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Remembering Your Future

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REMEMBERING YOUR FUTURE

Conviction in what has already been

What if you knew that you were capable of achieving whatever it is that you desire, even if from where you stand now it feels confusing, scary or overwhelming?  If somehow you saw the path of your future self, the one that already accomplished whatever it is you are currently wanting to do?  Imagine the sense of confidence you would feel in the knowing that you already did whatever it is you are working towards now.  That you already somehow, someway did it, and now you know it can and has been done by you.  Perhaps you don’t know all the details, but you’ve glimpsed that it’s possible, and beyond possible, that you literally have already found the way, already walked the steps, figured all the things out, that you now know.  Just like you know what you did yesterday, last week and last year, you also somehow know what you did tomorrow, next week and next year.

Perhaps this seems far stretched for some of you.  After all it appears that time goes in one linear direction and that you can only know what has happened in the past.  You may wonder how you could possibly know what happens in the future from where you stand now, but what if you can?  What if you can remember your future just like you remember your past?  You may argue that the future hasn’t happened yet, so how could you know it, but how do you know for certain that the future hasn’t happened yet?  How do you know for certain that everything isn’t happening all at once, but that your awareness is simply tuning into this particular location, which you call your current present moment?  Just because you’ve been experiencing life in a certain way doesn’t mean that it’s only that way.  

The conviction that we have of our past experiences is strong.  For example say that you went to the grocery store yesterday to get groceries.  If I asked you right now if you went to the grocery store yesterday you would be 100% convicted that you did.  It would likely be impossible for me to tell you differently.  You simply wouldn’t believe me, because you have 100% knowing that you did.  You can see the groceries in your refrigerator as proof.  You could say you are fully confident in what you did yesterday.  What if you could use that same skill, but for the future.  If you were 100% convicted today in what you did tomorrow.  If you already knew what you did in the future it would be impossible for me or anyone else to tell you differently, including your own self.  You would have zero doubt in what’s possible, what you are capable of, and what’s been achieved.  

BLUEPRINT OF COMPLETION 

Information from your future self

While remembering your future equally to remembering your past might not yet seem possible to you, recognize it’s only because you have a belief that life doesn’t work this way.  You have a belief that life goes in just one linear direction and your belief gets reinforced by you then experiencing life in one linear like fashion.  Entertaining the possibility that perhaps life is happening in all directions might seem like sci-fi.  Yet the conviction we feel by the certainty of our experience is a potent determiner of our experience.  Getting this and opening into the possibility that perhaps you can experience life in a different order than you’ve been experiencing it up this point, will clearly provide you with an unshakeable certainty of what is.  This unshakeable certainty will/does manifest as your reality, because what we experience as reality is simply what we are certain about.  

Take anything that you desire to experience or hope for in the future, and put it in the forefront of your mind.  Perhaps it’s financial abundance, a contribution to others, a beach house, a relationship, a healthy body or really anything else that you desire.  Rather than somehow trying to create or manifest this vision, simply tune into how you’ve already gotten there.  Even if you don’t yet know all the details, simply allow yourself to see how you’ve already done it.  Just like you see what you did yesterday, see what you did tomorrow.  Also see how you’ve previously accomplished things that you once felt like you didn’t know how, but that you did accomplish them somehow.  See that you did and can.  See that you know the path even if the details aren’t fully clear.  This isn’t make believe although it might feel like you are making it up at first.  Recognize that you have already done this thing that you desire to do or experience.  Somehow, someway you’ve already accomplished this.  Feel how good it feels to arrive and also how good it feels to know that you already know how to arrive.  

What we know, we experience.  What we feel uncertain about we hope and pray will work out, which never feels good because our locus of power is outside of us.  Knowing is self-generated.  It doesn’t come from your experience, it comes from you and then it penetrates your experience.  You can simply just decide to have conviction in whatever it is you want.  You don’t need to wait for some special knowledge or experience first, unless you want to.  When you come from your future self that has already achieved what you desire to now, there is no special thing you will tell yourself per say.  Rather it’s simply the knowingness of, “well of course that’s how it is.” 

Let your future self be the vibrational blueprint of completion for you.  When you do there will be nothing stopping you, because the only thing that ever stops us are our doubts.  When you simply know, you take actions inside of that knowing, which you know will lead to what you already know has been accomplished.  In this way you can just relax and enjoy the ride.  Your conviction is what is steering the ship, the completion has already been taken care of.  Life is the experience of the details in between the two now moments.  You get to experience those details in whatever way you would like, but when you come from conviction it is often a more joyful experience.  As always the choice is yours.

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

Vibrational Transmission

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VIBRATIONAL TRANSMISSION

Understanding wave dynamics 

We are all vibrationally transmitting something that is far beyond the surface appearance of things.  Have you ever noticed that two different people might say the exact same words to you, but the energy behind one person’s way of saying the words resonates with you in a different way than the other person saying the exact same words.  We have all had this experience, yet we may not have given too much thought as to why this is so.  For a moment rather than thinking of yourself as a human being see yourself as a wave.  Notice the amplitude and length of this wave that you are, and see it repeating itself over and over.  Now see the other two people that have spoken the exact same words to you as waves as well.  Notice the one whose words perhaps resonated more with you than other person.  What does their wave look like?  Now look at the other person whose words seem more neutral or less resonate, and notice their wave.  Simply observe what you notice.  

