body intelligence

Embodiment

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EMBODIMENT 

Finding the ground

Embodiment.  Seems like in some way we are all on a quest for greater embodiment.  To be present, in this moment, participating in the full experience of life.  In spiritual circles embodiment is a popular topic and is often referred to as being “in” our body, feeling the sensations, and moving our bodies with the inner rhythms of our being.   It seems that the aim of the embodiment movement is the shift from living in our head/thoughts into a more visceral, connected or integrated experience of existing.  Along with embodiment comes the idea of being grounded, which we often associate with a down or into our physical body direction.  

For many people there is an experience of overwhelming activity in their day to day, which can feel scattering, lead to being hyper-mentally focused, and or an experience of being “up”.  This up or scatter is what people attempt to bring down through embodiment practices.  These practices are incredibly beneficial, particularly if we feel disconnected from our physicalness or from our feeling body, but they are not the full picture of embodiment.  While they can greatly support us feeling more alive and engaged if we are stuck in our heads, the overarching goal of existing is not to be more “in” our physical body.  Rather the goal, so to speak, is to be or express more completely in and through all our bodies, of which the physical body is but one expression of who we are.  

The most pertinent questions here now are how do we be grounded, energized and expressing through all of our bodies?  And how do we become aware of the life and intelligence in all aspects of ourselves?  Our physical, emotional, mental and soul bodies are all vital expressions of our beingness.  True embodiment is being present in all directions and levels of ourselves.  Being grounded up, down, in and out.  If we are too physically focused our spiritual bodies might not be energized.  If we are too spiritually focused our physical, mental or emotional bodies might not be energized.  There can be any combination of these occurring.  You might wonder how you would ground up and out, since this is not the typical direction that people associate with the ground.  As a reframe, think of ground as everywhere and more as a state of being rather than as a dense form.  Throughout the entire universe there is ground.  Ground is not just down into the earth, but it is water, it is sky, it is the infinite cosmic expanse.  Ground is also not just physical, but it is subtle and etheric.  In fact the most coherent and stable ground is pure light itself; ever present, always here and the source of all life. 

GROUND OF BEING 

All bodies

If ground is everywhere, then you can experience ground in your physical body, ground in your emotions, ground in your thoughts and ground in your soul.  You might wonder what it looks like to be grounded in all of your bodies.  Being grounded in your physical body means your sensory-motor skills are intact and things are running smoothly with all of your physical body parts.  You are also not overly tense and breath moves freely through your body.  Being grounded in your emotional body means you know what you are feeling and you can feel your emotions when they are present.  You don’t try to think your emotions and you are not numb to them either.  Rather emotions are present, you feel them and the energy of them moves.  Being grounded in your mental body means that you have clear, coherent and organized thoughts.  You can pay attention to detail, follow things through and also see the larger perspective of how things fit together and impact each other.  Being grounded in your soul body means you know your multifaceted, multidimensional nature.  You feel connected to your heart and the hearts of others through yours.  You know knowledge without needing to learn it in book or from someone else.  You regularly feel ecstatic states of bliss and rapture.

Each of our bodies do have different directionality, frequency and relative size or distance.  Physical body density is slower.  You can see the size of this body with your physical eyes and the directionality is down/in.  The emotional body is less dense, but still has substance or thickness to it even in its non-physicalness.  Emotions can feel heavy or light and the direction can be up or down.  The mental body is less physical as we don’t directly see thoughts with our eyes like we do our physical body.  The frequency of thoughts is higher than emotions or the physical body, and the direction tends to be up.  The soul body is the most subtle of our bodies.  It has the fastest frequency, and is the largest and most expansive of all of our bodies.  Its direction is up and out, and eventually all pervasive as you reach full fusion or unity.  I share all of this because as you learn to ground in each of your bodies, knowing how they move and where to find them is useful.  If you are constantly drawing your energy and awareness down and in, then it may be more challenging to find coherent thought or expansive states of unified bliss and rapture.  Opposite of that if you are always up and out, your physical body or emotional body may be a bit more elusive to you.  

Embodiment includes of all you, in all directions and all rhythms.  Sometimes you may need to find up, at other times down, sometimes in and at other times out, until eventually you are rested in the allness of everythingness that has no direction and no distinction of bodies because it is just one unified whole.  This is the ground of all being.  The source from which all life sprouts forth from and returns to.  The source of existence and existing.  We are all already this.  The journey of embodiment is the expression of this source into infinite forms (ie. what we call creation or the universe), until the eventual return of the essence of these forms dissolves back into the source from which it emerged.  Returning to itself.  Expanding out and contracting back in.  Embodiment is the creation, it is the expansion out.  The return to source is the dissolution of all bodies and forms, aka disembodiment, but that is a topic for another time.  

Dr. Amanda Love, Network Spinal Analysis Chiropractic, Boulder, Colorado

BE THE FREQUENCY OF YOUR DESIRE

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BE THE FREQUENCY OF YOUR DESIRE 

Next level manifestation

Manifestation is popular spiritual concept.  Everyone wants to know how to manifest what they desire and experience the life of their dreams.  There tends to be two extreme ways that people go about manifesting.  One way is to work to make happen.  This means doing whatever it takes, at whatever cost, to make the thing you desire happen and create your life how you dream it to be.  I call this the active way.  The other way is to open yourself to what you desire and let it happen through you.  I call this the passive way.  It involves intention, conviction, faith and surrender.  Neither way is right or wrong, and believe it or not, one way is not easier then the other way.  They are simply two different approaches to the same desired end goal.  

Just to be clear from the beginning, what most people desire is a state of being and not an actual thing or experience.  For example you may think that you really want a relationship, money, a home, a business or some particular experience, however what most people want is how they think that the thing will make them feel.  We want feeling rather than physical substance despite the fact that we really think that it’s the thing we want.  How many times have you gotten the “thing” you want only to be dis-enamored by it 2 weeks, 6 months or 5 years later.  Relationships can be a good example of this.  You might get really excited about a new partner, only to find that you don’t really like them a year or two into the relationship.  All the ways you had hoped you would feel in the relationship you no longer feel and now you find yourself trying to find a way out and seeking that ‘state of being’ you desire through new experiences or forms.

