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Body-Mind-Spirit

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Body-Mind-Spirit 

Where’s Spirit? 

Meditation - flower of lifeWe are all body-mind-spirit complexes.  Many of us are aware of the fact that we have a body and a mind.  Less of us are aware of the fact that we have a spirit.  Conceptually it may seem obvious to us that we have a spirit however experientially many of us may not be making direct contact or have direct knowing of our spirit.  In fact often times when we do make contact with our spirit we may experience a few moments of bliss and then our minds comes plunging in trying to make sense of it all or even deny, forget, or flatten the experience of spirit altogether.  

Why is it that even when we have been on a spiritual seeking path for many years that spirit remains an elusive mystery to us in our direct day to day experience?  Why do we continue to attempt to rationalize spirit and put it in some kind of box to make sense of it?  Our minds so badly want answers and want to feel safe, secure and like they know what is going on even when they don’t.  Because we have the tendency to heavily rely on and believe the thoughts that our minds create as the sole reality there seems to be no way around this.  The mind believes that if it can just figure spirit out then it will know what spirit is.  This would be equivalent to the body trying to sense the mind and through sensation know a thought.  A sensation however cannot know a thought, just like a thought cannot know spirit.  Meaning you can’t use your mind/thoughts to know spirit.  Your thoughts can think about spirit, this is called conceptual spirituality and where most spiritual seekers hang out, but a thought cannot directly experience and know spirit.  

Just like the mind can see what might be helpful for the body, which the body can’t necessarily see on its own, the spirit knows what is helpful for the mind (and body) more so than by their independent faculties alone.  Spirit is that next level of ourselves which many of us are waking up too.  Its that intelligence which moves us into alignment and greater coherence once we make direct contact with it.  As our awareness finds spirit, spirit is revealed to us and becomes active in our day to day lives.  What then does it take to bring greater awareness to the spirit aspect of ourselves rather than being so heavily dependent on the body-mind aspects of ourselves? 

Bringing spirit into greater awareness

Beliefs, worthiness and self-commitment

Man with conceptual spiritual body art

In order to bring spirit into greater awareness for your direct experience of it you must first investigate any stories and beliefs that you have about spirit which don’t support your capacity to perceive it.  Our beliefs are our filters.  They color everything we see and thus everything we will experience.  Even if we have thoughts about liking spirit or thinking spirit is real, our beliefs will trump those thoughts.  Many of us don’t even know what we believe because we haven’t ever really investigated ourselves to discover it.  Once we do find value in this self-investigative process we will begin to see ways in which our beliefs don’t support the direct perception of spirit.  If you don’t directly experience spirit at all times you can bet you have some beliefs that aren’t supporting your capacity to know spirit.

Another thing that often interferes with our direct experience of spirit is our sense of worth.  Many of us feel incredibly unworthy of spirit.  Substitute the word divine, God, or love for spirit and you may find some of these unworthy feelings arise.  If you feel unworthy of spirit you will be unable to perceive spirit, or anytime you begin to experience it, you will find some way to deflect or push away the experience.  Often people will go into their head to try and figure things out as a defense mechanism to prevent themselves from having to feel unworthy of spirit.  Allowing yourself to feel the unworthiness, rather than go into your head or flatten out your experience in some way, brings you closer to the experience of spirit.  

Lastly where you place your value and focus is of prime importance.  If you only conceptually value spirit and get some sense of personal identity or validation from being a “spiritual” person this will not lead to the direct experience of spirit.  You must create a hunger so intense inside of you to know spirit.  This is how you will begin to stably experience it at all times.  Until that is your sole value you will find yourself distracted and more focused in your body-mind reference point of self.  

Many will get tastes of spirit, but few will commit whole heartedly to a life where spirit is in awareness 100% of the time.  Without this commitment the value gets placed on other things and experiences which take precedence, and suffering continues as you don’t yet know yourself.  It takes a full-hearted commitment to want to know yourself completely.  When you do you activate the pure potential of life to emerge through you into a myriad of infinite expressions and into this play of forms we call creation.  

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

Your sickness is not your fault

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Your sickness is not your fault 

Symptoms don’t mean anything about you

Upset girl feel down having relationships problems“What did I do wrong” is the question we frequently ask ourselves when we are experiencing some kind of sickness, pain or illness in our body.  There is the tendency to blame ourselves for those things that manifest in our physical body, and we go to great lengths to attempt to figure out exactly what is was that we have done wrong.  Often this means losing sleep, feeling tense and confused, and spinning our minds in an attempt to figure it out.  We think if only we could figure out what we’ve done wrong we could fix it.  

The first thing to address here is that your sickness is not your fault.  This doesn’t mean that there aren’t certain things that would be helpful for you to change in your life, but fundamentally your sickness doesn’t mean anything about you. You are not bad, wrong or imperfect because your body has a particular sensation or is expressing something that’s been labelled illness.  One of the ideas that the alternative health community has made more prevalent in the last 10 years is this idea that your “symptoms mean something.”  Many people have taken this to mean that something is fundamentally wrong with them and they must figure out it is so that they can stop their body from expressing in a particular way.  If they could just fix themselves then they could fix their body.  This erroneous thought pattern sends people into a spiral of self blame and shame about having symptoms and doesn’t bring people closer to healing but instead further from it.  