We know, at least conceptual, that we are all energy.  Energy is vibration or frequency.  So in essence we are all vibrating waves.  When we come into “phase” with a wave that has the same or similar frequency as we do, it has an amplifying effect.  The amplifying effect creates more energy, and the experience of this is that we feel that the source of whatever we are tuning into lands for us and we feel uplifted.  This is why it’s so important to follow what resonates, because it will bring more energy into your experience and the effect is that you will both get and give more to whatever you are experiencing.  The opposite of this is also true.  If you are with someone that has a frequency that is opposite to you, the combination of your two waves will cancel each other out, therefore there will be less energy available and things won’t land for you in same uplifting way, even though, on the appearance level the same words were spoken.  In physics this is called being out of phase.  Out of phase waves create what is called destructive interference and in phase waves create constructive interference.  

Now that you understand that everything is and emits a vibration you can begin to see deep to the surface of things and notice what the appearance of things is actually made out of.  You can also understand the physics as to why some things feel really impactful for you and others don’t, or why something you try works great for you, but when you recommend it to your friend they have a completely different experience of it.  It literally has nothing to do with the thing itself and has everything to do with frequency dynamics. 

EVERYTHING IS FREQUENCY

Waves carrying information

Everything is frequency.  Beyond just people being waves, so are the foods you eat, the buildings you live in, the air you breathe, the cars you drive, the illnesses in your body, the books you read, and on and on literally including everything.  Energy is the foundation of all appearances that exist.  In this way you could say that everything is alive, even seemingly inanimate objects.  This is why people sage their houses and talk to their cars.  You are in a vibrational relationship with absolutely everything.  While not everyone might admit that their cars are alive, nonetheless they talk to them anyways even though it doesn’t make logical sense to them to do so.

There is no right or wrong when it comes to frequencies.  All frequencies are equally valid and each provide different experiences.  No one and no thing has a bad frequency.  There are simply frequencies that resonate and ones that don’t.  There is no judgment that is inherent in any given wavelength.  Judgment only enters the picture if your mind decides to judge what it sees in some way.  When we don’t feel self-empowered we tend towards judgement.  When we feel scared of something or someone, again we tend towards judgment.  Judgment of frequency is optional.  The more self-empowered you become the less need you will find to judge, and the more easily you will realize your power to simply follow what feels in resonance for you, without feeling that you can’t for some reason or another.

Waves carry information.  Since everything is frequency, this means that everything is transmitting information.  Whatever information is relevant for you to know will somehow, someway find its way to you.  You too are transmitting information beyond and through the physical nature of your existence.  Even though sometimes it may feel that you are just a physical body, doing physical things, I assure you that you are not.  If you get quiet, you can tune into the frequency that you are and even hear the information that you are transmitting.  As you do this you will also be able to hear the frequencies of other things that are in your reality more easily.  Things that perhaps sometimes feel hard to hear or know, can be heard and known when you simply get still enough and listen.  

Creation is a vibrational playground.  Infinite frequencies making up the expanse of the entire cosmos.  All dancing, playing and working together.  As you become a more well tuned receiver and transmitter, you will experience more energy, synchronicity, aliveness and interconnection with all that is.  Rather than that all being conceptual, it will be your lived experienced.  You will feel increasingly more powerful, consciously being able to tap into whatever information and experience is relevant for you, knowing that all is possible and that you can’t not play your part in it all.  Creation would not be complete without the specific vibration that you emit.  Each and every frequency that exists makes up the one entire whole of all that is.  

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

Master of Limitation

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MASTER OF LIMITATION 

Human experiencing

Having a human experience often feels like one hard thing after the next.  Roadblocks, challenges, and hoops to jump through every single day.  Wanting things to work out, manifest and be as we desire them to be often feels like one failure and miss after another.  All of the little annoying arising we must deal with when we would much rather just feel flow and ease.  We get tastes of flow and ease, but then, just like that, it seems to disappear and we find ourselves trodding uphill, against the current of life and fighting against what we don’t want, so that we can hopefully get to what we do.  Why isn’t it easier?  If we are all powerful creators like all of the spiritual teachers tell us we are, then why can’t we have what we desire in each moment?  These are great questions, for which I don’t have any grand answers, except that, this is the way it is.  It’s as if we are here to learn how to navigate in an environment of extreme challenge and limitation.

The experience of limitation of capabilities, capacities, power, resources, opportunities and overall self, can really dim the joy we experience.  It takes whatever light is inside of us, and like a dimmer switch, gets lower and lower, until we can’t see anymore and all we experience is darkness, confusion, and powerlessness.  We don’t know who we are, what we are or why we are.  We just feel disconnected.  This is suffering.  This is, for the most part, the human experience.  The fact that we can find levity, joy and some sense of purpose, is nothing short of a miracle considering it all.  In suffering it’s hard to be grateful and nearly impossible to feel connected.  I’m not sure why it’s necessary that we experience this, only that somehow it’s relevant because we are experiencing it.  

