Happy Interdependence
Connecting in a Creative, Quantum Field
Breaking the Mold: A Health Update
After more than a year of "un-molding" our home and ourselves from mycotoxins, we've made great progress and learned a lot. While Tim was asymptomatic and has finished his supplement, binder, and antifungal regimen, my journey back to health is taking longer. We've both stopped treatments and await new test results, hoping our mycotoxin levels are finally normal.
Yet, despite this anticipated good news, while Tim slays at pickleball daily, I’m not at the top of my game yet. This could stem from genetic markers like MTHFR, lingering effects from a late 2020 brain injury, or even a long-haul COVID response. It might also be Chronic Overlapping Pain Conditions (COPC). Over 20% of the world's population suffers from chronic pain, with another 20% of those experiencing more than one chronic pain condition. One thing is certain: I've always been a highly sensitive person. A series of significant stressors from 2020-2025 – including mycotoxin illness – piled on, overwhelming my already sensitive nervous system.
Why Resistance is Futile
Our integrative medicine doctor advised me from the start: brain retraining is essential. Through more than a year of it, I have learned that my unconscious brain, like the famous Japanese soldier who kept fighting 29 years after WWII, has been in an endless loop of over-defending my body from danger. This "trigger-happy" state, primed for survival, conversely causes more stress, which gets interpreted by the limbic and nervous system as danger, and we’re off to the races.
Quieting this response is the main point of brain retraining programs like The Gupta program with its daily mental exercises and meditations designed to make symptoms “soften and flow.” This complements my twice-daily Vedic meditation practice, which alleviates stress. My teacher, James Brown, recently shared a video highlighting the work of Hans Seyle, the "founder of stress theory." Seyle's 1938 article in Nature, "Adaptation Energy," introduced the General Adaptation Syndrome (GAS), outlining three stages of stress: alarm, resistance, and exhaustion. While alarm (fight/flight) and exhaustion are well understood, the "resistance" phase is crucial to understand.
In stress theory, "resistance" ideally includes repair, recovery, and resolution. But this only happens if the system can withstand the initial "alarm" phase. If the alarm isn't resolved quickly, resistance fails, leading to exhaustion. As The Gupta Program teaches, once we’re exhausted, the alarm gets stuck, creating a loop of anticipating future dangers. At that point, "what we resist, persists."
Loosening the Loop: Acceptance and Interdependence
Breaking out of exhausted resistance requires acceptance, trust, and self-love. Over the past five years, as challenges mounted, I tried to bravely “soldier on,” tackling everything that felt out of order in pursuit of perfect health. Soon, everything truly was out of order, and I was out of energy. It was only when I began to consciously address the chronic fear messages – first by embracing the imperfect present, then visualizing health and re-engaging with joy – that my own healing truly began. Knowing this is simple, doing it is challenging. But it works. Because it asks all parts of the brain and nervous system to work interdependently to create something, rather than just keep something from being destroyed. Isn’t that the whole joy of living anyway? Not just surviving in fear with what little we have, but making something greater out of what we are given?
Wishing Well
The other week, just before we left to be part of No Kings gatherings, in my mind I heard the phrase, “Wishing well.” Oh yes, I thought, I do so wish I was well, that everyone was well, that our governmental and global system were well…
And then I started to see that the resistance of over-defending isn’t just what keeps me unwell, it also plays out collectively. For the first time in history, humanity possesses the wealth and means to feed and care for everybody, to save and honor the planet. Instead, our feedback loops remain stuck in survival mode. We are not yet seeing and accepting Each Other, we see and resist The Other. We push The Other out of our clan, judging them as lacking in humanity. And there’s the loop: Judgment of The Other > leads to resistance > which tightens the cycle that keeps us at surviving in separate conclaves instead of thriving together.
This loop often originates in the brain’s left hemisphere. Its executive quadrant values data and ego, while its limbic quadrant fosters feelings of separation and fear. Western culture's overemphasis on this part of our brain power has driven global society towards a vicious cycle of diminishing returns, as we consciously and unconsciously judge and set ourselves up against one another.
In contrast, Ubuntu, a perennial African philosophy meaning “humanity,” emphasizes connectedness. With Ubuntu, if a person is judged as lacking humanity, it is the community’s responsibility to offer redemption rather than retribution. This perspective aligns with the brain's right hemisphere—the creative, collective part.
Instead of a culture that prizes only one side of the brain, leading to separation, it’s time to wisely use the whole brain we were gifted with. Neuroscientist Jill Bolte Taylor, author of My Stroke of Insight and Whole Brain Living, eloquently explains this. The left hemisphere says, "I am separate from you; what matters is me and mine." The right hemisphere, however, sees us as "one human family," fostering support, nurturing, love, and collaboration… As Taylor notes, our “literal genius is in the pause. You have to let that system relax, be in the present, and fuel the system. It has the value of the collective whole. We are one human family.” She ended her remarks on the Inspired Purpose Partners podcast with a sobering thought, “How do we shift that value structure before we give all the power to the ‘me’ that wants to destroy?”
Declaration of Interdependence
In the United States, we gather to celebrate Independence Day on July 4th. Many other countries, including our neighbor Canada, celebrate independence days around this time as well. While valuing freedom is inherently human, we are also taught from toddlerhood to share. The Golden Rule reminds us to "treat others the way that we want to be treated." These social imperatives wouldn't have lasted throughout recorded history if they weren't fundamental survival strategies. Human beings need each other.
It’s time for humanity to really embrace a Declaration of Interdependence– a concept articulated by many throughout history, now supported by an increasing number of global systems. Consider:
Abraham Lincoln's Gettysburg Address, delivered in 1863 amidst the Civil War, eloquently spoke of a "new birth of freedom" and a "government of the people, by the people, for the people should not perish from the earth."
The International Court of Arbitration has a history going back to the late 18th century, preceding the International Court of Justice founded in the early 20th century
The United Nations, formed in 1945 after WWII, now includes 193 member states and 2 observer states, representing nearly the entire world.
As a Creative, I’ve learned to attune to what we can make of all that we have, with all that we have. Across time, space, and metaspace, I hear overwhelming spiritual and secular calls for peace, civility, and mutual regard, precisely so humanity can continue. Yes, evil exists, both deep and shallow. But if Quantum Fields are true (and they are) they remind us that “beneath the visible world lies a reality far more intricate, mysterious, and beautiful than we ever imagined.” Quantum Fields are also "talking to each other, exchanging quanta, influencing each other’s vibrations. The universe, in this picture, is an intricate symphony of fields in conversation.”
Everything in creation is part of that conversation, including every human, regardless of how much we like or value them. We must accept that there are mis-wired and mis-firing members of our collective, but the way forward is perhaps more creative than destructive. So, here's to our interdependence. This means doing the hard work of being with each other, talking to each other with regard, no matter how challenging it becomes. We are here to make something of ourselves, individually and collectively, and that doesn’t happen in a vacuum. Perhaps that is why, when I heard the words “wishing well,” I also heard, “Caring for each other is the only way out.”
Thank you for reading
My goal is to create a spark in you to follow your own creativity and courage to its heights and depths. May all beings everywhere be happy and free.
I always appreciate the support of a subscription, free or paid
Or you can always…
Find more on my coaching, music, books, classes on the Learn and Explore page of my website + my chants on the Insight Timer app, the best meditation app on the web.