one of the richest and most “successful” of my neighbors. While we really can’t know all that was going on in her mind, our hearts sink at such a time. Clearly, the whole Kennedy clan with their endless stream of tragedies provides an object lesson in how prosperity, power, and success have no bearing on inner peace, balance, health, or happiness.
Today, we are so screwed up that we willingly close our eyes to life’s realities in order to maintain a status quo—or to continue an “upward” striving for more of everything—that paradoxically leaves us far from contentment, having missed the joys of the journey. We value outer experiences and material possessions, and we routinely (and mistakenly) look to external sources for contentment. Food, cars, money, jewelry, clothing—all of the stuff that’s supposed to promise us either satisfaction or an easing of discomfort. But why are we uncomfortable in the first place? We don’t know, because we fail to ask ourselves.
Avoiding this trap demands that we really look in the mirror again, to seek out and then reflect on those moments of true contentment. Can you recall a time when all your yearnings were satisfied? Remember when you were a kid, how much joy and contentment you got from your favorite toy? Remember Charlie Brown’s credo that “Happiness is a warm puppy”? I know I can feel this way in my garden, and when I write, and when I become involved in helping my patients find their paths to extraordinary health. What does it for you?
While you’re looking in that mirror, search back to a time when your inner world was still; when you were free from wants and cravings. Did this moment occur as you experienced the birth of your first child? Or, did it occur as you witnessed your daughter take her first steps, speak her first words, or discover the glory of a starfish she found on the beach? Were you fishing with your father on a tranquil mountain lake, or walking peacefully in the woods, away from the pressures of work and the endless pursuit of material wealth and career success?
While the elation of even the most wonderful moments fades eventually, we can appreciate that they offer us a rare glimpse of the nature of true contentment, of the inner peace and calm that is the foundation of extraordinary health. We can never realize contentment through external sources alone. Never. Inner stillness and peace of mind are the foundations of true contentment. “Of mind” means in the mind—not in the wallet or the driveway or in our children or our degrees or titles or other achievements.
It’s important to remember how intimately this feeling of contentment is tied to our overall health—despite our specific, physical conditions. Have you ever met a person with a serious, debilitating illness who nonetheless projected a calm, peaceful, contented inner state? It happens all the time. Why? Because, paradoxically, sometimes a serious challenge to our health makes us realize that so many of our concerns, wants, and desires are petty and unnecessary.
But you don’t have to get terminal cancer to experience true contentment. There are several healthier ways to cultivate it. The deepest, longest-lasting satisfaction comes when we resonate with nature and ourselves—when we tap into the source of energy around us—and when we have refocused our desires away from material goods and fleeting feelings of success that come from illusory achievements and acquisitions. Conscious awareness—the practice of remaining in contact with the true source of contentment—will provide the ultimate path to greater equanimity. Even in the midst of fear, misery, and chaos, we can return to this feeling if we practice it. Over time, this state of contentment becomes a new habit. The key is to give it our fullest attention when it arises. Don’t you think that, whatever your physical ailments, you’d feel better if you could achieve this? Of course you would.
Cultivating greater contentment isn’t so difficult that it takes a mystic to achieve it, but, like everything else worthwhile on the path to extraordinary health, it does take practice. Practice sitting quietly with nature or the one you love, or your children, or friends, or whatever “warm puppy” makes you happy. Practice simply feeling connected by peace and love and the simplicity of living. Practice really experiencing your senses whenever you can. Practice thinking, believing, and saying that you’re grateful and thankful for what you’ve been given.
When you get better at this, you can try the more challenging practice of sitting quietly and continuously for longer periods. Whenever you feel yourself getting sucked into the wishes and desires that will arise, you can dismiss them, let them float by like passing clouds. True contentment is woven into the fabric of our being, and not the “almighty” dollar. Our task is to simply discover where it resides. If it suits you, you can pray during these times. You can meditate on some simple, peaceful beliefs or affirmations. Not, “I will get that new Mustang and that promotion,” but “I am at peace.”
Give yourself the time and space to practice this. The problem for us is that we’re not so comfortable in such stillness. Instead, like addicts we seek constant stimulation from outside sources. Simply, we’ve lost sight of and appreciation for the intrinsic fullness and beauty of nature and our integral place in it. It’s an interesting paradox, and a fact intrinsically tied to our overall lack of health and balance, that we tend to desire things that the universe does not naturallygive us (a BlackBerry), while taking for granted or ignoring the great bounty that it does give us (blackberries).
