healing

Soul Illumination

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SOUL ILLUMINATION 

Our multidimensional self

Whether we are aware of it or not we are all a soul.  You may wonder what it means to be a soul.  Being a soul is much different than being a person.  While the soul includes our personality, dreams, goals, thoughts, emotions and to do lists, it also includes much more.  It has added dimensions of energy and awareness that provide for expanded perspectives of experience and knowing.  In short the soul has access to more.  We are all hungry for this and yet sometimes it feels like an impossible trek to find our way to soul.  This is because being human gives us enough stuff to focus on to keep us busy for our lifetime.  It is easy to get caught up in all of the stuff and lose sight, or simply not focus on, anything beyond it.  Sensations, emotions and thoughts take up most of our bandwidth most of the time, and therefore there is not much energy or awareness left for soul.  

The good news is that soul exists, or is, regardless if we are paying attention to it or not.  The real question is, how conscious do you want to be of your soul?  Soul brings added dimensions and depths to your experience.  It is kind of like reading a book, but rather than just focusing on the content of the book, you see where the content came from, the past and future impact that the book had/has, and how the sentences say more than the concepts they share.  You feel, smell, and taste the words, all the while still seeing the physical nature of the book.  You notice the energetic qualities of the author of the book, and also from where they accessed the information as they wrote the words.  There is simply more to your experience because there is more of you there to experience it.  You can think of the difference between an infant’s experience of a book compared to that of an adult’s experience of the same book.  They will be two very different experiences because there are different aspects of self available from which to experience and know.  

There are no shortcuts into soul, even though many people try to find them.  There is a natural progression to the soul body coming more and more online.  We can however expose ourselves to environmental conditions that support the development of soul.  Just like a child would not learn to talk, read, write and develop its mental body in these ways unless it was exposed to environmental conditions that supported this, same for our soul.  What are the soul’s conditions for development?  Conditions include inner and outer fields that are more densely packed with light and greater coherence, clarity of mental content or clutter, and heart centered spaces.  Soul is more readily revealed when there are a collective of beings that resonate together in a similar frequency, hence the potency of things such as healing retreats or group healing.   

CLEARING THE WAY FOR SOUL 

Preparing the path

We can support soul’s development by clearing the way for it.  Just like if a child was learning to walk we would clear the path in front, so that the way was unimpeded.  We can also do this for our soul.  What interferes with the soul’s clear path and our conscious awareness of our soul?  Fixation on thoughts.  Thoughts are what we trip over as we progress on our path to soul.  When we are children our parents clear the way for us so that we can walk without running into furniture or falling over toys.  Even still we will sometimes fall and bump into things, because our parents aren’t always there every time we move.  Eventually we learn to navigate around the stuff.  As adults on the path to realizing our soul, there are people who can help us clear the path by emanating the frequency of heart/soul, so that we can tune our own antennas to it, even if only momentarily while we are in their presence.  Yet no one can go inside of our mind to remove the obstacles of our thoughts.  Rather it is us who must do this task. Here meditation becomes our most trusted ally on the path.  Without finding ways to navigate around our own thoughts, sustainably resting in our soul will be challenging.   

Obstacles are part of the path.  They help us learn by teaching us how to use our focus.  If we focus on the obstacle, we get lost in it and forget what the heck we were intending to do in the first place.  This is the state of the mind of most human beings.  We are lost in the obstacle, fixated on it, and have forgotten what we are doing.  This would be like the child falling and getting lost in playing with the toy that it tripped over, forgetting altogether that it was walking.  There is no problem in this.  The child will get the impulse to walk again once it is done being enamored with the toy.  Similarly we will get the impulse to seek our soul again, when we are done with the thought that we are currently entranced by.

We can learn to increase our capacity to transition from fixation on thought into the space of the soul by increasing our self-awareness.  You can’t shift your focus from your thoughts unless you know that you are focused on them.  Seems obvious and simple enough.  Yet we are often unaware that we are thinking, rather most of the time we are just thinking.  There is a big difference.  The difference is that if we are aware that we are thinking, we can consciously shift our focus off of the thought.  If we are just thinking there is no conscious awareness there and therefore nothing that is able to shift the focus.  We have to become conscious first, be aware that we are thinking, and not just thinking.  

Once you become aware, if you still are having trouble shifting your focus, then I find the easiest way to work with this is to simply let it be.  Let the thought just be.  Don’t try to do anything about it.  Just notice it.  Through this you will slowly start to release your grip on the thought and more space will arrive between your awareness and the thought.  As this space increases soul comes more into focus, because soul is the awareness that is aware.  This method works for sensations too.  If you find yourself fused with a sensation, unable to shift your focus off of it and its taking up the bandwidth of your awareness, just let it be, and eventually you will loosen your grip on it.  The quickest way to clear emotions that are taking up space is just to feel them.  

Soul is less mysterious than we think it is and yet it is full of magic, wonder and awe, particularly from our mind’s perspective and what we presently have access to in our current stage of development.  It is much closer on our developmental path than it is far away.  It is the next rung on the ladder.  Keeping clearing the obstacles and so soon enough you will be dancing with your soul.

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

Self-Purification

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SELF-PURIFICATION  

Saving Ourselves

We are often looking for someone or something to save us.  Maybe it’s the government that will fix all of the things that are wrong with the world.  Perhaps it is our parents or the next generation of children that will bail us all out of trouble.  Maybe it’s the doctors that know, or the wise teachers and spiritual gurus that have the answers.  Perhaps God will just fix everything.  All of these scenarios are tempting to lean into.  They lure us in with the hope that they contain the solutions to the problems we perceive ail us.  It’s so enticing to deny, reject or ignore our own knowing and power and give it over to something or someone that seems to know better.  It appears easier and takes less energy because it allows us to not feel the growing pains of taking responsibility and self-purifying.  Resting our wishful hope that something or someone other than us will fix all of the stuff that isn’t working in ourselves or in this life, provides a great opportunity to leave us feeling powerless, helpless and needing saving.   

