Don't Miss It 🌀🐇 #90 break free from anxiety, symphony of science, you are loved

Plus The Great Forgetting  ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ​ ​ ​ ⚡️ Enlightening Bolts 📲 Anxiety Survey: We are finalizing our upcoming course to help our readers heal anxiety and unearth courage, confidence, and peace of mind. Can you answer 4 quick questions to help us make sure it's as impactful as possible? [Take the survey here.](=)​ 😰 Thin Slices of Anxiety: An illustrated meditation on what it’s like to live enslaved by worry and how to break free. [Read it here.](=)​ 🎶 Symphony of Science: This is a musical mashup series created by composer and filmmaker melodysheep which aims to spread science and philosophy through remixes of prominent scientific thinkers. [Watch here.](=)​ 🎇 Image of The Week ​ This image shows the natural phenomenon known as inosculation in which trunks, branches or roots of two trees grow together. It is biologically similar to grafting. In forestry, trees like this are known as gemels, from the Latin word meaning "a pair". 💗 You are Loved “The way we are seen and understood by others is different from the way we see and understand ourselves. We will never fully know the significance of our presence in the lives of our friends. That’s a grace, a grace that calls us not only to humility, but to a deep trust in those who love us.” — Henri Nouwen Every human is loved. We might not believe that we are but that does not eliminate the existence of this love. The people in our lives might not be skilled in displaying their affection but it still lives in a subterranean current flowing through your interactions with them, underneath the years of conditioning that has hardened their expression. It is there. And if you still claim that you are not loved, remember that there are human beings who can, in a single encounter, find a depth of kinship and empathy for shared pain. They can walk away from an interaction with love in their hearts for a random passerby on a someday lost to the pages of a calendar. You’ve had these encounters in your life even if your memory betrays you. If you are sitting somewhere feeling unloved, my heart goes out to you. I might not know a single detail about your life but I don’t need to know to feel for you. If you’re in that place, I’m sending you my love. The thing is, you almost certainly do not have an accurate accounting of all the love in your life but the numbers don’t need to add up for the love to be there. You are loved. This is a gentle reminder to allow yourself to feel even just 1% of it. 😴 The Great Forgetting Enjoy this passage from Francis Weller "We are living in what writer and cultural critic Daniel Quinn calls the Great Forgetting. Many of us have forgotten that we’re a part of an ecosystem, a watershed. We’ve forgotten that we’re kin to all the other animals. We’ve forgotten that we need each other. We have forgotten what I call the “commons of the soul.” For thousands of years we were nourished by being members of a community, gathering around the fire, hearing the stories of the elders, feeling supported during times of loss and grief, offering gratitude, singing together, sharing meals at night and our dreams in the morning. I call these activities “primary satisfactions.” We are hard-wired to want them, but few of us receive them. In their absence we turn to secondary satisfactions: rank, privilege, wealth, status — or, on the shadow side, addictions. The problem with these secondary satisfactions is that we can never get enough of them. We always want more. But once we find our primary satisfactions, we don’t want much else. Though primary satisfactions are rare in our culture, we do experience them. We can remember what that felt like and let our longing for that state become our compass, telling us what direction we need to go to get back to those satisfactions. We can find them through our friendships, by spending time in nature, by risking being vulnerable with someone we trust." 🤓 Learn This Word Lekker: A word in Afrikaans that literally translates to "tasty", but can be used to describe anything that has one's hearty approval and is often used to refer to something beautiful, fun, or remarkable. I learned it from my dear friend who chose it as the namesake for his [woodworking studio.]()​ ⏳ From The Archives A hand-picked classic HighExistence article. ​[Alternative Human Nature: Why Kindness and Cooperation are More Natural Than Selfishness](​ For a long time, there has been a general assumption in our culture that “human nature” is essentially bad. Human beings — so it has been assumed — are strongly disposed to traits like selfishness, domination, and warfare. We have powerful natural impulses to compete with one another for resources, and to try to accumulate power and possessions. If we are kind, it’s usually because we have ulterior motives. If we are good, it’s only because we have managed to control and transcend our natural selfishness and brutality. This view of human nature has been justified by biological theories like the “selfish gene” (as popularised by the UK science writer Richard Dawkins) and the field of evolutionary psychology. Evolutionary psychology describes how present-day human traits developed in prehistoric times, during what is termed the “environment of evolutionary adaptedness” (EEA). The EEA is usually seen as a period of intense competition, when life was a kind of Roman gladiatorial battle in which only the traits that gave people a survival advantage were selected, and all others fell by the wayside. For example, evolutionary psychologists have suggested that men have a strong urge to gain wealth and power because, in prehistoric times, this enhanced their chances of survival and increased their reproductive possibilities (1). Others have suggested that human beings have such a strong impulse to fight wars because prehistoric tribes of genetically similar people were in constant competition for resources with other groups (2). Similarly, racism has been seen as an adaptation that developed because altruism towards another group would have decreased a group’s own chances of survival. It was beneficial to deprive other groups of resources and power in order to increase our own access to them. In the words of Pascal Boyer, for example, racism is “a consequence of highly efficient economic strategies”, enabling us to “keep members of other groups in a lower-status position, with distinctly worse benefits” (3). All of this may seem logical. But in fact the assumption these views are based on — that prehistoric life was a competitive struggle for survival — is completely false. ​[Continue Reading](​ 📈 Success Is Built Sequentially On Friday we'll release the latest issue of [Stairway To Wisdom](=) including a breakdown of The One Thing: The Surprisingly Simple Truth Behind Extraordinary Results by Gary Keller. Here's a taste of what's inside: "You do the right thing and then you do the next right thing. Over time it adds up, and the geometric potential of success is unleashed. The domino effect applies to the big picture, like your work or your business, and it applies to the smallest moment in each day when you're trying to decide what to do next. Success builds on success, and as this happens, over and over, you move toward the highest success possible. When you see someone who has a lot of knowledge, they learned it over time. When you see someone who has a lot of skills, they developed them over time. When you see someone who has done a lot, they accomplished it over time. When you see someone who has a lot of money, they earned it over time. The key is over time. Success is built sequentially. It's one thing at a time." Stairway To Wisdom A library of insights & actions steps from brilliant books sent in a growth-inducing weekly newsletter. ​ [Sign Up Now](=) 🎬 Endnote We hope you enjoyed this issue of Down The Rabbit Hole. Feel free to reply and tell us what you think. Want to help us spread the word? We love sharing these gems of wisdom and wonder with you each week. If you love receiving them and want to help us spread the word, here is one quick way you can do that: Forward this email to one friend. That's it. It will take 5 seconds and will help us spread the good vibes and reach more people. We appreciate you. With Wonder, Mike Slavin & The HighExistence Team P.S. Did a friend forward you this email? Read previous issues and sign-up to receive future issues here: [(​ ​ ​ Mike Slavin ​[Connect With Me!](=)​ ​ ​[Unsubscribe]( | [Update your profile]( | 40 E. Main St. #1137, Newark, DE 19711 [Built with ConvertKit](=)