meditation

YOU’RE THE LIGHT

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YOU’RE THE LIGHT 

Fear busting

In essence we are all light.  We are not the forms, the identities, or the names we been given or have given ourselves.  We are pure, radiating light.  Even though this is true most of us do not experience ourselves as light.  Rather we experience ourselves as a body and a personality that has thoughts, ideas and assumptions about what it is and what it’s not.  The more thoughts we have about what we are, the less we know what we actually are.  Thoughts create filters from which the light that we are bends and distorts itself.  The more thoughts we have, the more twists and turns the light that we are takes, and the further we are from knowing ourselves.  We become more identified with the forms and we forget the formlessness from which we came.  This makes our experience of ourselves feel dense, solid, and often scary as we are disconnected from true source of self.  We come to trust only what is physical, which is ever changing and provides no true stability, as we’ve lost sight of the light.  

Fear of anything, regardless of what it is, is simply the loss of remembering self, or said another way, a forgetting of the light.  When fear becomes the dominant lens that we look through the light can seem scary or overwhelming to us.  That which provides rest, relaxation or levity becomes a threat, because it threatens our perspective of fear which feels very real to us and is our only known source of stability.  Even though we may desire reprieve from the feelings, thoughts and sensations of fear, we desire more the stability in what we know, in what is familiar, even if it is unpleasant.  

If we let go of our perspective of fear then we are left in uncertainty.  We feel exposed and vulnerable and open.  Rather than guarding ourselves against potential experience we open ourselves to experience.  Experience is what it is regardless if we are open or closed to it.  The only difference is in how we will experience it, how we will relate to and interact with it, and how we will move and participate with life or not.  We can’t control experience despite our often galant efforts to do so.  We are not the deciders of what occurs, but we are the deciders of how we experience what occurs.  This is our free will, our choice and nothing or no-one can take that from us.  We can only willing give away how we experience what is.  This occurs when we default to programs and conditioning that say we are powerless and where we choose to believe that we have no other choice.  Understand those beliefs and perspectives are required in order for one to disown their power to choose how they experience.   

BRIGHTEN UP

Moving towards fear

Fear creates an experience of vigilance or an over attunement to our inner and outer environment.  This may be thought of as sensitivity, but it’s a sensitivity in which one feels powerless or threatened rather than a sensitivity where one feels more connected and at peace with the light that they are.  As we open and become less defended we actually want more sensitivity, more attunement and more subtle awareness.  This is an indication of spiritual developmental progression, a movement towards remembering self.  Yet we want it rooted in power and trust, not powerlessness and fear.  When rooted in power it is the experience of co-participation with life, with the unfolding and there is agreement with what is occurring.  When rooted in powerlessness it feels as though it is happening to you, as though you can’t turn it off and you have just have to be subjected to whatever is occurring in your inner and outer environment. 

The funny thing about fear is that it all comes down to us not knowing what is going happen, yet how could we know what isn’t yet and why do we ever think that we should know.  Fear is simply the resistance we have to not knowing mixed in while some thoughts that something bad might occur inside, or on the other side, of that not knowing.  While we become overly identified with the physical so much so that we’ve come to gain our sense of stability in it, yet its blatantly obvious that there is nothing stable about the physical.  Nothing is more certain than birth and death of forms, yet we continue to try to find our source of stability inside of them and get shaken up when they start to destabilize.  

The way I see it is that nothing should be taken too seriously, even our fears, especially our fears.  The moment we take them seriously is the moment we move further away from the light.  I have a practice of opening into that which feels scary or unknown.  When I feel fear I notice my tension, my clenching, my resistance and then I notice that I am the one doing all of those things – tensing, clenching, and resisting.  In that moment of recognition I open and allow my experience rather than continuing to close off from it.  See the experience is what the experience is, but I get to experience it how I want to experience it.  Moving towards the uncomfortableness rather than away from it is key, is pivotal, is required for transformation of how we experience what we experience.  In turning towards and opening, there is allowance to feel.  To feel the feelings about the experience which may feel intense for a few moments, and then after that there is peace.  There is no longer resistance.  There is simply openness with the fear, with the unknown.  Presence, breath and ease return.

The return of presence is the return of the light.  No longer is our resistance to our experience blocking the light.  Now we can see, less distorted, less filtered.  This is the process of allowing the light that you are to become brighter and brighter.  The brighter the light, the clearer you feel even though all is still a mystery.  The unknown becomes exciting rather than scary.  This is how you shine, how you radiate and how you move into greater coherence, greater wholeness, greater knowing of yourself.  That is the entire spiritual game. Knowledge of self is the ultimate outcome.  

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

YOU DON’T HAVE TO DO ANYTHING

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YOU DON’T HAVE TO DO  ANYTHING

Fear of badness

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

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

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

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

WANTING EVERYTHING IN YOUR LIFE 

Doing from choice

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

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

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

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

WHAT DEFINES YOU?

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WHAT DEFINES YOU? 

The thoughts you think

We are what we think ourselves to be.  Our stories, ideas and thoughts about ourselves create the image of who and what we imagine ourselves to be.  We really are simply made up in our own minds.  Subtle waves of thought energy that we repeat over and over give the appearance of solidity and become the physical representation of what we know with our senses.  It’s hard to believe that something as etheric as thought could define us and even give shape to our sensory world, and yet it does.   

