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LETTING PEOPLE HAVE THIR EXPERIENCE

Dr. Amanda Love 1 Comment

LETTING PEOPLE HAVE THEIR EXPERIENCE

Ending control

We tend to be really good at trying to control life.  One of our most favorite ways to do this is through attempting to control ourselves or others in effort to make things amiable and peaceful.  In part this tendency is born out not wanting to see, or be the elicitor, of suffering and distress in another person.  The other part is that it creates a sense of external safety and security for us when everyone is happy.  As an effect of this we learn to not fully express ourselves, make things ok that really aren’t ok, not say or do what is true for us, and walk on the eggshells of life trying not to create too much distress or suffering in the experience of those around us.  This helps us feel like a “nice or good” person and like we won’t be left, abandoned, cast out or hated by others.  It keeps us feeling like we belong and like we will have our basic human needs met for survival and connection because people will like us.  This however comes at tremendous cost.  Cost to our own energy system because it’s draining to not be ourselves, and this drain on our energy system effects our physical, emotional and mental health.  That equates to not being able to maximally utilize your body, mind and life to play and be of service.  There are also costs in terms of learning for self and others.  When we control ourselves or try to control another person’s experience, we delay or lose out on development steps or stages in our personal and soul evolution.  We also don’t get to be mirrors for others assisting them in their growth.  

There is no denying that feeling bad at any level of our being sucks.  Suffering and distress is not a walk in the park.  It makes sense that we want to avoid and move in any direction but towards it.  While I believe that we can learn and grow without suffering, it currently tends to be part of the experience of learning for most.  Many of us will choose our own suffering over seeing another person suffer.  We will mold ourselves any which way we need to in order to try to take away, or not be the seeming source of suffering from someone, particularly someone we love.  Even though this seems incredibly honorable and kind, it robs people from fully having their experience.  Our addiction to fixing, alleviating or avoiding suffering and distress does not allow people to have their experience, whatever that experience might be.  This doesn’t in any way mean that you don’t lend a helping hand or words of kindness to someone who needs it, but rather that you don’t try to control their experience of their experience.  When we can fully be with our experience, liberation ensues.  We don’t end suffering by trying to manipulate people’s experience of it, but rather by helping to usher them through it.  Assistance and support in the ways that feel authentic and true are always in alignment, but it is not your responsibility to fix how someone feels.  It is not your job to make people feel differently than they do.  Notice where your own uncomfortableness with other people’s uncomfortableness comes in and runs the show of your words, actions and the ways you do or don’t express yourself.  Recognize where you might feel threatened if someone doesn’t feel good around you.  These are the indicators that you are hijacked by your own emotions, and whatever your actions are in the moment are not from coming from alignment, but rather from your own uncomfortablenesses and sense of threat. 

WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO CARE ABOUT OTHERS? 

Moving beyond manipulation

This might all create some sense of confusion for you around what it means to care about others.  We are quite conditioned to believe that caring about others means that we help them feel a certain way about themselves or have certain experiences.  This assumes that we have some type of control over others, their free will in choosing their state of being and that somehow we know best.  It creates a power dynamic, which typically goes unseen, but can be felt as a subtle tension in the field of you and them.  It may also show up as a feeling of disempowerment, inferiority, distance or uncertainty that is is temporarily satiated externally by another, but isn’t sourced from your own knowing and therefore comes with subtle feelings of mistrust or instability.  

What if caring about others simply meant that you are without agenda in relationship with other.  To be a container of acceptance and love for whatever is present.  To not take anything as a personal insult or threat.  To not run or move away from anything and also not fix anything.  To not hold on or insist that anything stay, go or change out of your own desire for it be a certain way.  What if this is what it means to care rather than trying to make people happy and give them what you think they want so that they feel good and un-triggered, and you feel safe.  That, by the way, is a recipe for stagnation, lack of intimacy, and suffering if you ask me.  Again I am not suggesting that you not do or say things that are authentic acts of caring for you and that you desire to do, but rather that you stop protecting yourself and others in order to avoid unpleasantness.  What if transmutation of suffering occurs through allowing it rather than trying to get rid of it?  I get this is radical for most people and yet this is what healing (i.e. wholeness) is.  In order to come to know our wholeness we must include all, allow all and be with all, even the unpleasantries that we try to ignore, smash or manipulate out of existence.  

You could say that we live in a sea of manipulation of sorts.  Manipulating ourselves, others and buying into all of the manipulation of media, schools, healthcare system and such in order to feel as good as possible.  Not all manipulation is negative, but I do believe that it’s important to be intentional in its use.  Is it used to help one know that one is the source of all experiences?  That one is in charge of one’s own self?  If not you become reliant on external sources of manipulation to feel certain ways rather than moving through all of your life experiences that are there to guide you into greater self-knowing and self-sourcing.  

Letting people have their experience is caring about them even if that means that they will experience things that don’t feel good.  It’s ok to not feel good sometimes.  It’s ok for others to not feel good sometimes.  There is so much rapid learning that can occur when we stop trying to control life.  When we simply allow the truth of what is in our experience to be expressed we create liberation for everyone even if it doesn’t feel like it right away.  It’s ok to feel shaky, scared and frightened that you might lose something you love dearly if you be yourself and act authentically.  However you might also be surprised at how your fears don’t always live themselves out how you imagine they might.  The path takes courage and trust that all is well despite our experience of it.  

Dr. Amanda Love, Chiropractor, Network Spinal Analysis & Somato-Respiratory Integration

NOTHING IS A BIG DEAL

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NOTHING IS A BIG DEAL 

From big to not big

Nothing is a big deal.  That is a bold statement.  Imagine for a moment what it would feel like to claim that for yourself.  As you do you might initially feel relief, but then you may also notice that some things feel really big.  Things that feel too significant, too important or that you value too much to not be a big deal.  In order to really claim that nothing is a big deal would mean that all experiences you’ve had up to this point and all that you will have in the future, are not as significant as you might make them out to be.  That would burst a lot of bubbles in all kinds of ways.  In the most positive light you would not experience anything to be stressful anymore.  Likely you would feel a lasting levity like none you have ever known before.  On the other hand, what might feel more negative to you, is that it would also require you to let go of some of the things that give you a sense of worth, purpose, rightness, validation or fairness, and some ideas you value as special.  You would also have to give away fear and worry, which provide you with a sense of control over your experience.  In this way you would take some hits to your identity as certain experiences become less significant and you may feel more powerless, out of control, and/or confused about what matters.