None of this implies that we don’t need other people or other things.  We very much do.  There are also some scenarios where we do need to be saved.  These include situations or dynamics where there is a power imbalance and harm is being inflicted.  That power imbalance could be physical, meaning someone is harming another using their physicalness or by physical means.  It could also be a mental-emotional power imbalance where someone uses emotions, or knows information/details not known by the other, and uses that as a strategy for manipulation and to gain power.   We also sometimes need to be saved from our own limiting or negative thoughts that may result in self-injurious behavior, which is often a means to feel some power or control.  Outside of these types of scenarios we don’t need to be saved, but rather need to step into our lives.  

Ultimately what we want to be saved from are the feelings we have about the things in life that we don’t like.  This could be sensations in our body, our inner self-dialogue, how someone talks to or interacts with us, the dynamics of something happening at work or in our business, the structure of our schools or healthcare systems, and on and on.  When we have a feeling that we don’t like about something we are experiencing and we perceive a sense of powerlessness, lethargy, apathy or complacency with it, this is a recipe for deflected power.  This is a hopelessly hoping that our feelings about whatever the thing is will change without feeling like we have any ability to change it.   

YOU ARE THE SOLUTION 

Life happens with you

We all get the spiritual concept that all of life is interconnected, yet we often don’t really understand that life is happening with us.  Rather we tend to interact with life as if it is just happening, either on its own accord, randomly, or to us.  For example we hear some piece of news, develop a sensation in our body, or have an unpleasant interaction with someone, and it seems to just be happening.  We aren’t even really sure how we arrived in this moment, inside of whatever experience is showing up.  It just seems to be here now.  Sometimes our logical mind can induce and reason as to why things are the way they are.  For example maybe you ate some bad fish and now the sensations in your belly are telling you about it, or perhaps you made a snarky comment to your partner hence the unpleasant interaction.  But making the connections as to how life is happening with us isn’t always as clear.  

Just because we don’t always make the connection doesn’t mean there isn’t one to be made.  It’s simply that we are not aware of it.  This is where self-purification comes into play.  In order to increase our awareness, make connections and see how life is happening with us, we need to be a clear channel.  If we are full of stuff (ie. the content of our lives) then we don’t have the bandwidth available to pay attention.  It is sort of like you are watching a show on channel 4 that is full of drama, action, relationships, and a story line that really has you hooked.  You keep watching episode after episode of this program because you just can’t seem to turn it off.  It has your full attention.  You’ve heard through the grapevine that there is a really good program on channel 1, but it’s more chill over there so it has felt a little less exciting to you.  You’ve changed the channel a few times to go and check it out, but there is just a lot of peace and quiet on the channel.  You get kind of bored and switch back to channel 4, where you can be on the edge of whatever twist or turn comes next, maybe a gas station will explode, a bank robbery will take place or a relationship saga will unfold.  That’s better, much more exciting, but gosh you still can’t figure out why your knee hurts, or why your boss was mean to you today, or why our school system sucks so badly.  We tend to think “I guess somebody will figure it out or it will figure itself out.”  This is our often disempowered, disconnected stance.  

From this place we have a tendency to think that the answers we seek will come through more and more outer stuff, but it’s the opposite.  We distract ourselves from the quiet of our inner knowing because it just seems like nothing is there.  However the more inwardly still we become and the clearer we are of stuff, the more aware we are of everything.  With more awareness it is easier to see and make connections.  When we make connections we feel more empowered, look less for someone or something else to fix this life, and see more what we can contribute to it all.  We also see that how we are experiencing life is directly correlated with how we are.  How we feel and what we do determines how this life is created.  It is not a passive, random process that is just happening, despite how it may currently seem to you.  You are not a character in the show you are watching, you are the creator of it.  Nothing is happening to you, but rather you are the source of it.  It only requires some stillness from constant content in your mind to see what’s actually going on.  

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

Revealing Spirit

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REVEALING SPIRIT 

Spirit is here

Whether we are attuned to or aware of it, spirit always is.  Spirit does not come and go.  It does not decide to be here in one moment and leave the next.  There are no conditions in which spirit does not exist.  Spirit is unconditional in its presence and in its beingness.  What does come and go is our focus on it.  Maybe you’ve had the experience where one day you feel completely connected to spirit and then the next day not so much.  You might wonder why does this happen?  Why does it seem that you can’t stay in connection with spirit all of the time?  The first thing to recognize is that you can.  It is entirely possible to live in a state of conscious awareness and connection with spirit at all times.  The second thing to know is that it’s going to take some work, focus and commitment to do so.  It’s likely not just going to happen.  While we might have insights, epiphanies and awakenings along the way, to live fully connected is not instantaneous for most people.  

What is spirit?  Spirit has a lot of words to describe it, yet it isn’t defined by any of the words.  The words simply help give the mind context.  Spirit is what enlivens all forms.  You could call that breath, energy, awareness, being, presence, aliveness, love, light or heart to name a few.  It is that which is before any thought, feeling or sensation arises and it is what every thought, feeling and sensation rests in.  It is what every form is born out of and that which penetrates every form.  It is the root of all wakefulness.  It is the stillness that guides all movement and motion.  It is the source of all things.  When you make contact with spirit you make contact with that one source that makes you, me and everything come alive.  

While the workings of Spirit are mysterious, its presence is not.  It is as close as your breath.  It’s as obvious as the fact that you are aware.  Often that which is the closest and most obvious is overlooked.  Our mind thinks that it is supposed to be something else.  Something more complex or occluded.  Something harder to see or know.  Something more “special”.  But that fact that you are aware that you exist is evidence enough.  Making spirit less mysterious and more obvious will help dissolve the apparent disconnect you sometimes feel.  Rather than thinking you need to find some magical or prescribed way back to spirit, really you can just notice the fact that you exist.  Notice your beingness and it will bring you back into conscious connection with Spirit.   

