When we pause fully during our hectic lives to take stock of what is happening all around us, while dropping our filters of preconceptions, we will see that everything is inherently a miracle—including us! Both the microscopic and the immense life forms are all creations of a spectacular dance of the intricate processes of the universe. A tulip is endowed with the magical ingredients of nature and is no less magnificent than the great blue whale navigating the vast oceans. The earth’s atmosphere, with its wild changes, is imbued with miraculous ingredients to sustain life. A blade of grass is the working of sensational forces to give it a body and its life cycle.

Every living creature is the culmination of eons that formed it inexorably through time. An emerald-throated hummingbird, with its astonishing gracefulness and staggering aerial feats, is another of nature’s miracles. The horse languishing in the meadow, a single snowflake, a cumulous cloud drifting in the light of a late summer afternoon, the trumpeter swan gliding on a shimmering lake in spring, silvery cascades spilling over sculptured rocks in the mountains, and a great redwood tree—all are miraculous expressions on this mote in space called Earth!

Now let’s explore you and me. We humans often get caught up in the chaotic demands for our survival. The truth is we are here for a short time, probably less than a century. Our existence is a flash in cosmic time. Astounding biological and chemical phenomena created us out of the elements of the universe. This unto itself is enough to send us into a state of wonder. We are part of the miracle called life. We can breathe, eat, see, talk, hear, and feel the endless waves of the world racing through our body. When we meditate, relax, walk in nature, and focus our thoughts on uplifting images, we are aligning ourselves to our natural rhythm of life.

Life is a gift for us to experience and explore, with all its vicissitudes and challenges, with all its mysteries and inexplicable happenings. We are here to discover who we are. This takes courage, focus, and determination. We are easily distracted by the more superficial trappings of everyday living. Despite how we direct our destiny, we are always learning about who we are and how we operate in the complexity of the world. We are a work in progress, a ceaselessly evolving wonder that is unduplicated anywhere. It is imperative that we act as the champion of who we are. We need to remain vigilant stewards on a daily basis.

Every morning we are reborn to set forth on a new adventure. Life created us, endowing us with certain features that allow us to interact with the forces of nature. When we love this dreamlike existence, we get closer to our spirit, the part of us that is mystical and deathless. When we love the world with all of its underpinnings and wild changes, we find ourselves in a timeless place of wonder…like a child enthralled with the moment.

We humans often become bogged down by the mundanity of survival and day-to-day living. Our perspectives narrow and keep us hanging out on the surface of things, floating like driftwood on the tides. We take things for granted, especially our own lives. We lose contact with our deeper self. We forget what exists beneath the surface, the roots entangled endlessly with the great mystery of which we are an eternal part. We forget we are components of the stars, a living entity shaped over eons into what we are today.

Finding the deep inner connection to the Divine presence and loving this experience called us is the only route to take. Everything else is a form of impeding the flow of the natural expression of life. We humans can fill our minds with dark thoughts that uproot our love of life. Yes, there are events and situations in the world that are terrible, causing an avalanche of despair to roll over us. There is duality in the world. But we must use and develop our higher consciousness to help us navigate toward an inner sanctuary of serenity that lives in our souls. There is an undimmed light in everyone’s soul. Shine this light upon the world!

We must use our positive focus and creative action to support us in our journey through this world. We must use our consciousness to remember the greater truth about our momentary life. Whenever we lament about who we should have been or what we could have done or why we were born into the conditions of our existence, we are diluting our purity and freedom to love life and behold the abundance of miracles surrounding us everywhere!

We can love life daily simply through the attitude we cultivate and perpetuate. Let’s take a deep breath of air, letting it fill our lungs, and then let it go by releasing the need to control everything. Then allow our body to feel the energy of gratitude and appreciation. In doing this we feel our oneness with all living things, realizing in our consciousness that we have landed here in this dream called life as a result of inconceivable powers who loved us enough to create us.

Neal Grace is a Marin-based author-poet, whose latest book Fresh Eyes on the World: Making Life a Spectacular Journey is published by Grizzly Peak Press. Neal Grace.com

If I could teach you one thing, it would be to remember to breathe during moments of peace. Then remember to breathe during moments of chaos. Focus calmly on the air entering and leaving the body.

Be careful, as this moment will happen only once. Rock balancing reminds you to use this moment wisely. Like most meditation practices, rock balancing is about the power of the breath.

We experience a state of physical and mental clarity whenever we stop to simply breathe for a few moments. This state of being is mindful ness, reached by quieting the booming voice of the ego to listen to the true voice of our soul as it interacts with the wisdom of the earth.

Rock balancing is a form of the soul’s inter action with nature. It requires patience and focus, which makes it a powerful form of moving meditation and mindfulness. Since this practice cannot be rushed, it invites you to connect with the present moment. After all, everything that ever happened in the history of time has led you to this moment.

Practice the Seven Keystones of Rock Balancing

Through countless hours of balancing, I have found that all rock balances embody a set of principles. By following these seven keystones of rock balancing, you can tap into the flow of energy that surrounds us all in every moment:

1. Breathe: First you must experience how the breath connects you with the energy of each moment. Discover your true power, one breath at a time. Throughout this process be sure to bring your attention back to the breath.
2. Opportunity: As you select rocks and start to balance them, discover what your internal fears are and how to overcome them to unlock your abundant potential. Failure is a discovery process.
3. Believe: In my experience of teaching others how to balance rocks, 95 percent of people say “I can’t” before they even pick up a rock and try. By switching your internal mindset to “I can” before receiving external validation, your positive actions begin to manifest what was previously labeled “impossible.”
4. Balance: As you engage in the physical movements of balancing, you will enhance your connection with the earth. A balanced rock creates a balanced mind, body, and soul.
5. Limits: Reconsider what your true limits are. When you think you’re done, try to add just one more rock. Then maybe a few more. Be careful not to get caught up in the “just one more” mindset. If you do, you will never be satisfied. A finished rock balance is simply the point at which you feel happy and content with yourself.
6. Release: In the circle of life, everything that is created will eventually be destroyed. Letting go is one of the hardest things to do, but it must be done. Knocking down your balance—despite the hours or even days it took to create—is an essential part of this process. The more you release, the easier it becomes. You will likely find that being free from the past allows you to move toward the future in peace.
7. Evolve: I believe rock balancing can help change the way you see the world and your role in it. Each moment affects the next one. By doing something you believed impossible, you can discover how to evolve into your true self and manifest your dreams.