GETTING UNSTUCK
A central tenet of Taoism, from which many of the principles of traditional Chinese medicine derive, is to live life in a state of being called Wu-Wei, or “creative quietude.” Wu-Wei, which literally translates as “do-nothingness,” doesn’t imply laziness, but rather action without strain. In the modern idiom, it means to “go with the flow.” I believe the steady flow of life energy, or chi, can open the mind and body to higher levels of creativity, action, tranquillity, and peace. Conversely, a blockage of chi can result in anger, inaction, uproar, and discord. The Chinese also believe that a stagnation of chi causes pain. Understanding these cycles and listening to our bodies’ own internal rhythms, which call for adequate rest and a proper diet, can move us closer to this flow state.
If you’re like most people in our culture, you’re probably feeling blocked or stuck on some level. Being stuck is often a matter of habit, and therefore thoroughly ingrained in the unconscious. If we’re to experience extraordinary health, we need to get ourselves unstuck. More often than not, we desire and crave things we don’t have and rarely if ever need. So while you’re sitting quietly or looking into the metaphorical mirror, ask yourself, What do I really need? Not want, but need. There’s a very good chance that whatever it is, it’s completely attainable; it’s right in front of you. If you focus on that thing, you will feel less stuck physically, psychically, and spiritually.
41. Are Creative Activities a Part of Your Work or Leisure Time?
CONTRIBUTING TO THE FLOW
Now, while you’re connecting with the flow, it’s important to remember that you are part of the natural world around you, and nature’s flow can usher out of you just as easily as it can flood into you. Finding and using outlets for creative expression, such as painting, writing, gardening, or singing, help balance us and keep us motivated (moving in the flow).
Creative hobbies have far-reaching benefits and can have positive impacts on mental health and overall balance in life. Creative expression is important because all work and no play makes us very dull indeed. We get out of balance if we focus single-mindedly on our jobs or other responsibilities. When we’re acting creatively—even if it’s at our jobs—we temporarily forget the ills and resentments and anger that sap our oomph, and tap instead into energizing waves of good feeling. We feel more confidence. We feel more gratitude. We feel more connected to the energy around us. Most important, when we’re creative, we give something back to the universe. We contribute to the flow and the energy, rather than forever expecting it to give something to us. So what do you like to do creatively? Consider singing, dancing, scrapbooking, painting, photography, poetry, genealogy—the list is endless.
GARDENING FOR LIFE
When things are in balance, it’s likely your creative outlet has something to do with your purpose, as discussed at the end of chapter 1. In order to help you in your quest to consider both your purpose in life and options for your creative outlet, let me show you how I came to understand mine. My purpose, which I stated earlier, to join and guide others in their quest and help them achieve the health and happiness they seek, is both an inner and outer purpose. But on reflection, I suppose it’s more outer than inner. It expresses more what I do than who I am. When I try to figure out who I am, I’m looking for an analogy, really, that suits my philosophy, represents my real being, and resonates across all the aspects of my life. Am I a mountain climber, always seeking the next summit to surmount? A bit. Am I a trickster, using deceit to dominate others? Quite the contrary. (It’s important to ensure that your central purpose, intentions, and actions are aligned with universal morals and ethics, what Stephen Covey calls “True North principles.”7) So am I a wanderer, perambulating from place to place in search of new people and adventures? That sounds romantic and pleasant, but it’s not really me. I’ll tell you what I think I am. I’m a gardener.
As I said, it’s more than what I do, though I find a lot of satisfaction and contentment doing it and spending many hours each week in my garden preparing soil, sowing seeds, watering, removing weeds, and lovingly placing my plants in just the right location so they get adequate amounts of sunlight. I’m a gardener because I identify with my crops as they flourish and wither. Funny (and wonderful) that a grown man with a medical degree could find so much childlike ecstasy in seeing the first blush of pink in an August beefsteak tomato—and suffer so much heartbreak when the basil drowns in rain.