DEVOTION, COMMITMENT & PRACTICE

Noticing Spirit

Now that you are clear on the non-mysterious nature of the presence of Spirit that always is, we come to the practical piece of devotion, commitment and practice.  If we don’t practice noticing Spirit than we won’t notice it.  Obvious, right?  It is, yet most of us don’t get this.  We wonder why we feel disconnected when we haven’t really made an every day practice of noticing Spirit, or noticing that we exist.  I know this seems so simple, and it is, maybe too simple that your mind gets bored and starts focusing on the things of life that are moving all about.  Before you know it you are totally absorbed in your activities, your to do list, your thoughts, and all the things you need to figure out in order to heal.  While you are busy being focused on all the stuff, you are not paying attention to the fact that you exist, that Spirit is.  

Be honest, what percentage of the day do you simply pay attention to the fact that you be, that you are, that you are aware of being? 10% (1.5 hours of a waking day), 5% (45 minutes), 0%?  It’s no wonder we feel largely disconnected from Spirit and kind of a miracle that we ever feel connected at all, as little of our attention that we give to it.  As you are evaluating yourself here you may be surprised how little attention you give to noticing Spirit despite how many spiritual activities you do in a given day or week.  Oddly enough doing spiritual activities doesn’t always bring us back into conscious connection with Spirit.  Often we are just doing the activity such as meditation, yoga, prayer, etc., just to do it, but without really being devoted to reconnecting.  Being devoted or committed takes energy.  It requires that we elevate our state of being even when we feel low.  It also requires that we know what to pay attention too.  It’s one thing to be mindful or aware of things, it’s entirely another beast to mindful of pure being minus the things.  

Again while your mind might at first be bored by paying attention to Spirit or just being, there is a magic that reveals itself the more that you do.  Spirit is anything but boring, however to our overstimulated, instantly gratified mind, that thinks it can get to Spirit by thinking or doing something, we might just perceive Spirit as a vast boring beingness that is devoid of all things.  We might wonder when we can get up and just do something already so that we can get somewhere or figure something out.  How can anything come out of this nothingness?  You might think, “can’t I just try to get to somewhere else instead?”  Can’t I find a way to get to Spirit rather realize that I be Spirit? The human mind is so impatient, demanding, confused, and arrogant.

The more you absorb your attention and awareness onto Spirit the greater conscious connection you create.  You begin to lay down pathways to stably know and rest in connection with Spirit.  Remember Spirit always is.  It’s only you and the use of your will, devotion and commitment that shifts.  Nothing else does.  Regardless of what appears on the screen of your life you can learn to be consciously connected in Spirit at all times if you so choose.  

Dr. Amanda Love, Network Spinal Chiropractic & Chiropractor, Boulder, Colorado

Your Impact on the Field

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YOUR IMPACT ON THE FIELD 

Tuning your awareness

We tend to think that the world inside of our heads lives only there. What we internally focus on or pay attention to in our minds, we think affects only ourselves, if even that.  We don’t really realize the impact of our awareness on the field, space or environment all around.  Often our experience is that our thoughts are simply random passing flickers and we really don’t get the power that we have in how and what we pay attention too.  Due to this, many of us are not disciplined in utilizing the power of our minds and therefore we don’t feel that we are very powerful.  The thing is that regardless if you are aware of the power of your mind or not, you still have one, and you are consciously or unconsciously using it to focus in certain ways.  The way in which you focus is affecting you, the field you perceive around you, and arguably the expanse of the entire universe.  

The field is the interconnected web of which you cannot not be a part of, even if you don’t want to be.  Many might think of it as the empty space in between things, but it is much more than that.  Even though you can’t see the field with your physical eyes, it is densely packed with energy and information.  The energy and information that the field contains is made up of awareness or consciousness.  What that means is that the source of energy and information that makes up the field is you, as you are awareness.  You are the awareness that is aware of your body and of all the things you perceive in your environment.  You are not the objects or forms, but rather the awareness of the objects and forms.  Having this basic understanding of the field can help you see how you have direct impact on the field, as your awareness makes up the field.  

Why is this important?  It’s important for many reasons.  One of those reasons is that in recognizing that you impact the field you can begin to be more conscious of that impact and even utilize it.  The result of this is that you create an experience of life that is more in alignment with your desires and you feel more powerful in your ability to work with life.  You perceive the happenings of life to be less random and become more intentional and participatory with manifestation.  When I say manifestation I simply mean the physical, tangible world of experience.  One of the reasons that physical manifestation sometimes seems to not match our inner state of preference or desire is because we lack coherence with the whole.  Another reason is that we are not consciously aware of where we are manifesting from, meaning we are unconscious and undisciplined in the power of using our minds.   

BECOMING MORE AWAKE 

Bringing more magic to life

The more you realize your impact on the field, the more self-responsible you must become to your own state of being and how you use your focus.  This is the process of becoming more awake.  Being more awake doesn’t mean that you are more aware of spiritual concepts than your neighbors, family members or the average joe.  Or that you attend more spiritual workshops, read more books, or do more ceremonies than other people.  Rather being more awake means you are more accountable to your inner state and your impact on the field.  It’s a bit more practical and a little less woo then some people might prefer.  It’s not about someone or something saving you from your experience, but rather you bringing to your experience what you want it to be.  

The waking up process can be perceived as perhaps less magical and require more work than we would like it too.  After all being accountable to our state of being is not something we are really taught early on.  Rather we learn that our state of being is dependent on our life looking, feeling or being a certain way.   This is why we keep recreating the same experiences over and over and why it sometimes feels like nothing is changing and we aren’t growing, both individually or collectively.  When we don’t deliberately choose our state of being and focus, then life just seems to be happening on it’s own, and in a way it is.  We aren’t awake or conscious enough of ourselves to run the show, so the show just runs.  If we want to watch a new program, or have a different experience of life, then we must get up and change the station.  Getting up and changing the station is the equivalent to shifting what or how you use your focus.

