⚡️ Enlightening Bolts

🤯 The Library of Consciousness: Strange as it may sound, the universe is aware of itself—through each and every one of us. Consciousness has been a core mystery of the human experience ever since our rise into sapience, and The Library’s virtual aisles are filling up with various perspectives on this wondrous phenomenon. Read more here.

🎼 The Neurophysiology of Enchantment: How music casts its spell on us. Read it here.

🤔 Are we still thinking? The world’s slow move from dialogue to media. Read it here.

⚡️ Plus a bonus bolt at the bottom of this email. ⬇️

🎇 Image of The Week

“Located at 11,995 feet above sea level, Salar de Uyuni is a mystifying salt flat in Altiplano, Bolivia that has a reflective nature when covered with water. The briny layer of land, created through the rainy season, transforms the otherwise plated pockets of dry salt into a giant mirror, giving the illusion of walking on water. Though the salty desert is quite beautiful when left alone, the introduction of water leads to an unbelievably surreal result. It is especially exquisite on cloudy days where it looks as though visitors are taking a stroll in the sky.” See more here.

🧐 The Pursuit of Wisdom

While in college a friend told me he didn't think chasing happiness was the point.

I asked him what then?

He said...

"Wisdom."

He was right.

Happiness is one particular state of emotional weather patterns.

Wisdom is knowing how to embrace the storms, seeing the beauty in the blizzard, and not wishing away the rain because we know it's nourishing.

Trying to freeze your emotional state into happiness is like trying to lasso a cloud. It's not going to work and the whole enterprise distracts from enjoying the shade.

Wisdom is escaping from the notion that we should only experience positive emotions and negative emotions should be shunned.

The other side of the emotional spectrum is fertile ground for so much richness.

Grief and sadness point us to what matters.

Anger points us to what must be done.

Embrace the totality of your being.

Allow your full humanity.

Let happiness arise and emerge.

Don't chase it when it drifts or you'll find it fades even faster.

Simply welcome the emotional weather patterns with open arms and you can find the peace that lives beyond the need to chronically seek change.

That's wisdom.

🎢 Creative Dysregulation

Reflect on this passage from author Kelly Wilde-Miller:

“Maybe you've created in the past but burnt out in the process. Maybe you've initiated an unruly amount of new projects without seeing any of them through the finish line. Or perhaps you've never allowed yourself to go from 'idea' to 'action' and instead have built a fantasy world of possibilities in your mind. And if you're anything like me, you've also amassed an impressive 'project graveyard' - aka the Archive folder on your computer. Rest in peace, those beautiful creative ideas. I have done all of these things. I know them intimately. They are painful, especially when you've done them for years or decades. And they point to the heart of what I call 'creative dysregulation:

Creative dysregulation is an overarching phrase to encompass the inner imbalances that disrupt an individual's ability to consistently engage with and execute their creative work. These disruptions hinder the fluidity, productivity, and fulfillment of the creative process, as well as one's ability to see themselves as a successful creative.”

Read the book here.

🤓 Learn This Word

Yutori: This Japanese world literally means ‘spaciousness’, and it’s about taking the time to fully be present and immersed in where you are and what you’re doing.

⏳ From The Archives

A hand-picked classic HighExistence article.

How to Let Go of Anger: Seneca’s 16 Stoic Techniques

It’s hard to admit, but I never used to know how to let go of anger properly.

As someone who considers themselves “spiritual,” I hid this realization from myself for a long time.

Spiritual people tend to act as if they are anger-phobic even if they don’t claim to be with their words. The spiritual mind is typically full of such incongruities, and if we walk the spiritual path with wisdom our aim should include the noticing of such delusions and blind spots. Without mindfulness there can be no change.

But this is not always easy, and sometimes we fall prey to spiritual bypassing: that is we use spirituality as tool to avoid confronting reality and our own psyche, to push our shadow further into the darkness rather than illuminate and alter it’s icy grip on our life.

One of the main reasons my lack of knowing how to let go of anger was invisible to me for so long was because I didn’t act out my rage with violent intent. My pre-frontal cortex, thank God, prevented me from hitting people or smashing up the house.

Instead, my anger would leak out like a noxious gas—hard to notice, but still toxic to myself and those around me. While my anger was not explicitly noticeable behaviorally, it was certainly a felt phenomena by those whose company I shared. I have irreparably damaged relationships because I did not know how to let go of anger effectively.

Even when you have an inkling that you may have a problem, it’s still a sour pill to swallow. Nobody wants to think of themselves as angry. Nobody wants to think of themselves as someone who struggles to regulate their emotions. When I started seeing how much of a slave I was to my anger, I felt defected. But I also felt motivated to overcome it.

The biggest myth about letting go of anger is that only certain anger-prone people experience it. Seneca the legendary Stoic philosopher, believed that anger does not discriminate between character types at all:

​[Continue Reading]

🎬 Endnote

I hope you enjoyed this issue of Down The Rabbit Hole. Feel free to reply and tell me what you think.

Want to help spread the word?

I love sharing these gems of wisdom and wonder with you each week. If you love receiving them and want to help me spread the word, here is one quick way you can do that:

Forward this email to one friend.

That's it. It will take 5 seconds and will help us spread the good vibes and reach more people. I appreciate you.

With Wonder,

Mike Slavin

P.S. Here’s the ⚡️ bonus bolt: Michael Caine’s Life Philosophy: Use the difficulty. Watch it here.