I could hypothesis that perhaps it’s simply to learn how to be a master of limitation.  Not necessarily to overcome it and no longer experience it, though that is all well and fine if you do, but to develop ourselves in such a way that no matter what handicaps we have given ourselves or that have been given to us, we can learn how to adapt and use whatever it is that we have available to us in whatever ways that we can.  We may want it all to be a bit more magical than that, especially if we’ve experienced states of being where we were less bound by limitations.  Yet perhaps it’s about allowing ourselves to have this human experience of limitation, exploring what we will inside of it, and being a master of limitation, rather than trying to somehow get beyond it all so that we don’t experience it anymore.     

CHANGING THE SEER 

Mastering being human

When we allow ourselves to have the experience of limitation, challenge, obstacle, inconvenience and the like, we embrace our experience rather than fight it.  This embracing of the experience doesn’t necessarily change the outer experience, but it does change our inner one.  We may still not like what is happening, it may not be our preference or desire, but it no longer has us completely hooked.  We are less triggered and therefore inherently less bound and more spacious inside of the experience of whatever the limitation is.  Well this might not equal the experience we want to be experiencing, it will end our resistance to what is and we will feel more accepting and empowered just by that shift.  

While it might not feel like you choose this human experience and everything that comes with it, somehow here you are.  You’ve arrived here, chosen or not, and the only thing you can do is make the best out of it.  It’s kind of like arriving to a party that you find to be less exciting than you originally thought it would be.  You find it rude to exit the party early, so you can either drag yourself through the party until it ends or you can find some way to make it kind of interesting for yourself.  That is where your choice comes in.  You may not always get to choose the environment of the party and all of the people at it, but you do get to choose how you want to experience it.  As I see it this is true self-empowerment.  

We often get confused by all the messages we hear about how to manifest our reality and make it what we want it to be.  We think this means that we should have all the things we desire to have, and when we don’t have them we somehow think we are failing, and then feel even more frustrated by our lack in making our situations different than they are.  Being the creator of your reality is not about controlling all of the circumstances, situations and happenings of your life to match your preference.  It about shifting your inner state of being to match the state of being you prefer to be in no matter what is happening with the situations and experiences of your life.  It is easy to be in our preferred state of being when everything looks and feels like we want it too.  It is quite a challenge to do so when life doesn’t.  This is how we become a master of limitation.  

No matter what limitation, obstacle, or the grim appearance of our life shows to us, in order to become a master of limitation you must only look out and see what you prefer to see, rather than what your mind tells you is there.  Some people might call this delusion, I prefer to call it sanity.  It might just be the only true way to change the world.  As we see so it is.  Without this skill, and eventual mastery, you are subjected to what your mind tells you that you are experiencing rather than innerly experiencing what you desire to experience.  When you take your cue from the grim appearance of life, rather than from yourself and what you desire to see, you are left feeling absolute powerlessness, from which no change can occur.  To master limitation you must accept what you see, and rather than try to change the appearance of it, change that which is doing the looking, which is you. 

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

You Don’t Need to Do More

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YOU DON’T NEED TO DO MORE

Be as you are

Nearly all of us have bought into the story that we need to do more and more and more.  It’s as though we could give everything we’ve got to give and somehow we still come up short in what we think we need to give.  The doing, and the thoughts of all the doing, are exhausting.  We then wonder why we are so tired and depleted, and yet we keep attempting to give more than we’ve got to give.  What happens when we run out of fuel, but we keep giving anyways?  Breakdown.  Breakdown of our body, our mind and our lives.  We see the breakdown and still we don’t stop trying to give more than we’ve got to give.  

Where does this insatiable need to do more come from?  It comes from a deep seated belief that we are not enough.  We think that if we can somehow give or do more, then we can bridge the gap between our not enoughness and what we think we need to give in order for it to be enough.  It’s as if all of our doing can somehow compensate for our sense of not being enough in/as our natural state of being.  As an extension of this, our sense of not enoughness often shows up as a feeling of lack in abundance of resources.  We give or do more, more, more so that we don’t feel this lack of enoughness.  We fear that if we don’t over-give or over-do then we won’t have what we need or we won’t be taken care of.  So we are like slaves to our avoidance of feeling the not enoughness that we fear we are.  

It’s an edge for many of us to simply be rested as ourselves without feeling the inner obligation, necessity, or burden to do or give more than is natural for us to give or do.  We hope that our doing will make us feel like we are enough.  We try to get to enough through our giving rather than simply being enough.  It’s a losing game, because we can never feel or experience what we don’t first become.  We must become enough before we will experience the feelings of enoughness.  Nothing we do can will ever sustainably get us to feeling complete.  We are attempting to do it backwards.  We somehow think that we have to prove, attain or show our worthiness in order to experience it.  Yet the recognition or realization of our enoughness, in our already state of being as we are, is the answer to the end of feeling not enough.  When we see ourselves and what we have to naturally give as enough in its expression, then so it is.  This doesn’t always mean that the people or things in our life will always get what they want from us, but it does mean that you will be alignment with yourself as you are.   