These seven keystones of rock balancing are designed to shift your perspective on what is possible within yourself. No one can do this but you. My intention is to give you the tools required to succeed at this art form, as well as experience its wider impact on your life.

You might balance your first rock and then go wild sharing this gift with others (like I did). Or perhaps you keep your insights to yourself as you start to incorporate this art form into your daily meditation practice. Of course, you might not even touch a rock, but one of these sentences resonated with you at exactly the right moment.

Whatever the case may be, this practice will help you transform stress into clarity. Every moment is a fresh start, including this one. Peace to you!

Travis Ruskus is a professional rock balancer, artist, and meditation instructor who lives and works in San Francisco, teaching rock balancing to adults and children as a meditative practice. TravisRuskus.com

Ihad a friend who—even while attending an ultra-religious high school—began to gamble. He would sneak out at odd times, as if under some mysterious spell, to go bet on horses, blackjack, anything at all. Later he discovered that he had had an uncle (whom he had never met) who was an incorrigible gambler. The uncle had died young and apparently never finished his game. My friend seemed to have picked up his hand!

All of us carry the imprint of our ancestors, their wisdom as well as their pain. It’s part of being in the human family. For years I ran from this truth. I got the willies when I thought of the trouble in my bloodline and didn’t want anything to do with it. Now I am learning to face my ancestors—and by this I mean all who have gone before me, like my brother and sister who died young. I am learning to call them by name, honor them, and even ask them to be my allies.

Throughout our lives we store thoughts, emotions, and past memories under the floorboards of our conscious mind. And not only our own, but also the stored material of our parents and grandparents lives beneath the surface of our awareness, in what I call the ancestral realm. Even though they are dead and gone from this world, our ancestors’ strong feelings and experiences—whatever they were—still have a vibration and a gravitational pull. This pull affects us.

Sometimes we don’t realize that the strong impulses we feel are really reiterations of patterns set in motion long before we came around. Sometimes these impulses are high minded—like the pull I feel to give to charity, read dense books, listen to classical music. But other impulses take me and those around me downhill—like bouts of anger, gloominess, or ennui. Are they mine alone? I wonder. Or am I continuing some unresolved pattern of those who came before me?

So what is inheritance? The exciting new field of epigenetics speaks to this question, giving us a biological basis for understanding why we may seem to carry more than our own individual inclinations. Epigenetics demonstrates that dramatic environmental events and traumatic stresses can make enduring changes to our molecular biology. These changes not only stick in us, but can show up in our children and grandchildren, as well.

Extreme stresses don’t change our DNA, the basic structure of our genes, but they can affect how genes behave, or are “expressed” in the body. Chemical changes in the coating on our chromosomes, called methylation, make our genes more or less sensitive to the body’s messages, in effect turning relevant genes off and on. (Hence, the field of epigenetics: “epi”—on or above—our genes.)

The relatively new science of epigenetics shows that a person can carry the imprint of their parents, grandparents, and even great grandparents’ social history. Let’s say your grandparents lived through a period of extreme poverty, or they were displaced by war, or experienced racial persecution. Their descendants—you and your siblings and even your children—may show propensities to similar stress responses, both physical and psychological. Sometimes the similarities between generations are uncanny.

I learned to appreciate epigenetic findings through animal studies. In one famous study at Emory University, mice were exposed to a chemical called acetophenone—a smell akin to cherry blossoms—and then received an electric shock to their paw. In true Pavlovian style, the mice became fearful and froze whenever they came into the presence of the smell, even when they received no shock. More importantly, their offspring—even the grandpups of the original mice who had never met their grandparents or been exposed to the smell or shock—showed panic in the presence of acetophenone. The hereditary transmission of this environmental information, researchers said, was the result of epigenetics.

There are also amazing human studies emerging from decades-long research into the survivors and descendants of traumatic history. One well-documented example is the Dutch “Hunger Winter” of 1944-45, when the Nazis cut off deliveries of food and other vital supplies. It was expected that the children born from mothers who were pregnant at the time would be affected—researchers knew that starvation in the womb led to metabolic
disorders. But the surprise came later, in the 1990s, when the grandchildren of those starving mothers also were found to have higher rates of obesity and heart disease.

Epigenetic research is still new, and skeptics abound. Most important for our discussion is the approach taken by many scientists who say that even if it is true that trauma effects epigenetic changes, we always have the capacity to work with our biological realities. Knowing what our forebears went through helps us to better understand ourselves and decide on positive responses to our trauma legacies. These days, even if we have not inherited photos or stories about our ancestors, we can go to online ancestry registries to get help.

Whether your grandparents suffered in the Great Depression or from Jim Crow laws or the Nazi persecution, the psychological burdens of a family’s historical traumas often fall to the most sensitive ones of the new generation. And when we inherit such legacies, science tells us, we may be more susceptible to traumatic stresses that occur in our own lives.

Awareness is key. Although we cannot change past events, we do have the power to transform our future. Knowing the trials our ancestors endured helps us. So does reflecting on and harvesting their positive resources. Every lineage has good qualities, too, tangible gifts that you can build on—such as musical ability, mechanical knowhow, emotional resilience, generosity toward others, faith in Spirit, even the love of food!

It is also in our best interest to understand how overwhelming life events can leave a residue in our lives and those of the ones who come after us. When we have a grasp of how current and also intergenerational trauma show up we can more easily identify when we are off-balance, triggered, or feeling stressed. Then we can recalibrate with extra amounts of self-care and self-compassion.