Often as spiritual seekers we are attempting to bring some kind of levity, light, bliss, joy and ease into our experience and the world.   Yet we often fail to see how we aren’t bringing that.  We are caught in our feelings and sensations of heaviness, darkness, confusion and hard work, and genuinely don’t know why we aren’t experiencing butterflies and sunshine everyday.  This isn’t about denying or spiritually bypassing what we are feeling, but rather feeling what we are feeling, accepting it, and then choosing what we truly desire.  This is often hard to do.  It requires energy.  It requires changing our mind’s focus.  It requires that we care about ourselves and our experience of life.  

Your impact on the field is a real thing.  How you show up, what you choose to focus on, and where you place your awareness will determine your experience.  Beyond that it will also either enliven or drain the field, it will either add life or take life out it.  You can move mountains if you learn to discipline your focus.  You can do things that appear to be magic.  You can bring actual magic into your everyday experience for yourself and others in a very real and practical way.  You stop creating separation between your spiritually preferred reality and the ordinary reality that we seem to be living in.  There is no difference.  The forms of our ordinary reality will shift and change in response to the information they receive from the field, from you, from your awareness.  Learning to discipline your attention and focus might possibly be the most important thing you can do for yourself and others. 

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

Effortless Stream of Giving

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EFFORTLESS STREAM OF GIVING 

Giving to life

Giving often feels like effort.  In fact most of us feel like we are giving all day long and find ourselves completely drained by the days end.  Giving can come with activity, busyness and action, and there is no doubt that activity without periods of rest can deplete our systems.  Yet there is a giving to life that happens even before action or activity occurs.  A state of being of giving that is prior to anything that we physically or mentally do.  In fact I’d suffice to say that much of our tiredness and depletion comes not from the activities themselves, but rather from not being in a state of giving while we go about doing our activities.  Again it’s not to deny that we need both periods of activity and rest, however the place from which we come from makes all the difference.

So how do we find this effortless stream of giving?  The good news is that we don’t have to go anywhere to find it because it lives right inside of us.  We only need to tap into it so to speak.  You’ve probably tapped into it before, but you likely didn’t know exactly what you were touching.  You might have related the experience of tapping into the effortless stream of giving as feeling defeat.  In fact the feeling of defeat is an entry point into the effortless stream of giving.  Yet most people get lost in their story about what is happening and keep trying to make their experience match their desire rather than feel defeat.  They keep banging away at attempting to make the appearance different rather than admitting defeat to the appearance.  Hence why they get so damn tired.  Hence why we are all so damn tired.  

When you stop trying to make the operations and happenings of life be different, there is no other choice but to let them be.  When you let them be as they are and participate with them as such, you stop forcing anything.  When forcing stops, so does resistance, tiredness and efforting.  If you’re constantly fighting the stream you are going to be expending a lot more energy and it’s going to feel like a lot more work than if you just went with it.  However going with the stream will at times feel like defeat and you must be willing to feel this defeat.  The beautiful thing about this, if you really get this, is that when you accept defeat you naturally open into giving.  You can’t not give to your experience when you are no longer fighting it.  When you allow what is to be how and what it is, you become the stream of giving organically.  There is nothing extra that you need to do.  It’s simply how it is when you are with life rather than at odds with it.  You may still not like your experience, but you won’t be as tired and the need to check yourself out of life so that you can rest and recover will be less.  You will start to find and feel rest inside of your experience, and here is where you are actually present, maybe for the first time ever. 

STOP WISHING INTENSITY AWAY 

Opportunities for being present

Sometimes life has to kind of beat us up a little bit before we are willing to accept defeat, so that we ultimately learn to live presently in full participation with the unfolding of life.  When we are experiencing this “beating up” of sorts we often label it under the disguise of the word “intensity.”  You’ve probably heard someone or maybe even yourself say, “wow things are really intense right now.”  It’s a very popular spiritual thing to say.  I hear that phrase many times a week.  When people say this often they are wanting that experience of intensity to go away,.  They are internally waiting, though they might not know they are waiting, until appearances and circumstances change so that they can feel lighter, better or less intensity.  The energy of this inner dynamic feels like wanting whatever is happening to just be over with already, because once it’s over you think you feel better.  Once the intensity is gone then you think you will be able to relax.

This is a trap.  It’s a trap because life is full of intensity and if you are waiting or trying to force the situations of intensity to go away, you will find yourself doing this until the day your body dies, and maybe even beyond, who knows.  Besides for it being a trap, when you wish your intensities to go away you rob yourself of incredibly potent opportunities for learning, which I call catalyst.  This catalyst, or these moments of extra intensity, bring the gift of breaking us down.  Why do we need to be broken down you ask?  Bluntly stated because most of us are living in arrogant, self-centered ways and seeing through limited perspectives that have nothing to do with what is actually occurring.  Most of these perspectives harm us or others rather than being helpful, yet they can be very convincing that they are trying to help.  These sneaky arrogant, self-centered ways along with their limited perspectives need to be dismantled so that we can stop acting in opposition to the unfolding of life and rather move with it.

The little bit tricky thing about all of this is that we typically greatly identify with these parts and perspectives that need to be dismantled, so we tend to not let them go out without a fight.  Hence the way of effort, force, resistance, which eventually results in tiredness and depletion that we may then lead to sickness, illness or adrenal fatigue.  This then brings us to the dire need for intensity in our lives, because often intensity is our only hope in dismantling these ways of being and limited perspectives once and for all.  Stopping wishing your intensities away.  See them rather as an opportunity to open into the effortless stream of giving.  

Breaking isn’t bad.  What’s breaking is energetic architecture that isn’t serving us living fully present.  Those structures need to break.  If they don’t we stay trapped and wonder why our experience of life doesn’t change for the better.  Even though many of us try to not feel the break of anything, breaking is natural.  The journey of growth is deconstruction and reconstruction.  If you aren’t regularly destructing then you probably aren’t growing much either.  Don’t try to always make things “good”, let things be “bad” or intense at times.  Even celebrate intensity if you can because within it is immense opportunity for something great to be born. 

