Don't Miss It: 🌀🐇 #99 against busy work, the skill of loss, you are immeasurable

Plus A Flower Doesn't Begin  ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ​ ​ ​ ⚡️ Enlightening Bolts 🗃It's Time To Stop Living The American Scam: Against busywork and pointless time-consuming productivity. [Read it here.](​ 🪦 Becoming A Genius of Loss: On the mastery of an important skill. [Read it here.](​ 🏔 Anxiety As An Adventure: Our latest video on relating to our inner battles as a hero's journey. [Watch it here.](=)​ 🎇 Image of The Week ​ This beautiful shot is from within a blue ice cave at the Vatnajökull Glacier in Iceland. The photo was taken by DK Photography. 📏You Are Immeasurable The tendency to compare is a common one. We examine our ability in a particular arena and see how we measure up against the competition. We then do that across a variety of domains. How do my looks measure up? How does my athleticism measure up? How does my health measure up? How does my weight measure up? How does my bank account measure up? How does my intelligence measure up? I could go on and on but you get the point. We often run these calculations unconsciously. And it adds up to a negative number because we fixate on the ways we don't measure up. Rather than the progress we've made and the capacity we've built, we see the ways we're still deficient. The ways others are ahead. But this isn't even about viewing your measurements more positively. It's about realizing that, in your totality, you are immeasurable. That's because you can't measure something that is completely unique. In your totality, you are a category of one. A category of one, by definition, cannot be compared. So don't be fooled into measuring a bundle of thin slices of your being, assigning value to those dimensions, and adding them up into your worth. Your worth is incalculable. You are immeasurable. You are unique. 🌻 A Flower Doesn't Begin Absorb this wisdom from Bayo Akomolafe: "This is what it means to be entangled: It is to see that we are not complete, removed, or boundaried. We are not independent. To speak from a place of manicured morality, to attempt to stand outside the mess of it all, to try to be sincere, is to be blind to our rapturous entanglement with the multiple. A ‘flower’ doesn’t ‘begin’ at its roots and terminate abruptly at its petals; it is the ongoing intra-activity (notice I do not say ‘inter-activity’, for this would suggest that ‘things’ pre-exist relationships) of clouds, rain, sunlight, swirling dust, the keen attention of the gardener, and a cocktail of colourful critters and ecosystems of organisms. One might say that there are no ‘things’ at all. To come to the edge is thus to come to the curdling middle, where wild meets wild, where we meet the universe halfway in acknowledgement of our intra-dependence and co-emergence with ‘movements’ we cannot control or assuage. Perhaps in situating his home at the edge of the village, the indigenous healer reminds himself and everyone else that we are not the central concern of an unspeakable universe. We are reminded of the ineffable, that words are not little epistemological mirrors that can reflect the state of things. We are part of the world’s ongoing complexity, yes, but not its prime movers, sole actors or longed-for apotheoses. As such, all the qualities we think of as unique to humans – thought, agency, will, intentionality, creativity, subjectivity – are performative qualities of a larger field in constant flux. Thus in order to really account for ourselves, in order to tell the stories of what is happening, we must come to the ends of ourselves, we must gravitate towards the edges in the middle…towards the incomprehensible, where wholly new ways of thinking are gestating in puddles of the forgotten." 🤓 Learn This Word Shinrin-yoku (森林浴): bathing' in the forest (literally and/or metaphorically). ⏳ From The Archives A hand-picked classic HighExistence article. ​[3 Really Important Things I’ve Learned From Being Criticized]()​ In my daydreams of bringing my story to the world and helping people, I’d imagine changing lives, I’d imagine receiving grateful letters, I’d imagine those sparkly eyes that mean you’ve really inspired someone. What I did not imagine was any person grimacing in the glow of their computer screen, deciding on the best way to communicate their distaste for me in a midnight email. And yet, here I am. I heard somewhere if you’re being criticized that means you’re authentic. That’s been an incredibly hard lesson for me to learn. When I started doing this work, I was convinced that, because my intentions were pure, and my heart was in the right place, every one I tried to help would appreciate it, everyone who heard my message would believe it, and everybody who met me would like me. I thought I was immune from being criticized. I thought I was immune from being criticized. Needless to say, this is just not the way things are. I learned, mostly, from pain. Each time someone would unsubscribe from my email list, it would hurt me. Each time someone criticized my message or my work, it would hurt me. Each time someone would give me that look that said, “This is so not backed up by data,” it would hurt me. Each time I got hurt, I was split open, more vulnerable than ever. Each time I got hurt, I had the opportunity to look even deeper within me; to discover the true cause of my pain. With enough criticism followed by introspection, something clicked. A few days ago, I received a rude email but there was no pain – just awareness about why this person acted this way. It wasn’t the most pleasurable experience, but it was peaceful. I am overwhelmed with self-gratitude for taking the time to do inner work when I was criticized, so that I could come to peace with it. This post is a celebration of how far we can all come if we take those precious moments of pain after someone’s words sting us and find out more about ourselves. ​[Continue Reading]()​ 📹 Lastest Video = Don't miss our latest video: [The Path of Anxiety Mastery.](=)​ 🎬 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](=)