When you come from the frame of mind that nothing is a big deal you nearly automatically become more allowing and accepting of whatever your experience is/was.  You let things, experiences and people come and go as they please.  You attach less to what happens in any scenario.  You feel relaxed and get a taste of freedom.  Despite all of this we still tend to make some things a big deal.  We choose charge, seriousness and our story of bigness of whatever is occurring, over feeling relaxed, at ease and free.  Then, kind of innocently, we wonder why we don’t feel good.  We genuinely can’t figure out why we don’t sleep well, digest well or experience ease in our body.  It’s a mystery to us.  We can’t seem to make the connection.  

How we are is what our experience is.  There is no difference or separation.  As we change, our experience changes with us because our experience is always reflecting us no matter how we are being.  Sometimes it can feel like quite a challenge to change our minds about something.  There can be a whole well of inner resistance to go from seeing something as a really big deal to seeing it as not a big deal.  Other times it is very quick and easy to make the transition.  It’s a matter of how much significance we place on something, how much of our identity is wrapped into our story of whatever is, and how much we want to attempt to not feel powerless and stay in control of whatever happened or is happening.  

EFFORTLESS GRATITUDE 

Caring without agenda

When we look at life and see the experiences of it as not such a big deal we effortlessly open into gratitude for what is.  A levity and simplicity arises when we aren’t indulging our energy and awareness into our story and feelings of bigness of whatever is occurring.  From that simplicity we appreciate more what’s here in the state, configuration or organization that it’s in.  When all of the experiences we’ve had and all the things we value aren’t such a big deal, we can more easily participate with life.  We enjoy more thoroughly what is here, and our enjoyment of what is, is gratitude.  People sometimes ask me how they can open their hearts more.  One of the ways to do so is to enjoy yourself and enjoy your life no matter what is.  Enjoyment is the expression of gratitude and that is a state of open heartedness.  In order to enjoy life we have often have to make the things of life a little (or a lot) less of a big deal.  

Some people may interpret not making things a big deal as not caring or being careless.  To that I would say that in order to care about something you have to enjoy it, be grateful for it and also let it be free or let it go.  That’s love.  For example if you value life then you have to enjoy it, feel gratitude for it and let it be lived rather than controlled.  The controlling of what we value (which is often confused for caring) squashes all joy out of whatever it is we value and the paradox is the we are the one doing the controlling even though it often seems external or other to us.  The more we control, the less we feel joy and gratitude for what is.  This also tends to be when we perceive things as a big deal.  Big deal usually means to us that we perceive a potential or actual threat (loss) or success (gain), something requires more energy than we want to give to it and we tend have a lot of charge or feelings around the situation.  This becomes an ideal environment for us to attempt to control outcomes, attach to things working out a certain way, and feel anxious or stressed about what will be.

The less charge, seriousness, specialness, control, fear and worry we have in relationship to the experiences of life the more caring we are.  The more capacity we have to be present, attuned and participate without agenda.  This means the less we make things a big deal the more we care, not less.  Don’t be swayed by the cultural story that says stress, worry and charged polarization means you care.  It’s really a disguise in our attempts to control life and not feel powerless.  Rather make things less of a big deal.  Your mind might resist it, and that’s ok.  If control, fear, worry, stress, anxiety, wanting fairness or something to turn out a certain way, rightness, validation or significance come up, it’s also ok.  It’s not about making yourself wrong, it’s simply about becoming more aware of how you do you, the ways you operate and moving more into choice about how you respond to life.  If you do this you will notice more openness to life, more acceptance, more gratitude and you will feel your freedom more.  As always don’t take my word for it.  Be your own scientist.  Try it out for yourself.  See how it works for you.  

Dr. Amanda Love, Chiropractor, Network Spinal Analysis & Somato-Respiratory Integration, Boulder, Colorado

ACCEPTING SUFFERING

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ACCEPTING SUFFERING

Moving towards connection

One of things we least desire to do is look at or be with suffering, both our own and others.  We often do our best to avoid, not feel, stop, alleviate or eradicate it.  Understandably so.  The large majority of people do not enjoy suffering.  It does not come with pleasurable sensations, feelings and experiences.  Rather it comes with a sense of disconnection, separation, aloneness, uncomfortableness, angst, fear, restlessness, powerlessness, helplessness, terror and more.  There really is no way to make suffering rosy, soft or nice.  It’s not.  Our minds nearly automatically want to fix it, change it or make it go away because it is such an unpleasant experience.  We do our best to push away suffering because the intensity of it is so uncomfortable.  Yet despite our attempts to somehow control or manage our experience of suffering, it remains and visits our experience time and time again.

At the core of suffering is a sense or feeling of disconnection.  We develop strategies to survive and cope with disconnection and the conglomerate array of other feelings that come with it.  These strategies are called protective mechanisms.  These mechanisms allow us to not feel the full intensity of suffering that we might otherwise feel.  These strategies are smart, intelligent and well intended.  Without them we might very well not be able to function in the world.  They work by cutting us off from fully feeling or processing experiences of suffering, which then gives us the ability to participate with the other happenings of life to some degree.  Yet the effects, or perhaps downside of these mechanisms is that while we can function we often don’t feel fully alive, integrated, joyous or connected.  Protective mechanisms compartmentalize our experiences and/or completely disconnect us from certain aspects of experiencing on purpose, that is their job so to speak.  They are a good short-term survival strategy, however they don’t allow for the fullness of life to be experienced or expressed through us.