Instead the idea that your symptoms mean something should only be viewed through the lens of seeing symptoms as a  red light that says hey stop for a moment, pay attention and see what needs to be done differently in your life.  It is not about saying that something is wrong with you or even that you’ve done anything wrong in the past.  Its simply a call for a different way of interacting with life now without any judgment on the previous way you’ve been interacting.  Rather than choosing the endless search for meaning instead ask yourself questions such as “how could I interact differently, how could I show up differently, what is life asking of me now in this moment or rhythm in my life, what is this expression currently perfect for.”  The answers to these questions should flow in naturally, and not be forced or figured out.     

Disempowered to Empowered Health

Feeling bad to feeling good

healing and transformation

Making this switch from “what did I do or what am I doing wrong to make this current scenario in my body happen” to “what is life asking of my now” moves you from a state of disempowered helplessness into present moment empowerment.  From a disempowered state of being you don’t get clarity and you endlessly seek answers to the problems you are perceiving with very little change or result.  In empowered health you realize that nothing was ever wrong and still is not wrong, but instead life is guiding you through these “symptom expressions” to help bring forth another part or version of you that is ready to emerge.    

Only when we view symptoms, pain, illness, or anything in our life for that matter as wrong, do we feel bad.  Feeling bad does not make us feel good or make us healthy.  Obvious point yes, yet many people insist of feeling bad about what is happening to their body, circumstances or situations.  Feeling bad about what is does not promote healing, does not provide the energy we need for our lives and for physical healing, and does not promote us participating in our life in the ways that we desire.  Again I am not saying that symptoms don’t indicate some kind of change is wanting to happen in your life, they almost always indicate that some kind of change is eminent, but its not about self-blame and shame and thinking that something is inherently wrong with you.  

Sometimes symptoms do require extreme measures to resolve in the immediate, particularly if they are life threatening.  I am not suggesting to ignore symptoms when they arise, in fact I’m suggesting the exact opposite.  We all must work with the symptoms that arise in our body in whatever ways feel best to us and our in resonance with our being.  We must all evaluate this for ourselves.  To choose that which feels empowering to us rather than reacting out of fear.  

When you move into an empowered state of being things flow in.  You know what you need to do.  Things seem feasible and possible.  Healing will happen.  Change will occur.  Rather than searching around in the dark for answers you know and that knowing comes from inside of you.  You know what must change, you know who you need to seek out for help and support, it isn’t a guessing game anymore.  The outcome is still uncertain, as that is always a mystery, but the certainty in yourself is there.  You are listening to yourself, your own guidance and your own knowing.  This brings inner peace and calm no matter what outcome ensues.  

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

Claiming what you want

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Claiming what you want 

Finding the fuel for change

28365465 - fictional forest hunter girl with bow and arrowThere are a thousand million reasons why we don’t claim what we want.  We think we aren’t worth it, can’t have it, don’t deserve it, are incapable of it, don’t know how to claim it, aren’t qualified, and on and on.  In fact frequently we keep our desires hidden even from ourselves.  We don’t want anyone to see what we really want because we feel shame, inadequacy or unworthy of what we desire.  Often underneath it all we feel that what we desire might un-include us from our groups, friends, families or society.  If we really investigate our relationship with desire we might even find that we have a negative relationship to desire itself.  As if desire is something bad or sinful.

We aren’t really taught to focus on what we desire.  Instead we are taught to “do the right thing”.  Meaning to do what everyone else does and what has been culturally agreed upon and accepted.  Most people are living in this way and they don’t even fully realize that they are not living in alignment or connected with what they desire.  If fact they’ve deluded themselves to whatever degree they’ve been able to that they actually want what they’ve been told they want without ever investigating for themselves if its actually true.  So it gets really tricky to see the truth of ourselves and sometimes the only way that you can notice that you aren’t living connected to your desire, but rather to simply “do” this thing called life, is a subtle sense of low energy.  Other signs are not feeling an aliveness inside, not feeling your heart open, noticing a flatness or dullness or feeling unable to connect to yourself or others fully.  

Really what needs to happen is that you need to begin to see how the activities you are currently engaged in, people/groups you hang out with or ways in which you spend your day to day activities don’t resonate for you.  It may not be that all things, people or activities fall into that category, but if you begin to really honestly take a look you will find some that don’t resonate and yet you are continuing to engage with them. 

Committing to yourself 

Energizing effort

warriorIf you are really honest you should begin to feel a sense of frustration with engaging in those things which don’t resonate for you.  Often what happens is people get to this point of feeling frustration (or sense of feeling stuck) and perceiving the frustration as bad, so they look for ways to alleviate this tension that is building.  They might watch a movie, play a video game, eat some food, drink some wine, have sex, scroll Facebook, etc.  They now feel less tension, but they also have less energy for change.  Alleviating the build up of tension will always drop the energy that is available to you to move towards what it is you truly desire.  