I’m a gardener because it feels like my place in the world. I like to experiment with different formulas for ensuring healthy fruition of my horticultural efforts. But I have come to accept that nature has its own inimitable design for growth—and for death. I’m a gardener because this philosophy carries over so well to my profession as a doctor. With nature’s garden as a model, I have come to learn that my role as a physician should focus on working my best with nature to help my patients bloom—but not assuming I can cure every blight, stave off every bug, or control the natural designs that are far beyond my reckoning, much less my control.
I think of my relationships as a gardener might. They need to be skillfully and devotedly cultivated or allowed to run wild. Just as a gardener tends to his plot of land, planting seeds, tilling the soil, growing plants, and keeping it free of weeds, so we must tend to our relationships, nurturing those we value most, tending to those who need a little extra support and “staking,” and even dispensing with those that no longer work (though I hate to think of such people as “weeds”).
Now, I’m sure you’ll notice all the gardening metaphors throughout this book, and you’ll know when you see them that I’m busy practicing Joseph Campbell’s imperative, “Follow your bliss.”8 But this isn’t about me. I want you to look in the mirror, or sit quietly and reflect on the questions: What’s my purpose? Where’s my bliss? Where and what would I like to create? What makes me feel most connected? What do I and only I have to give back to the universe? The more time, energy, and intention you spend on that purpose, that creative outlet, the more you will be in the flow, and the happier you will be. More fulfilled. More peaceful and contented. More energetic. And if you don’t think that contentment and happiness will positively affect your state of physical health, you should think about rereading the first chapters again!
So, where does this leave you? Once again, find your passion, find your purpose, get into the flow. And then proceed.
THE “PERFECT” PLAN?
But wait. You need to be wary of one more trap. Many people are led to believe that an archetypal plan for perfect health exists out there somewhere—the “perfect” plan. Our society conditions us to expect perfection. We want things to have obvious, simple solutions, and we want those solutions to work quickly and stick permanently. Put this way, we can see the folly in our wishes. The tiny Philips-head screwdriver that sits in the bottom of my toolbox is perfect for changing the battery in my daughter’s music box. However, it’s completely unsuitable to screw a bolt into a steel girder on a bridge. The perfect plan, as we understand it, is a fantasy. What works for Roger will not necessarily work for Riley. And what works for Roger today might need tweaking tomorrow.
Our plans for our health are imbued with creative and dynamic forces and an energy that’s difficult (or perhaps impossible) to define. This force—this energy—drives a state of constant change. And though this concept is not easily reconciled through the eyes of the reductionist Western medical model, to insist that it doesn’t exist, or to suggest it doesn’t matter, is not the wisest or most skillful point of view. There is no such thing as a perfect plan that can be condensed into some generic prescription. Rather, plans, like rivers, need to follow the meandering course of nature. In this case, “nature” means the individual life of the patient, taking into account all the complexity of life in general and the novelty of that individual life.
This is why my slow medicine prescription is based on questions rather than answers. This way, you can consider answers for yourself, unique to your circumstances and responsive to your intuition. Furthermore, as you change, so might your answers. Nothing in the universe is either absolute or permanent; no rules apply to every situation; and nothing can be perfectly sustained. Remember—it’s in your hands, and your intuition and common sense will guide you toward the best plan for you, for now. It’s okay to change plans along the way. It’s okay to wander occasionally off the beaten path. And, as we will see, it’s even okay to make mistakes along the way. It’s your treasure you’re seeking—and your own journey to get there.
42. Are You Okay with a Few Surprises on Your Path to Health?
NATURE NEVER FLOWS IN A STRAIGHT LINE
The thing about finding treasure is that the path to it is always at least a little ambiguous. As Gertrude Stein observed, there are no straight lines in nature. Next time you walk into the woods, take a moment to look around. You’ll see that trees, flowers, and even rocks are not straight. Yet they produce amazing beauty. While not straight, they have a tendency to “flow,” to work harmoniously with their surroundings. You might observe the curve of a tree branch that leads to a blossom, a smooth dip in a rock formation, the gnarled knot in a tree trunk, or the elegant dance of shoots swaying in the breeze.