A WORLD OF ENOUGHNESS 

Abundant in abundance

A world of absolute and complete enoughness.  Can you even imagine what that would feel or be like?  Imagination is exactly what we need.  Imagination that is rooted in knowing that it is already so.  In this way our imaginations can create the playing field of experience to match what we are already convicted in to be true.  This is the way it works.  It’s already working this way.  It’s simply that what we are currently convicted in is lack of enoughness of self, and the projection of that is the experience of lack in this world.  One might say that we are abundant in lack.  There is no real lack, but only the perception of it.  That is true for how we view ourselves and the world.  We can see ourselves as not enough, but we can never actually be not enough.  This is not to say that other flavors, resources or beings might not be needed in certain situations in life, but just because something more or else is needed has nothing to do with our inherent enoughness.  

We don’t need to be everything, we just need to be ourselves.  Being ourselves is enough even if more is needed.  We don’t have be the more.  This is why there are billions of beings on this planet.  Each being has the responsibility to be itself, nothing more and nothing less.  Neither is even possible.  You can always and only be what you are.  You can try to be more, but this where burnout and breakdown occurs.  Give over trying to be it all in order to be enough, and let in all of the other beings in this life to support whatever is needed in each and every moment.  We are not designed to do it all or be it all rather we are designed to be who we are, just as we are.  

It takes courage to not take it all on as yours.  Courage to trust that you being you is enough.  That you can love yourself just as you are and you don’t have to first be more.  Give what you want to give.  Do what you want to do.  Let whatever your giving and doing is be enough.  It is.  Just because you think that other people, or the situations of your life, want or need more of you than you have capacity to give or be, it’s ok to let it be or let them want.  It’s ok if they are disappointed or upset and/or if you are disappointed in yourself.  Come back to knowing that you are enough in your current state of giving, being and doing.  Get more and more convicted in the knowing of your enoughness.  The paradox is that the less you attempt to be more than you are, the more of you that you’ll have to give.  

Knowing you are enough is the same as loving yourself.  Honor who you are.  Stop wishing you could somehow be different or more.  That’s unkind, and if you value kindness then start with yourself.  You will naturally grow, expand and develop as a being, but none of that growth makes you more than you already are in this moment.  You are complete and enough right now in exactly whatever it is you give and do.  More giving or doing doesn’t make you more. Recognize your enoughness now and you will experience a world of enough.  A world that is abundant in abundance rather than abundant in lack.  It all starts and ends in how you view it.  How you see, so it is.  

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

Be Done Being Scared

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BE DONE BEING SCARED 

Fear is optional

Believe it or not fear is optional.   Literally believe it or not.  Most people don’t perceive fear to be a choice.  Rather most feel that fear simply happens to them, and they don’t recognize themselves as the source of it.  While it can seem very, very convincing that the source of our fear is somewhere outside of us, I assure you that it’s not, because nothing we feel is.  Everything we feel, we feel inside of us, and what allows us to feel whatever it is we feel, is us.  If there was no us here then there would be no feeling in response to anything.  The common denominator in all of it, is us.  It’s obvious and yet most people don’t really see it.

Why does it seem that fear just happens and that we can’t control it? It’s like this.  When we look out at something, say an event, a person, or a circumstance, we perceive it through our lenses and filters of what we’ve learned and experienced.  Then we decide if it’s scary or not.  This happens automatically for most of us and so it seems that the thing is the source of fear.  We don’t recognize that what we are experiencing is our story and beliefs projected onto the objects or circumstances.  If we slowed this process down, and made it conscious rather than automatic, we would see that we don’t actually look out and see fear, but rather we look out and see our meanings and definitions about what it is that we think we are looking at.  Based on those definitions, we then have certain thoughts, feelings and physiological responses.  

While we are busy attempting to control all of our feelings and the physiological responses of the fear that we imagine is out there, over there, or somewhere, we fail to go to the core of the fear.  While we might be successful at managing the sensations that come along with our perceptions of what is, we often don’t look at the perceptions themselves.  Instead we attempt to fix, numb or change the effects that we feel, hoping and praying, that we will stop feeling them.  Imagine recognizing that you are the source of your fear response.  Notice how empowered you would feel when you know that you can change how you are feeling by changing how you are seeing.  You can.  Fear doesn’t have to be part of your experience.  It’s not a given or a must.  The more self-aware you become and the more you will realize yourself as the source of what you feel, the evidence will reveal itself to you through your direct experience of living without fear. 

BECOMING MORE RESOURCEFUL 

Redefining our definitions

You might ask, what about when I need to or should be scared?  What if I’m being threatened, harmed or my survival is at risk?  It’s interesting that we fear, that if we don’t fear, then we won’t take the appropriate actions in response to situations where we need to take them.  It like fear is our security blanket and we think we need it to feel safe.  Yet our continued insistence in holding onto it, is what continues to make us feel unsafe.  What the conundrum.  What I would say is that the reason why we don’t take appropriate actions that we need to take is because we fear, not because we don’t.  For example say someone is threatening you with a knife or raping you, you fear and freeze, and let them harm you. If you have a little more energy in your system you flee or fight back.  One could say the more fear you feel in a situation the less resourceful you are.  If you have ever seen the movie Divergent you can see a perfect example of what it’s like to be in your most terrifying scenarios, move through your fear, and have more energy and resourcefulness available to navigate the situation at hand.  You literally become present and when you are present you know what to do and how to respond.  You don’t need the fear in order to respond. The moral of the story is that the more powerless we believe ourselves to be, the more fearful we will feel, and less capacity we have to navigate our lives.  