With this drop in energy your consciousness also drops into a state of powerlessness or helplessness to be able to do anything about your own life.  You actually believe that you can’t do anything.  That its just hopeless and quite possibly will just always be this way.  Essentially that you can’t change, and you really feel that you changing is not up to you.  That its up to some external circumstances or forces, and that unless the circumstances (which include your body) somehow magically changes, you’re doomed.  This is disempowerment.  This is disconnection.  This is lack of awareness of your self.  And it fucking sucks.  

Moving from perceiving powerlessness to realizing that you are the one with the power is a tremendous shift in consciousness and energy.  When you are brutally honest with yourself and claim what you want the power arises, the energy arises, the determination arises.  You become unstoppable.  Its going to happen.  There is no longer any doubt or question about it.  Yes there is work, yes there is stuff to be done, but rather than it feeling like draining effort it becomes energizing effort.  Effort which produces what you desire, which is always fulfilling rather than depleting even if the physical body gets tired.  This is the difference between acting from your alignment/desires versus working from a place of nonalignment with self.  When you are out of alignment everything will feel like massively hard work even if its just cleaning out your refrigerator or taking a shower.  When you’re in alignment the focus is no longer on the activity, but on your desire and alignment.  The activity itself becomes a non-issue and your desire the only thing that matters.

Discover what you truly desire.  Bring it into focus multiple times a day.  Speak it out loud.  Share it will people even if you feel timid or unworthy of it.  This will bring it more and more into the field of your awareness and strengthen your commitment to you.  

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

Everything is energy

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Everything is energy 

Beyond perceiving meaning

Sacred geometry symbols and elements background. Alchemy, religiEverything is energy.  We have all heard this, but what exactly does that mean and how do you perceive it?  Well the truth is you are already perceiving energy everywhere.  Even though things may seem solid, physical and real to you as you look at and feel them, the truth is that you are really just looking at and feeling energy.  Its simply that you have been taught labels and given things meaning so what you perceive is those labels and meanings rather than what is actually there.  If you suspended all of your labels and meanings all you would see is light (aka energy) because that is what everything is.

Due to the fact that we have all been conditioned to death with meaning since the moment we were born, and most of us seek more meaning because that’s what we been taught to do, we are constantly creating separation where there is none.  Any time that you create meaning you create distinction and thus separation.  Separation equals suffering.  Ultimately nothing is inherently separate, you just keep creating that illusion in your own mind through your incessant meaning making, and thus create suffering for yourself.

Many times when people get interested in energy, healing or subtle energetics, they try to see something other than what is.  Like some other magical thing is supposed to appear to them.  Typically, at least in my experience, this strategy is not helpful.  You are not trying to see something other than what is there, you are just seeing what is there by forgetting what you’ve learned to see.  This may seem like semantics to you, but I assure that it is not.  When we believe appearances we are lost to seeing what actually is, as appearances are simply things we’ve labelled as something in particular.  

I have found frequently that as people go through this awakening of sorts of beginning to perceive what they label as “energy”, that they make it another object.  Essentially what they have done is given some meaning to the “energy” they are now sensing/perceiving and this births a whole set of ideas of good/bad energy or trying to avoid, move, or manipulate energy somehow.  They’ve taken that same meaning based strategy and pasted it onto the more formless aspect of being that is coming into their awareness.  So even though they may be learning how to perceive beyond certain meanings that they have given to things, their stage of developmental consciousness progression has not yet shifted beyond separation.  What I’m saying here is that being able to perceive “energy” in a more formless state does not make you more evolved than some other person who does not yet think that they perceive energy.   What really matters is making the shift in your awareness from perceiving separation into perceiving inseparable unity.    

Your energy bodies

Unwinding and unbinding

Outer space. Meditation.This brings us to your energy body.  We all have multiple layers to our energy body.   The first layer, if you will, is the physical body (which we are most identify as), then a subtle body (which is associated with our emotional body), beyond that a mental/wisdom body, beyond that a soul/bliss body, and beyond that the one body/being or pure awareness.  All of these bodies are accessible and perceivable to anyone, each one begin more expansive and formless then the one previous to it.  The degree of relevance for your journey at this time, and your desire to perceive the various level of your bodies, will determine your experience of them.

The subtle body, which again is related with the emotional body, is often what is waking up into awareness when people talk about being able to perceive energy as if its another object out there.  People often report seeing colors or visions, feeling vibrations or densities, hearing things and the like.  Essentially we might put all of this into the category of extrasensory perception.  It is also not uncommon that as people’s systems unwind tension that they begin to perceive in this way.  The more that we perceive and create meanings and labels, the more our spinal cords and nervous systems respond to those perceptions, and develop spinal distortion/tension/twisting patterns through which then experience the world through.  Those patterns become the filters through which we perceive everything.  We often simply experience this as tension, pain or the inability to fully relax and we really don’t know what else is going on underneath it all.  

Tension patterns keep us more bound, and thus perceiving only the physical appearance/label of things.  As we unwind and unbind, things begin to lose some that seeming solidity that we once thought that they had.  The less that we can create the tendency to label things the more our awareness will be able to progress further into our more expansive bodies.  Its important to remember that no awareness of self or of your various bodies is necessarily better or worse, its all inclusive of the previous layers.  It is however helpful to cultivate a desire inside yourself to experience yourself beyond and beyond and beyond if that so resonates with you, as it is through that desire that the path of further awakening will reveal itself to you.  