When you see that it’s the state of being that you desire it stops the cycle of chasing experiences or things.  Sometimes we have to go through many, many disappointments before we realize that what we want isn’t the thing.  Some people never learn this completely.  There is power and freedom to the end of the chase, the end of seeking and of looking outside of yourself for fulfillment, love or purpose.  If we spent as much time and energy on cultivating our desired state of being, as we do on trying to both actively and passively get what we want, we would rather quickly discover fulfillment.  We need only to dismantle the story that it’s the thing that we want.  Let our attachment to the form of our desires go.  Forms change and change and change.  Forms are simply modes and methods of experience and learning, and attaining them or having them is not what brings us lasting joy.  Rather our determined state of being is.   

TRUE FULFILLMENT 

It’s not about getting

In a way true fulfillment requires both active and passive manifestation.  When we relinquish our attachment to forms and experiences, and rather focus on our state of being as primary, we will discover that life moves through us.  This is the more passive way of manifestation.  Even though I call it passive, it requires surrender and letting go of control, which most of us really suck at.  Frequently when people say that they are going to allow what they want to happen through them, they either don’t have any real conviction or intention behind it, or they “secretly” are trying to control what is happening.  I say secretly because they are often quite obviously to their lack of trust and often mentally attempting to control outcomes. 

When we do align ourselves or become the frequency of our desire we will frequently find that activity wants to be done by us and through our vehicles (i.e. our body and mind).  This means that there may be lots of activity and doing of stuff.  Many times when people choose active manifestation they do it from a place of not first being in their alignment.  Their focus is more on the outcome of what they desire rather than on their state of being.  This leads to burnout and overtime resistance to doing.  Many people feel tired by the active way of manifestation.  They don’t want to work so hard.  They want to play more.  However what I find that people are really tired of is not all the doing and hard work, but rather they are tired of being out of alignment or not in their preferred state of being.  Work is play when we are aligned.

I wish that all of the spiritual programs that advertise things like “manifest the life of your dreams”, rather said “become the frequency of your desire”.  It would be a lot less confusing for people and end the frustration people feel when they are unsuccessful in their attempts to get the thing they want.  See nothing about this life journey is about getting, and while almost everyone is focused on getting one thing or another, it all leads to disappointment at some point whether you get it or not.  It all ends.  All forms at some point change form.  People, relationships, businesses, communities, projects, events and on and on.  This is not a negative unless you choose to look at it from that perspective, which most people do.  Rather it’s simply the way of expression of life.  Everything is constantly learning and changing it’s form and structure based on it’s learning.  This is intelligent design at work.  It’s evolution and growth.  There is nothing bad or wrong about it.  

So if life is not about getting, manifesting or creating everything you want, then you might wonder what it’s about.  It’s about what you are.  It’s about your alignment with the intention for your existence.  It’s about being your preferred state of being no matter what is happening in the appearance of life.  True creation and manifestation occurs by your vibration.  You create what you are, not what you do.  You give what you are, not what you do, even though doing is often involved.  Ultimately you get what you are as well, even when the focus is not on the getting.  When you give to life, rather than get from life you add energy to the field and your experience naturally becomes richer.  I am not suggesting martyrdom, though some may need to go that route first.  I am suggesting placing more attention, focus and awareness on your state of being as primary.  As your alignment in your preferred state strengthens you will discover giving is just an effect of your alignment.  

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

SYMPHONY OF THE SPINE

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SYMPHONY OF THE SPINE 

Vibrating waves of light, frequency & tone

Everything in this universe is made of energy, which is expressed in its most basic building blocks as light, frequency or tone.  These vibrating waves of light, frequency or tone contain information which informs what forms and structures they will organize themselves into.  Forms and structures, which we call physical or solid, are simply patterns of energy that have configured themselves in certain ways to give rise to what we see or sense.  Everything in this universe is vibrational in nature and is singing a grand symphony, because at its core it is simply frequency.  Some tones are audible to the human ear.  Others are outside of the normal auditory sensory range, yet nonetheless are still present and can be heard with your “non-physical” ears.  What are those you might ask?  Let’s just call them extra-sensory organs which expand beyond the five normal ordinary sensory organs we currently use and know.  

Our spines are receivers of the grand symphony of the universe.  The position or tension pattern of the spine will determine which frequencies we can tune into.  This is kind of like the equivalent of turning the dial on the radio station and hearing a different station play.  However rather than turning a dial you are shifting the position and tension/tonal pattern of the tissues of your spinal cord.  What does this mean exactly?  Well in very simplistic terms its means that when your spinal cord is taut (tight) it tunes into a particular station.  That station might be playing some songs that are quite familiar to you.  The words, thoughts, and feelings that come with those songs might be something like “the world is not safe, other people are not safe, I can’t trust others, I can’t trust myself, I am not good enough, no one cares about me, I’ll never have enough resources, I’m not supported, nothing works, I have to do everything myself, life is against me, I’ll never heal, things will never be ok, I’m scared, I feel sad, things are looking down, this pain will last forever, I’ll never be able to relax and breathe…”.  Elements of this station are pretty familiar to most of us.  We’ve all listened to some of these songs over and over and over again.  For some these are the only tracks that have ever played.  

When the tension/tonal pattern of the spinal cord changes position (ie. relaxes) then our nervous system, which is simply an antenna, tunes into a different frequency or radio station.  That station might be playing songs like “I feel good, things are working out, I’m abundant, I decide, I choose, I can trust myself, I am free, other people are allies, I am safe, all is well, support is everywhere, I am getting better each day, life is happening in perfect rhythm and timing…”. We’ve all heard some of these songs before too, however sometimes they get played less frequently than the other songs.  To recap, when tension is high in our spinal cord we tune into frequencies that create a less enjoyable experience of life for ourselves.  When tension is lower we are able to tune into stations that play more enjoyable sounds and songs, which come with different feeling states and a more pleasant life experience.   