When people seek for healing it is often because they know that there is more to life than what they are experiencing.  To even begin the healing journey one’s protective mechanisms have to soften slightly in order for them to recognize that there is more going on than meets the eye.  This allows them to embark on the path.  Healing isn’t necessarily about feeling great all of time and only experiencing pleasurable sensations.  It’s about feeling whatever is present.  Sometimes that means learning how to be with uncomfortableness, aloneness, separation, terror, powerlessness, angst and the like, because this is what your protective mechanisms have been keeping at bay so that you could function.  The paradox of sorts is that as you allow those feelings to be felt it feels good in a way.  Good to no longer be keeping them outside of your experience, and no longer utilizing energy and inner resources to avoid suffering.  Though you may not feel pleasure or joy in the moment, you do feel more connected. 

SPACE OF THE HEART 

Walking towards

The more willing and able we become to feel suffering, and as we have the inner resourcefulness to do so, the less defended and more open we become.  Protective mechanisms only engage when they perceive that there is something to protect, but if you walk towards that which you’ve avoided, protection is no longer needed.  As we open to disconnection and all of the things that come with that, we open into the heart.  The heart is the natural space that always is and when we stop separating and pushing away certain parts of our experience, we naturally experience the heart.  The reason that suffering is so intense is because it is the experience of disconnection from love.  Even though disconnection from love is not possible, the experience of it is.  It’s what we call suffering.

Accepting suffering as an experience, of which we have all experienced, is fundamental to transforming your experience of it.  As long as we remain separate from suffering, we will continue to experience it.  Only once we look at it, acknowledge it, feel it and let it move us, will we be able to change our relationship with it.  Only then will we be able to feel our heart open without needing to try to make it open.  Accepting suffering is pretty much the last thing that all of your protective mechanisms want to do, yet without your protective mechanisms up and running to show of your life all you experience is love.  It’s confusing to the mind to accept that which doesn’t feel good or desirable inside of its experience, yet in the arena of healing that’s where your freedom lives.  

When we are in nonacceptance of suffering we often feel internally cold, withdrawn, frantic, disassociated, overwhelmed, distraught, heavy, stressed, alone, restricted, not belonging and wanting out even if we are living a good life.  We can be experiencing the appearance of all the good things of life, yet internally we are disconnection from the source of life itself, which is our heart.  Even though your mind will look for a million ways out of your inner experience of suffering, you won’t come up with any that can get you out despite your endless attempts.  The only direction is in.  To be impacted, to feel, to fall apart, to let your heart be broken and then to be moved.  Moved to integrate all of the pieces that fell apart into a new configuration.  That new configuration is a new relationship with your life experiences, which offers different perspectives and ways of being that can only be known through impact and acceptance of suffering.

If you’re still reading this article then kudos to you.  Suffering is the absolute hardest thing to be with and accepting it takes everything you’ve got.  Yet the gift is opening into your own heart.  That is the healing journey, back home to where you began, before you knew anything of separation or disconnection.  To be open in your heart is to be fearless and to know the power of love is stronger than anything else.

Dr. Amanda Love, Chiropractor, Network Spinal Analysis & Somato-Respiratory Integration

STOP DOING TO GET THINGS DONE

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STOP DOING TO GET THINGS DONE 

Be finished with finishing

So often we do to get things done.  In fact most of our days are spent getting through one activity or task after another.  It seems as though the doing is ceaseless, except perhaps for a few moments at the end of our day or week.  Why do we live in the constant cycle of doing?  It as if we are all trying to get somewhere.  A place where we can rest, relax and be at ease.  We think that we might arrive there if we can just get done all of the stuff we feel like we have to do.  Such is the case that most of us are not enjoying much of our doing, but rather wanting to simply get it over with so we can move onto doing the next thing that we don’t enjoy.  All so that hopefully, at some point, we can get to an activity we like or simply just rest. 

In a culture where we value productivity more than enjoyment, connection or presence, and perceive non-activity as laziness, we are set up to live as doing machines.  The foundation for our dominant train of thought is how much or how many.  When we go to our jobs we don’t get praised or promoted for our non-productivity or for our presence, but rather for how much we get done.  We don’t get paid for how much we enjoy what we are doing, but rather only for the job done.  While the culture creates this container for us, it is still us that values productivity more than enjoyment of what we are doing, and we continue to insist that perhaps we will arrive somewhere better at some future time.  

As a result of this we are fairly disconnected from own impulses, urges to move and natural rhythms.  You might call this intuition, but really it’s just listening and following your inner rhythms rather than your conditioned response to things. We constantly feel like we need “know something out there” because we can’t hear our own inner knowing.  We seek for safety and certainty inside of situations or circumstances rather than within our own selves.   So like any good and reliable machine we produce.  We meet all of the outer expectations from bosses, friends and family members.  We live up to all the marks the best we can and do whatever we perceive we need to do in order to be ok.  With this we often ignore, repress, or deny our own rhythms of activity and non-activity.  We feel stressed, not necessarily because of the situation, but because of our own disregard for listening to what feels good to us.  We fear we won’t be taken care of, supported, or have all of our physical, emotional or social needs met if we don’t answer to the doing machine.  We reserve relaxation for the few moments in our life where we don’t perceive threat.  Then we call this being human.  I’m not sure about you, but I think being human can be better than this.   

DOING FROM ENJOYMENT 

Courageously choose joy

What would it take for you to do all you do through enjoyment, and never simply to get something done again?  How would you have to think or structure your life differently?  What if the purpose of activity is not to finish it, but rather to actively participate with the doing of it?  What if you did not allow yourself to do something unless you were in a state of enjoyment about the doing?  This is what it would be like to enjoy life rather than do life.  It’s pretty much guaranteed that the activity of life will never come to a halting stop, but what can is how we engage with activity and what we value in terms of productivity and presence.  There are no hard and fast rules here.  It’s all about creating your experience of life how you want to be rather than the way it currently seems to be set up.

Many live as if there isn’t enough time.  Like we can’t, or won’t be able to do all the things we need or want to in the time allotted.  What if you create a new story for yourself that there is enough time for everything.  Beyond that, what if rather than focusing on time altogether and what will or won’t be done inside of that time, you focus on enjoying whatever is occurring now.  What if you stop should-ing and hav-ing yourself, and dismantle all of your resistance to enjoyment.  Yes believe it or not most people resist enjoyment, but gladly accept suffering through things to get them done.  It’s not logical, but it is normalized.  