So I invite you to explore meaninglessness.  See what it is like to not know what it is you are looking at or touching.  Begin to empty yourself out of all your learned content about what is, who you are, and appearances.  Expect nothing, and that which is already, always there will be seen.  Remember energy/light is all there is, but don’t hold onto that as a concept, simply remember it and let it go.  Recognize that distinctions are illusionary and separation has never existed and you will begin to directly experience and know that world of inseparable aliveness of which you are.    

Dr. Amanda Hessel, DC, Network Chiropractor Boulder Colorado

The universe doesn’t owe you anything

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The universe doesn’t owe you anything 

Getting wrapped up in getting

3401bfa7-75eb-4f7f-8110-b3bb9c606dc2This may come as a shock, but the universe doesn’t owe you anything.  This means your partner, kids, parents, friends, the government, social groups, teachers, mentors, clients, employees, employers, waiters, the school system, doctors, lawyers, other drivers on the road, people walking down the street, the person that scans your groceries, etc., don’t owe you a thing.  How often do we go around thinking and behaving otherwise.  We frequently have a mental disposition (that we aren’t even aware that we have) that systems and people owe us stuff.  That we are entitled for people to either give us certain things or act in particular ways towards us, and when they don’t we feel violated, cheated, or not seen.  Some of us express this overtly and others covertly. 

Ask yourself how you would be today if you really expected absolutely nothing from anything or anyone.  Not even expecting things like your blowdryer to work, your iPhone to turn on or your car to start.  What if you really got that nothing is obligated to work and no one is required to act or do in any certain way.  That nothing owes you anything.  First can you imagine how much gratitude you would have for everything, and I mean everything.  Second can you imagine the freedom that everyone in the world would instantly feel as they no longer feel any obligation to be something other then their pure selves.  Lastly can you imagine how much stuff you would have to release and the amount of surrender to the universe (rather than get from the universe) would be required of you.  

Many people have an underlying and often hidden, sneaky thought structure that is always looking for what it will get out of the universe.  It can be something as simple as what you think you will get by taking a class or going to an event or program.  Or what you will get through a project you are creating.  More complex situations like what you will get by being in a particular relationship with someone or having a family, or what you might get from a new job, business or career.  It all seems innocent enough and yet it sets up an expectation, which is always about what some aspect of the universe is giving you.  What would it be like to simply do things without any expectation of any return in any way whatsoever?  What if our entire planet operated this way? 

Giving to the universe 

From get to give

holding galaxy.jpgIf we put no thought into what we might get from the universe we often fear that our basic and social needs won’t be met.  Yet most of us haven’t really experimented to see if that’s true or not.  We’ve been conditioned to believe that the only way we can have all of our needs met is if we get stuff from things or other people.  What if however there is a different way?  What if through changing our disposition to one of giving to the universe we are inherently supported?  What if this is actually how the universe works and is our ticket out of our survival, lack-based, holding onto stuff, trapped in our lives, mentality?

We’ve all at one time or another experienced that feeling of pure giving.   How amazing it feels.  Like we are just emanating ourselves and there isn’t a single thought or concern about anything else except what we are giving ourselves too.  Its like we step into a magical world and everything else disappears.  Its pure beauty and pure love.  I believe that this is the world that we are all made for and that we came here to co-create together.  We’ve simply lost sight of it and replaced it with all the things we are currently experiencing instead of it.  That magical world didn’t go anywhere, its always still here, but you must act in alignment with it in order for it to reveal itself to you.  Meaning you must put yourself in the mental configuration of giving without expectation for any specific return of any kind at all. This is how you embody the fact that the universe owes you nothing.

I’d put my vote on that the universe does indeed work this way, supporting us as we truly give to it.  I’m not talking about obligated giving (meaning “I have to do this to support myself)”, but a true giving of whatever is needed and showing up for that in whatever ways that we can.  I’d also bet that if we made this shift in mental configuration our lives would be a 100% fulfilling and purpose led life rather than a life full of getting things done.  Don’t take my word for it though, experiment.  I’ve always found that the best proof is through self-experimentation.  Replacing expectations with thoughts of “what can I give to this, how can I contribute, what do I have to share” would radically change your reality, pretty much guaranteed.  

That is what I believe it is to be in true service.  To give and simultaneously be rested in knowing that you are supported by this magical world that you are creating.  When you are here no doubts to this knowingness arise.  Support is freely given as you give.

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

The end of perceiving problems

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The end of perceiving problems 

Recognizing the truth of what is

asian chinese child watching computerHow many problems did you perceive today?  2, 15, 30, 100?  If you really take a look you might be surprised by just how many things you view as a problem.  A problem can be seen as anything that seems to be wrong, out of place, broken, lacking, deficient or less than perfect.  A better question to ask yourself may instead be, “Did I view everything single thought, action done by me or others, and every single thing that arose in my experience today as perfect?”  If not then you can bet that you perceived problems today.  

