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- 🌀🐇 #179 lucid dreaming, do great work, the forest is breathing
🌀🐇 #179 lucid dreaming, do great work, the forest is breathing
Plus Appreciate Life Like A Sunset
⚡️ Enlightening Bolts
🔮 The Magic of IFS: After a terminal cancer diagnosis, Derek Scott discusses the importance of the Internal Family Systems model for personal and collective healing. Watch it here.
💪 How To Do Great Work: Paul Graham outlines a process for doing great work across any field, emphasizing the importance of choosing work that aligns with your natural aptitude and interest, developing a habit of working on your own projects, and continuously pushing towards the frontiers of knowledge to identify and explore gaps. Read it here.
💤 Learn To Lucid Dream: Shape offers a lucid dreaming experience that allows you to awaken within your dreams, offering tools like audio guides, progress tracking, and a dream journal to explore the depths of your psyche. Try the app.
🎇 Image of The Week
“Nicknamed for its avian shape, the Seagull Nebula is an emission nebula on the night sky that is vast, spanning an angle over five times the diameter of the full moon and over 200 light years. Consisting of mostly red-glowing hydrogen gas, the Seagull Nebula incorporates some dust lanes and is forming stars. The peak over which this Seagull seems to soar occurs at Pinnacles National Park in California, USA. The featured image is a composite of long exposure images of the background sky and short exposure images of the foreground, all taken consecutively with the same camera and from the same location.” Read more.
📺 The Main Characters Yet To Debut
I find we often imagine the future using what's present.
We fail to factor the unexpected because, of course, then it would be expected.
But there's something I want to encourage you to leave room for:
The main characters yet to debut.
What do I mean?
There are significant individuals who will play an important role in the unfolding of your life's journey that you have yet to meet.
They aren't on your radar at all.
Some day they'll show up and at the time you likely won't even realize it.
The context in which you meet them can be completely mundane.
A casual dinner party. A trip to the cafe. An airplane seat.
They might become a business collaborator, a dear friend, or a romantic interest. Who knows?
We can't anticipate how they will fit into the plot but it will be significant.
These people exist, walking around right now, sharing this same globe.
It's just not time for you to discover them yet.
But you will.
And as you move through your days you might come to witness chance encounters as life auditioning new characters for your storyworld (and you for them).
I like this frame because it inspires curiosity and intrigue in situations that would otherwise feel very "normal."
But today could be the day you look back in 20 years and think "That was the day everything changed because that was they day I met..."
Or tomorrow.
Or the next day.
These plot twists are bound to happen.
There's no way around it.
So pay attention.
Binge watch your life with (at least) the same amount of interest as the shows you find captivating.
You've got a front-row seat to a story never told before in the history of the universe.
Sure it might rhyme with others but in its complete majestic detail, the life you are living is wholly, completely unique.
🌳 The Forest Is Breathing
Enjoy these words from the mouth of poet David Whyte:
“What do I do when I'm lost in the forest? Here's the answer that the elder gives. The elder says, Stand still. The trees ahead and bushes beside you are not lost. Stand still. What do I do when I'm lost in the forest? Stand still. The trees ahead and bushes beside you are not lost. Wherever you are is called “here.” And you must treat it as a powerful stranger. Must ask permission to know it and be known.
Listen. The forest breathes. It whispers, I have made this place around you. If you leave it, you may come back again, saying, here. Stand still. The forest knows where you are. You must let it find you.”
Watch him say it here.
👁 Psychedelic Education
The psychedelic renaissance is well under way. These substances have been clearly validated by science as a promising therapeutic modalitie but they are not without risks and they are certainly not a cure-all. Tricycle Day is a newsletter that will keep you up to date on cutting edge research as well as changes in legal policy. If you subscribe by clicking the button below, you help support Down The Rabbit Hole and keep these weekly newsletters free for all who want to receive them.
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🤓 Learn This Word
Livsnjutare: A Swedish word that refers to someone who loves life deeply.
⏳ From The Archives
A hand-picked classic HighExistence article.
Appreciate Life Like a Sunset: How Letting Go of Judgment Makes Life Easier
The most inspiring quote I’ve ever read comes from the late psychologist Carl Rogers.
Carl Rogers was an influential figure in psychology who worked to bring a more human touch to the field. He wanted to see psychological professionals apply more empathy and emotional authenticity to therapy, as opposed to using the cold and detached forms of psychological analysis which dominated his time.
The essay in which this quote is found is a reflection on what helped Rogers to communicate well with others. Rogers writes mainly about the attitudes he has brought to certain situations, and whether or not those attitudes facilitated good communication.
Although the quote discusses a certain attitude as he applies it to people, I have found that this is a beautiful attitude to bring to every aspect of life. When I can relate to life with this attitude I am able to be much more peaceful in the face of adversity, and I am able to be much more grateful for the good things in life.
The Dank Quote
Without further ado, here’s the quote from Rogers’ book A Way of Being:
“One of the most satisfying feelings I know — and also one of the most growth-promoting experiences for the other person — comes from my appreciating this individual in the same way that I appreciate a sunset. People are just as wonderful as sunsets if I can let them be. In fact, perhaps the reason we can truly appreciate a sunset is that we cannot control it. When I look at a sunset as I did the other evening, I don’t find myself saying, ‘Soften the orange a little on the right hand corner, and put a bit more purple along the base, and use a little more pink in the cloud color.’ I don’t do that. I don’t try to control a sunset. I watch it with awe as it unfolds. I like myself best when I can appreciate my staff member, my son, my daughter, my grandchildren, in this same way.”
— Carl Rogers
Life gets a lot easier when we can just let things be.
🎬 Endnote
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With Wonder,
Mike Slavin