SHIFTING THE TONE OF THE SPINE

Conduit between consciousness & form

You might be wondering now how to change the tone, position or tension pattern in your spinal cord.  Well your entrainment sessions do just that very thing.  This is often why you might feel lighter after a session, or you might have different thoughts, or see something in a different way.  Sometimes people don’t always make those correlations, yet as the tension shifts in your spinal cord you are simply able to tune into stations that you were not able to before.  The more tension we unwind in our spine (ie. the more relaxed the spinal cord becomes) the more far reaching stations we are able to find.  Some of those stations we may have never heard before and they may seem totally foreign to us.  Yet even though they are foreign they are oddly familiar, and even though we don’t know the songs yet, they feel good to us.  In fact we might experience downright bliss, ecstasy and sense of overwhelming love and warmth as we “listen”, and yet we don’t have any logical reason  as to why.  

Listening at this level involves more of what you might call using your intuitive faculties.  We hear beyond the ears, see beyond the eyes, feel beyond the skin, etc.  To our ordinary sensory experience of life this seems abnormal or “special”, yet once your system is relaxed enough to find this station, it really is as normal as any other experience, only it comes with more energy, more aliveness and an experience of interconnectedness.  This is often what I refer to as experiencing or coming to know more of yourself.  You are more than your physical body, emotions, and thoughts, and yet we don’t often tune into stations beyond these.  

You might wonder why the amount of tension on your spine directly relates to or effects your experience of life.  The spine is the interface between consciousness and form in this human body.  Due to this relationship the information that it tunes into determines how/what you will perceive and experience.  Just like we can easily move the dial on the radio, we can also change the tone/tension of the spine.  We might go back and forth between stations all day long, sometimes playing the songs of not enough, feeling unsupported, and like life is not working, to changing to the tone and listening to songs of safety, freedom, choice and bliss.  Whatever songs are more relevant and resonate with us we will gravitate towards and listen to more often, because they have a similar frequency with us, with where we are at and with whatever it is that we are currently learning.  

In this way your spine is playing a symphony whether or not you hear it.  The information (ie. beliefs, thoughts, feelings, and sensations) all carry tones that make a song.  The sounds of that song transmit or express through you.  No belief, thought, feeling or sensation is good, bad, or better or worse than any others.  All are neutral at their core.  Yet there are often sounds and songs that we prefer more than others.  Preference is ok, insistence however generates the experience of suffering.  Learning to dance to any song that is playing is what it means to be resilient, and to become a master of this waltz.  This is what it is to create harmony where there is disharmony and to enjoy whatever music is playing on your station even if its heavy metal.  This is how you choose your station rather than shift between stations a hundred times a day.  Reminders are good until we remember that we can choose.  

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

UNWINDING NEUROLOGICAL DEFENSE

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UNWINDING NEUROLOGICAL DEFENSE 

Dismantling our protection from pain

We’ve all experienced tension.  That tight, constricted, unrelaxed feeling.  Sometimes it feels hard to breathe.  It can come with feeling overwhelmed and like there isn’t enough time or resources available to us.  It can be challenging to discover and feel what we are feeling.  Often it comes with uncomfortable sensations in the body.  Tension is means of protection.  We create tension, and our body feels that tension, in order to protect us from pain, when we perceive that pain might be present or imminent.  The pain, which tension is protecting us from, isn’t always clearly evident to us.  Yet if we investigate we can always find the thing we are attempting to avoid feeling or experiencing.  

Pain can come in many forms.  It can be purely at the body/sensation level.  You might experience this in a car accident or a fall where you finding yourself bracing (i.e. creating tension) in order to protect the body from damage and lessen the impact.  You may also have a chronically painful part of your body.   Often we create tension around that area in order to attempt to not feel the pain as much.  It’s not the tension that is painful even if that is what we think is the source of the pain.  The true source of the pain is often below the tension.  The tension is the means to dull what is underneath it.  Pain can also be felt at the emotional level.  The root of most emotional pain is the fear/experience of being unloved or unlovable.  At the next level up pain felt at the mental levels is often rooted in not being enough, sharing enough or having anything worthy to give/be.  Lastly pain is also experienced at the spiritual level, which is rooted in believing we are separate from spirit/God.  

Due to the fact that most people don’t want to experience pain we learn to create protection or defense from it.  We gear up and create armoring.  This armoring is like a neurological suit that we wear that we don’t even know that we are wearing.  Everything we experience or interact with gets to come into contact with this suit.  The suit is a filter.  It’s not who we are, but it is often who we think we are and also who others perceive us to be.  Loosely you could call this our personality, and it also comes with a particular way we posture our body, talk, walk, think, perceive, dress, eat, behave and the sensations we have or don’t have.  It colors our entire world.  The suit comes with wiring.  That wiring is called neurological defense.  There are patterns and architecture to neurological defense.  These patterns are specifically what Network Chiropractic addresses.  Network assesses for the patterns that are present and helps wake up awareness and liberate energy inside these patterns of protection, so that your true self may be known to you.   

OPENING INTO THE HEART 

Rewriting the nervous system

The true self is the heart.  It is that space or experience of relaxation and easefulness that is joyfully and blissfully present.  It is light and spacious.  It is all inclusive and allows everything inside of it to be as it is.  It is energized and alive.  It is awake.  It sees nothing as wrong.  There is no resistance and we feel just as our self.  Nothing to hide, protect, avoid, or run away from experiencing.  It is that which we are all hungry for and finding our way into in our own ways.  The heart is not just for some people or for some times.  It is for all times and all people.  

The heart seems absent, foreign or mysterious to us when we are in a state of neurological defense.  When we are in protection mode we view ourselves as a subject/object that is independent from other subject/objects.  This is how most beings in the world view themselves and also why there is such a disconnection from the heart amongst our collective at large.  When separation is the predominant perspective than there is always something/someone to protect ourselves from.  Yet when that predominant perceptive changes to non-separation or unity, than protection becomes nonsensical and arbitrary.  