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

Life Beyond Consumption

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LIFE BEYOND CONSUMPTION 

Our love of consuming

Being a consumer of life is the natural way of living for most people.  We love shopping and get excited when we have a package waiting for us at our front door.  We look forward to going to our favorite restaurants in order to eat and drink all of things that we enjoy.  We can’t wait to watch or read that new movie or book we’ve been waiting for to come out.  Scrolling our preferred social media apps to see what’s going on with our friends or in the world around us in one of our most preferred activities.  We are nearly constantly taking something in.  Whether that something is food, information, or tangible objects, we tend to like the feeling of things coming in.  In fact for many people this is how they relax.  In contrast, when it seems like life wants or demands something from us, even if we are the one creating that want or demand, we feel tense, vigilant or like we need to perform or show up in some extra alert way.  Sometimes just thinking about what we will have to give makes us tired.  

In a lot of ways consuming is easier.  We just sit back and let life in.  It doesn’t require any real effort on our part, except for perhaps deciding if we want to buy the shoes we like in brown or black, or choosing if we want to go with the fish or steak dinner at our favorite restaurant.  It’s low demand, not that complicated and in the end we feel some kind of satiation.  Our new outfit arrives, we get loaded up on information from our new book, or we get the latest news about our “friends” on social media, and we feel full.  Why does getting full feel so good?  It feels good because most people operate from a belief in scarcity and therefore any attempt to give feels like fuller depletion.  At least when they get they can momentarily not feel lack.  

Yes there is the obvious fact that we need to food to survive, albeit much less than most of us would like to think we need.  We also need clothes, but probably not near as many as we buy.  Information is helpful to make informed decisions about things we don’t know about it, but many of us are addicted to consuming information without taking any real action on the things we learn.  Social media can provide us with some sense of connection with others, but most people are just mindlessly scrolling to see if they are missing out on anything.  While most people probably wouldn’t fully admit it, they just want life to happen to them without them having to do much work.  This means that rather than creating we would prefer it be given to or have things done for us.  An example of this would be if someone gave you the option to either work your way to $1 million dollars or be given $1 million dollars, nearly everyone would opt for the later.   Case in point, most of us would prefer to receive support and care rather than give it. 

WORKING, CREATING & GIVING 

Stopping the consumption cycle

Giving is work.  It does require something from us, namely our time, energy, and focus, which are, our most precious of resources.  Because they are our most precious resources, we tend to want to conserve them, not use them up or give them away too readily less we run out of them.  But what are we really saving them for?  Do we think that if we don’t use them then we can store them up?  Are we afraid if we give our attention to one thing then we won’t have the energy, time or focus to give to another thing?  Perhaps you are ambivalent about what we want to give too.  Maybe you have difficulty making a decision about what is important to you.  Perhaps you just feel like you don’t have enough time, energy or focus and are living in scarcity about your state of inner resourcefulness.  We are always plotting in our mind what we think we have the inner resources for and therefore how willing we are to show up to life.  I am not denying that rest is important, it is, however most of us are way underestimating and underutilizing our capacities.  Why?  Because we think our inner resources are going to run out.  

I could tell you that there is no such thing as time, that it is simply a made up construct, but it’s likely that you will keep operating as if there is time.  I could tell you that you are the source of energy itself, but you will probably continue to feel like you don’t have enough of it.  I could tell you that you’ve got nothing but focus, yet you will claim that you get easily distracted.  These ways of thinking and believing are just habit.  In some ways you know that timelessness, infinite energy and inexhaustible focus are true, yet they aren’t true for your experience of life, at least not yet.  If you really embodied that there is a surplus of energy, no time and that you could focus on whatever you wanted to for however long you wanted too, what wouldn’t you do?  I imagine that your relationship to work, giving and creating would be mighty different.  I would think you would stop living by the clock in your head, your stories of limited energy and your distractible focus. 

Consuming is not the only way to live.  It’s not negative to consume.  We all need to consume some.  We need food, rest, nourishment, information, education, and social connection.  However when we are coming from scarcity of our inner resources of time, energy, and focus, with the fear that they might run out, then our consumption levels increase.  Sometimes to the point where we never feel satiated no matter how much we take in.  To remedy this we need to clearly know when we are full and stop consuming.  At that point rather than taking in more we need to switch to giving through work or creation.  That is the natural cycle of giving and receiving.  

Some people might say that they don’t know when they are full because they have overridden their fullness levels for so long.  If that is you I recommend this, when it stops feeling good and begins to feel bad, or like an addiction or obsession, or you find yourself becoming less present or more checked out, you know you’ve reached the fullness point.  So rather than watching another movie, reading another book, eating another piece of chocolate, having another drink or scrolling another social media app, stop in that moment and find a way to give, work or create instead.  This is when you move beyond a life of consumption.  The secret is that this is where energy, focus and timelessness live.  Never again will you fear them running out because you are living inside of them.

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

The Healing Journey

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THE HEALING JOURNEY 

Impatience

We are a quick fix society.  We want everything to happen instantly, if not yesterday.  Patience is not a virtue that many of us have anymore.  If our Amazon package comes a day or two later than what was originally projected we are irritated.  If we want to lose weight, but haven’t achieved our ideal size in 3 weeks time, we give up.  If the business we are creating isn’t up and thriving in 6 months time we see it as failure or not destined to be.  We think that everything is supposed to happen overnight, and don’t have much bandwidth for the journey.  The same is true for our healing.  If we have a sensation or feeling that we don’t like we think it’s supposed to be gone yesterday.  If we have thought patterns that we’ve been entertaining for most of our life we assume we should be able to completely be free of them in an instant.  When our sensation persists, the feelings we don’t want are still there and we continue to entertain thoughts that don’t serve us we see failure, either our own, or we project that sense of failure outwards onto others and see them as failing us.    

Even though we conceptually know that life is not about the destination but rather the journey, we are all trying to get to the destination.  We are all trying to get somewhere other than where we are.  We are trying to get out of this uncomfortable human experience rather than be present in it.  The attempt to get it over with (it being the sensation, feeling, thought, or experience that we don’t like or want) is our true suffering.  The result of resisting where we are is this gnawing, unsettling, anxious, depressive, distressful and disconnected state.  We go into wanting answers and certainty.  We jump from thing to thing thinking that our answers lie inside one of those things.  We think if we can just get some certainty about something then we will feel better.  If we could just know when this experience we don’t like will end, then we could rest.  Our impatience with not knowing and trying to get somewhere else, hijacks our capacity to be present and to heal.  We will not be able to touch healing or presence until we get this. 