We have an epidemic of perceiving problems.  We are conditioned like nothing else to think that something is lacking, missing, broken or deficient.  This creates a state of being of which we exist within of never right, never perfect, never whole, never enough… and it is such a painful existence.  Brittled with suffering which most people have numbed or find ways to numb themselves out from feeling on a daily basis.  We’ve normalized this way of being and think that its just what life is, this perpetual state of problems and wrongness with ourselves and the world.  I’d like to invite the perspective that that might be the biggest lie we’ve ever been taught to see.

So what’s the alternative?  To see all as perfect.  Simply notice that as you entertain the perspective of perfection what arises for you.  What things feel not acceptable or includable in the perfection of all that is?  Notice where you resist to believe it and want to insist on holding something as separate from perfection.  Perhaps it’s the words someone spoke to you, or an action you saw someone take, or a thought that you had about yourself that you didn’t like, or some sensation you have in your body.  Everything, and I mean everything, is part of the one whole perfect beingness of everything regardless of how we judge it.  To think otherwise is to create separation where there is actually no separation.  When you perceive, and thus create separation for yourself, you create suffering and find yourself living in an unkind, unjust, disconnected world.  Again I’d like to suggest that perhaps it’s not the external world that is this, but that all lies within the perceiver of it.   

The perspective of a perfect world 

From separation into unity

15694079 - fresh grass with dew drops close upIf perceiving problems creates separation and suffering than it is only logical that perceiving perfection creates oneness and unity.  Isn’t oneness and unity what most of us “conceptually” want and know to be true on some level yet struggle to make experiential in our day to day existence?  Then why is it when we are shown the way to make unity and connectedness our reality we turn away and continue our insistences and judgments of imperfection, problems and lack?  

In some ways we are really stubborn creatures who want to be right rather than perceive a more absolute truth.  We find a false sense of safety and security in our rightness and also validation of our worth.  Hence we keep our judgments of what we think is right and wrong.  We also don’t much like giving in to something other than what we think or accepting what is particularly when it doesn’t feel good.  So we guard, protect and aren’t honest with ourselves.  In these ways we disconnect from parts of our experience, sometimes alright labelling them as wrong, and other times just gently slipping our consciousness away from them, acting as if they don’t exist and even denying to ourselves that they do.  It’s in this more subtle way that we create separation within our experience.  

To perceive everything as perfection we must also include ourselves.  This is a major roadblock for some, as they may be able to perceive every single aspect of creation as perfect except for this expression which they call themselves.  After all we been conditioned to believe that we are unworthy and imperfect so who are we to perceive ourselves as divine living perfection? Isn’t that up to someone else to decide?  Nope.  Its up to you to decide and choose.  The truth is you are the only one that can change that perspective of yourself.  If you as the perceiver can’t perceive this expression that you call yourself to be divine living perfection you will always find yourself to be unworthy, things to be unjust, and in some way you will project this onto your perceived external physical reality and continue to find wrongness and problems with yourself and the world.  

We are in need of a massive shift in perspective on this planet.  To see things as they are rather than what we’ve learned that they are.  In this way we return back to our original, pristine, clear knowing of ourselves rather than the conditioned knowing and thus create a completely different world and set of experiences for ourselves.  

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

Loving yourself

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Loving yourself 

Unlocking the door to being alive

11613435 - abstract background with hearts.Loving yourself is the answer to every single question you’ve ever asked.  How do I get more energy, how do I have less pain, how do I feel more, how do I heal, how do I experience my soul, how do I know bliss, how do I know what to do, how do I trust, how do I make more money, how do I have the relationship that I want, how do I have more confidence, how do I serve…?   The list goes on.  Every single question that you have ever, ever, ever had comes back to this very easily understood yet less easily applied way of being and existing.  

Why is it so hard to love ourselves?  Why do we feel such unworthiness in our existence?  We fundamentally know that we “should” love ourselves and that loving ourselves is the key that unlocks the door to being alive and yet we don’t choose it.  We judge ourselves, blame ourselves, think we should be different than we are, worry that we are imperfect, that we’ve said or done the wrong thing or that we will, that we won’t be enough.  This can come out directly towards ourselves or we can direct/project this onto others or onto our situations and circumstances in life.  Either way the root is the same.  Something about us (or existence) is unlovable.  

Most of us have become masters at trying to get love and then pushing it away once we begin to taste it.  Personal relationships are a fertile ground for this type of behavior.  We so badly want love from another and yet simultaneously can’t receive it when its given.  This can also show up in wanting acknowledgement or reception by others of our work or something that we create.  We want the reflection of love through receiving attention yet when we get the slightest amount of that attention we feel uncomfortable, like we don’t want to be seen.  So this is the paradox of wanting to be seen and yet not wanting to be seen.  Wanting to be loved yet not feeling worthy of it.   

Return to Love 

Unloved to Loved

12635267 - hart graphic backgroundUnlovability is the root of all pain and suffering.  I believe it to be the primary root of most all sickness as well.  This is good news because if being unlovable is the root then the cure is evident and found in your return to love.  How do you return to love?  It begins with the seeing of how it is you have not been able to love yourself.  You must turn and look towards your unlovability.  Acknowledge just how hard it is to fully and unconditionally love yourself.  Looking at where you push love away in everyday situations.  Perhaps you can’t accept a compliment, maybe nothing you do is ever enough even if it was done well, maybe you don’t let yourself stop and rest because people “need you” so you must show up or you won’t have or accomplish enough, perhaps you can give love but feeling it directed towards you creates a feeling of shutdown or separation.  