The heart isn’t something hard to find.  Its all pervasive, ever present and never comes or goes.  What does come or go is our focus or attention on it.  When our focus and attention is wrapped up in all the ways we need to protect ourselves to physically survive, get all of our emotional needs met and to satisfy the demands of the stories we’ve learned to tell ourselves about what our life is supposed to be and who we are supposed to be, then the heart is not in our view.  Shifting priorities, changing stories and reconditioning the neurological patterns present in your energetic and physical configuration is required in order to experience life as heart.  

Opening into the heart is closer than you think.  It’s not too hard to find/feel glimpses of it.  These glimpses are important as they start to light up pathways that don’t get lit up that frequently inside most people’s nervous systems.  This is what Network entrainments provide the container for as well.  During entrainments an energetic field is created that is organized in such a way to amplify the experience of heart for you.  While the gentle contacts along the spine help dismantle neurological defense, this field or container of the heart is readily present and available.  With continued tastes, touches and glimpses of this field of the heart, a person can receive and exchange more and more energy and awareness with this field.  The energy, awareness and perspective of heart then becomes the dominant program in your system.  The heart starts speaking louder than the pathways that are fighting for survival and viewing life from a scarce and separate perspective.  This is the progression, the objective and the intention.  It’s simple.  It’s available.  It’s time is ripe.  

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

YOU DON’T HAVE TO DO ANYTHING

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YOU DON’T HAVE TO DO  ANYTHING

Fear of badness

So often we feel this pressure, pull or weight to do.  That we have to do against our will or desire to do.  There seems to be an ultimatum if we don’t do.  We fear that if we don’t do whatever it is that we think we have to do, then something bad will happen.  We don’t even typically know what will happen, we just think that it will be bad.  This fear of “badness” and of not wanting to feel it, keeps us locked into the feeling state of being trapped, and the thought that we must do even when we aren’t sure what to do or feel strong opposition to the doing we think that we must do.  

One of the pivotal things to accept is that as humans we are essentially blind.  Spiritually blind that is.  In many ways we are masked, muted and confused.  We can see the appearance or expression of life, but we can’t see the source of it.   We don’t know who we are or what’s really going on beyond what we’ve been taught by other beings who are similarly confused.  When you accept that you are, by nature of this human experience, highly confused and that its okay to be confused, its much easier to take the pressure off of yourself.  That pressure to do something because you fear badness is alleviated when you accept your own state of blindness.

When we accept that we mostly don’t know anything we can realize that even our projected fear of badness is inaccurate.  The truth is we don’t know if something bad will happen or not happen based on our doing or non-doing.  We may create elaborate stories based on ideas in our mind or on previous life experiences, and yet even so we don’t know what will truly happen, ever.  All of the doubt we feel in our decision making processes (i.e. the pressure we feel) is simply rooted in the perspective that one way is good and another is bad.  One way is right and another wrong.  That the result of one choice is preferable and the other un-preferable.  

Rather than forcing yourself to do, take some kind of action, or make a decision, first giving yourself the permission to not know and not act is key.  Even though it seems like there are deadlines and timelines remember that all of that is made up.  It’s true that if certain “timelines” don’t get met than certain things may not occur, but remember there is no badness in the occurrence or non-occurrence.  Only the perspective you take on all of it matters.  There are truly no missed opportunities.  There is only what happens.  That may be hard for you mind to accept and your acceptance of that is key to your peace.   

WANTING EVERYTHING IN YOUR LIFE 

Doing from choice

Conjure up something in your mind that you think you have to do.  Maybe its your taxes, paying your bills, or a project for work or for hobby.  Perhaps its a conversation with someone, an email to write, a new diet or exercise to start, a relationship to end or a new job to start .  Make sure that whatever it is you bring into mind right now is something you think you have to do, rather than something you want to do or that you feel in neutral acceptance about doing.  Notice the pressure, heaviness, tension or perhaps scatter that occurs when you think about doing the thing.  Listen to the stories and thoughts that are occurring in your mind about having to do the thing.  Some of those stories that are flittering their way through your mind might have flavors of failure, dread, uncertainty and confusion.  Notice what ultimatums you are giving yourself if you don’t do the thing and how you might feel bad about yourself or about the outcome of doing or not doing.

Now feel what its like to give yourself the permission to not do the thing.  There might still be that initial dread or fear that something bad might happen, but let that story lift as well.  For just a few moments stop making all assumptions about what you think might happen and fully allow yourself to not know what the outcome might be or not be.  Be in the mystery.  Allow the not knowing to be present.  Give space for potentiality before making a concrete reality-assumption in your mind.  Now simply notice how you feel.  You should notice that you feel lighter.  That its easier to breathe.  That you are more present.  Continue to allow yourself to not have to make any decisions or take any actions in this moment and continue to notice your energy and feeling state.  

I recommend aiming for this more neutral and easeful state of being before taking any actions.  If you don’t you are simply reacting to illogical stories and disempowered patterning.  From your now current state of being check in and see if whatever it is you conjured up to do still feels relevant to do.  If it doesn’t then just let it go as its not serving you to keep entertaining it.  If it does still feel relevant than begin to see how it is something that you want to do rather than continuing the story that you have to do it.  In the shift to wanting to do it perhaps you notice that you feel like you don’t know how to do the thing, or maybe like you don’t have the resources (physical, emotional, mental or other) to do it.  Notice if this is the case.  These are the situations to seek support and advise from others.  Find the “how” so that your mind doesn’t put a stop to it or insist on keeping you victim to it.  In this way you begin to learn that there is nothing that you have to do.  There is only what you want to do or get to do.  When you have this as the relationship with everything in your life the pressure and tension is gone because you stop being in conflict with yourself.  When you are aligned with yourself there is still work and energy expenditure, but the tension of dread of what bad thing might happen is transformed into excitement for what you get to do instead.  You open more into the mystery and worry less of the outcome.  