We have all been born into definitions of fear that we have learned to take on as our own.  We have all had experiences where those definitions played themselves out in our experience.  I don’t think there are exceptions to this.  Perhaps there are a few unicorns out there on this planet who somehow managed not to get the fear definitions and messages, but I’ve never met any of them.  I say this because fear likes to think that it is the only one that has experienced what it has experienced and it/we like to stay justified in our stories of fear.  We insist that we should be afraid and that it’s impossible not feel fear based on what we’ve experienced in this life.  We feel our trauma is too big or has been bigger than others, and that’s why we are more afraid.  I am not here to compare anyone’s trauma to another’s, but rather to state that we have all experienced what we might call trauma, and we all have to find our way through our limited stories of fear into freedom.  

If you want to hold onto your definitions, stories and the validation of your fear through your experiences of it, please do.  I am not here to tell you what to do or not do.  Everything serves us until it doesn’t.  I will say that what we tend to be most scared of is our freedom, not our fear.  Paradoxically if we were a little more afraid of our fear we’d have less of it, because we push away what we are afraid of.  Do you get that?  I’m not suggesting you do that, rather to simply see the irony in it.  When we perpetuate our perspectives of fear, others who know their freedom to choose fear or not, appear as a threat to us.  We become more comfortable with fear and with those who feel it.  Similar vibrations create resonance, even if it’s ultimately not what we really want to be feeling.  

We don’t feel safe because we choose fear.  We fear to let go of our fear, because freedom feels unsafe when we are afraid.  There is a way through it all.  If you notice you feel fear, don’t deny it or pretend it doesn’t exist.  Feel it and then ask yourself what it is made of.  How are you seeing in order to be feeling what you feel?  It begins and ends in your willingness and courage to look at the source of your fears.  See what they are made of and inquire. Be in conscious awareness of your choosing rather than in automatic reaction.  You are free to become as free as you desire.  The ball is in your hands. 

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

Emptying into Openness

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EMPTYING INTO OPENNESS 

Beyond open-mindedness

Most people like to think of themselves as being open-minded.  What is often meant by this is that we are available to perspectives, points of views and ways of thinking or behaving that are different than our own.  While we might not take on those ways of behaving or thinking, we don’t judge, shame or ridicule others for doing so.  While this is a valuable developmental stage in becoming less egocentric, it is rather rudimentary in the larger scheme of what it is to be open.  I could very simply state that to be open is not only the acceptance of all points of views, but beyond that the dissolution of all perspectives and points of view, most importantly your own.  That is another level of openness, where even your own perspectives don’t interfere with what is.  

For a moment feel what it is like to be empty of all things that you think you know.  All things that you’ve learned and experienced up to this point.  The easiest way to do this is to stop engaging with any thought that might be passing through your mind in this moment.  Just let it be rather than merging your awareness with and into it.  When you stop engaging with your thoughts, you are left with the clear space of being.  Some people call this emptiness, awareness or the open sky.  The thing about this is that there is nothing for the mind to grab onto and therefore nothing for it to identify itself with.  Some minds interpret this negatively and may feel fear at this level of non-engagement with stuff.  Fear of dissolving, of not mattering, of not having significance or worth, and of feeling like everything in the world will fall apart.  It is not so much that everything in the external world will fall apart or that your body will dissolve into thin air, rather its simply that your mind quits interpreting everything it perceives through the lenses you’ve learned and worn.  

While this may feel scary to some, my friends, this is freedom.  Yes freedom can feel scary to the mind that has ever only known imprisonment.  A mind that has been stuck inside of its’ perspectives and points of view that have given it a sense of the known.  Perspectives that you don’t even know that you’re trapped inside of.  The openness of being is stepping into the moment, which is unknown, and which unfolds itself inside of itself.  It cannot be pre-known or preplanned.  It can only be experienced presently.  While we are hungry for this level of unbridled novelty and aliveness, we are simultaneously terrified of what happens to the sense of stability, safety and security that we get from thinking that we know stuff.   

DEATH OF SELF-DELUSION 

Stable ground of self

When we are without our learned perspectives for even just a few moments, we get a taste freedom.  Yet letting go of what we know feels sometimes confusing and like a bunch of little micro-deaths.  That belief, thought or idea about life, that we had so much conviction in just a moment ago, now no longer gets front stage, as we relinquish our grasp on it.  What happens now to our sense of self, to our identity, to who we think we are and what we know?  You might wonder how can we function in this space of not knowing.  What I can say is that you are already functioning in this space of not knowing, it’s only that you’ve deluded yourself into believing that you know.  That deluded knowledge or knowing, while comforting, is also a prison of monotonous stagnation.  So it’s not so much about “how” will you function if you let go of all of your preconceived notions about everything, because you already are functioning in empirical uncertainty, but more about consciously choosing to not delude yourself anymore.  