Metamorphosis naturally emerges from presence.  Resistance keeps what’s in place in place.  Melting into what is frees us from it.  All of these things seem contradictory to the mind that thinks it needs to do something in order to fix it.  I’m not suggesting that there isn’t a time for action, quite the contrary.  Perfectly orchestrated action occurs when we come into agreement with what is.  The journey of healing is the return to wholeness, yet wholeness is now.  Unless we see the wholeness now, we not see it when we arrive at our preferred weight, when our business takes off, or when the sensations and feelings we think interfere with our experience of wholeness go away.   

SHOWING UP FOR YOURSELF

Learning the lessons of life

It takes a great deal of showing up for yourself in order to stop the pattern of impatience, which is really just avoiding the moment.  What do I mean by showing up for yourself?  I mean staying the course, being committed, having persistence, doing whatever it takes and being all in.  Don’t be flaky.  Dig your heels in.  Remember why you are and what’s important to you.  Don’t give up so easily.  Stop seeking instant gratification.  Surrender to your experience.  Celebrate the little and big victories every day, not just when what you think you want arrives.  The journey is a sequence of a billion tiny steps.  See the gift in each one.  Don’t want anything to go away.  Be more grateful for what is then you are desirous to achieve your goal.  Watch how that changes everything.

The reason that this changes everything is because you change.  The reason why being impatient and waiting for circumstances to change doesn’t make you any happier or bring you greater peace is because you don’t change in the process.  Something will arise inside of your experience in the next day, or week or month and you will find yourself cycling back into the same feelings of being impatient and wanting to get somewhere else.   You will never feel settled in yourself.  It’s not the circumstance changing that does anything except perhaps provide temporary relief.  The same gnawing, unsettling, anxious, depressive, distressful and disconnected state will follow you no matter what happens or doesn’t happen if you don’t realize that you are the source of it all.

Healing has absolutely nothing to do with anything going away.  Every sensation, feeling and thought that you have, that you don’t like, is a catalyst for you in some way.  What that means is that it contains learning for you.  There is something you are to discover, learn, accept and/or transform inside of you through this experience.  That’s it.  Despite all of our conditioning, which leads us to believe that healing is about certain feelings and sensations going away, this is not the case.  You can be perfectly healed, perfectly whole, and still experience feelings and sensations.  In fact it’s nearly guaranteed that you will.  When you approach feeling and sensation as information for learning and growth, rather than as a problem to be gotten rid of, you are effectively utilizing the catalyst that your higher self is offering you to learn whatever it is you need to learn.  

I’ve discovered over the years that nothing shifts until we learn what we are to learn from it.  Even if one sensation “goes away”, if we haven’t learned the lessons from it, it will manifest in another way or form.  You just can’t get rid of your learning, despite how hard you might try at times.  Just to be clear this is not a form of punishment from our higher self to us, but rather it’s a gift.  I know it can be hard to believe that, especially when we really dislike our sensations, feelings or experiences, yet everything in this universe is working for us, it’s not out to get us.  Imagine if you can start to see and experience everything from this lens.  How differently would you experience your sensations and feelings?  How much more readily would the lessons be apparent to you rather than you aimlessly seeking for answers and solutions?  

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

Attitude of Gratitude

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ATTITUDE OF GRATITUDE 

When life does & doesn’t go our way

We’ve all heard and we all know it, gratitude is the key to happiness.  When we are grateful for what is then there is no fear, no anger, and no despair.  Rather we feel relaxed, energized and at peace.  We invite whatever is present to be present.  We stop trying to get out of life and rest into it.  Yet even though we conceptually know that having an attitude of gratitude is the most important to our overall well-being and experience of life, there is a gap in our embodied, moment to moment willingness to live in gratitude.  Why the gap you ask?  Because 90% of time we would rather choose our perspective of what should be rather than the perspective of gratitude as to what is.  We are so fixated on wanting what we want, that as soon as we feel our desires, needs or wants be threatened, even a little bit, we shift out of gratitude and into tactic, strategy and manipulation in order attempt to get or keep what we want.  There is nothing more depleting to our energy state and our overall health and vitality then this.  There is equally nothing more energizing and resourcing to our overall health and vitality than gratitude.

Gratitude is super easy to feel when life is going the way we want.  In fact this is the state of well-being that we are always seeking.  The state we are always trying to get too or maintain.  Life is going great, just as we hoped and desired it would, and we feel amazing.  Things are up and we are in agreement with life as it is presenting itself to us.  Then alas something goes awry.  Something isn’t working out how we want it to, we don’t have the thing we want, people aren’t cooperating how we hoped they would, an unexpected surprise turns the course of our plans in a direction we don’t prefer, or something is not happening fast enough, in the pacing we want or at all.  Here is the birthplace of our biggest energy drain.  We start to feel tired and we don’t know why.  We are irritated and feel blah.  We get anxious or depressed.  We feel this low energy state when we enter disagreement with life.  When we are trying to get somewhere else, be other than where we are, or we want something else to be showing up rather than what is and we are simultaneously actively resisting what is.  This is our recipe for misery.  

Just to be clear, there is nothing wrong with wanting to grow, change things up in your life, or having desires.  This is natural.  Rather it is when we fall out of gratitude for what is or where we are, and into resistance, which lowers our energy state.  We get depleted and it becomes much harder to create changes or see things through novel perspectives of possibility, when you are coming from resistance rather than gratitude.  You can be grateful for what is and simultaneously be creating massive change in your life experience.   