Rather than keeping yourself in the dark be willing to look at how you push away and resist love.  It takes courage and yet you can do it.  The amount of light you can emit into this world is directly correlated with how much love you can receive and know yourself to be.  When you know yourself as love it is the end of figuring anything out.  There really are no more questions at this point, at least questions that come from lack and unknowing.  The only questions that seem to arise are those that are in direct connection with your already knowing state of self.  Its like asking a question but already knowing the answer simultaneously.  

When you know that you are love you can serve no matter what.  No insecurity or doubt in self arises about what you are capable of or what you should do.  You become a pure vessel and transmission of God/light and true giving arises.  You are no longer giving to others or creating out of lack of worth of self and trying to prove your worthiness to get validated or your safety needs met.  Instead you simple give because that is what you are.  There is no agenda.  It is not about self-sacrifice or being a martyr as those things come from the perception of lack, but instead about simply giving as the abundance that you know yourself to be.  Nothing is unsolvable and everything is seen as love.

Being rested as love is the most energizing and alive state of being.  The boundless freedom of you is experienced.  You no longer need anything from anyone or anything.  You know yourself, accept yourself and realize that you are love.  You can’t not see everything else as that for love is the fabric, the substratum and the essence of all of creation.  You included.  You are loved.  You are love. 

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

Dropping into confusion

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Dropping into confusion 

Opening into the mystery

Brain stressedConfusion is a gift.  When was the last time you embraced it?  Most of us are fighting tooth and nail to do anything and everything possible to not feel confused.  We make up elaborate stories that seem ordinary to us about who we are and the way the world works and then we believe those stories, not ever questioning if they are actually true or not.  Those stories make us feel safe, secure and like we know what the heck is going on.  There is no way in hell we want to ever let those stories go because if we did then what?  What would we know… who would we be… would we be able to stand the pure state of knowing absolutely nothing about anything?  

I have found that almost no one that I’ve ever met enjoys confusion.  It seems as if everyone has a hate relationship with it.  For some confusion seems to makes them feel scared, for others like a failure or worthless, and still others depressed, hopeless and powerless.  There are all kinds of ways we compensate for our lack of knowing and strategies we use to avoid confusion altogether.  Some people keep themselves as busy as possible so that they never have time to notice that they have no idea what’s really going on.  Others get angry, defensive or attempt to prove themselves with whits and smarts when challenged with confusion.  Some attempt to control themselves or their circumstances to no avail.  Many people look outside of themselves to other people to tell them what’s going on, as if some other confused person knows more then they do.  

Pretty much no one stops and revels in the mystery that confusion brings.  Even fewer seem to make it to the pure delight and freedom that allowing complete confusion provides.  Why is it that we grip, tense and try to figure out with our thinking minds everything we sense, feel or experience?  Why is it so hard to simply be, not have a clue, and be ok with not knowing what things, sensations or feelings mean or how to get to the next place?  What if things don’t actually mean anything at all and what if there is no next place to get too?  I invite the perspective here that the purpose of life is not to figure it all out or plot and plan the next phase of it, but instead to simply be and experience it.  

Submerged in the mystery 

Going beyond ordinary

mystery cosmos.jpgWithin the mystery, the not known, lives the non-ordinary.  The non-ordinary is full of aliveness, energy, bliss and total freedom.  Most of us are super hungry for this and are trying to “get there”, but the thing is that our minds don’t know how to navigate within that place, which is why we must get comfortable within confusion.  We must learn how to relax into and with confusion rather than resist it and try to figure it out.  “Figuring it out” will bring us back into the ordinary and although we may have a sense of perceived safety and ok-ness in that, no growth or learning occurs, instead just more of the same ordinariness that is familiar to us.

Confusion always means that you are being presented with an opportunity to grow and learn beyond what you currently have learned you are, yet most people perceive it as an indication that they are lost and moving in the wrong direction.  Rather than seeing confusion as an obstacle that must be conquered or as a sign that you are moving backwards, see it as the most precious gift and an indication of forward movement as that is what it truly is.  Don’t attempt to alleviate it, but instead invite it, include it, allow it.  Open into its pure unknowingness and stay there.  Soak it in.  

Fears may arise.  Doubt may arise.  The need to know may arise.  Simple let it and recognize it as it does.  When you can recognize the fears, doubts and uncertainty you become less merged with them and can further submerge yourself into the mystery of the unknown.  With continued practice and diligence those fears will loosen their grip on you.  It is only through being present in the mystery that the mystery can reveal itself to you.  Use every experience of confusion as an opportunity to dive further into the mysterious unknown as this is the place of magic, wonder and enchantment.  It is where you get to experience yourself beyond what you think you are, beyond your stories, labels and definitions.  For this is the place that is beyond meaning.  It is the place that all the control, tension and gripping in your mind-body keeps you separate from, but which is always here just beyond them.  