The choice to not delude yourself anymore awakens you out of your self-imposed prison.  To not indulge in the stories or fantasies that your mind conjures up about what is, and not give any type of meaning to what is occurring or not occurring and rather simply experience it in its innocence, is the freedom that we all dream of.  The full permission for everything, including ourselves, to just be, in every single moment.  Anew.  Like a child seeing the world.  While we all think we want this, what we don’t realize is that we have to give up everything we think we know first.  That can seem like a high stake gamble to the one that is thoroughly invested in its’ identity, what it thinks it wants and needs, it’s stories, and all of the stuff that seems so tangible that it has created.  

Surrendering our thoughts can feel like death of our dreams, worth, purpose, significance and stable ground.  Yet thoughts are not as stable as we like to think they are.  One moment the thought “I am amazing” can arise and in the next moment “I suck” can arise.  We grapple.  Which is right, and which is wrong?  Am I this or am I that?  How stable does that feel to you?  Not stable at all, which is why, underneath it all, none of us feel like we have any stability.  We attempt to create stability through the ever changing sea of thoughts that run through our minds, rather than in just being.  In “I am”, rather than I am this or that, we find the stability we seek.  That stability is in an identity that is not fused with anything.  No thought, feeling or sensation about itself, but rather simply itself being.  

To live open we must untether ourselves from the false, from the points of views and perspectives that keep us seeing through dirty glasses.  Tempting the emptiness is like seducing the mystery to show herself to us.  It’s playful, exciting and light.  It’s like falling into the abyss and discovering the net that’s been there all along.  There is no real danger in the emptiness of freedom, only the imagined danger of what you think recognizing your open self might be.  Emptying into openness reveals only the innocence of pure being and the rested stable ground of yourself.

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

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

Embracing Aloneness

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EMBRACING ALONENESS 

Alone & relational time

Most everyone likes a little alone time.  Time to reset, time to reflect, and time to just be.  We all seem to welcome a little bit of alone time.  What happens though when that alone time is longer than we want it to be?  We switch from welcoming aloneness into feeling lonely.  We begin to mark our worth, value and significance based on who wants to spend time with us and aloneness becomes our worst enemy.  We feel frustrated, resentful and jealous of others that seem to not be alone and wonder why we are.  If we aren’t desiring aloneness and we are alone, it can really activate our insecurities about who we are as a person in relation to others, and beyond that our purpose in this world.  

Alone time, and spending time with others, are both important.  The balance of that is different for each person.  Sometimes though it seems like we don’t really get to choose.  That’s where we go off keel.  We want alone time but feel like we can’t get it.  Or the flip of that, we want social-relational connection and it’s not available.  Our lack of feeling of choice in the matter leaves us feeling all sorts of unpleasant things.  There is so much tied up into aloneness.  Most people have strategies to somehow avoid feeling it.  They do this by planning many, many activities and keeping their lives as busy as possible with stuff, much of which they don’t even enjoy or like, so that they never have a chance to feel lonely.  Other people have strategies that keep other people at bay, which can be beneficial when we do indeed want alone time, however when we don’t want to be by ourselves this strategy reinforces our sense or story of aloneness.  

Regardless of the strategy used to navigate aloneness, at the core it boils down to our feeling of choice in the matter, and in desiring what’s present rather than focusing on what’s not.  Our mind’s obsession of focusing on lack doesn’t help us.  We have a fixation on noticing what isn’t present, rather than what is.  This focus keeps us feeling disempowered when really we have all the power.  If we shifted our focus onto what is, rather than what we think isn’t, we’d realize the power we have.  Whether we are with other people or not, our state of is-ness never changes.  Being with people can’t add or subtract to our beingness.  We can’t be more or less based on if another person is present with us, notices us or cares about us.  We can only think or feel that we can be.  Even our thought or feeling that our worth or significance can be impacted by another person’s presence or absence, doesn’t affect our state of beingness.  We still are the same being regardless of how or what we think of our self, or how other’s think or view us.  Nothing can affect our being and therefore nothing can affect our worth, value or significance, including another person’s presence or absence. 

ARE THERE EVEN OTHER PEOPLE? 

Oneness

It seems very convincing that there are other people.  After all you see, feel and think inside of your body and then it seems like other people are doing that inside of their bodies.  But what exactly are other people and at what level of consciousness does the consciousness of other people, and that of yours, merge into one?  Maybe that sounds a little sci-fi for you, or perhaps a little to woo.  Yet I believe that is where we are headed.  Isn’t that what all of this oneness stuff eludes too?  How can there many if there is just one?  Is many the illusion or is one the illusion?  All good questions for your contemplations.

What I can tell you from my direct experience is that as I become less different, distinct or distinguished in my sense of self the more telepathic I’ve become, meaning the less separate my thoughts are from other’s thoughts.  The more I make what seems to be other, the same as me, the more interconnected, or dare I even say, one we become.  We move and act in response to the same stimulus, that stimulus being love.  Essentially what this means is that the more we move into love and include everything in/as that love, the less distinctions exist.  The more you realize that you couldn’t be alone even if you tried because everything that exists, exists in/as one.  One may seem lonely, because after all it’s just one, yet it’s one that includes all. 