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

ATTUNEMENT

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ATTUNEMENT 

Harmony with self & other

Attunement seems to be a rarity in today’s age.  To attune is to bring harmony or tune with another’s rhythms and their emotional/spiritual well-being.  When one is attuning with, or attuned to another, there is a sense of connectedness between the two and of being met and seen.  Most people very much desire attunement because when they are attuned to they know that someone else is present, paying attention, invested, and involved.  It allows the person to relax and not have to fight for the presence of another.  Yet in today’s world we are ensued in the world of distraction.  We are hyper-focused on our phones, social media, email, news, and all of the noise it creates inside of our heads.  It leaves very little room for us to be present and in relationship with others in a way that is human, rather than robotic or purely functional.  

Our massive lack of attunement to others (and to ourselves) results in a sense of aloneness or disconnection.  In a world that is highly interdependent on and with other beings this sets up quite a predicament.  It can feel like no one is there, that people don’t show up and that they don’t care.  This makes us become super self-reliant, which at an extreme level makes it challenging for us to receive support when support does actually present itself, and beyond that we may even push support away.  Also when we are not attuned to ourselves we feel disconnected from our own inner rhythms and from knowing what is going on inside of us.  The only thing that seems to get our attention is strong physical sensations (ie. pain or hunger) or mental-emotional intensity, while the subtle nature of our being remains elusive to us.  

While at our deepest level we desire attunement, it can also feel uncomfortable if we are not used to it, which many of us are not.  Attunement is intimate.  It sees you, but you must also allow yourself to be seen in order to fully receive that attuning.  Most people have many layers of protection or defense that they place around themselves due to previous pains and hurts.  Those layers become barriers to allowing ourselves to drink in the nurturance that attunement provides.  So even if attunement is present often we can’t fully let it in based on the protection we’ve created around ourselves from previous experiences.  Its like listening to the symphony with head phones on and ear plugs in.  You may be able to hear some semblance of the musical harmony being offered, but there are layers in the way of you being able to fully hear and receive it.   

ATTUNING, HARMONIZING & ENTRAINING 

Into the heart

Attuning with, harmonizing or entraining (which are all the same thing) with another being allows for a shared experience when both beings are receptive to it.  Attunement requires heart, presence and caring.  If you don’t care or have desire for others than you won’t experience attunement with them.  Seems obvious, but maybe not for all, as some people truly don’t see or understand why they don’t experience the level of connection with self or others that they desire.  The field, intelligence and energy of the heart is what allows you to go beyond individual person into interconnectedness.  Without heart there is separate individuated beings doing their own thing, which pretty much sums up a large portion of how our society thinks and functions.  With heart there is a interwoven web of beingness all impacting itself, which is the next level of development for the beings on this planet to reach.  

From time to time people express to me that they want more experience from their experience, whether on the table during a session or in their life with others (I find the two to be synonymous).  They want to feel more or experience more, even if they don’t know what it is exactly that they to feel or experience more of.  Others are more clear in their desire.  They know they want to be more expansive, feel more connected, be more aware of subtlety or of their energetic nature, experience more inter-dimensionality, feel more loving, more bliss, more ecstatic, more open.  The first thing I say is that it is important to get clear on exactly what it is you want in the first place.  Put words to it.  Begin to feel it already and notice where you might have even the subtlest amount of resistance, doubt or uncertainty around what you think you want to more of.  These are layers or protection that interfere with you being able to attune and harmonize with your desires.  The second thing I say is that our very nature is all of those things: open, bliss, love, and infinitely deep and expansive.  There is no lack of open, ecstatic bliss because it is what you are.  It is not a destination to get to, but a realization of what you already are.  Notice where you put your “wholeness” in the future, where it seems unattainable or where you feel undeserving of it.  These are more layers that create interference.  Lastly I say that all of those things desired are found in the heart.  Opening into love for self and love for others is a portal into having the ability to connect to all levels of yourself and all aspects of other.  This provides the capacity for attuning to others and the willingness to be attuned too, which at our deepest level we are all starving for.

Attuning, harmonizing and entraining is the core of all relationships.  There is no real relationship without them.  There may be practicalities that get carried out, but no real connection occurs inside of a relationship without the capacity and willingness for attunement.  While practicalities are important they are not the juice of life that make us come alive and feel that life is worth living.  Instead relating, community, connection, interconnectedness, and the play of the heart are what lights us up.  This is where we forget all the things we thought where so important to remember, figure out, heal or know.  We forget about all the stuff we think we want to get and all the places we want to go.  We become present.  We are here.  Infinite energy, possibilities and connection live here now.  

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

SUBTLE FEELINGS & SENSATIONS

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SUBTLE FEELINGS & SENSATIONS 

Journeying deeper into Self

We all have a thousand feelings and sensations per day.  Many of those feelings & sensations we don’t fully register.  For example we often don’t register the feeling of our butt on a chair unless we have been sitting for too long, nor do we feel our feet on the ground unless we deliberately focus on those feelings.  Instead of feeling every nuance our nervous system does something that is called accommodation.  In this way we learn to tune out or become less aware of all the “ordinary” feelings and sensations that we have on a day to day basis.  

This accommodation or tuning out function has pros and cons.  On the pro side of things most of us don’t want to be feeling every single sensation that arises as it would become distracting.  We would never get things done because we would be feeling every aspect of every moment.  It would be hard to be focused on anything else.  Also for people who tend towards vigilance and/or hypersensitivity, feeling every aspect of their experience would feel overwhelming.  For these reasons the accommodating function of the nervous system is beneficial.  

Now for the cons.  On the journey of deepening into self-recognition it is helpful to have gateways and pointers.  Due to the fact that we are physically focused right now we have these bodies with nervous systems that can perceive sensations and feelings.  These sensations and feelings are pointers into developing greater awareness of self.  If we’ve simply accommodated to say the sensations of our fears or anxieties to the point that they don’t register with us than we lose valuable access points into our patterns, which means that the patterns go unchecked.  When a pattern is unchecked it runs the show of our life, but does so unconscious to our knowing of it.  