You might realize that you have some pretty hardcore beliefs in there that you are supposed to do stuff at whatever cost it is to your own enjoyment.  That to enjoy life is a luxury rather than a must.  But what if you made it must?  What if you realized that enjoyment is not luxury, but rather it’s the value or standard you firmly ground your feet in and make it more important than productivity and getting things done.  What if you don’t force yourself to do things that you don’t feel like doing, and what if you made it ok to rest and be, without guilt or fear, rather than always be engaged in activity?  See it’s really your choice even if you think it’s not.  

You might be wondering, won’t there be “consequences” for your actions, or more particularly for your non-actions?  There will most definitely be effects, however they may not be as negative as you conjure them up to be in your mind.  You might discover and fully embrace resting and enjoying, without judging it as lazy or making it mean something about your worth as a human being, which is something that not many people are successful at achieving (pun intended).  Also as you let go of the pressure you place on yourself to do many of things you do or think you should do, you may find that you want to do some of those things, and in that way they become desirable and enjoyable rather than tasks to get done.  This  is all to come to the knowing that your ok-ness, worth, validation, approval, permission to feel good about yourself, security and safety is not dependent on your actions or non-actions.  This frees you to do only from and through enjoyment.  To longer be manipulated by your own or other’s stories about what you must do.  Believe it or not, doing only from enjoyment takes tremendous courage, even though it’s the most natural way of living, which points to the fact that we live quite unnaturally.  Be courageous and do only from enjoyment.  

Dr. Amanda Love, Chiropractor, Network Spinal Analysis & Somato-Respiratory Integration, Boulder, Colorado

UNIQUELY YOU

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UNIQUELY YOU 

You are a gift

Each of us is unique.  An expression of the one infinite that no one else can be.  While in essence we are all the same, each of us carries  a unique flavor or frequency, which we share by being who we are and taking action in ways that excite us.  You are ok just as you are.  There is no one else that you need to be, or even that you could be for that manner.  There is nothing you need to do except that which feels resonate with you.  Yet we spend much energy thinking we must be like so and so, and that we must do more or do differently than what we desire to do.  We create negative meaning about ourselves based on arbitrary stories of who we think we should be and what we should be doing.  We then of course feel bad about ourselves, unworthy, not good enough and like we are failing our purpose.  We don’t appreciate who we are or the flavor we express, which results in us not taking actions in ways we desire.

Why do we see others and appreciate or “envy” them while not appreciating or envying ourselves? Perhaps you think it’s self-absorbed to appreciate your own being.  Maybe it feels awkward to you to like yourself and acknowledge how you contribute.  Perhaps you’ve confused loving yourself with arrogance.  Regardless of what it is for you there is likely self-denial of your own worth or refusal to see yourself as a gift.  Imagine a world where we all saw ourselves as a gift.  Since giving is inherent in being a gift, life would be an abundant resource of available energy for exchange with no depletion.  By not seeing the magnificence of your own being you actually take energy out of the field of life rather than contribute to it. Seeing yourself as a gift is the least arrogant way of viewing.  

Unwinding the story of arrogance and relaxing into yourself is not difficult.  It requires no special skills, knowledge or profound healing experience, but instead requires only the inner permission to do so.  There is no outside person, situation or force that will make you ok as you are.  Only you can decide to be ok as you are and come to appreciate and like your own self.  Seeing value in the unique expression that you are without adding anything to you is key to feeling like you are fulfilling your purpose for existing.  The reason that so many feel lost without clear direction is not because there is a lack of guidance, but rather because there is a lack of self-appreciation and love.  How on purpose you feel is directly related to how you feel about yourself.  If you turn the pressure down on trying to be or do something other than you are and turn the appreciation up on yourself as you are, your calling or purpose will be clear to you.   

CLEARING JUDGMENT  

No right or wrong

There is no right way to do life. There is also no wrong way.   This is challenging for most people to accept.  Regardless of how spiritual or evolved we think we are, most of us have judgment of self or others.  What if you radically realized that you really don’t know either way or any way, what is really right or wrong.  That your conceptions of rightness and wrongness are based only in what you’ve been conditioned to believe.  If you cleared yourself of all beliefs there would only be pure meaninglessness or said another way, there would only be what is without thought about what is.  Many will argue still that there is right and wrong, better and worse, good and bad, but what if there just is what there is.  If we stopped judging what is and instead saw what is, we may surprise ourselves as to what it is we see.  This state of clearness, of non-bias, is the essential ground from which you can effortlessly be and share the gift of you.  Where you know how to serve, share or express the gift you are and participate with what is rather than think, strategize or attempt to figure things out.

Giving yourself the permission and freedom to stop judging life frees you up to be of service to it.  When you no longer need to make a difference, only then can you actually make one.  This is when simply being you, as you are, makes the difference.  There is nothing out there, added or extra needed.  There is only the unique expression of what you are to share without agenda of what will come forth from your expression.  When you appreciate and know enoughness of what you are then enoughness is the result, but because we come from incompletion and attempting to get something to happen or to get somewhere, we never quite arrive.  

All of this to say, and to give you permission if you so need it, to feel amazing about yourself.  To embrace the unique expression of the one infinite that you are.  The only things to clean up are those things in your mind or life that are inconsistent with you feeling amazing about who you are.  You don’t have to clean up to be better, you don’t have to heal in order to be more, there is no more or better to get too.  Dispel any of the beliefs that you have that this may be arrogant, dismissive or prideful.  To feel bad about yourself and/or your expression is the true pridefulness.  Recognize that where you are trying to ‘get’ to is simply to feel good, love/be yourself, and share your unique expression with others.  There is also nothing others need to get or receive from you other than what you are.    

Everything you could ever need will be met and taken care of once you embrace you.  It’s the end of trying to get things, accomplish stuff or be loved by others in order to be ok.  You will have all things you need, accomplish what is yours to accomplish and be rested as love when you accept your own inherent uniqueness as you are.  No one else can be you.  No one else can serve as you do.  No one else can fulfill the that purpose you are.  Be done trying to be or do something other than what you are.  Discover the joy, freedom and love in being you and the wonder, awe and gratitude of what naturally expresses through.  