That may all be a bit to nondual for you and perhaps a bit conceptual, so I will bring it back to the relational level.  Coming into alignment with life, or said another way, choosing what is, shifts you from feeling powerless into feeling powerful.  When we feel powerful, and decide to choose aloneness when it presents itself inside of our experience rather than wanting it to be different, we embrace aloneness.  It ends the stories we have about aloneness and transforms the experience that we have of it.  The charge we had about being alone dissolves.  We see the opportunity and gift inside of both alone time and relational time. Yes this can really be your experience of aloneness.

When we embrace aloneness and transform our experience to it we get to find the stillness and silence of our own mind.  That silence is a great teacher.  Through it we discover what we be.  There is nothing more fundamental for the human being to discover than this.  Our being often gets lost or covered up in all of the engaging and interacting that we do.  Finding that which just is, that be’s, is the root or ground for all interacting and relating to occur in the first place.  Getting to know this being that we are, that never changes, never goes anywhere, that is the most stable, unwavering presence that is, brings a richness, aliveness and fullness to our experience of ourselves.  In the fullness of being, loneliness isn’t even a thought.  You realize that being is all there is whether you are by yourself or with others.  You cannot escape this beingness.  You can’t not be.  You can only come to know the being that you are, and through that knowing discover the fullness of yourself that always was, is and will ever be.

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

Magic of the Spine

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MAGIC OF THE SPINE 

Conduit between spirit and form

You might not have heard or known, but your spine is a conduit for magic.  Real, live, magic.  Yes, that’s right.  Perhaps you’ve only thought of your spine as just a bunch of bones that make up your back, but there is much more going on back there then what meets the ordinary eye.  First of all your spine is not just a bunch of bones.  Yes there are bones, lots of beautiful bones, but the bones aren’t even the most exciting structure back there.  The bones house or encase the spinal cord.  Thank goddess for those bones.  We need them in order to protect that spinal cord.  The spinal cord is that ever so precious structure that allows communication between spirit and body to take place.  Yep you read that correctly, spirit communicates to your body right through your glorious spinal cord.  

A few definitions first.  What is spirit?  Spirit is intelligence.  It is awareness.  It is the source of all knowing and life.  It is all information that is available for everything in creation.  It is breath.  It enlivens or gives life to all forms.  What is body?  Body is form.  It is where awareness (ie. spirit) has localized and configured into a specific structure that we call body.  It is also typically what we identify as ourselves.  Sometimes we like to differentiate our brain from our body, but the brain is body as well.  It’s form equally enlivened or organized by the intelligence of spirit.  Just like your liver has the functions of detoxification and bile production, your brain has the functions of memory, thinking, personality and so many other functions, many of which are not even activated or awake.

The tone of the structures of the body determine how spirit moves through it.  What does that mean?  It means that the positioning, holding and posturing of the tissues of the body, directly influence how intelligent awareness can enliven, move through, and organize them.  The spinal cord is the central tissue structure in the body, which connects to and has immediate impact on every single structure inside of the body.  The tone of the spinal cord determines how information gets communicated to the liver, kidneys, muscles, brain and everything else in the body.  This is why the spine is a conduit for magic.  It provides the path for how spirit moves through, energizes and wakes up all the functions that these bodies have.   

KUNDALINI ENERGY

Movement of the spine

It is no accident that our chakras (i.e. our body’s energy centers) are aligned along the vertical axis of the spine, and why yogis and meditators pay special attention to their posture and unwinding tissue tension in order to achieve desired states of consciousness through their practices.  If you are familiar with yogic Indian teachings you’ve likely heard about kundalini energy.  It is described as an energy that is coiled in the shape of serpent at the base of the spine.  It lies dormant there until the right conditions for when it can begin to rise up the spine.  As it rises up the spine it activates, clears and awakens the chakras that are aligned along the vertical axis.  As each chakra is enlivened, functions of the body and its various components can change.  New sensory faculties can awaken, different perspectives can be seen, personalities can alter, until Nirvana or enlightenment is experienced.  For some this experience is the natural progression of inner work and spiritual discipline.  For others it can occur spontaneously during energy work, ingestion of medicinal substances, sexual experiences, or in the presence of someone who has activated their own kundalini.  

In Network Spinal Analysis we use the term “Somatopsychic Wave” rather than kundalini energy, but regardless of the term used, it is pointing to the same thing.  Network Spinal supports the unwinding of the tonal tissue patterns in the spinal cord.  When those tissue patterns begin to unwind, the energy that sits at the base of the spine begins to awaken.  With that awakening there is a rising of energy up the spine.   For some this is a gradual, subtle sensation of movement from deep inside of the body.  For others it is an intense expression of movement that seems to be beyond the physical body and can be clearly seen by the visual eye.  

