Eight Universal Truths.
Understanding our nature and life’s core truths make the inevitable ups and downs of living feel far less turbulent. Build your awareness around these axioms and your capacity to appreciate your unique experience is bound to expand.
You Are Exactly Where You Are Supposed To Be
“Remember that you are always exactly where you need to be, experiencing what you need to experience so that you can learn what you must learn in order to become the person you need to be to create everything you want for your life. Always.”
There is a very powerful teaching called “pre-birth choice” that suggests that prior to our current lifetime, we choose our set of circumstances. We choose our family, friends and foes. We choose our body, aches and pains. And we choose these circumstances knowing that we need to face them in order to transcend our physical, mental, emotional or spiritual limitations. For most, this is a difficult teaching to consider. Regardless of whether the notion is true, it’s hard to embrace the idea that we are our own makers.
An easier way of honoring our nonlinear paths and the messiness of life is to accept the universal truth that we are exactly where we are supposed to be. Like the quote above suggests, this truth is not a built-in excuse for lamenting about our hardships or a tool for placing blame. Rather, it’s a way of embracing our unique experience and all that it’s trying to show and teach us moment to moment. When we are students of our experiences, changing the trajectory of our life becomes less and less terrifying, and more and more inevitable; we begin to create the life we want to live without undue fear.
All Things Are Connected
“I understand that everything is connected, that all roads meet, and that all rivers flow into the same sea.”
This truth is very closely tied to the one above. What scientists hypothesized and eventually proved about the unbreakable entanglement of sub-atomic particles back in 1935 has been taught in broader terms in Buddhist philosophy for millennia—all things are deeply connected. Even without an understanding of the science or philosophy behind it, on some level we know this to be true as it’s demonstrated all around us in both big and small ways. On a macro level, we witness the circle of life and the functioning of our sprawling ecosystems. On a micro level, all of our individual choices and decisions have implications or consequences. Even further, this interconnectedness suggests that what happens in our lives is never random or chaotic, but rather a result of the law of karma, or vast cause and effect.
One of the ways we can benchmark our understanding of this core truth is in our capacity to see ourselves in the world around us. Like a mirror, we start to recognize how our own intellectual and behavioral patterns get reflected back to us in different ways. The nature of all of our relationships—whether with people, material items or even ideas and ways of thinking—becomes more and more clear. What we give, we get. And similar to the truth above, awareness of cause and effect doesn’t disempower us or put us into a box. Instead, it functions as a catalyst to learn and let go, and a powerful shift takes place: life stops happening to us, and instead starts happening for us.
Exertion And Recovery Are Equally Essential For Vibrant Human Health
“Rest is not idle, is not wasteful. Sometimes rest is the most productive thing you can do for body and soul.”
This truth is the crux of our prana. The way we currently live and work in the western world depletes our vitality and has created a widespread misunderstanding of what it means to be a productive and balanced person. When we shift from an old paradigm of down time being wasted time to a new paradigm of down time being key, we quickly realize that exertion and recovery are equally essential for vibrant health. Together, they create a pulsating rhythm inside each of us that guides our entire way of being, helping us to thrive without becoming numb to our passions or pursuits. Embracing this inner rhythm allows us to fully engage in all areas of our lives and we become less burdened by expectations and feelings of obligation.
Mental and physical activity are vital for our longevity, but ignoring our innate need of recovery periods has dire consequences like sleep, mood and productivity disorders. In the US where we are under pressure to work longer and longer hours, half of the population has some form of chronic disease from a lack of exercise and rest. In populations working the night shift, that percentage is even higher. Rest gives us the power to create space around our unique experiences so that we can process the ups and downs of life in healthy ways. As a result, we become less likely to burnout or indulge in negative thoughts and damaging actions, and instead we begin to choose to put our energy into what we really want to create.
Eat Less And Sleep More To Increase Longevity
“The best bridge between despair and hope is a good night’s sleep.”
Food and sleep are two of the most powerful medicines available to us, so embracing this truth will likely have the most immediate impact on your overall health and wellbeing if you need a boost. This is especially true for those of us living in the west where people eat poorly and in excess (nearly 75 percent of Americans are overweight or obese), and sleep fewer hours than is necessary (40 percent of Americans get less than seven hours of sleep per night). This is a lethal combination: eating too much and sleeping too little both compound the risk for preventable conditions like diabetes, heart disease and dementia. When cultures and communities with the highest lifespans and health-spans are studied, it becomes clear that our longevity depends on us eating less and sleeping more.
