⚡️ Enlightening Bolts

🥶 The Rise & Fall of The Wim Hof Empire: After being Wim Hof's most public proponent and doing his method for ten years, investigative journalist Scott Carney reveals the story he never wanted to tell about what he thinks might be the impending demise of the Wim Hof method. Watch it here.

🧘‍♂️The Way App by Henry Shukman: The modern update to the ancient path of meditation training. In a world filled with meditation apps with too many choices, The Way takes a simplified approach. Try it here.

👁 Wander With Wonder: Dom Francks appears on the Pathless Path Podcast to discuss wandering in natural settings without a specific plan, guided by intuition, to experience a radical shift in your state of being. Watch it here.

🎇 Image of The Week

“Though the empirical nature of tears is a composition of water, proteins, minerals, hormones, and enzymes, the topography of tears is a momentary landscape, transient as the fingerprint of someone in a dream. The accumulation of these images is like an ephemeral atlas.” Read more.

❤️ Offer Your Happiness

I'm consistently reminded of the value of kindness. Not a performative kindness that is done for the sake of being perceived as a good person or having attained some level of advanced spiritual status, but a gesture of good will towards humanity that benefits all involved. Deep meaning that erupts from this kind of heart-centered caring that enriches the lives of both the "donor" and "recipient."

It can be easy in our current day to get lost in transactional scorekeeping across our relationships. But there have, more than likely, been those who have treated you with kindness in moments where you didn't "deserve" it. You had nothing to offer them but they treated you with dignity and respect anyway.

These moments are shimmering with significance. I strive to show up in my relationships in such a way that those around me feel a sense of refuge from the harsh winds of life. That they are loved independent of what they can do for me. I believe this is the bedrock for truly enduring friendship.

I'm also reminded not to derive my sense of significance from the kindness I'm able to provide. This very easily slides into dynamics of people-pleasing that evaporate our sense of choice creating resentment where we should feel gratitude.

The truth is, kindness is never an obligation. It's an opportunity to plant beautiful seeds in our own lives and the lives of others. To sustain our ability to offer this to the world, we must remember to nourish ourselves and practice kindness inwardly.

This sentiment calls to mind this quote from Thich Nhat Hanh:

"The essence of loving kindness is being able to offer happiness. You can be the sunshine for another person. You can’t offer happiness until you have it for yourself. So build a home inside by accepting yourself and learning to love and heal yourself. Learn how to practice mindfulness in such a way that you can create moments of happiness and joy for your own nourishment. Then you have something to offer the other person.

If you have enough understanding and love, then every moment — whether it’s spent making breakfast, driving the car, watering the garden, or doing anything else in your day — can be a moment of joy."

1️⃣ Be That One Person

Reflect on these words from systems theorist R. Buckminster Fuller:

“Never forget that you are one of a kind. Never forget that if there weren't any need for you in all your uniqueness to be on this earth, you wouldn't be here in the first place. And never forget, no matter how overwhelming life's challenges and problems seem to be, that one person can make a difference in the world. In fact, it is always because of one person that all the changes that matter in the world come about. So be that one person.”

“If I ran a school, I'd give the average grade to the ones who gave me all the right answers, for being good parrots. I'd give the top grades to those who made a lot of mistakes and told me about them, and then told me what they learned from them.”

🤓 Learn This Word

Anecdoche: A conversation in which everyone is talking, but nobody is listening.

⏳ From The Archives

A hand-picked classic HighExistence article.

The Psychedelic Emotion: Why We Need More “Awe” In Everyday Life

I stood there with my toes in the sand gazing at the endless expanse of water.

I was a little boy and it was my first time seeing the ocean in person.

It gave me goosebumps. My jaw was left hanging wide open, stunned by what I was witnessing.

I was experiencing awe.

Awe is a profound self-transcendent feeling.

It is the wellspring of the mystical experiences through which religious traditions have emerged.

Keep reading this article and you might find yourself struck with awe before you finish.

I’m going to share an exercise with you that will help you tune into the awe-inspiring experiences all around you.

But before we dive, why is awe so important?

Astonishingly, we only began researching this emotion rigorously in 2003 and we are beginning to discover that awe carries with it powerful benefits that could help recenter a world off balance.

​[Continue Reading]

🎬 Endnote

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

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With Wonder,

Mike Slavin