Kundalini is a force of instability.  Its purpose is to clear stuff out and shake stuff up.  It destabilizes tension patterns so that spirit can move through and more fully infuse, invigorate and activate these bodies of ours.  It clears the way for intelligence to freely circulate throughout.  It helps support personal transformation and spiritual growth.  It assists in the embodiment of our soul and states of ecstatic rapture.  Physically it allows life force intelligence to flow to our organs and glands.  Emotionally it helps us open into and feel our emotions.   Mentally it clears the way for more confidence, brightest and clarity.  Soulfully it helps us find the center of ourselves, our inner knowing, our truth and our heart.  

It’s evident, our spines are downright magical.  When the tone of the tissues of the spinal cord change, so does our entire experience of life, for better or worse.  The body and all of its components come alive because of spirit, and spirit organizes the body.  When was the last time you thought of your body as spirit’s home rather than as your personal identity?  Heaven is already on earth by the simple fact that spirit enlivens a body.  We are everything we’ve been waiting for and everything we’ve been waiting for has been here all along.  

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

See As Your Higher Self Sees

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SEE AS YOUR HIGHER SELF SEES 

Working with discontent

Many of us relate to our presence and purpose for being here on this earth as bridging the gap between spiritual knowing and human experience.  But what does that really mean, and beyond meaning, what does it require of us?  We may be aware of our higher self, or of a self that sees and knows that all is well and perfect.  While the perspectives and knowings of this self are easy to tap into when we like what we see and feel inside of our human experience, our higher self’s perspectives and knowings just as easily go out the window the moment we experience discontent, powerlessness, irritation, sadness or anything else that we don’t like feeling.  The heaviness of heart that arises in the face of experiencing what we don’t want or prefer to, disconnects us from the view that our higher self sees.

Likely most are familiar with heaviness of heart.  For many it may actually be all they know.  Some people live in a perpetual state of discontent and it is so familiar that they don’t even realize they are living it.  Discontent has simply become their mode of operation.  This state of heaviness comes with the point of view that if only things, people and experiences could somehow be different, then everything would be better.  While this point of view may be valid, things might be better if they were different than they are, it doesn’t change the fact that things are as they are now.  Our hoping that things will be different keeps us from accepting things as they are.  The paradox of this all is that things often don’t shift or change until they are accepted in their current configuration.

If we want to bridge the gap between our spiritual knowings and human experiencing we must bring our spiritual knowings into this human experiencing.  That doesn’t mean teaching others about what the most enlightened perspective is from our point of view.  Rather it means seeing spirit inside of this human experience exactly as it is currently configured.  While you may have incarnated to do or create particular things, your intention for doing those things should simply be because it brings you joy to do them, not because you think they are going to fix this world or the people in it.  The people and the world don’t need fixing, they only need love.  If you really tune into your true desire for existing it is likely only to be and share love through your creations and not to fix anything.  Fixing brings a weight, pressure or burden with it, where creating just to express and share love, feels joyous and light.    

BEYOND UNDERSTANDING

Avoiding death and failure

One of the prime things that keeps us out of accepting what is now, is that we don’t understand why things are the way they are.  Especially if we have vision and can see all of the grand possibilities for what the human experience could be for ourselves or others, we get stuck in our own confusion about the way it is and needing to make sense of it all.  This needing to make sense of it or coming to terms with the state of whatever it is you are currently experiencing in your reality, postpones your acceptance of it.  Sometimes acceptance feels like death.  That death is the death of the dream or the vision that you are wishing was, rather than what is.  Sometimes acceptance feels like failure.   The failure of making happen what you think you were supposed to make happen, or things being what you hoped they would have been or are. 

We avoid feeling failure and death at all costs, hence the postponement of acceptance.  The thing is that all we are really avoiding are our ideas about what is or is supposed to be.  If we let go of our ideas about perfectionism, idealism, better than and the like, then we can actually experience those things inside of our current experience.  It is our ideas about what is or what is supposed to be, that keep us from bridging the gap of spiritual knowing and human experiencing.  These ideas or ideals keep us from seeing as our higher self sees.  

I am not suggesting that you lower your standards.  Quite the opposite.  You must continue to discern what feels aligned for you to participate with or not.  Beyond that I invite you to raise the standards for how much love you can be and see inside of what is.  Your reality responds to how you see it.  If there are aspects of your reality that persist in the ignorance of themselves and deny the love you see them as, then you may find it appropriate to not directly engage with those elements.  Not from a place of resistance, frustration or irritation, but rather from a moving towards or along the path where the love you see everything as is available to be received.  You don’t need to exhaust yourself in attempting to have love be received.  Rather allow it to simply be an invitation or offering that can be received or not, and move along your path appropriately.  There is no failure when you come from love, even if things don’t match up to how your ideas think they should be.  

Understand that you don’t need to understand why it all is the way it is.  Why things have occurred or do occur as they do.  Understanding is not required in order to love.  Love is how your higher self sees.  It sees and knows all as love.  Even if there are elements or aspects of creation that are ignorant to knowing themselves as love, still your higher self sees and knows it all to be love.  Next time you experience or see ignorance inside of this human experience, simply remind yourself that ignorance too is love, love that has forgotten itself.  Turn your heart towards love and move in the direction that is most aligned for you.  

Dr. Amanda Love, Network Chiropractic & Somato-Respiratory Integration, Boulder, Colorado