Throughout years of my own research as a psychologist and community leader, I have found that trauma has at least four central hallmarks. These four characteristics are shared in varying degrees by trauma survivors the world over. They not only affect individuals who experience extreme stresses, they can also travel through generations.

At the core of trauma in all its many forms is Dissociation, the natural and even lifesaving mechanism by which a person splits off from reality both emotionally and mentally. In the moment of crisis, this walling off of awareness may allow us to continue to function. But in the long term, we risk becoming increasingly disconnected from ourselves and others. If we deaden ourselves to our own pain, we will also deaden ourselves to the pain of others.

Hyper-arousal is a state of intense activation and vigilance in which the stress hormones that once helped us respond to life-threatening danger now remain permanently elevated, reshaping both our physiology and our thought processes. We are easily triggered by any perceived threat. We are reactive rather than reflective. Physiologically, we become programmed to see danger rather than opportunities.

Isolation is the third hallmark of trauma. In the aftermath of overwhelming events, it is natural to pull back from others so that we can dedicate our energy to the work of recovery. But prolonged isolation can perpetuate the sense that we do not need anyone, that no one can understand or help us. Less permeable to new information and the views of others, our traumatic memories become fixed and inflexible. We become more resistant to change, less open to new opportunities for growth.

The final hallmark of trauma is Repetition: the paradoxical but well-documented tendency of people who have survived extreme stress to find or recreate situations reminiscent of their original trauma. The survivors themselves often struggle to identify the source of such uncanny reiterations of behaviors and even historical events. Trauma has blunted their conscious awareness of the magnitude of their own wounds. Whether survivors recreate their trauma situation to gain comfort, mastery, or resolution, this pattern remains unconscious and so yields little but further pain.

Living in today’s tumultuous world at the cusp of a new decade, it’s not too much of a stretch to say that most of us are living with some form of trauma. Without even touching our ancestral legacies, just to be alive in our own time, we have to navigate huge stresses: barrages of information, news alerts, social media, and family and work stresses—all while moving at high speed.

In addition, our moment in history carries its own unique traumas. Whether you are living in California, confronted by the very real threat of wildfires, or in the South or Midwest where flooding has become a norm, or are healing from the trauma of mass shootings in Pennsylvania, Florida, or Nevada: You are not alone. All of us are waking up to some form of unprecedented threat in the environments around us.

As we move toward 2020, with all of the world’s woes, it’s easy to get numb (dissociate) or fall prey (by isolating ourselves or getting hyper-aroused) to the overwhelming events of our day.

But we can choose to be warriors!

Being a warrior today means to stay awake to what we are carrying from the past and what is before us in the present. It means to cultivate tools for self-care so that we stay embodied and calm. Yoga, meditation, walking, singing, gardening, swimming are all proven to increase self-regulation and maximize our health and vitality. Sharing ideas, thoughts, dreams, and, yes, our deep fears and stresses with trusted others is also critical to surmounting today’s stresses. Taking positive action by joining together with others to volunteer, raise money for worthy causes, vote and help others to do so all help us to transform the darkness in our world, and capitalizes on the positive traits and resources that our families have given us.

When we are resourced—that is, when our cup is full—we are far more likely to add wisdom and clarity to the world around us, rather than adding to the chaos and confusion.

We are powerful beings. We may carry within ourselves the residue of past pain, and we must transform it by being awake to it. But let’s not forget that we also carry within ourselves the cumulative effect of our ancestors’ wisdom, resilience, and strength. Through awareness, self-care, and energizing the parts of ourselves that are healthy and positive, we can shape who we are and what we pass down to our own children. As Dr. Rachel Yehuda, one of my traumatology gurus, says, “Feel empowered, because science has shown us that you can change a lot of what you don’t like, and override a lot of what you can’t change.”

Our ancestors may not have been able to imagine living in times such as our own. But I like to imagine that our bright and wise ancestors are behind us, supporting our efforts. I regularly invoke my ancestors’ and teachers’ wisdom and good humor, their care for us, and their good wishes for our world.

What are the best qualities in your family lineages that you can bring forward for yourself and the world? What resilience and smarts do you have within yourself to share with others who may be hurting?

As we approach the new decade, let’s see with 20/20, looking back to transform our past legacies in our favor—and looking forward to bring awareness to the future, so that we can be warriors for good!

Rabbi Tirzah Firestone, PhD, is a Jungian psychotherapist who teaches nationally on ancestral healing and the common boundary between ancient Jewish heritage and modern psychology. This essay is adapted from her book
Wounds of Wisdom: Healing Intergenerational Jewish Trauma, from Adam Kadmon Books/Monkfish. TirzahFirestone.com

By exploring the ways in which the Divine Feminine lives in all of us, we can reclaim our wild creativity. A miraculous event unfolds when we throw the lead of our personal story into the transformative flames of creativity. Our hardship is transmuted into something golden. With that gold we heal ourselves and redeem the world. As with any spiritual practice, this creative alchemy requires a leap of faith. When we show up to make art, we need to first get still enough to hear what wants to be expressed through us, and then we need to step out of the way and let it.

We must be willing to abide in a space of not knowing before we can settle into knowing. Such a space is sacred. It is liminal, and it’s numinous. It is frightening and enlivening. It demands no less than everything, and it gives back tenfold.

There is a vital connection between creativity and mysticism. To engage with the creative impulse is to agree to take a voyage into the heart of the Mystery. Creativity bypasses the discursive mind and delivers us to the source of our being. When we allow ourselves to be a conduit for creative energy, we experience direct apprehension of that energy. We become a channel for grace. To make art is to make love with the sacred. It is a naked encounter, authentic and risky, vulnerable and erotically charged.

The muse rarely behaves the way we would like her to, and yet every artist knows she cannot be controlled. Artistic self-expression necessitates periods of quietude in which it appears that nothing is happening. Like a tree in winter whose roots are doing important work deep inside the dark earth, the creative process needs fallow time. We have to incubate inspiration.