Dr. Amanda Love, Chiropractor, Network Spinal Analysis & Somato-Respiratory Integration, Boulder, Colorado

ALL IS ENOUGH

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ALL IS ENOUGH 

Shifting perspectives

Imagine what it would be like to look out at all of life and see it as enough.  To see nothing lacking, nothing missing and nothing that needs progress or change.  For a moment to be content with what is.  Notice how you feel when you look out and see enough.  Now share this same outward perspective of enoughness inwardly.  See yourself, your body, your inner journey, and wherever you are in life at this moment as enough.  Again notice how you feel.  Recognize the ease and sense of calm rested-ness that becomes instantly available when you see this way.  Notice how your entire system relaxes and you become present and available to whatever is here now.  This enoughness is what most all of us crave.  Many of us are tired.  Tired of feeling like life is scarce, like we have to work hard to survive, that we must stay vigilant, can never relax, or that something must change.  It’s exhausting to view from the perspective of not enough.  Yet most of us don’t realize that it is simply a perspective.  We believe scarcity to be reality.  

Enoughness is always present, always available, and always here.  It requires only that you bring your focus on it.  What we focus on we experience.  It’s challenging for the mind to accept this and to change its beliefs in this way.  We really want to keep believing what we believe even if what we believe doesn’t feel good.  We think that it’s the only option.  We don’t see ourselves in the equation as the source of our experience.  Due to this unawareness of ourselves as the source of what we experience we often feel powerless to our beliefs rather than in charge of them.  Until we see ourselves and simultaneously really, really want to believe something different, we won’t.  We will choose the same beliefs that feel bad, that generate the same feelings of fear, lack and scarcity, that is until we are truly fed up or things in our life or body break down.

It’s a bit of an interesting paradox that we have to really convince ourselves to want what we want.  We all want to feel abundant and in the state of enoughness, yet we must be really tempted to make that choice in perspective.  We will come up with one hundred million reasons why we can’t choose it, one hundred million ways to disbelieve that it’s possible, and one hundred million insistences why we must keep our old belief system of scarcity, lack and not enough.  Life will give us challenges where it will feel hard to choose the perspective of enoughness and yet that is the inner work required to make the change in belief.  The challenges are the perfect gift, the most pristine catalyst, that you need in order to choose the perspective of your true desire.   

INNER BOOTCAMP 

Choosing enough

Choosing the perspective you desire is not always easy.  When the experience of life appears empty of things you desire, or it feels like life is not working for you and you can’t make sense of what appears to not be inside of your experience, doubts arise.  When doubt is present you default to your habitual way of perceiving life, which for most is through the lack and scarcity lens.  Fear arises based on how you are perceiving things to be and you find yourself stuck.  Stuck in nothing more than a perspective, yet it feels like so much more than that.  You might wonder how things can just be a matter of perspective, perhaps it seems too simple, yet how could they be anything else?  Two people could experience the exact same situation or conditions, and experience them very different based on how they perceive the experience.  

Living from enoughness or completeness is entirely possible.  It is not fantastical to entertain this as your lived experience.  You must first start seeing the challenges that seem contrary to enoughness in your life as opportunities to learn it.  What this means is that when situations arise that seem to activate your lack, not enough, or scarce thoughts, you must see these situations as opportunities to choose a new perspective, and then you must actively choose to see abundance where you previously saw it as not.  Again your mind will likely resist this at first.  It won’t want to make the change in perspective because it doesn’t yet believe it.  That’s ok.  Choose it anyways and then notice that you begin to feel better.  You might oscillate back and forth between choosing lack and then choosing to see enough.  You might go back of forth 15-100 times for just one situation or challenge that presents itself, and that’s ok.  That oscillation back and forth is building a muscle, you inner muscle of enoughness.  

Lack perspectives can just be tricky to see.  They can come dressed up in a strong need to make progress or make something different.  Though this might seem very natural to you to want to make progress, because it is quite engrained in us that this is what we are supposed to be doing as humans, you must recognize what your need to make progress is rooted in.  Do you feel that there is somewhere better to get too?  Do you feel where you are is not enough?  Do you feel there is something wrong with what is happening now and you need to make it different?  All of that is rooted in lack and not enoughness.  

When instead you choose the perspective of enoughness and become rooted in it, life still flows, and there is still projects, activities and happenings.  The difference is that you play in the unfolding of life rather than try to make stuff happen to it.  It quite a bit more easeful even though there is still activity and doing occurring.  There is nothing to fix so you have less attachment to any outcome and your only purpose in doing is to have fun and because you enjoy it, not because something more or better must occur.  This is what is to come from enough rather than to try to get to enough.  If you keep trying to get there you will never arrive.  If instead you simply choose it, over and over and over again until you are rested there, then and only then will you experience it.  

Dr. Amanda Love, Chiropractor, Network Spinal Analysis & Somato-Respiratory Integration, Boulder, Colorado

INEXHAUSTIBLE SOURCE OF LOVE

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INEXHAUSTIBLE SOURCE OF LOVE  

Recognizing what is

What moves us?  What drives us?  What is our fuel source? What are we made of?  At the source of everything is love.  We know this, at least we know it conceptually, but how do we really grok this, get this and live this?  Love is boundless, infinite and inexhaustible, yet why does it seem scarce and limited inside of our experience?  Let’s first be clear on our definitions.  Love is not an emotion, but it is the source of all emotion.  Love is not a thought, but it is the source of all thought.  Love is not a sensation, but it is the source of all sensations.  Understand we often confuse love for its expressions rather than recognize it as the source of all expressions.  Love is the birthplace/birth space of all of creation.  It’s the very fabric of the universe, that which everything is made from.  