The dance then becomes the selective attunement to the subtleties of your feelings and sensations.  For some this means coming out of automatic mode and noticing those feelings and sensations that you’ve been overriding without knowing that you’ve been overriding them.  Slowing down enough to recognize that you are having a feeling or sensation that perhaps isn’t overt, but is present.  For others, particularly those that tend to be more sensitive to sensations or feelings, it’s the willingness to feel them rather than going into overwhelm or victimization to them as if they are somehow bigger than you.   

TECHNOLOGY OF AWARENESS 

Going through the sensation portal

There is an obvious difference between an overt sensation or feeling and a subtle one.  When we override the subtle ones than life has to speak to us in louder ways to get our attention for our own learning, healing and growing.  We’ve collectively agreed to call those louder ways that life speaks to us physical symptoms, which come with a set of labels and conditions.  However the subtle feelings and sensations are the ones that, if we can tune into them, the current medical model says its all in our heads because they have no way to measure them.  Its clearly not that they don’t exist inside of our experience, but instead that our current level of technology can’t attune to it.  

Good thing we don’t need to rely on external technology to tell us information about ourselves.  We have within our body some of the most advanced technology available on planet earth and in fact in this entire universe.  That technology is called our awareness.  Awareness is alert, awake, clear, attentive, and conscious.  This entire life journey is about becoming more awake, conscious of ourselves and of this awareness that we are.  One of the prime ways this occurs is through paying attention and noticing what is in our experience and what it is pointing too.  Through investigation of this we learn what those sensations and feelings are all about and why they are created in the first place.     

One fundamental thing to understand is that all sensations and feelings, subtle or overt, are simply catalyst for learning.  They arise to teach us something about ourselves, about the way we do life, about who we are and who we think we are, about what we are here to share and be.  That is really it.  No more meaning than that.  We can try to make them into problems and things that need to be fixed or changed, but in truth that is not what they are.  The perspective of seeing them as problems is viewed through the lens of wrongness and trying to make the forms of life permanent when they are not and are not meant to be. 

The more you can shift your focus to the perspective that life is about learning rather than trying to make this human experience consistent or permanent, the more flexible you will be in navigating subtle and overt sensations and feelings.  The more willing you are to slow down the more you will tune into your subtle nature and less you will bypass, overlook or accommodate to those sensations and feelings that are portals into greater understanding of yourself.  The more you prioritize self-growth, self-recognition and self-mastery the more energy that will become available to you to penetrate through all of the relevant sensations and feelings so you can see what they are actually made of, which is a conglomerate of thoughts, ideas and beliefs about self and life.  The freer you will become.  The more stable in self you will feel.  The less fear will arise because you will have seen through the roots of it.  These are the rewards of tuning to the subtleties and going in and through the sensation and feeling portals of life.  Utilize what’s been given to you.  Rather than see it as an interference, be curious and come to know the gift of it.  It all arises for your benefit and growth.  There is no other reason.  

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

YOUR BODY IS NOT SEPARATE FROM YOU

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YOUR BODY IS NOT SEPARATE FROM YOU 

The catalyst of bodily symptoms

Most people don’t like it when their body behaves in ways that seem dysfunctional.  People’s relationship to novel or chronic sensations, pains, or symptoms that don’t make sense often throw them into a state of alarm, panic and distress.  The struggle to attempt to change the expression through figuring out and controlling one’s self or environment can become life consuming.  Often the journey can feel exhausting and like it isn’t achieving the desired outcome.  

If you see from the perspective that this entire life experience is about learning, then including the experiences that you have in relationship with your body is no different.  Oftentimes however rather  than viewing from the perspective that life is about learning we attempt to find some solidity or permanence inside of our experience, particularly when it comes to our physical body.  Since most people identity as their body rather than the presence that makes their body come alive many feel intimately threatened by certain bodily sensations or symptoms.  That threat can come in the form of not being able to do things we feel we want to do, loss of certain functions that seem vital to our existence and a general hopeless or powerless perspective towards the body and its expressions.  

First I want to offer the perspective that you are not your body.  Your body is an instrument of you.  It is what you utilize inside of this human experience, but it is not you.  The body also does not function independent of you.  Just like a piano does not play without the pianist, your body does not function without you playing it.  Without you your body does not make a sound, a beep, or a single move.  This is important to fully understand.  See when things go “awry’ in our body we tend to view the body as separate from us and while your body is not you it does nothing without you.  

When we view our body as acting independently from us we disown ourselves in the equation and thus any power we have.  This is why we feel powerless, helpless and try to figure it all out as if it is something other than us.  It is not that we are actually powerless or helpless to our body, but only that we have the perspective that we are somehow separate from our body.  When we see through and dissolve the story of separation we no longer perceive disconnection or otherness.  There is no other thing inside of your body running the show.  It is only you inside your body running the show.  How could there be something or someone else inside of your body?  That one that is you is the one that is playing this instrument of your body.   

EMPOWERED YOU = HAPPY BODY 

You are the Creator

All learning is to help us realize more of ourselves, and the more realized we are of what we are, the more empowered we experience ourselves to be.  To say this another way the more we know ourselves, the more aware we are, and the more resourceful we are in navigating with the forms of life because we see more clearly how we are the creator of them.  The body is one of those forms of life, one in which we are seemingly more intimately connected too.  

In times when we perceive greater separation there is often the feeling that life and our body are against us.  Maybe we see our body’s symptoms, pains and expressions as punishment for something, or as unfair, or as wrong.  However our body is not against us as that would be absolutely impossible.  That would be like saying the piano is against the pianist.  How could that even be so?  Who would be inside the piano to be against anything.  The piano is inherently neutral and so is your body.  What chooses for or against is you.  

What I am pointing to here is a high level of empowerment and knowing yourself.  Not everyone is ready to take full responsibility for knowing themselves and therefore will keep trying to fix and manipulate the form.  The form will change in response to those manipulations, however it may or may not change your experience.  This is why people don’t arrive where they hope to arrive.  They are waiting on the form to inform them.  They are allowing the form to decide for them rather than deciding for themselves.  