You shouldn’t expect a straight line in your quest for health and happiness, either. It’s simply natural to find bumps in the road, curved paths, forked roads, and the occasional roadblock. Just as nature is overflowing with curves, corners, knots, and unexpected changes in direction, so our lives are, and should be, filled with unpredictable twists and turns. While you might find yourself briefly on the straight and narrow path, there’s sure to be a surprise or two up ahead. Look around while you’re on your trip. The lesson here is that treasure isn’t always gold and shiny. Sometimes you overlook the frog and never see him for a prince, ignore the ugly duckling, never thinking her a swan.
It’s also worth remembering that the journey of life doesn’t always bring you closer to your goals. The hunt for treasure might cause you to backtrack or wander off in an entirely new direction—and that’s a good thing. Because there’s no way to predict how your journey will end, simply living is the skillful path to becoming whole—and to finding health. Like a treasure trail, this path will lead to unexpected destinations that surprise you. You might be faced with difficult questions, such as, Who am I? What’s my purpose? What and whom do I value, and why? You might find answers to some of these questions after a long period of contemplation. Other answers you might discover through everyday experiences.
The path to finding health is only ever blocked when you expect a straight line or when you expect to push through obstacles head-on. Weariness, curiosity, or circumstance might cause you to alter your direction abruptly. Rather than view these as roadblocks, see them as opportunities. Eventually, everyone’s journey will include a fork in the road or an eddy in the stream that will require a change in direction or a period of standing still. These are simply part of the journey. And remember, whichever way you go, there are no mistakes on this road if you know what questions to ask. In other words, don’t ask, Why do these terrible things happen to me? Ask, What’s the opportunity here?
43. Are You Willing to Take Risks and Make “Mistakes” in Order to Succeed?
MISTAKEN IDENTITY
Indeed, to move forward and get truly healthy, we must find a skillful way to deal with all our so-called mistakes and the unhealthy ways we feel about them. We need to question some of the ways we habitually interpret our mistakes—even calling them “mistakes” might be unskillful thinking.
“Mistake” is just a word. It becomes something negative only when we assign value to it—all the nasty baggage of our cultural interpretation. The same goes for the commonly used words “right” and “wrong.” By conventionally labeling mistakes as inherently bad, as we tend to do, we actually limit our potential for growth and maturation. This can have profound effects on our physical and mental health. However, this isn’t a simple matter of accepting responsibility or the consequences. I propose a complete reframing of the notion of mistakes, exposing our unhealthy and unrealistic expectations of ourselves and others. A man’s errors are his portals of discovery,9 James Joyce writes. Amen.
Like death and taxes, some mistakes are inevitable. We’re certain to make many of them as we try to progress. We’re rarely proud of the mistakes we make. We’re usually very hard on ourselves (and on others), as we’re conditioned to thinking of mistakes as a waste of time and energy.
While the typical dictionary defines “mistake” as “the lack of correlation between the intended consequences of an action and the actual consequences of that action,” the definition of its synonym, “error,” is more akin to “wandering” or “straying,” and I would submit this is a much more skillful definition. Viewing mistakes through their Latinate origins is useful because it’s in this wandering and straying that unforeseen opportunities might surface.
Some mistakes adversely hurt ourselves or others, and these certainly demand that we make amends and feel some appropriate regret so that we learn and heal relationships. However, many, if not most, of our mistakes lead us down unexpected and unplanned paths, often enriching our lives if we just open our eyes to what we find there.
I have a friend who, after heading off to college, realized that he had made a mistake in his choice of school. Yet during his first week at the “wrong” school, he met his future wife, to whom he has been married for thirty years, and with whom he had three beautiful children. Along these same lines, we have all heard about a couple’s negative reaction to an unplanned pregnancy. Yet, years later, the existence of their bright and beautiful child—the product of their “mistake”—reveals how unskillful this sort of thinking can be.
One of my favorite parables, the Legend of the Cracked Pot,10 sheds light on the often hidden value of mistakes:
A water bearer in India had two large pots, each hung on the end of a pole, which he carried across his neck. One of the pots had a crack in it, and while the other pot was perfect and always delivered a full portion of water, at the end of the long walk from the stream to the master’s house, the cracked pot always arrived only half full.
This went on daily, with the bearer delivering to his master’s house only one and a half pots full of water.
The perfect pot was proud of its accomplishments, feeling itself “perfect” to the end for which it was made. But the poor, cracked pot was ashamed of its own imperfection, and miserable that what it had been made to do, it could not do perfectly.