There is a staggering amount of research surrounding different cultures and their diets, and it turns out that it’s not just what we eat, but how we eat that affects our immunity and energy. Across all of the findings, there are three consistent themes that are worthy of our attention:
Eat single-source foods. Our gut microbiome and immunity are very closely tied together. Consuming processed foods like packaged snacks, canned beverages, and preserved deli meat negatively impacts our microbiome, and our ability to stay healthy sharply declines. When we eat single-source foods like organic fruits, vegetables, and fresh meat, our diet naturally becomes rich in fiber and nutrient-dense whole foods, and our microbiome and immune system significantly increase. If you want to really learn about the gut microbiome and how to up your immunity, I highly recommend listening to Dr. Justin Sonnenburg on the Huberman Lab. It will change the way you think about your nutrition.
Eat less. Overeating is a staple in American culture and one of the quickest ways to waste energy and disrupt hormonal balance. After eating a huge meal, we become physically and mentally sluggish—a sign of reactive hypoglycemia—and our ability to digest and absorb nutrients drastically declines; our sleep is also compromised. Even worse, chronic overeating leads to insulin resistance and the inability of our brain to properly register when we actually need food and water. The Japanese have mastered the art of eating less with their hara hachi bu philosophy, a cultural practice to stop eating when 80 percent full. This pays off: when we eat less, our quality of life and overall mood skyrockets. The best way to put this into practice yourself is to work on eating at a slower pace; give your brain time to recognize your body’s cues because it turns out that there’s a significant gap between no longer feeling hungry and feeling full.
Eat early and taper off. “Eat breakfast like a king; lunch like a prince; dinner like a pauper.” Most scientific research has backed this old proverbial saying suggesting we front-load our caloric intake to optimize our health and longevity. Eating early helps the body feel satiated and also prevents overeating later in the day, which is perfect for our sleep—studies show that eating within three hours of bedtime increases the likelihood of sleep disruptions.
Sleep is equally important as our nutrition in determining our overall health and longevity. Beyond our need for recovery periods, eight to nine hours of healthy sleep per night is essential for our brain and body to function properly day-to-day. Matthew Walker—a neuroscientist and leading sleep researcher—goes into great (and horrifying) detail about the perils of even a single night of insufficient sleep in his book Why We Sleep. If you aren’t currently taking your sleep seriously, here is an excerpt of Walker’s findings: “The recycle rate of a human being is around sixteen hours. After sixteen hours of being awake, the brain begins to fail. Humans need more than seven hours of sleep each night to maintain cognitive performance. After ten days of just seven hours of sleep, the brain is as dysfunctional as it would be after going without sleep for twenty-four hours. Three full nights of recovery sleep are insufficient to restore performance back to normal levels after a week of short sleeping. Finally, the human mind cannot accurately sense how sleep-deprived it is when sleep-deprived.”
If you want to be your best self now and into old age, set your sleep schedule and stick to it. Then, wake up and eat a big, beautiful breakfast.
Laughter And Play Are Nature’s Fountain Of Youth
“The human race has only one really effective weapon, and that is laughter. The moment it arises, all your irritations and resentments slip away and the sunny spirit takes their place.”
There’s a devastating epidemic of solemnity among adults. While the state of the world seems to warrant our seriousness—messy politics, COVID-19, climate change, war, inflation—our hearts and spirits demand our levity. In fact, laughter and play are a fountain of youth and help rewire our brains in ways that make us more apt to problem-solve and tackle the big issues that we’re facing today. When we’re wound too tightly, our vision becomes tunneled and our capacity for compromise and compassion plummets. Beyond their ability to shift our perspective, laughing and smiling stop distressing emotions and help us relax around our obstacles; we start to find beauty all around us, even when things are difficult or aren’t going our way. This inherent joy for living amplifies our entire experience and we interact with the world around us in far more open and effervescent ways, regardless of circumstances.
Reading about the science of laughter and play might not be enough to persuade you of their necessity and purity, but this video below is wildly convincing evidence. It features the two most playful subgroups on the planet: kids and animals.
Touch And Intimacy Are A Deep Human Need
“Touch comes before sight, before speech. It is the first language, and the last, and it always tells the truth.”
Touch is often the most overlooked and undervalued of the five basic human senses. This is a backwards understanding of our nature because before we are able to see, hear, smell or taste, we develop our ability to feel. This tracks—our skin is our largest organ and our sense of touch lives within its many layers. Those receptors outline our entire body and function to keep us safe and healthy. We’ve all experienced this phenomenon before: we seek the embrace of a loved one; we back away from sharp objects or extreme heat and cold; the hairs on our arms and neck stand up when we sense danger or excitement; and we perceive the energy of people in a room. What’s tricky is that this sense is not guaranteed. We need the love and affection of others early and often in order for it to be fully realized.