We need empty spaces for musing and preparing, experimenting and reflecting. Society does not value its artists, partly because of the apparent lack of productivity that comes with the creative life. This societal emphasis on goods and services is an artifact of the male drive to erect and protect, to engineer and execute, to produce and control. Art begins with receptivity.

Every artist, in a way, is feminine, just as every artist is a mystic. And a political creature. Making art can be a subversive act, an act of resistance against the deadening lure of consumption, an act of unbridled peacemaking disguised as a poem or a song or an abstract rendering of an aspen leaf swirling in a stream.

The part of our brains with which we navigate the challenges of the everyday world is uneasy in the unpredictable sphere of art making. We cannot squeeze ourselves through the eye of the needle to reach the land of wild creativity whilst saddled to the frontal cortex, whose job it is to evaluate external circumstances and regulate appropriate behavior.

Creativity has a habit of defying good sense. I am not arguing, however, that he intellect has no place in the creative enterprise. The most intelligent people I know are artists and musicians. Their finely tuned minds are always grappling with some creative conundrum, trying to find ways to translate the music they hear in the concert hall of their heads into some intelligible form that others can grasp and appreciate.

What a creative life demands is that we take risks. They may be calculated risks; they may yield entrepreneurial fruits, or they may simply enrich our own lives. Creative risk taking might not turn our life upside down but, rather, might right the drifting ship of our soul.

When we make ourselves available for the inflow of Shakti (feminine energy), we accept not only her generative power but also her ability to destroy whatever stands in the way of our full aliveness. You do not always have to suffer for art. You are not required to sacrifice everything for beauty. The creative life can be quietly gratifying. The thing is to allow ourselves to become a vessel for a work of art to come through and allow that work to guide our hands.

Once we do, we are assenting to a sacred adventure. We are saying yes to the transcendent and embodied presence of the holy.

Mirabai Starr writes creative non-fiction and contemporary translations of sacred literature. She taught philosophy and world religions for 20 years at the University of New Mexico near where she lives. Known for her gift of making timeless wisdom accessible to contemporary seekers, she is the author of several books, including Caravan of No Despair and Wild Mercy: Living the Fierce and Tender Wisdom of the Women Mystics (Sounds True). MirabaiStarr.com.

Fat. We all have it, and some have more than others. Those of us with more have to deal with certain negative stereotypes that society attributes to fat people. This is a result of diet culture, a set of beliefs that equate thinness with goodness, beauty, and health, and claims that being thin is directly tied to a person’s worth. It asserts that thin bodies are ideal in terms of health, attraction, sexuality, and morality, and that fat bodies are the opposite, deserving of oppression and mistreatment. As with rape culture, the insidious nature of diet culture permeates every aspect of our common experience.

Like many millennials, I take issues of social justice very seriously. But even in the most open-minded company of my peers I am still confronted with fat phobia. Anti-fatness is so embedded that it is often not recognized as a bias. Harvard’s Implicit Bias test found that 75% of people showed a preference for thin over fat people. When asked to self-report, 40% of participants said they had no bias about weight. We are subconsciously influenced by diet culture far more than we think.

Addressing these ingrained biases is hard work, requiring an uncomfortable level of vulnerability and self-reflection. Here are three widespread assumptions that are worth another look.

Fat is a bad word.

Fat is a neutral term that has been given a negative connotation. The same way I describe myself as short, brunette, or pale, I describe myself as fat. At which point I am often exhorted, “No! Don’t say that. You are beautiful!” Even with good intention, it assumes that being fat and beautiful are mutually exclusive. I know I’m beautiful. I also know I am fat, and your telling me that I’m not reveals more about your bias than it does my beauty.

When I describe myself as fat, I celebrate myself. It is important for me to own terms and create community around them. I’m a proud member of the chub rub club; the fatmily; the gothiccs. I have a fan that reads “fat bitch” and a pin that says, “Ask me about my fat girl agenda.” I’m not afraid of the word, and I don’t want you to be, either.

Fat is an indication of ill health.

Many people assume that fat people are unhealthy. But we know better—health looks different for every person. There are plenty of fat people who run, practice yoga, lift weights, with ideal cholesterol numbers and great blood pressure. Fat people are continually subjected to scrutiny and commentary about their health from strangers. Assessing someone’s health based on body size is impossible, and probably not your business.

A fat little secret no one tells you is that we can dance, skate, run marathons, hike, and rock climb with the best of them. If you want to know what my body is capable of, you’re going to have to get to know me. And try not to look surprised when I bust into the splits.

All fat people want to be thin/are trying to lose weight.

Diet culture has brainwashed us into believing that thinness is the ultimate goal. Telling someone they have lost weight is considered a compliment, but you might be commenting on something they have no control over. Imagine telling someone they look great as a result of chemotherapy or an eating disorder.

Try focusing your compliments on something other than their body. Praise their character, kindness, or energy, or focus on something that was clearly their choice, like that quirky necklace or those awesome boots. And don’t assume every fat person is unhappy with their body. There are plenty of fat people who feel sexy, beautiful, and happy. We don’t all want to be thin, but we all want to be treated with the same respect.

Does your weight reflect your passions or your interests? Does the number on your scale tell the story of who you really are? Your weight is the least interesting thing about you. So why would you use it to define me? Don’t let diet culture brainwashing get in the way of getting to know an incredible person.

Think about the displeasure, shame, or frustration you may have with your body, and ask yourself why you feel that way. Does the soft belly that protects your organs or provides a comfy headrest for a beloved pet deserve to be treated with disgust? No. Why not embrace your body as it is and thank it for everything it does for you instead?

Diversity in body size is a beautiful and natural thing. Fat is simply another part of being human. When we take the time to examine our assumptions, we will begin to end the mindless war on fat. It’s time to make peace with all of the beautiful bodies in the world, including our own.

Zoë Brian is a queer fat activist, diet culture dropout, and scale smasher from Kansas City, Kansas. She received her BA in biology from Smith College and her MSc in equality studies from University College Dublin. Her thesis — “It’s Not Over ‘til the Fat Lady Sings: Fat Representation in Popular Music Videos From 2008-2018.”