Most of us don’t really know what defines us because we aren’t that aware of the thoughts that we are choosing about ourselves.  Rather we live based on a bunch of unconscious assumptions about ourselves that seem random and given to us rather than self-chosen.  Most people think that its their interests, professions or roles that define who they are.  You might think, well I love to ski, so I am a skier, that’s who I am.  You might be a mother or father and take that role to be your identity.  Or you might be a coach, therapist or business person of sorts and therefore assume that your profession is who you are.  All of these examples are things you do or participate with, but none of them is who you are.  

We are so accustomed and conditioned to take our cues from our experiences rather than take our cues from ourselves that we seek to find our identity somewhere out there in our experience.  The thing is, that is not where our identity lives.  Our identity starts inside our very own mind and it resides solely there.  This is great news because it means that at anytime you can shift or change your identity.  You are not static or fixed.  Simply because you’ve had a repeating thought about yourself for 30, 40 or 50 years doesn’t mean that you have to keep repeating it.  The only thing required is that you wake up and realize the thought you are thinking.  When we realize our thoughts than we can stop making assumptions about ourselves and living on automatic pilot mode.  We can actively choose our thoughts about ourselves and redefine ourselves a hundred times a day if we so choose.  This may seem radical or too far fetched and yet it’s entirely possible.  The person you currently think you are could be completely changed by this afternoon if you so choose.   

RETHINKING  OURSELVES INTO BEING

Optimally design yourself

Most of us desire to live a joyful and fulfilling life where we create impact and have a good time along way.  This is what I would call epic living.  This possibility starts with who or what we think ourselves to be.  What happens though is that we often focus on the stuff.  We think the stuff of our lives needs to change in order to living epically.  So we get a new job, find a new relationship, move locations, start a new branch to our business, begin a new exercise program, and on and on.  We go about redefining the stuff, thinking that it will redefine us.  Yet most people continue with their current sense of identity never even giving it a second glance.  

I am not suggesting that its bad or wrong to change up the stuff of our life.  In fact many times when we rethink ourselves into being the stuff will change.  However most people only put energy and attention on the stuff and then they wonder why nothing seems to actually change inside of their experience of life despite the appearance of change.  They can’t figure out why they don’t seem to be making “progress” towards living a joyful and fulfilling life, or feeling more stability and ease inside of themselves even though so much stuff in their life is changing.  This is why.  The being doesn’t get addressed.  It’s not automatic that the being gets addressed when we change the stuff.  

Getting deliberate in your choosing of your identity is key.  The first step is unraveling the assumptions you are presently making about yourself.  Who do you currently think that you are?  Make a list.  Flesh it out.  See what labels, stories and ideas you have about yourself that define the experiences that you are drawing into your life.  What thoughts do you have about what you are or aren’t capable of?  Of who you think you are and aren’t?  And of what is or isn’t possible for you?  The dismantling of the labels that come with certain limitations will make your identity more malleable and flexible.  

What if you begin this new year rethinking yourself into being.  Consciously deciding who and what you are rather than focusing on what you want to do, create or accomplish.  Put at least as much energy and attention on who you be and what you be.  Cultivate a very deliberate being that you are.  Clearly know what and how you are defining yourself and see how that is working for you.  If it is not producing the experience of an epic life that is joyful and fulfilling than focus on redesigning yourself, not your life.  Your life will follow suite.  May you take on this challenge and see what it is that you create anew.  

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

MAGIC OF THE HEART

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MAGIC OF THE HEART 

Lived Remembrance 

The birthplace of all magic, mystery, fun and play lives within the heart.  Heart is not outside of you.  It lives and breathes you, and everything else in creation, into form.  Heart is that essence of which you are, of which we all are, yet remains unseen to the physical eye and unknown to the physical senses.  Heart is all pervasive and yet illusive to our ordinary reality and ordinary minds.  To reconnect and re-find our heart is to reconnect to the magic that lives inside of all things.  

The channel to heart is always open.  We must only tune ourselves to it in order to discover it.  The frequency of our unique soul essence is the gateway into the remembrance of what we are and the knowing, seeing, sensing of the love that simply is that primordial substratum, matrix, and information behind all things we perceive.  Even though sometimes heart seems distance and hard to find, in truth it is always here, present and ready for us to realize it.  Part of participating in this human experience is the forgetting of ourselves, of our essence, of love, and the unification of all in love.  We come to experience separation and forgetfulness and to find our way back into ourselves.  There is no right or wrong on this journey.  There is only the following of the breadcrumbs of excitement that guide your unique path.  

Tuning yourself to the frequency of your soul is the work.  It is the work of this incarnation if you choose remembrance as your intention for being here now.  For many this is relevant and desired.  There comes a time when one must stop talking about all things spiritual and instead live their essence.  Rather than think about what they want to be true or what they want to be their lived experience, they must simply live it.  This is the magic.  This is the alchemy.  Lived remembrance.