The way I see it is that the body’s expressions are catalyst, meaning ways to help us wake up and realize ourselves.  They are learning tools.  They are not meant as punishment, or to harm us, and they are not wrong or unfair.  They are pointers, pointing us to pay attention to ourselves.  To see, choose, act, respond, think, and feel differently then we currently do.  To expand our range of life and possibility and move beyond our current perceptions of limitation.  To ultimately turn our awareness towards ourselves rather than the stuff of life.  To come to know ourselves.  This is how I see all of life.  There is nothing in this entire universe that isn’t moving towards greater self-recognition.  That is the impulse that drives all movement, all energy and all direction.  It drives your entire life even if you don’t yet see it.  

No forms are permanent.  We all know this despite our great efforts to try to make them so.  You are on an epic learning journey with the only destination being greater awareness of self.  The one stable, non-changing element is you.  Not your mind, thoughts, emotions, sensations or ideas about who you are, but your very essence.  Come to know that.  Realize that is all any of this is about.  Find safety in yourself, not in the ever changing world of forms.  

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

REMEMBERING

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REMEMBERING

Who you are, what you are, why you are

We are all hungry to remember.  Remember who we are, what we are, why we are.  We have become so accustom to the black cloud of forgetfulness that most simply do not even realize that there is something to remember.  Yet there is often a deep longing for something that we can’t quite describe yet somehow know is there.  If we are lucky, which is simply another word for incredibly disciplined and focused, than that longing inspires us to seek.  Seeking are those actions, whether internal or external in nature, that we take which drive us into remembering.  

Getting to a place of remembering is not a passive process and yet the paradox is that all that is required is to receive.  To enter into a state of receiving that which is already here and available to you.  In general most people are not very receptive.  They are filled with the contents of this dreamscape we call reality and there is no space for anything else to enter.  When the content of our beliefs and thoughts consumes us we are disconnected from the true reality of ourselves.  We think we are the character that we are playing in this dream and don’t see that we are the creator of it.  We miss the most obvious, and yet nearly all people miss the most obvious.  This is why nearly all of humanity is asleep even though their eyes are open.  Asleep because they lack awareness of their true self.  This creates a mundane, flat, and ordinary appearance and experience.   

This disconnection from knowing ourselves leaves us feeling powerless, like we aren’t in charge and don’t have choice.  One of the most important aspects of remembering is your decision to decide that you can.  The indoctrinate of impossibility within which we are cloaked in must be pierced by you for you.  You must see that you can, and beyond that, that you must choose remembering for yourself.  It will not passively fall upon you.  That is not to say that there is no grace, because there is, however grace arrives when you’ve reached the edge of your purely devoted discipline to the seeking impulse to remember and know yourself beyond all else.  

It may be strange for you to realize that you really don’t know who you are at all.  All that you know is what you think yourself to be and what you’ve been told you are.  Yet the you that is the real you cannot be touched, defined, labeled or put into any boxes.  The you that is the real you is free, unnamed, and inexhaustibly present and powerful. 

WHY YOU ARE 

Delivering what you came to deliver

Why are you may be the most important relative question to ask and answer.  One of the prime reasons that makes remembering who and what you are so important is so that you can deliver your why.  Your why is why you incarnated into this body and dream-human-reality in the first place.  Why are you even here?  Do you know?  Many do not.  They are simply going about the motions of being human, following the blueprints that are written inside this matrix reality that we currently live within, and many don’t question or seek beyond that programming.

What’s the value in seeking beyond the programming?  Well for starters everything becomes richer, more alive, brighter and infused with life.  Since we are the very essence of life, bringing ourselves back to life is a good start.  It is the how of how we bring the non-ordinary, magical, and colorful into our everyday lived experience.  This comes with the feeling state of love, bliss, ecstasy and greater unity with all.  It also breaks up our perception of a linear time-space continuum and opens us into different realms, places on our time line and a more multi-dimensional reality rather than a linearly directed one.  Seeking beyond the programming also allows you to bring through the ideas, gifts, energies, expressions and manifestations that you came here to bring through moment by moment and piece by piece.  Each one of us has a different flavor of uniqueness that we came here to create from and share, but if we don’t remember ourselves then it feels like a guessing game rather than a clear directed path and knowingness.  

See the only thing that stands “in the way” of you remembering you and experiencing more life, are these programs of impossibility.  When we look through the lens of impossibility, then remembering feels hard and amount of energy we need to conjure up feels like more than we can access.  However when we look through the lens of possibility, even of maybe possible, then remembering feels lighter (because we are not weighed down by that impossibility belief) and the energy required is more available to us.  

The golden key is in our remembrance.  We must wake ourselves up from our slumber, from our sleeping state of unconsciously living our lives, and remember that we are the creator of it.  The contents are not disconnected from the creator of them.  They exist only because of the creator.  But you are not the contents.  Through remembering your creator self you can consciously create and deliberately bring forth your desired playground.  This isn’t fantasy anymore than the fantasy of the current reality that we live.  We’ve simply created a fantasy-reality that is the current state, and we can rightfully and deservedly so create another seemingly different and more colorfully playful one that is filled levity and joy.  All that is required is for you to prioritize and outright demand from yourself to remember yourself above all else.  You can and you deserve it.  We all deserve it. Don’t settle for what has been issued out.  Decide what you want to create no matter how outrageous it may seem and go for it.  I mean what else is there to live for really.

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

PEACE & HARMONY

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PEACE & HARMONY 

Our inner & outer worlds

Peace and harmony, the condition that so many people say that they desire.  To be in a state of eternal peace, calm, balance and harmony within one’s self and with their seemingly external environment is the final destination so to speak for many.  People may experience inner peace, but their outer world may look chaotic and vis versa, they may see outer peace in their environment yet their inner world is turbulent.  How do these inner and outer worlds merge and are they even supposed too?