CHANGE THROUGH GRATITUDE 

Following natural impulses

While it’s true that when you are in a state of gratitude there might be less you perceive as needing to change, we are still creatures of growth and evolution.  We like to explore, have different experiences, create new things, learn skills and develop.  Think about when you were a baby and you were learning to walk.  There were natural impulses that moved you from rolling over, to sitting up, then crawling, standing and eventually walking.  Growth, movement and change happened organically.  You didn’t have to get pissed off at sitting in order to start crawling.  Equally you didn’t have to resist standing in order to beginning walking.  No, no, no you didn’t.  You simply followed an impulse to change, evolve, expand your world and grow.  You didn’t’ resist anything about where you were and yet you still made changes to grow.  Ahh, so yes you see it is possible, and even the natural way.  

So what’s up with our self-centered way of seeing the world?  Why do we insist that life should be different and freak out when it’s not going as we think it should be or how we planned? Why don’t we trust the natural impulses inside of us and that they are taking us where we need to be/go in the perfect timing and rhythm for our development?  Why do we focus on what we don’t have or what isn’t happening rather than working with and adapting to what we do have?  At some point early on we experienced not getting what we want.  This creates frustration, anger, sadness and a sense of powerlessness for many of us.  Later on we learn the concept of scarcity or not enough of something (or of ourselves).  We begin to compare and contrast ourselves with others.  We focus on getting what we perceive we don’t have.  On top of this we create a disgruntled attitude with where we are at.  It’s never quite right.  It’s not quite enough.  We are irritated by what we don’t have and feel heartbroken that our dreams are not here now.  We feel it unfair that others have the things we want.  We fall out of trust with ourselves and the natural timing of our progression, and out of faith with the flow of life.  From here gratitude seems like a joke.  Gratitude for what?  A life that isn’t what you want and feels like it never fully will be.  It’s hard to muster the energy to shift our focus because our state is so low.  If only something or someone could magically fix it.  

The thing is that nothing can fix it except your shift in attitude.  You can’t expect your experience of life to change without first changing where you are coming from.  People often don’t realize themselves in the equation.  They discount the power and creation capacities of their own thoughts, feelings and emotions and assume their state of being is dependent on circumstance.  The thing people truly want is a state of being change, they just don’t know that’s what they want.  They think that if the experience changes then they will be happy and feel how they want to feel.  This is temporary fulfillment.  It is constantly chasing experiences in order to arrive at where you want to be.  The only way to have sustainable fulfillment and be in a high energy state that is full of health and vitality, is to come from gratitude, and to stop trying to get to it.  

Life is an abundant stream of never ending giving, but when you are focused on what isn’t you never experience what is.  The key to happiness is being grateful for everything that is.  Are you willing?  The degree to which you are is the degree to which you will experience happiness. 

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

INTUITION & ALIGNMENT

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INTUITION & ALIGNMENT

Convincing ourselves other

We always know what is and isn’t in alignment for us.  Even if we don’t know certain facts, details, or the specifics of things, we know what feels on and what feels off.  All children know this.  In fact it’s even easier as children because there aren’t as many inner stories or rules to interfere.  We are naturally intuitive.  Where we run into trouble with ourselves is when we stop listening, ignore or take action in the opposite direction of what feels energizing to us.  When we choose the less energizing choice we feel the agony of inner conflict.  A conflict that is often reinforced by a sense of obligation, feeling like you have to do it a certain way or like you don’t know what else to do.  When doubt, fear and obligation rear their heads we can find ourselves sliding into what we know and what is familiar to us rather than what is actually aligned.

Convincing ourselves to take unaligned actions even when we know we will feel less energized by doing so, sometimes feels like the only way.  Why is this?  It’s because we don’t want to feel the uncertainty of not knowing what’s next.  We let our avoidance of uncertainty of outer things override our knowing of inner things.  We start to accommodate to the appearance of outer things rather than stay centered in our inner knowing.  Sometimes it feels just so tempting to do so.  We feel lost because the outer world isn’t giving us facts, details and certainty.  Our inner world, while feeling good in its alignment, gets swayed by the seeming lack of things showing themselves to us.  Alas we get swayed by that part of us that feels like it has to know what will happen and needs some solid evidence of it.

We know we’ve been swayed when we start to feel heavy.  Our energy feels drained and it takes a lot of work to do little things.  It feels hard to make things happen.  Nothing seems to work and we feel unclear.  We become impatient and demanding.  We lose touch with gratitude.  We don’t see the magic in life and typically we complain a bit.  We work harder to make something, anything, happen.  We don’t even know what we specifically feel anymore, only that whatever it is we don’t like it and we want some information, details, facts and certainty to show up already.  We’ve all experienced this a time or two.  You wouldn’t be human if you hadn’t.  This is what it feels like to be disconnected.  Disconnected from yourself and therefore being or choosing differently than what is actually in alignment for you and where you would like to come from.   

CHOOSING THE ENERGIZING WAY 

Building the alignment muscle

Surprisingly choosing what feels more aligned or more energized might freak you out a little bit.  Sometimes it’s easy and sometimes it will require that you allow yourself to feel the mystery of not knowing.  However if you can handle the heat you will develop the muscle of following your alignment, and that is a muscle worth developing.  Some people might call this faith or trust, and in addition to that there is a huge heap of courage needed to listen and follow what it is you already know inside.  To break this down a little further, uncertainty can manifest as someone not responding favorably to a choice you make.  It might also look like not having a back up plan.  It can be taking an action towards something that feels exciting without any clue what the results with be.  It can be pausing or waiting when no answers or options are presenting themselves.  There is perceived risk in these things.  Risk to our sense of identity, to our relationships, to our feelings of safety and sense of progress.

Yet if we desire to feel energized, to feel alive and vital, then we must learn to follow our inner knowing.  Call it intuition, inner knowing or alignment, it’s all the same.  When we choose the choice, the way or the path that energizes us, whether that means taking no action or taking massive action, we always feel better.  It always feels better to choose our alignment even if it feels scary, threatening or uncertain, and even if it means we have to let something go.  Letting something go could be letting go of a way of being, thinking or seeing that is very familiar to us.  It might be letting go of a relationship configuration so that it can reconfigure.  It might be shifting physical locations or letting go of objects.  It might be letting go of ideas that aren’t really exciting to us, but that we’ve convinced ourselves we need or want.  When we let go we create space for life to show us what is really in alignment and what the appearance of our true alignment looks like.