Last week I participated in the Global Climate Strike in San Francisco with my children. All around me people of all ages bonded in a shared experience, staring at the unfolding catastrophe that is climate change. We felt connected to people all around the world. Good will and poignant emotions ran high.

As we marched along with other mothers and children, I reflected upon climate change and our human response to stress. We are biologically programmed to respond to stress for our survival. When stressed we are flooded with hormones like cortisol that support a “fight or flight” response. However, we are also neurohormonally wired to “tend and befriend,” or to respond to stress with “prosocial” strengthening of bonds. We women are particularly programmed this way.

The Feminine Response to Stress

This so-called feminine stress response is mediated, in large part, by the hormone oxytocin. And while it is true that women tend to have higher oxytocin levels (estrogen can stimulate its release), men produce it too. Oxytocin has a calming, soothing effect on our bodies: It lowers cortisol levels, blood pressure, anxiety, and pain. On an interpersonal level, it promotes bonding and feelings of connectedness, trust, and friendliness, along with our ability to respond to facial expressions and other nonverbal cues. It decreases fear and mistrust in the “fight or flight” center of the brain, the amygdala, and promotes an overall sense of well-being.

Evolution favors those who behave in ways that support survival. To survive infancy a baby requires a connected, nurturing parent. A mother and infant will have a better chance at survival (this was particularly the case with our ancestors) if they are connected to others. Interestingly, in some settings (unfamiliar surroundings, navigating “us vs. them”), a surge of oxytocin can create aggressive protective behavior. Think mama bear.

I wonder what “selective pressures” climate change will exert on our evolution? Will those who are skilled in connection, healthy self-soothing and fierce protection of that which we love have a survival advantage?

That is unanswerable but studies show that when people are faced with a psychosocial stressor, those with higher oxytocin levels who also have social support engage in higher level problem-solving skills. They employ more effective coping strategies like humor, support seeking, and cognitive distraction. They are less likely to display depressive symptoms. As we face the certainty that we, collectively, have some problem-solving to do, I am curious how we can raise our oxytocin levels. How can women, with our natural physiological capacity to “tend and befriend” lead in cultivating connectedness and with it, adaptive responses to stress?

How Is Oxytocin Stimulated?

Oxytocin is released under many circumstances, both pleasurable and intense. Most famously it is associated with labor and childbirth. It is oxytocin that is responsible for the uterine contractions that move newborns out into the world. It’s also released when a mother feels her baby’s skin on hers and causes milk to flow while nursing. And of course oxytocin is released under the same intimate circumstances that prompted childbirth in the first place—cuddling, kissing, lovemaking—these all enhance our oxytocin. Orgasms flood the body with oxytocin.

We also have special touch receptors on our skin that lead to oxytocin release. It has been found that light stroking, placing a hand on someone’s arm, receiving a foot massage, and the sensation of warmth (like a warm blanket, a warm bath, or a hot water bottle) all stimulate oxytocin release. So does giving and receiving a hug. Petting a dog raises oxytocin levels in both the human and the dog—and when accompanied by eye gazing oxytocin levels increase as much as 300 percent.

Eye gazing between humans is powerful too. We humans are social creatures. Sustaining eye contact, particularly with someone who is attentive and who we care about feels good. Gratitude raises oxytocin, as does gift-giving. Eating a nourishing meal (with full mindful awareness of the sensual pleasure in it) releases oxytocin, while sharing that meal further enhances its benefits.

How might we bring more touch, generosity, and connection into our lives? We can offer to walk and pet a friend’s dog. We might give our child a massage at bedtime, or give our partner a massage in loving appreciation, maybe even with sensual connection. We can learn to start work meetings with an expression of gratitude. We can offer hugs. By consciously bringing our full selves into a listening relationship, with eye contact and engaged body language, we actively raise oxytocin.

Climate Crisis—A Call to Women

While opportunities abound for all of us to cultivate the “feminine” ability to connect, perhaps women share a unique ability to lead at this stressful planetary moment. With our innate tendency to befriend we can work toward dismantling the social constructs that lead us to perceive members of our human family as other.

With our natural desire to tend we can lean into repairing relationships within communities and with the natural world. As we navigate the collective eye of the needle that is climate change, the feminine art of tending and befriending will be key to our resilience. It may also serve in our evolution.

Anna O’Malley, MD, practices integrative family and community medicine in West Marin at CoastalAlliance.net. She founded and directs the Natura Institute for Ecology and Medicine in the Commonweal Garden in Bolinas, exploring the medicine of connection to ourselves, each other, and the earth. NaturaInstitute.org

Imagine having no fear that another woman could take something away from you. Imagine loving yourself completely, and not having to compare yourself to others to see your own gifts and value. Imagine how each of your relationships would feel without any hint of competition, jealousy, or envy—just the goodness and the love.

Is this a serious proposition? If so, how would one possibly get there—or at least closer to this ideal?

While jealousy and envy are an unquestionable part of life, they can also be
powerful transformational tools. With our eyes open, we can acknowledge those emotions, understand why they are there, and bring compassion into the places where we feel shortchanged, left out, or threatened. Our heartfelt exploration of some of the most difficult human experiences can be one of the greatest catalysts for growth and healing.

One way to become masters of our jealousy and envy is to cultivate compersion—the ability to wholeheartedly participate in the happiness of others and feel sympathetic joy for them, even when their happiness does not involve or benefit us directly. I will dive in more deeply to the concept of compersion in a few moments, but first, it is important to explore what jealousy and envy are, and how they affect us.