By in large we are a “collective of individuals” who are all at some level attempting to get their own needs and wants met, along with making a contribution to the collective in some way, i.e. making the world a better place through our presence and actions.  Within these motivations and intentions we may feel like there is not enough of something (meaning our needs might not be met) so we run around in survival mode inside of our minds strategizing how we can make it all work so that we can survive.  This perspective of scarcity is clearly not in congruence with inner peace.  When we are stuck inside this perspective of scarcity, even if we have a million dollars in the bank and can logically see that this is plenty of money, we will continue to feel fear that we might not have enough.  Here the disturbance lives inside of our own mind and we do not feel rested, calm or at peace even though the external world is abundant.  These same disturbances can live in our outer world too.  There may be something that appears to be a threat in our outer world, perhaps disrupting the environment and lives of others, while simultaneously we feel at complete peace and calm inside.  Our inner state is unperturbed and not matching that of the outer world.  

There is more often than not a congruence between our inner and outer worlds.  The reason for this being that most individuals take their cue from their environment and/or project their inner state onto external circumstances.  So if something appears to be bad in the outer world people will match that in their inner world and thus feel bad inside.  The opposite goes as well, if someone wakes up in the morning and feels amazing, energized and fully vibrant then they will tend to project that onto their outer environment despite what might actually be appearing.  This is how two people can look at the same thing and see it completely differently.  This is also why it sometimes appears that people live in different worlds from each other, because in some ways they actually are living in different realities.  

I personally believe that we are at a time in our evolution where this disparity will become increasingly and increasingly more evident.  Where based on people’s chosen perspectives they will create outer worlds together that match their inner frequencies.  It may even be that at some point that beings of slightly different frequencies may not be able to physically perceive each other anymore as the different frequencies band together creating more coherence within themselves as a collective of like frequency.  Like waves riding on top of or parallel to each other with less and less mixed frequencies and more distinctly coherent and unified frequencies coming together.  Literal parallel realities which have none or minimal interaction with each other as they offer completely different experiences.  Again speaking from my personal perspective I believe this is similar to what happens in what we have come to call the death process.  There is a different frequency in which the spirit of the body transitions into, which is why we can no longer see them, however they are very much still in existence just imperceptible to us from our current frequency.  Death simply being a transition into the new.  Some beings may pick another human body and reincarnate into a similar type of experience and others may have learned everything they came to learn/express and move into another frequency experience.  Either way I see us on Earth, while embodied, making this transition collectively, some will be repeating this cycle and staying at the current frequency to learn/express more at this vibratory level, while others are ready for the next vibratory level of beingness.   

COLLECTIVE TENDENCY TOWARDS DISHARMONY 

Coming into right relationship with what is

Our current frequency or collective has a tendency towards disharmony.  The prime reason for this being that we still perceive ourselves to be separate from our environment and from other people.  This sets up the conditions of needing to live for a “me”, take care of a “me” and support a “me”.  As long as the perspective of being an individual is primary we will also need to protect ourselves from perceived others including our perceived outer environment.  This will bread more war, both outer and inner, as we will always have to defend ourselves from the evil thing, which in truth is just an aspect of ourselves, but we cannot perceive this if we continue to insist on the perspective of separation.  So we will fight, protect, avoid and try to get rid of or stop certain things inside of the appearance because we fear the end of our personal, egocentric existence.  In truth your small limited person centric consciousness cannot stop life from occurring.  You can definitely attempt to hide your portion of the One that you are from life, avoid life, avoid certain people or experiences, however in the end its all included and at some point on your soul’s journey you will, you must, come face to face with everything you attempt to push away.  This is how you will come to know your unity, your oneness will all.  From the smallest microbe to the largest galaxy, you are one with it all.  

Due to the fact that we do not intimately and undoubtedly know ourselves as One we do not know harmony.  Harmony is an impossibility from the perception of separation.  You see harmony is health.  Health of our human body, health of our planet as the larger body, and even health of our universe as the One body.  Most of us don’t think in scales this big, but instead only see ourselves as human(s) and maybe our planet as being important.  However every action you take either physically or in consciousness has an impact on the entire universe.  

In our healthcare system we call harmony homeostasis, however we only look at it from a physiologically perspective.  If all of the chemical reports reveal the right ratios and numbers we think that is health.  Never mind the investigation of where harmony comes from in the first place.  To be in harmony is to be in right relationship with.  This means to see all as extension of you.  In this way you can come into right relationship with your cells, bacteria, viruses, cancers, and the myriad of other “afflictions” that can occur to this physical vehicle.  Things are only afflictions if you are not in harmony.  People fear because they do not see that they are the operator of this vehicle, that they can come into harmony with themselves and with everything else and thus see the effects of that that harmony play out through this human vehicle.  Instead they feel the need to fight the foreign invader and fail to see how they can come into harmony with what is and produce health.  When will we believe more in the power of peace and harmony than we do in the power of destruction, alienation, fighting and war?  

All that is required is a change in belief.  To see harmony as the power that it is.  To believe in its power.  To stop protecting ourselves from ourselves.  To see ourselves in and as all.  To see how coming into right relationship with what is is more powerful than resistance and fighting what is.  To do so, to choose so, creates an entirely different outer world.  This may seem too simple for some to believe.  They want it to be harder, more complex, but really what they want is to hold onto their belief that destruction and war is what heals and creates harmony.  They also want to continue to hold onto the belief that they are separate from their own body, from other humans, from plants, animals, insects, trees, dirt, bacteria, other worldly beings, other planets and the universe.  They prefer the story line that they are alone in the universe and that life is solely up to them.  

Life is not solely up to you and simultaneously you matter beyond infinity.  Come to understand that you are part of one much larger beingness of which you have never been separate, you’ve only believed your separateness.  Its just a belief, one that can be changed by you, through you.  In opening your own mind to the possibility that separation is simply an illusion, just a veil or mask through which you’ve been looking through, you will come to see that you could never be separate from anything ever.  What is possible is that you are connected in and as the source of all.  Human consciousness on this planet is like a cancer in the universe believing itself to be separate from the whole of the universe.  The universe is benevolent and is organized towards increasingly higher and higher orders of coherence, i.e. wholeness.  It is time for the cancer of our consciousness to heal, to come into its knowingness of itself and reunite with its universal family remembering the power of peace and harmony.  

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