We all have the capacity to take actions in alignment.  It is of course our free will to choose whether or not we will.  It is more exciting and unnerving to follow our inner knower all of the time.  Our inner knower is our compass, our guide, and our friend in this lifetime.  It is constantly informing us even when we aren’t listening.  However if you choose to listen and have the courage to take action in response to its messages, you will always feel like you are on purpose even when you don’t know what the heck you’re doing or what heck is going on.  You can simultaneously be in the total mystery and complete alignment at the same time.  Having your mind know something based on the appearance of what is showing up in your life pales in comparison to living an aligned life in complete mystery.  Again courage is required and with more and more aligned action you will come to understand the basic mechanisms of how life works.  Life will show you what your alignment looks like when you come from being aligned.  You can forget about what you think life should look like from your ideas of alignment and instead watch the movie be revealed to you before your very eyes.  It’s exciting, and it’s a mystery. 

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

GIVE WHAT YOU WANT TO GET

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GIVE WHAT YOU WANT TO GET

Reversing directions

Nearly all of us, in some way or other, are focused on what we want.   We’ve created our vision boards, completed our intention setting, prayed our manifestation prayers, did our ceremonies and rituals, recited the mantras and affirmations, all to bring about what it is we want.  Always it seems we are asking the inner question “how will I get what I want today” or a more sophisticated version of that is “how will the world and my experiences be how I want them too?”  When we ask these questions, either deliberately or automatically, what happens is that we align our actions around that sole quest.  The quest of what we want.  What frequently comes with the quest of following our desires is an idea or picture of what our desires look like to us when they are fulfilled.  The most tangible example of this would be to say that we want something physical like a house, car or any other physical object.  We typically have a pretty clear idea of what it is we want or don’t want.  An image forms in our mind and we move towards that image.  We may “sacrifice” on some of details, but other things are non-negotiable.  If we really want a convertible car we are unlikely to buy a truck, as it’s too far off from our desires.  

What arises however when what we want isn’t available or not present inside of our immediate experience?  We want a convertible, but there are none available.  The house we want isn’t for sale.  The latest iPhone we want is out of stock.  We could also extrapolate this to less “physical” objects such as relationships, opportunities, health, safety, security, stability or particular emotional states.  When there are no suitable partners, the trip we want to go on is sold out, we don’t feel secure or stable in our life, or we feel sick, angry, frustrated or sad, it seems that what we want is not available.  Where does our focus go?  Our focus is on what isn’t inside of our experience.  We actually lose touch with our true desire because we are so focused on what isn’t here.  Then we have some version of a freak out and we feel anxious or depressed, because that is really the only way to feel when we are focused on what isn’t.  

We internally stir, attempting to figure out how we will get what we want.  We do more to get the things.  Work harder, manifest longer, say our affirmations more frequently.  We can’t seem to figure out why with everything we are doing we still don’t have what we want.  We wonder why isn’t life working for us or with us.  What we want seems outside of us, like it’s something over there, somewhere inside of an object or some other person or place, and if we could just figure out how to get it.   The secret is that our desire is not outside of us.  We are it.  However when we merge our desire with the objects we think possess our desire, we feel helpless, frustrated and confused.   

BE YOUR DESIRE

Shifting focus

Desire steers the ship of this life, but life is not about us getting our desires.  Rather life is about being our desires.  This can seem very confusing to our mind that projects everything onto our experience rather than seeing ourselves as the source of our experience.  This projection is why it seems that what we want is inside of something or someplace else, and why we get anxious or depressed when our experience of life, or the appearance of things, is not how we want it to be.  What appears (ie. our experience) is a reflection of us, and when we feel something is lacking or missing (scarcity mindset) it ultimately seems that something is lacking or missing in us, hence the epidemic of feeling not enough that runs through the human experience.  

This brings me to the most important point, which is to give what you want.  I will repeat again what I wrote above, life is not about you getting what you want, but rather about being it, being your desire.  The only way to experience what you want is to give it, which is the same thing as being it.  Now your mind will want to come in and insist that this is impossible.  How can you give what you perceive to be missing or not present?  How can you give what you want life to give you?  Let’s say that you want to be loved by another person in a relationship, your mind will say that the only way you can fulfill that desire is to be loved by another person. How can you give that, doesn’t that come from someone else?  But does it really?  Is it not you that feels loved inside of you?  Say you want safety or security from another person.  How do you give that too?  Let’s go to the more physical examples.  You might argue that a house, car or any other physical object doesn’t live inside of you.  You are correct, they don’t physically live inside of you, but your desire for them does.  We never want the thing, we only want the feeling that we think the thing will bring us.  Maybe your desire for a house is because you want a feeling of stability.  Again how can you be or give stability rather get stability?  

Simply notice whenever you feel that life is not working out for you or not what you want.  You will always be focused on what isn’t rather than on what you desire.  You must train yourself to find what is it you really want and when you connect with your actual desire you will begin to feel good again.  If you start to focus too much on the forms, appearance or happenings of your experience rather than your desire, you will likely suffer again.  Sometimes the appearance of life will be as we want it to be and sometimes it won’t be.  As far as I can tell this is constant inside of this human experience.  This may feel like a bold statement, but the appearance doesn’t matter.  What matters is that you give to life what you desire too.  That you be what you want to be.  That you are an expression your heart’s desires.  Unlike the mind’s complexity the heart is simple.  It desires only love, connection and bliss.  You must recognize when you stop choosing that, when you stop focusing on that, when you stop desiring that, and instead get lost in what doesn’t seem to be here that you think will give you the experience of love, connection and bliss.  As soon as you recognize that you’ve lost your focus on what matters, you must do everything within your capacity to shift your focus back onto giving that which you desire to be.  Herein lies fulfillment beyond any getting that you can ever get.

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