Although jealousy and envy go hand-inhand, they are distinct emotions. Jealousy comes from the fear, real or imagined, that something we value could be taken away. Take the stereotypical example of a romantic blowup involving the suspicion or discovery of infidelity, or the discomfort we might feel when our partner flirts or dances with somebody else. Envy, on the other hand, is the bitter feeling we have toward a person who has something we want, but do not have—such as money, power, talent, good looks, status, a romantic relationship, etc. Envy is often camouflaged by other emotions: It’s a clenching of the jaw when we witness a colleague get the promotion we have been yearning for; a subtle tension when our attractive friend receives more attention than we do at the bar; a pit in our stomach when we say, “Congratulations on your marriage!”—but have not been on a date in a year. We might be happy for them at one level, but envy reminds us of what we lack by bringing pain into an otherwise joyful situation. Because of its insidious nature, envy is likely to be denied, repressed, and repackaged as judgment. Jealousy and envy might be distinct, but they both stem from the idea that more for you is less for me. Also, they both result in making us feel disconnected from, and sometimes suspicious of, other people.

While these are universal issues, jealousy and envy play a particularly pervasive role in keeping women divided. From a young age, we learn to assess our own personal success in comparison to other women. Who was the most attractive girl in school? The most popular? The most talented? Just as you most likely remember those girls, you probably know the unspoken pecking order in your current workplace and social circles. Everywhere we look, the media reinforces the message that all women are, like it or not, in a beauty and success contest where more for you is less for me.

The result? We disconnect ourselves from our unique sense of value. Our self-esteem and happiness fluctuate like the stock exchange, at the mercy of external appraisals. Even our dearest friends can intrinsically become our rivals, even if covertly so. Jealousy and envy are the invisible walls that keep us separate from one another, and prevent us from becoming fully empowered—individually and collectively.

How can jealousy and envy be transformed into compersion?

The good news is that many people have already given serious consideration to this question. For example, transpersonal psychologist Jorge Ferrer has suggested the cultivation of compersion as an antidote to jealousy and competition. He points to Buddhism as one of the main spiritual traditions to have brought forward this concept. Indeed, Buddhists have long considered sympathetic joy (referred to as mudita in Sanskrit) to be one of the four qualities of the enlightened person—the other three being loving kindness (metta), compassion (karuna), and equanimity (upeksha). In their eyes, mudita remedies the illusory separateness between self and others and can therefore be a powerful vehicle on the path to liberation.

A second group who consider sympathetic joy an ideal are consensually non-monogamous individuals—a designation that comprises polyamorists, swingers, folks in open relationships, and others who engage in concurrent intimate relationships with the knowledge and consent of all involved. These individuals take the unusual stance that jealousy should not rule their lives or relationship choices, and that selfless love can be cultivated in its place. For a consensually non-monogamous person, the experience of sympathetic joy for their partner when they intimately bond with someone else may be a source of pleasure, fulfillment, and connection—and it is something that can be cultivated. In fact, non-monogamists coined the word compersion in the early 1990s because they lacked an English word to designate their experience.

Just like the Buddhist experience of mudita, compersion can be cultivated in any context where jealousy or envy may arise—it is not restricted to intimate or romantic connections. Therefore, we can apply the lessons we learn in non-monogamous contexts to create more loving relationships and communities. Here are some of these lessons, inspired from my own research on compersion:

Make an ideological commitment. Take a personal stance about becoming a master of your jealousy and envy, rather than the other way around. A strong mental decision can go a long way in helping you stay the course when the road gets rough.

Validate, validate, validate. Do not be ashamed of your jealousy or envy: These are very normal emotions! Embrace and feel them with compassion. If possible, share your experience with someone you trust to be nonjudgmental: To be witnessed in this space will help soften the emotion as well as defuse the shame.

Understand what you are feeling and why. Use your jealousy and envy as giant flashlights to illuminate your deepest wounds and desires. Become a detective of your own emotional landscape: Where does the jealousy or envy arise from? Is it pointing to a painful trauma or wound, such as a fear of abandonment? What are your main jealousy or envy triggers? This information will help you become more intimate with yourself by letting you understand the sources of your discomfort more closely.

Turn competition into self-improvement. Competition can be used positively to fuel self-improvement. Use the clarity you are gaining about your jealousy or envy triggers as a motivational force to achieve the things you really want. What can you learn from some one you are jealous or envious of about how to fulfill your own needs and desires?

Bring love, generosity, and connection into the situation. While separateness breeds jealousy, connection breeds love and compersion. Create a sincere and intentional connection with the person you feel jealous or envious of; challenge yourself to connect with them personally, and to be generous with them. If you notice envy of a specific category of people, for example, “women who are more conventionally attractive than me,” pick someone who represents this group for you. If this is unattainable, offer an act of kindness to someone else instead, but with the same intentionality. It could be as simple as a small gift or compliment. This will shift your internal dynamic from being a victim to feeling empowered and generous in that space.

Mastering our jealousy and envy is not easy but it allows us to love more deeply and support one another in both our strengths and weaknesses—which ultimately makes all of us stronger. Compersion, or sympathetic joy, is the realization that more for you is more for me, because none of us are actually separate. It takes courage and perseverance to cultivate a radically loving life in this way, but in choosing to take those steps we hold the power to create a brighter reality for ourselves and others.

Marie Thouin is a local doctoral candidate at CIIS, where she conducts research on compersion in consensually non-monogamous relationships. Her work was featured in Elle magazine. She is also a dating coach, working with individuals of all genders and sexual/relationship orientations longing for richer and more enjoyable intimate lives. WhatIsCompersion.com.

How did I end up in front of a mirror sampling bridal dresses while single? It was my experiment to discover whether shopping for the iconic dress would remedy my breakup blues. It helped. I tried many things including floating in a sensory deprivation tank, vacationing in Bali, and nonstop crazy journaling. There may be 50 ways to leave your lover, but are there 50 ways to get over a lover leaving you? There are.

Many milestones in life celebrate union: first dates, moving in together, getting married, and having children. While weddings unite the community, most people scurry from the lovelorn. There are no sanctioned breakup ceremonies. The very things that lovers celebrate can cause heartache and longing for those without. When love is lost we feel lost—leaving us unexcited to celebrate Valentine’s Day or The Holidays. A wedding can make a heartbroken person feel ten times worse.