Sweetly surrender what you know or have known for that which you don’t yet know, but which you have intuited exists.  For it indeed does exist and can be directly experienced.  There is an intelligence there which knows.  It knows beyond what your mind knows and as you begin to drop into it, it further reveals itself and guides your seeming personal, individuated life and existence.  With this all those things which previously created so much concern and confusion for you dissolve as your perspective is broaden to encompass more of you.  

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

The spinal gateway

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The spinal gateway 

What the heck is a spinal gateway?

Touching something unknownEarlier this week one of you lovely people asked me “what are those spots you keep touching on my back’?  What a fantastic question!  I bet more of you have that question so I thought I would take the opportunity to write this week’s article in answer to that very question.  

If you remember my article from a few weeks ago that was entitled “Consciousness & the Spine” I wrote about the five different tension patterns that occur within the spine.  Those tension patterns get created due to some experience(s) that we’ve had that we haven’t been able to fully integrate, and if you remember there are different states of being (consciousness) that correlate with each pattern.  So why is that important here?  Well in order for you to become aware of those tension pattern within your spine you need an access/entry point or a “gateway” into that pattern.  You need to somehow, someway become aware of that pattern in your spine so that the tension pattern can begin to unwind itself.  The spinal gateway is just that.  It is an access point, an opening, into a particular tension pattern in your spinal cord where you can begin to become aware of that pattern.  So when I am making those touches on various spots on your back I am working with your spinal gateways, helping them open and develop so that you can become more aware of yourself, including how you hold tension and where you have resistance.

One of the things I say frequently to many of you is that awareness does so much, in fact I believe it does pretty much everything.  It brings that which was unnoticed or unseen into realization, and then through realization, you as an individuated expression of the One have the capacity or power to work with what is.  The only thing left after the moment of realization is for you to come into alignment with that which was realized.  All of that to say that the spinal gateway is a portal for the light of awareness to realize itself manifesting through a particular pattern of tension in your spinal cord.  This is important and what I feel differentiates Network from a lot of other work out there.  It really is a  self-awareness method.  Its not about me doing something to you, but instead about helping you find your own self, become aware of your own self, so that you can self-regulate, self-align, and self-adjust.  Everything that I “do” is to support your awareness waking itself up to your self and the development of the spinal gateway is one of the prime ways I do just that very thing.  

Development of the spinal gateway 

How the spinal gateways change and grow

Touching something unknown

Spinal gateways live between each of the bones in your neck and also along the sacrum bone in the pelvis.  They have both a very precise structural aspect as well as an energetic portion to them.  This means that they have a particular physical location (which is dependent on the tension pattern that is present in your spinal cord on any given day), but that they also have a nonphysical aspect which can grow.  You can think of the shape of a spinal gateway as a little vortex, spiraling with energy, but anchored into the spine between the bones in the neck and sacrum.  Also remember that just because the gateways are at these precise locations doesn’t mean that they are impacting only those precise locations that I’m touching.  The gateway is just the access point into a particular pattern and the pattern can be either localized to that area or have resonance at various other locations in the spine or body that I am not directly touching.  The beauty of the spinal gateway is that when it is accessed it can find all the other areas in the body that have the same tonal frequency or resonance with that pattern without requiring that it is directly touched.  This is why often you might become aware of some sensation, energy, or tension in a different part of your spine or body when I am touching say a spot on your neck or sacrum.  

The spinal gateways grow with continued care, contact and reinforcement.  This is one of the reason why the frequency of care is so important, especially in the first year or two of care, which is when a lot of the development of these gateways occurs.  It takes a certain amount of repetition to create these gateways and then for awareness to unwind the tension patterns associated with them.  When people first start care the gateways are often small and very close to the physical body.  They are felt as areas of rapport.  This is where your bioenergetic life force lives and as the gateway develops here there is greater awareness of the physical body and a sense of safety that arises.  As care continues and I have you lift your neck or sacrum you are beginning to stretch the spinal gateways both physically and energetically.  This activates your emotional body and emotional energy becomes the fuel that gets the gateway to stretch and grow more.   The energetic portion of the spinal gateway begins to live a few inches away from the physical body in what’s called your emotional field.  With this people often begin to have more awareness of their emotions.  

Then as care continues two spinal gateways start “talking” to each other.  One stretches and then the other stretches and a rhythm starts to develop between the two of them.  This activates the lower mental body where clarity, personal sense of self and discernment lives.  The energetic portion of the spinal gateways grows to about 2-3 feet away from the physical body at this point into your lower mental body/field.  This then continues until a “figure 8” motion begins to develop between two spinal gateways.  The rhythmic motion becomes more organized and fluid.  This activates the upper mental body where you can begin to see beyond boxes and stories and have more a visionary sense of self as creator of your life.  Here the energetic portion of the spinal gateways have now grown to 6-8 feet in distance away from the physical body into your upper mental field and with that your sense of “body” and self begins to become much more expansive.  