Love is exchanged or expressed when it is recognized, acknowledged or made aware of by you, by your awareness.  The primary reason that love seems to be limited or scare is because it remains largely unrecognized in our day to day life.  Whatever we tune our awareness to or focus on we see.  Sometimes, or rather oftentimes, we look out and we see our judgments, labels, stories and ideas about what we think we are seeing rather than seeing what is, which is love.  When our judgments, labels, stories and ideas dominate our awareness, which they do for most people, then our life experience is the fabrication of those things.  We see what we think rather than what actually is.   

You can see here that love is not what’s limited, but only our experience of it is limited based on what we choose to see.  To see all as love, as what it is, is a high ask of ourselves.  Our conditioning is such that to our mind’s stories and ideas this seems ridiculous.  We have a multitude of perspectives, experiences, situations and things that we do not, and often refuse to see as love.  For example things that have created physical, mental or emotional pain for ourselves or others we tend not to see as love.  Things that we don’t understand or that we disagree with we tend to leave out of love.   While some expressions of love may be sourced from a more distorted or confused perspective, at their core they are still love.  When love in its purity isn’t recognized as such then it continues to play out and create expressions of love that are more twisted or bent.  Not until the source of love can be looked upon and seen as what it is and have itself reflected back to it, can it come to see itself and unbind some of its bent or confused perspectives.  But we tend to not do this for ourselves or for others.  Rather we look at the confused expression of love and offer only our judgments, fears and condemnation.  Hence we live in a collective reality where love seems limited and scarce.   

KNOWING YOURSELF AS LOVE 

Seeing self as the source

In order to see all as love, and to recognize love at its source, you must first know yourself as the source of love.  You are not able to mirror or reflect love to other aspects of creation if you don’t first know yourself as it.  While this might seem obvious it’s a pretty big missing link for most.  The primary human wounding is unworthiness and unlovability, which is the opposite end of the spectrum of knowing yourself as love.  Knowing yourself as love is seeing yourself as it.  It’s beyond sensing, feeling or thinking of yourself as love.  Although those are great entry points they still don’t go direct to the source of love, but rather utilize expressions of it.  To be rested as love, to know it without doubt, to recognize yourself unequivocally as it, to no longer need to think, feel or sense yourself as it because you are it, is to know yourself as love.  

Why don’t we know it?  Primarily because we’ve agreed to forget for learning sake.  Also because there are not many pure mirrors available on this planet to reflect this knowing to us.  The result is that we don’t see ourselves very clearly.  It’s like we are constantly looking at reflections in the mirror that are bent, twisted and distorted, except they look “normal” to us.  They look like who we think we are and therefore we’ve come to identify with those reflections more and more as the years have gone by.  Just because something feels normal or has become familiar to us, such as our sense of identity, it doesn’t mean it’s accurate.  As we’ve come to believe and accept the reflections given to us from distorted mirrors about what/who we are, we’ve naturally created our life experiences based upon these beliefs and see life through our bent perspectives.  Hence again we experience a world scarce and limited in love and genuinely can’t figure out why because we don’t recognize the source of the reflections is our very own self, and how we see our very own being is what we experience life to be.  

If we are indeed love, then how do we know ourselves to be it?  The most direct path would be to simply accept it as fact.  This is however a radical shift for most people’s belief systems and therefore direct acceptance, while entirely possible, is not highly probable.  The more experiential way is to commit/devote to seeing yourself as love.  Multiple times a day reflect to yourself that you are love.  I suggest not focusing on your form when you do this.  Many times people will practice loving their form/body, or qualities they have, or things that they do for themselves or others.  Again those are expressions of love, but they are not recognizing the source of it.  Instead go to the source.  The essence of you is love.  It is what you are made of.  It is what/who you are.  Yes your body, your qualities  and all the things you do are expressions of love, but they aren’t the source of it.  Come to know yourself, your actual self, not the fabricated body-personality of you that is made up of thoughts, labels and ideas that have been conditioned.  As you get this, begin to see others as this same source, and all things/experiences as well.   It is not out of your hands/heart to shift this entire creation.  The change is and has always been with and inside of us.  As we insist on seeing ourselves as what we are, and including the rest of creation inside of that perspective, we live a very different reality where love is abundant and inexhaustible.

Dr. Amanda Love, Chiropractor, Network Spinal Analysis & Somato-Respiratory Integration, Boulder, Colorado

BELIEVING IN MAGIC

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BELIEVING IN MAGIC 

Possibility, imagination & creation

Most of us love the idea of magic, but few of us actually believe in it.  It seems that magic is reserved only for small children.  Once we reach the age of “logical” brain development, magic becomes silly fantastical play that only little kids do and since we are becoming a “big” kid, magic goes out the window for us.  Why do we stop playing and believing in magic?  Why do we get so serious and realistic?  It’s really all about what we value as a society and what gets reinforced.  We get acknowledgment and praise for getting good grades, excelling at math and science, and for doing our school work well.  We don’t get acknowledgment for how well we play, the worlds we create with our imagination or how much we believed in magic today.  Since there is an innate human need to belong and be part of the group, we follow what the collective agrees to value even if it isn’t in alignment for us.  Despite our best efforts to stay connected to our steam of magic and all of its infinite possibilities, we often lose connection to it our mid-late childhood development.  

What is magic?  Magic is the space of possibility, imagination and creation.  What we often fail to realize is that we are imagining our entire reality.  We each are already master magicians (ie. creators).  The world we create/are creating is flat, mundane and logical because that is what has been reinforced to us as what’s real and important.  Therefore that is what we see and continue to create through our seeing.  In this way reality appears to be devoid of magic, but rather it’s that we’ve used our magical powers to create this seemingly ordinary experience.  Inside of this experience we pretend to know what is going to happen next, we create plans, schedules and routines that give us a sense of familiarity, and the world of infinite possibilities gets scaled down into just a few known potential outcomes for how things can be and operate.

You can see that regardless of whether or not you believe in magic, you are utilizing it everyday.  It’s simply a matter of tuning in, paying attention and inquiring into what it is you are creating.  We create with our imagination and our seeing.  Whatever you can imagine is possible you can create.  Again you are already doing it all of the time, it’s only that your range of what is possible is likely quite narrow and your active imaginative qualities are somewhat off line.  You keep creating the same reality because you aren’t conjuring up anything novel from the well of your creator powers.  The question then becomes how do you get yourself back on line, activating your imagination and making magic that makes your reality feel alive, invigorating, exciting, mysterious and blissful.  