It’s important to find a way to commemorate the end of a relationship. You could tear a photo of you and your ex in half, take a dunk in the ocean, perform a grief circle ritual. The tactile, innocent, childlike part of yourself needs something tangible to let go. Not all our breakups are with lovers. Some are with friends, jobs, bosses, or family members.

Breakups can be especially hard on women because women are traditionally taught to link self-esteem with their relationship status. Sometimes when a first date starts well we find ourselves daydreaming about the wedding! This is crazy but it’s what we learn to do. Our culture overemphasizes being coupled and underemphasizes the gains of truly being ourselves again. Chances are that if the relationship ended there was a good reason—something of essence needed restoring. Now it’s time to reclaim your full self.

A relationship’s end can be the ultimate opportunity for spiritual growth if you can cultivate detachment and discover deeper alignment within yourself. When a girlfriend I was madly in love with broke up with me out of the clear blue I was crushed. Over time I learned to become less relationship focused. I began to do self-love mantras. I journaled in a healthy way about my emotions and learned to fall deeply in love with myself—the lover that will never abandon me. Through practicing self-awareness, discrimination, and conscious detachment I found self-love and stability in life.

Will I ever again have the crazy punch-drunk love I relished in my twenties and thirties? Who knows? But I know my self-esteem won’t fluctuate only to be crushed like autumn’s grapes. The harvest—of self-love—bestowed upon me is greater comfort. I am more thankful for what I experience in the oh-so essential now and am less fixated on the unknowable future.

In a breakup we grapple with losing the infinite prospects and fantasies of a conjugal future. This leaves us to build our future castles on our own solid ground. And yes, the protective moat may become a tad wider! Breakup is the time to do extreme self-care, to love yourself better then any other human possibly could. After my last painful breakup, I found that there were limited humorous books on the subject and even fewer that didn’t just involve straight couples’ divorces. So I wrote my own. When things fall apart, we reach for a fix to alleviate the pain. Here is a list of uplifting things to consider:

The Diary of You Keep a diary. Write all your thoughts, feelings, worries, and joys.

The Fever of Creation Find your art. Dive into an art project, gather with friends to make art, or join an art class.

The Geographic Cure Plan a killer solo travel or friend trip. Taking a journey gets you out of your routine and creates open space in your heart.

Go Bridal Dress Shopping (While Single). Either level with the store that it’s shopping therapy or make up a story that you are getting married. Be a princess for a day. Enjoy the glamor of your own beauty.

Float! Try a soothing float in a flotation pod. You float in warm womb-like water either silently in darkness or with soft light and music.

Make Your Breakup Playlist Choose epic self-love anthems like “The Greatest Love of All,” “My Way,” and “I Touch Myself.”

Make a Happy Basket Fill a basket with cards from friends and family, candles, herbal tea bags, mementos, incense/sage, etc. Pull it out any time you get the blues.

Tear a Picture in Half Tear a picture of you and your ex in half. Discard the half with your ex and keep the half that’s you somewhere you can view it. This gives you a tactile experience of letting go.

I didn’t buy that dress at the bridal shop but trying it on felt fantastic. I loved being princess for a day. Then I came home to myself. You don’t need 50 ways to get over a life transition. But I hope you will try one or two from the above list. The best is yet to come.

April Hirschman is a life coach and the author of Best Breakup Ever! Bouncing Back from Your Breakup with Humor and Dignity. Available on Amazon and in some independent bookstores. AprilHirschman.com

Love and relationships are not one-sizefits-all. Yet many of us assume that relationships should mostly look and work a certain way. Namely, that any good, serious, real, or healthy relationship “should” look roughly like this:

…You meet someone, and you find each other attractive. You start dating and eventually having sex. You both feel emotional attachment, a sense of romance, and you fall in love. At that point, you both stop flirting with, dating, and having sex with others. You start considering yourselves “a couple.” Then you move in together, blend finances, and get married. Your relationship stays that way until one of you dies.

Welcome to the Relationship Escalator, a powerful bundle of social norms that we all grow up marinating in. You might be riding the Escalator now. Or maybe you’ve longed for it, feeling incomplete without your “other half.” Maybe the traditional Relationship Escalator has always felt best and natural to you. Great!

But perhaps you’ve simply assumed that the Escalator is your only avenue to love, commitment, and support. Maybe you haven’t witnessed any other paths, or you’ve heard that they’re bad or too risky.

Or maybe the Escalator carries you away from authenticity and fulfillment. After all, it’s common for Escalator rides to end in bitterness, stagnation, or regret.

If your attempts to ride the Escalator don’t work out well, it’s easy to assume that you simply chose the wrong partner, or the wrong time. Or, you might take this as a personal failing, and think that there must be something wrong with you. That if only you were good, attractive, or skilled enough, the Escalator would surely bring you lifelong happiness and security.

Consider this: If the Escalator fails to make you happy, or if you never got to ride it, then maybe you, and the people you’ve loved, were not failures. Maybe the Relationship Escalator itself just doesn’t work so well for you.

Fortunately, you have options.

There are many ways to enjoy and share love, intimacy, sex, commitment, support, family, and fulfillment. But you’ll need to look beyond the Relationship Escalator to see most of them.

In my research into unconventional relationships, I’ve heard from thousands of people who have stepped off the Relationship Escalator in various ways. Quite often this departure leads to a better life. Of course, venturing off the Escalator also can end in heartbreak—but this risk exists both on and off the Escalator.

How do people step off the Relationship Escalator?

Some decide to stop requiring sex, romance, and/or deep emotional intimacy to be shared exclusively between two partners. There are several flavors of consensual nonmonogamy: polyamory, swinging, being “monogamish,” open relationships, and more. Spoiler: The part of consensual nonmonogamy that really tends to freak people out is not openness, but the consent (refusing to obscure the reality that a relationship is not exclusive).