Heart Chakra concept. Inner love, light and peace. Silhouette inAll of this spinal gateway development occurs in the first two levels of  Network care.  Then in the third level of care the focus is on the development of the heart gateway, which is similar to the spinal gateways, but there is only one heart gateway rather than multiple like the spinal gateways, and the location is around the physical heart.  The heart gateway develops throughout the 3rd level of care and a coordination is learned between the development of this heart gateway with the spinal gateways that where developed in the first 2 levels of care.  In this 3rd level of care both the heart gateway stretches and grows in distances of several feet away from the physical body and the spinal gateways grow to about 8-12 feet and beyond.  This is where your soul body/field lives.  The coordination that develops between the heart gateway and the spinal gateways is one where your heart/soul is informing your thoughts, emotions and physical body.  

When people are fully in the 3rd level of care as their baseline the patterns of tension that were originally in the spinal cord aren’t really there in a traditional sense of a constricted tension pattern anymore, but instead just mere resonance or tracing.  In that way you can fully glean the awakened or oneness perspective of any pattern that previously had you held in a separative frame of mind.  That becomes the lens with which you see all of life.  The dance between soul/spirit and human becomes evident here and ultimately culminates in where the personal self stops leading the show and the soul prevails as the one that guides this human vessel.  

I hope this helps you understand the importance and function of the spinal gateways and why I am always touching those particular points on your spine.  I like to think of them as portals into more of you and as they grow you get to access more and more of yourself.  It is quite literally upgrading the neurological circuitry and with that you can communicate with more of yourself through having developed these access points into you.  At the most fundamental level they provide you with a way to become aware and resolve tension patterns in your spine and life so that you you can participate more ease-fully with life.  At the more developed levels they allow for integration of various aspects of yourself to come into awareness, helping you transcend perceived limitations of an individuated personal self, into the one heart, one love, one being that we all are.  

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

You’ve never been broken

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You’ve never been broken 

Dissolving the story

Colorful infinity signIt is so engrained in our everyday ordinary consciousness to believe that we are somehow and in someway broken.  We often don’t even realize that we are believing this story because it is so all pervasive.  We simply live it and in that way don’t see it.  It is similar to how we don’t see how we believe that we are a body, we just assume it to be that way and don’t realize that we are believing it to be so.  

There are so many basic assumptions that we all have and in this way we live blindly not really recognizing what we are believing to be true.  Then when other people reinforce those assumptions we find ourselves in a box, created in our own mind, of what we believe to be possible.  This box becomes what we call our life.  Often it can feel quite limited and confining, yet we can’t see our way beyond the box because we can’t yet see our assumptions about what we believe to be true.  

The story that you are broken, that something is missing from you or wrong with you, or that there is some kind of problem with you is one of the biggest myths of all times, yet nearly all of us believe it.  Say something starts working differently in your body so you go to someone to tell you what’s wrong with you, to reinforce what you are already believing (that something is wrong) and give you a label or “reason” for it.  Or perhaps something in your life isn’t going as you like it to so you dissect what is wrong with you in attempt to fix the problem.  Or some part of you expresses or behaves differently than others and you try to hide it so people don’t see your “malfunction.”  We are doing this all of the time.  Viewing ourselves from the perspective of “what’s wrong with me” and how do I figure it out, fix it or hide it.

All of these examples are simply stories that either we have told ourselves or that others have told us.  None of them have ever been the truth.  Just a narrative that someone thought made sense and we adopted that belief for ourselves.   

Resting into unbrokenness  

Aligned in your wholeness

mandala fractal.jpgIf everything has been a story then where do we go from here?  This is a great place to arrive.  Once you can see the stories you’ve been believing you can begin to rewrite them.  This is to become the author of your own life and to realize the power you have to write a story that you desire to live.  

To write your story of unbrokenness you must believe that you have never been broken.  This means that you must erase in your own mind any idea of lack, missing, impaired, un-whole, broken, dysfunctional, inept, or malfunctioning idea you have of yourself.  You must stop insisting that you are, or ever have been any of those ideas, even when others have told you that you are.  As soon as you stop insisting that you are any of those things than you will also simultaneously stop creating those ideas in your external reality.  

Due to the fact that most of us have had these ideas of brokenness reinforced to us by authority figures, parents, doctors, teachers, friends and the media it can be challenging to remain aligned in our knowingness otherwise.  When the consciousness of the entire culture and environment within which you live seems to continue to insist on the theory of brokenness it requires that you nearly continually remind yourself of your innate already whole nature, as the tendency to conform to the cultural beliefs/myths is strong.  

The more aligned you become in this knowingness of your wholeness, the less you believe what the culture believes.  As this occurs you will still see others playing out this story of brokenness in their own mind bubbles and creating stories that feel bad to them, but you will no longer believe it to be the truth.  In that way you can be a source of illumination for those that are finding their way beyond the bubble of the story of brokenness.  They may not be able to fully embrace the light of awareness that your knowingness offers, but some of the light of a that larger truth of unbrokenness will shine through and to whatever degree they are ready they will receive it.  

The biggest gift you can give is to know yourself and be yourself.  In this way you are a guiding light and reflective mirror for others to see their true selves.  This is how we support other selves in waking up to seeing and being more of the truth of who they are so that the collective juice within which we all swim is that of our innate wholeness.  

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