GETTING TO THE HEART 

The well-spring of magic

The portal into our active imaginative qualities and creating a more magical reality experience for ourselves is finding our way into our heart.  We are born open and in the state of love.  This is why a young child’s heart is naturally open and why they have access to the world of their magic.  Even if you don’t perceive what they perceive or join them in their creations, they are in their own magically reality all of the time.  That is until they learn the seemingly “fixed and solid” natural of reality that we condition them with and they start to believe that they are a product of creation rather than the magician/creator of it.  This is when the world of infinite possibilities becomes only a small handful of options and we forget, lose touch or disconnect from the fact that we are the ones doing all of the creating.  

As time goes on, and we have more and more experiences of being human, we move further and further away from the source of ourselves.  This means we forget ourselves more and more with time.  In addition, many of the experiences that we have being human don’t feel good and we learn to protect ourselves from physical, emotional and mental pain.  Protection means that we shut down, close off and become less open and available to participate with creation.  Since we’ve forgotten that we are the magician/creator we feel powerless to the circumstances of life, and helpless to how we feel, sense and relate to life and others.  In essence it’s kind of big, confusing mess.  

Finding our way back into our heart often means feeling the things that shut it down in the first place.  When we feel the pain it breaks our hearts back open.  We move through the feelings rather than stay closed down and shut off.  We open into the pain rather than protect ourselves from it.  This is healing in a nutshell.  It’s not complicated, but it’s also not necessarily easy.  It takes quite a bit of courage and ginormous heap of trust in ourselves to reopen.  Well it might seem easier to stay closed and continue life as the mundane status quo, you will feel unsatisfied and non-magical.  Your experience of life will be functional, but it won’t necessarily be fun.  

Your heart is the well-spring of magic.  It makes everything come alive.  It allows all possibilities to emerge.  It activates your imagination and helps you remember that you are the magician of this creation.  The reward of feeling the pain becomes clearly evident as you embark on the journey.  Your commitment and devotion to the path is key.  Some days it will feel hard to find your heart, but your desire to do so will be your guiding light.  If your level of commitment or devotion is high then before you know it there will be nothing that doesn’t fit inside of your heart.  You will have engulfed all of creation in love.  This means you will undoubtedly experience magic as your lived reality moment to moment.  As always the choice lies in your hands, your heart and your desire.   

Dr. Amanda Love, Chiropractor, Network Spinal Analysis & Somato-Respiratory Integration, Boulder, Colorado

FROM CONSUMPTION TO CREATION

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FROM CONSUMPTION TO  CREATION

Life is not ours to get

As much at it might seem that we are here to consume life, we are actually here to create it.  Due to the fact that most people are disconnected from the awareness of themselves as a creator, there is a tendency to experience life as an effect, a destination or something to consume.  Our minds like to generate trajectories of getting.  Getting to the next location, the next exciting opportunity, the next moment when we can relax, the next meal, or getting any one of our million perceived needs and wants met or fulfilled.  Consumption, or getting, is so natural to us that we don’t even notice that is how we are operating.  We might think that we are completely without agenda, yet if we investigate ourselves a bit deeper we will find where and how we attempt to manipulate life in order to get or consume for ourselves.

Consuming life comes from an attempt to create safety and pleasure, through and in, your outer experience.  Most look to find ease, stability and comfort through sensation, feeling and getting what we want or need.  This comes in a multitude of forms from what you put in your mouth, what you purchase, the thoughts you think, the motivation behind your actions and the structure of your life.  We attempt to feel satisfaction and fulfillment by what we consume, as if somehow consumption will make us feel permanently good, even if we know it is only temporary.  We must keep getting our fix so that we can maintain feeling good, relaxed and safe.  This becomes a chase.  A chase to keep consuming life.

Recognizing yourself as a creator has nothing to do with creating stability in the picture of life and safely consuming it so that the illusion of all of your needs and wants is met.  Rather it is about moving with life and what you are inspired and excited to bring forth.  Not for your own individual pleasures and safety, but simply because it’s fun for you to create.  Creating for nothing more than the action of creating itself.  A response to an impulse or a call that moves you.  Not creating to consume it, but rather to give your creation to life as your offering, your sharing, and your contribution of the impulse of excitement and desire that runs through you. 

Many create in order to consume.  We build businesses, buy things, create a family, plan trips, develop community, etc. in order to consume it, rather than giving it as a gift to life.  When was the last time you looked at your life and all you’ve created so far and saw it through the lens of what you are giving to life.  Your home, your car, your belongings, your business, your children, your family, your partner, your community, and on and on, are not yours.  They are not things or stuff you have, but rather they are what you can offer to life.  How do you use what you’ve created to give it to life rather than relate to it as something that is yours? 

GIFTS OF CREATING 

Magic of giving

There is an energetic reward of sorts for creating or giving to life.  The more we give to life, rather than attempt to get from life, the more energy we feel.  You might even say that our vibration, or state of being, elevates.  This comes with a sense of levity, spontaneity, aliveness, and excitement.  Things seem to flow and move together even if we don’t know or see how it’s all related and connected.  Giving to life, or giving to the things in our life, brings us into greater energetic coherence.  Asking how or what can I give to this will instantly align you with how you can serve in any moment.  Rather than feeling lost, confused, frustrated or hopeless, you will feel the inspiration of the impulse of giving and sharing yourself.  

For some people this might all sound exhausting.  All this giving.  A part of you might say, what about me?  How am I going to be ok?  Another part might insist that it doesn’t have any extra time or energy to give or create more.  You might feel or find yourself wanting to conserve what little energy you have, so you limit or cap your creation and fall into consumption.  Believe it or not, it actually drains our energy and lowers our state of vibration to simply consume life.  A life of consumption is kind of like a bottomless pit that can never be filled.  It feels heavy, tired and doesn’t have much motivation or desire.  It keeps getting and taking yet never feels full.  It only experiences temporary fulfillment.  Motivation and desire comes from creating and therefore the only way to fill this pit is to give to life.  