Even before the days of social distancing and lockdowns, many researchers have proved that touch and intimacy are a deep human need throughout our lives. In infancy, our brain development and growth largely depends on being regularly held by a primary caregiver. Without adequate and appropriate intimate connection, we suffer social, emotional and cognitive delays, which has a profound impact on our behavior and physiology as adults. Even worse, these behavioral and physiological repercussions are found to be passed on in reproduction, affecting our future generations.
Family therapist Virginia Satir famously said, “We need 4 hugs a day for survival. We need 8 hugs a day for maintenance. We need 12 hugs a day for growth.” While this seems like a simple enough protocol, the modern world buries our most primal sensory tool beneath technology that has built-in degrees of separation. Like a frog sitting in increasingly hot water, when we’re behind a screen we slowly become desensitized to what we’re really feeling and before we know it we’re fighting against the crushing weight of isolation. Don’t get stuck in this desolate place. Start connecting with others face-to-face and create opportunities for yourself to hug, cuddle and hold hands. When we experience regular touch and intimacy, our entire human existence becomes far richer and grounded in love.
Fear And Pain Are Life’s Greatest Teachers
“Vulnerability is the core of shame and fear and our struggle for worthiness, but it appears that it’s also the birthplace of joy, of creativity, of belonging, of love.”
There is a saying that humans have two major fears in life: losing what we have and not getting what we want. These underlying fears of loss can cripple our sense of worthiness and hold us back from being vulnerable creatures, open to love, connection and possibility. This makes sense; life gives and it also takes. Inevitably, when we have what we want and love what we have, on the other side is extreme pain and suffering when those things go away. The agony makes us feel lost, broken and alone. However, hidden in our heartache is our greatest teacher. When we dive into our experiences wholeheartedly and vow to explore our fear and pain without reaction to it, we discover that we can, in fact, be entirely whole no matter what comes or goes throughout our lifetime. We start living with more joy and gratitude in every moment and our love is liberated and free to be expressed in healthy ways without any attachment or expectation.
Brené Brown masterfully captures this core truth in a lot of her research around imperfection and shame. Like her quote suggests, our toughest moments eventually mobilize us towards purpose. Her research also shows how it’s impossible to selectively numb our feelings and emotions—if we try to numb the bad, we numb all that’s good too. That’s not the direction we want to head. When we can feel everything, we can heal anything. If feeling everything is a scary proposition, give Brené’s prescription for coming out of fear a try. It’s profoundly simple:
Let yourself be deeply seen.
Love with your whole heart, even though there’s no guarantee.
Practice gratitude and lean into joy. There is no need to catastrophize outcomes.
“I am alive and I am enough.” Repeat, repeat, repeat.
All Things Are Impermanent
“Impermanence is a principle of harmony. When we don’t struggle against it, we are in harmony with reality.”
There’s a reason why Buddhist teachings and eastern philosophy have made their way into mainstream western culture: beneath the inherent chaos of chasing status and success, we all seek to be calm and at peace. When we are mentally sound and mindful of our experience, we feel it—there is a rhythm pulsing internally that wants each of us to land at liberation. However, central to our quest is the maddening task of letting go of our attachments and accepting that all things are impermanent along our journey.
This truth is closely tied to the one before it about pain. Outside of our control, life gives and it takes. What comes, whether pleasant or unpleasant, will inevitably go. As a result, we boundlessly suffer, and not due to the grief and sadness that you might imagine, but rather, due to the resistance of this constant change. In his first sermon after reaching enlightenment, Buddha delivered the teaching of the Four Noble Truths which sums up this dilemma nicely:
Life is suffering.
The cause of suffering is craving and fundamental ignorance of change.
The end of suffering is available to all of us.
The path out of suffering is to accept impermanence.
Scientists worldwide agree with Buddha, permanence is an illusion. All matter is in constant flux and flow, and it’s an inescapable part of life. The Pali word for this is annica, which means that nothing in life, internally or externally, can be held on to, no matter how hard we try. Consequently, the harder we try to control our experience, the steeper our suffering. Quickest fix? Let go and enjoy the ride.
Yoga and meditation are the perfect places to understand your current capacity to honor life’s core truths. Like putting different lenses on a camera, you’re able to both zoom in and zoom out in order to see the whole ever-changing picture. If you can’t make it to public classes and don’t feel able to practice on your own yet, consider investing in a series of private sessions. When you work with the right teacher, it’ll get you into a strong, mindful rhythm and set you up for future success practicing independently—you’ll learn how to fly on your own.
Metta,
Drewsome.