Some people go solo and forego the merging that happens in Escalator relationships. They prioritize their autonomy and function as individuals regardless of their relationship status. Usually solos prefer not to live with or marry any intimate partner. They might prefer monogamy, or not. Solos often have deep and enduring committed relationships that go well beyond “casual.”

Some people don’t find sex and/or romance appealing or necessary. That’s fine; these things are not required to achieve emotional or physical intimacy. Ask anyone who is asexual or aromantic: Their love and relationships are quite real. On a related note, it’s also common for Escalator partners to peaceably maintain their relationship after the sex or romance wanes. Intimacy and commitment are never all about sex.

Intimate relationships need not be “always and forever” to be wonderful. A fling might change someone’s life. Or lovers might periodically circle back, like comets.

Your platonic friends might be your most important relationships. Just because you have sex with someone doesn’t necessarily make that connection more important.

Or maybe you don’t wish to have any intimate relationships at all—and that’s fine!

Embracing relationship diversity is important even if you decide that you do, after all, prefer the Relationship Escalator for yourself. This is about more than considering your own options. In the big picture, embracing relationship diversity is about making the world a friendlier, safer place for all kinds of love.

Safety matters. People who step off the Relationship Escalator face considerable stigma and extra risk. When you love differently, it can feel daunting to face the message (from others, and ingrained in your own psyche) that you’re doing love wrong. Plus, you might lose friends, community, family, housing, jobs, or worse.

So, if you think you don’t know people in unconventional relationships, consider that perhaps they fear your judgment. Are you telegraphing that there’s only one right way to love?

Consider how your everyday words and actions might convey that you accept and value relationship diversity — not as something special, but because diversity is normal. When you foster this safety, you may start to notice more relationship diversity among the people you encounter. That’s no coincidence.

Amy Gahran is a journalist and author based in Boulder, Colorado. She’s the author of the research-based book Stepping Off the Relationship Escalator: Uncommon Love and Life, available on Amazon, or OffEscalator.com

One morning my friend Lynn woke up and said to herself, “What if I didn’t have to work on myself today?” She lay there quietly in the morning light, without the usual thought structures of what she should do to be an okay person. Suddenly a great bolt of feeling moved through her, and she lay basking in the livingness and intelligence of the whole body. She got up and went about her day simply in relationship to everyone and everything. That day, she was laughing at herself thinking about how much money she would save on workshops and beauty products.

Many of us never question the feeling of being lacking in some way. We think this is just part of being human. The feeling defines our lives and drives our choices. And the forces of advertising are happy to exploit it. But the feeling Lynn enjoyed is accessible to all of us when we stop and question the sense of being “not quite there yet.” Who told us we were lacking?

The weight of religious culture has presented ordinary life as less than sacred, suggesting that the beauty, power, and intelligence of life lie somewhere beyond. For centuries, the ultimate life meant giving up sex and joining the monastery. If you were still in the village in family life, you were less. Women were less. Sex was less. The tangible conditions of life and our bodies and their natural relatedness have been denied. Therefore, we feel this sense of lack. But what if we were not actually lacking in any way, but just burdened by an outdated idea?

God and Sex are the two most powerful concepts in our language. The presumed separation between the two has vulgarized both and made them useless to our lives. I was born into a society that had fixed ideas about God, and very perverse ideas about Sex. The idea of God as “other” makes everybody miserable. The idea of heaven creates a hell out of this abundant paradise. Yet I have found that the word God can be used to refer to the supreme beauty and depthless wonder that is every day. This includes the vast harmony of this cosmos—but not if the cosmos is idealized as a vast controlling father-figure—imposing paranoia and obedience.

World history is rife with terrible things that have been done in the name of this three letter word. But rather than abandon it, we can purify it by bringing it down to earth. We can signify its power—that is alive as you, me, and all existence.

I also saw that Sex and its common expression around the world were reduced to vulgarity and at worse abuse—something sleazy, scarce, or disappointing. It was not the basis of an intelligent, sensitive human life, even though it was obvious to me that Sex was the basis of all life—Mother Nature’s means of putting us here. It is absurd to see how culture has been formed from the denial of this.

Modern culture inherited the old religious distinction between God (everything sacred and ineffable) and Sex (everything tangible and embodied). The belief that we’re lacking comes from the religious search for the sublime, as if it were not present in earthly life. The assumption is that we’re kicked out of Eden and wandering the wilderness. Yet God is on our trail. We’ve been bad, and someone is watching and judging. Who is it? And why are we tasked with the obsession with self-improvement—to somehow redeem ourselves and achieve perfection?

What if I were to tell you that you can participate in both God and Sex? Brought together into clear association, each purifies the other and both become useful to our lives. Life is Sex. Flowers are the Sex of plants. No matter how convoluted our mind becomes, we are still this condition.

But the search actively denies our inherent perfection, obliterating the mind’s ability to notice that it is a function of life and has no existence apart from it. We are never not “connected.” Reality doesn’t wait for the mind to acknowledge it.

Look at a tree. The sublime flourishing of life is already happening. The tree is utterly valid and beautiful just by being a tree, a perfect phenomenon of nature. Nothing needs to be added to it, although it will move through many changes in its natural lifecycle.

We too are part of this perfection. We are nature. You, just as you are right now, are the power of the cosmos, unfolding as pure intelligence and unspeakable beauty in the radiance of life. God and Sex are indeed one.

Dear reader, please try this: When you wake up tomorrow, say to yourself, “What if I didn’t have to work on myself in any way whatsoever? What would I be?” Try it out and see what happens. And then go for a walk in the garden and feel the breeze and the light on your face. Feel the touch of a friend. Or move and breathe in the sense of wonder that you are—also known as Yoga. Enjoying the power of the cosmos that you are. Not trying to become something, as if you are not.

Mark Whitwell is an international yoga teacher and the author of Yoga of Heart and The Promise. Rosalind Atkinson is a writer, activist, William Blake scholar, and yoga teacher. Together they are co-authors of a new book, God and Sex: Now We Get Both (available on Amazon).