After two years of what it perceived to be a bitter failure, the cracked pot spoke to the water bearer one day by a stream. “I must apologize to you,” it said. “I’m a failure.”
“Why?” asked the bearer. “What are you ashamed of?”
The cracked pot said, “Well, I’ve been able, for these past two years, to deliver only half my load, because this crack in my side causes water to leak out all the way back to your master’s house. Because of my flaws, you must suffer much work, yet you never get full value from your efforts.”
The water bearer felt sorry for the old cracked pot, and in his compassion he said, “Don’t fret. As we return to the master’s house, I want you to notice the beautiful flowers along the path.” Indeed, as they went up the hill, the old cracked pot took notice of the sun warming the beautiful wildflowers on the side of the path, and this cheered it up a bit.
But at the end of the trail, it still felt bad because it had leaked out half its load, and so again it apologized to the bearer for its failure. The bearer said to the pot, “Ah! You missed something very important, my friend! Didn’t you notice that there were flowers only on your side of the path, but not on your ‘perfect’ brother’s side?
“You see, I have always known about the crack on your side, so I put it to good use. Every day, I dropped flower seeds on your side of the path, and every day while we walk back from the stream, you’ve watered them. For two years, I’ve been able to pick these beautiful flowers to decorate my master’s table. Without you being just the way you are, he would not have this beauty to grace his house.”
Simply and poignantly, this parable illustrates the perspective shift that can transform the negative into a positive. I can’t tell you how many friends and patients I’ve encountered who’ve felt genuinely grateful for what others might have perceived as a curse. If it weren’t for cancer, I’d have never come to find my real passion in life. Without that diabetes diagnosis, I would have kept living unskillfully. If I never lost my hearing, I would have kept taking my senses for granted. With this idea in mind, we no longer have to view all our slip-ups, missed opportunities, transgressions, and supposed flaws and failures as “mistakes,” despite our culturally preconceived definitions, biases, and habits. We are who we are, cracks and all, and each of us can find a way to water our path and grow gorgeous flowers. Ancient wisdom reminds us of the inherent interconnectedness of life, how nature doesn’t make mistakes.
44. Are You Able to Adjust Beliefs and Attitudes as a Result of Learning from Painful Experiences, and Has Your Experience of Pain Enabled You to Grow Spiritually?
PRACTICAL PRESCRIPTION 5: REFRAMING MISTAKES
I would suggest that instead of ignoring, denying, or trying to wish away your past mistakes, you instead take some time to reflect on them and reconsider what they mean and where they led you. Write down what you consider to be your biggest mistakes. Put them in chronological order in a column. Then, in a second column to the right, also in chronological order, list all the things that have happened since each of these supposed mistakes—some, you might notice, will actually be direct results of the so-called mistakes. You will likely find a number of unexpected and unplanned consequences that resulted from straying from your “perfect,” intended path, and those consequences will very often be positive, beautiful, and beneficial. Did you wind up in a new place or find a new opportunity because of something that seemed to have gone “wrong”?
This exercise helps you see that if it weren’t for the twists and turns of the road, you’d never have wound up where you are right now. Indeed, all that we have today that we appreciate and cherish could have been possible only owing to all the mistakes we made on the way to where we are. So, were they really mistakes? Or important challenges and fortunate milestones on our journey? It’s simply a matter of perspective.
QUESTIONS FOR FURTHER REFLECTION
45. Are You Able to Let Go of Your Attachment to Specific Outcomes and Embrace Uncertainty?
46. Do You Engage in Meditation, Contemplation, or Psychotherapy to Better Understand Your Feelings?
Return to our discussion of the medicine wheel. Natives of the North American continent envision its center point to be the site of their own heart and soul. As a practice, they imagine that they are sitting at the center of the wheel, and they recite a prayer whenever they feel disconnected or stuck in place. The prayer goes like this: “I come from the light, I embrace its energy, it fills me, and we move.” Can you, too, embrace uncertainty as the light of creation, seeing the discomfort as something good trying to emerge? Can you embrace yourself and all that you feel in the same manner, and see any pain you experience as evidence of your profound sensitivity and awareness—your divine nature? Then, as a result, can you let go of the habit of self-recrimination and any feelings of unworthiness, regaining faith in your own unique qualities and qualification to be happy and healthy?