There is a magic that happens in creating that you don’t experience until you shift from consuming life to creating it.  See creating is the same as loving.  To create is to love.  When you create or give to life you are instantly included in all of it.  When you follow the call or the inspiration to create, you are taken care of.  Somehow, someway life will always support you.  You likely will not know how it will happen, and you might fall into doubt from time to time, but with continued focus on creating simply to create you will come to see that this is the case.  

There is nothing to grab and hold onto in this life.  You are a creator not a getter.  You are not a passive recipient or an effect of life, you are the creator of it.  When we try to stabilize life, or stabilize our outer experience so that we can consume it, we stagnate and feel lifeless.  We feel lifeless because we aren’t utilizing our life giving potential.  We focus on what isn’t, what we don’t have that we want, and feel powerless to our circumstance.  When instead you see that everything inside of your current experience is something you can ‘give life/love to’ rather than something you ‘have or get’, you activate and utilize your creator power.  When you ask yourself in every situation, what can I give to this, you come to life.  You feel energized.  You elevate.  It doesn’t even matter what you do or the things you create.  It matters only that you come from being the creator, from giving, from loving.  

Dr. Amanda Love, Chiropractor, Network Spinal Analysis & Somato-Respiratory Integration, Boulder, Colorado

GETTING BEYOND COMPLACENCY

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GETTING BEYOND COMPLACENCY

What do you tolerate? 

It’s easy to get lazy.  As humans we are creatures of habit.  After we do something a time or two or three, and the novelty of it wears off, we go into automatic pilot mode.  We assume that what is will always be the way it is because now we are used to it being that way.  We create the illusion of solid and fixed, and with this we stop being fully present.  Our experience of what was once novel and exciting now become more ordinary and with that we slip into a habituated state of being, which you could also call your “usual” state of awareness.  But who really wants usual and ordinary?  None of us do and yet it’s easier to maintain the lower frequency of usual than it is the higher frequency of excitement.  

In order to get beyond the habit of our usual state of being we need to literally stretch our bandwidth or increase our capacity for what we can maintain.  For most people stretching is a bit uncomfortable because it comes with a sense of effort and work.  It takes more energy to get out of our normal habituated ways of being then is does to continue with our automatic thoughts, behaviors and perceptions.  This energy expenditure is exactly what is required to increase our capacity and maintain a higher frequency, yet many chose the way of utilizing as little effort and energy as possible.  You could also equate this to not having enough desire or momentum to create change.  You might think you want something to be different in your life, but you don’t really want to put in the energy to make it different.  

We all have different tolerance levels.  Some people might tolerate being 10 pounds overweight while another person won’t tolerate being more than 2 pounds over.  Some people tolerate being out of alignment or distracted 50% of their day, while others won’t tolerate more than 10%.  There is no right or wrong here in regards to where you are at, it’s simply important to take note of it.  Take inventory of what your tolerance levels are in all the important areas of your life.  Then honestly ask yourself if you are ready to shift your level.  If you aren’t ready, what would it take for you to be ready?  In this way you get clarity around where you are and even if you aren’t ready to shift anything at least you can accept it and do the preparatory work required in order to be ready.  

Our vibrational state is up to us and only us.  No one can or will shift it for us.  Your level of desire and willingness to participate is key.  To move from your normal baseline to your next level is your work and responsibility.  You can use things or people as permission slips to feel certain ways, but ultimately you must become the source of your frequency in order for it to sustainable. 

FREQUENCY OF EXCITEMENT 

Becoming more childlike 

As much as we all like to feel excitement, most people aren’t feeling it much.  Our focus tends to be on all the things that need to get done, rather than on feeling amazing and following what feels good.  Many of our automatic patterns of behavior help us be efficient doers, which can at times be helpful, but they can also make us robotic.  We are going through the motions of life and doing all the things, but for what?  To get everything done so that we can do everything again tomorrow?  Where exactly do we think we will get to once all the doing is finished?  From what I can tell the activity of life, of this infinite creation, never stops.  We could constantly find ourselves doing something.  The goal is not the cessation of doing or activity, but rather to be present right now.  To find and feel our excitement in this moment and not when something is finished or done.

The frequency of excitement is high.  Think of a small child and how excited they get, and how much energy they have.  It’s off the charts.  They are pure examples of living excitement.  Yet we often feel tired by that level of excitement.  We don’t have the energy to keep up.  Where does energy come from anyways?  Why does it feel limited to us, but infinite in a small child?  Energy comes from excitement.  You generate energy through excitement.  Now I am not saying that rest is not beneficial.  Rest is necessary for these bodies.  What I am taking about is all the rest of the time when you are not resting.  You may also find that you require less rest the more you are able to maintain a higher frequency of energy in your day to day life. 

Like I mentioned earlier there is a stretching phase.  A phase when it feels like it takes a lot of energy to elevate yourself.  It’s true, it does.  Stretching is not effortless.  It requires work.  Work that will then require rest.  However at some point you will maintain at a new higher level of vibration that feels lighter, freer, and more childlike.  A child may swing on the same swing 50 times at the park and it will not be normal or ordinary to them.  They will find a way to feel excited about it each time, and then when some other object at the park strikes their fancy they will run over to it and play on it.  They continue to generate and follow their excitement.  

Giving yourself permission to live life in a more joyfully free and excited way is a permission slip worth giving yourself.  Trust the rhythms of life more.  The comings and the goings.  The ebbs and flows.  The natural pacing and rhythms.  Trust yourself more.  Your feelings and intuitions.  Your joy and excitement.  Follow them.  Do your best not to let your rational mind make things ordinary and normal.  Find novelty in swinging on the same swing 50 times.  Life is not flat or mundane on its own.  It requires our perspective of it to be flat or mundane.  Through what perspective do you see life?  If it’s not what you desire, are you ready to shift it?  Be willing to do the work required to raise yourself up and to get to the next vibrational level of yourself.  

Dr. Amanda Love, Chiropractor, Network Spinal Analysis & Somato-Respiratory Integration, Boulder, Colorado