To live intentionally, devoted to why you are, is the only real tuning you need.  To run that pathway over and over and over again until it becomes the default program in your consciousness.  Until all you know and all you be is why you are.  This is the end of getting anywhere.  You’ve arrived.  There is simply the being and sharing of your arrival.  It is the air you breathe and the water you swim in.  No longer do you perceive separation of you and your purpose.  You are your purpose.  You are your intention for existing.  You know yourself.  Love is.  Love remains.  The channel is open and you have tuned to its frequency.   

YOUR HEART FREQUENCY 

Sound of Love

Heart could never not be yours.  You are not undeserving or unworthy of it.  You do not need to earn it or meditate your way into it.  You can’t be separate from it because it’s impossible for you to be separate from yourself, and heart is what you are.  Just try for a moment to be separate from yourself.  You can create content such as thoughts, feelings or sensations that seems to interfere or stand between you and heart, but there is not two of you.  You can’t exist over there and over here.  You can only exist, you can only be, there is just one.  Therefore its impossible for anything to be separate from anything else.  This is the teaching of the heart.  This is what the heart reveals when you tune yourself to why you are.  In that tuning you come into the knowing of the unity that is.  The one that expresses itself in a myriad of forms, some of which you have mistakenly identified yourself as.  

In the subtle, quiet stillness you can more clearly hear yourself.  You can hear the frequency of your heart, the sound of love.  Even when your thoughts, feelings and sensations appear to disrupt your frequency, in truth they really don’t.  While you are having the experience of disruption or interference, you still are, you still exist, and therefore love still is.  Untouched, unwavering and present.  It really is as simple as shifting your awareness to that knowing that love still is here now.  You can focus on the stuff, the thoughts, the story, the feelings, the sensations, the content of your experience, or you can focus on the fact that you are existing, being, and that love is what is present in being.  

Peace really is much closer than you think.  You can experience it in an instant.  That dropping of tension, of weight, of pressure, of constraint, is available just as soon as you stop focusing on the content of your experience.  Being is rested in love.  Love is, when you are.  This is when magic becomes your experience.  Rather than logic, linear awareness with cause and effect, black and white, and matter of fact thinking ruling your experience, you experience the dance, the flow, the rhythm and movement of intelligence at work, of love at work.  Synchronicity is the norm, life unfolds nonlinearly, and while the mind can’t make sense of it, the heart giggles in delight.

The frequency of heart is pure delight.  It naturally gives without doing.  It is so totally and completely energized.  It needs nothing from anything.  It knows how to move itself.  The body and mind obey the intelligence of the heart when you tune to the frequency of your soul.  Open into that channel of love over and over and over again, as much as you possibly can, each and every day.  Find whatever excuses, whatever reasons you can, to tune to your heart’s frequency.  Make it your number one priority no matter what experience is showing up, no matter what thoughts or feelings or sensations you are having.  Tune to love, to bliss, to God, until you remain rested there, until you no longer ever leave again.  This is the completion.  This is everything I know.

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

ATTUNEMENT

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ATTUNEMENT 

Harmony with self & other

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

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

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

ATTUNING, HARMONIZING & ENTRAINING 

Into the heart

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

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

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

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

STABLE BEING

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STABLE BEING 

Unaffected by the storm

Many of us desire stability in our state of being.  To feel good, relaxed, rested, while being attentive, present and aware.  To not get caught, pulled or hung up on the things of life.  It can seem at times that we are constantly getting drug down in one way or another by the stuff of life, all the doings, details and coming and goings.  It can feel like a mystery as to how to be stably rested despite all of the physical and mental activity that ensues.  

One of the prime awarenesses that we must develop of ourselves is how ahead of ourselves we get.  When our to do lists get long, our activity calendars get filled up, or life is a seeming crazy, chaotic mess we often get swept into the furry.  We are no longer the eye of the storm, but become part of the storm itself.  We leave our center behind us and focus on some illusionary future that has yet to come into existence outside of our thinking about it.  Our experience becomes one of unstable, frantic exhaustion as we are attempting to keep up the pace with what we think the pace should be.  

Most of the time when we are in the storm we don’t even realize that we’ve lost our center.  We only know that we feel tired, disconnected, not joyful or not as present as we would like to be.  We are on the treadmill of life trying to get to some destination, working up a ginormous sweat, but never actually going anywhere.  We also don’t realize, from the perspective of the storm, that we are choosing our experience.  Rather we feel that our experience is happening to us and that there is nothing that we can do about it.  We therefore spend a lot of time and energy not being at peace.  Constantly wanting things to be done, different, better, or somehow other than they are.  This underlying desire to arrive, for some semblance of organization, peace, rest or completion, propels us in this seeming forward aiming direction from beginning to end.  It is a tireless journey, particularly if our focus is on getting any part of it done and over.  

In order for us to find stability of being we must ultimately become unaffected by the storm.  The degree to which we are affected by the storm is the degree to which we will be unstable in our state of being.  Many people like to go on the ride, get charged up, take stances, fight causes, be right, not give up what we think we want, not feel defeat or disappointment, not feel un-resolve, and on and on.  The result is that we are often off center, not really present and feel like we are the wave that comes up and crashes down rather than realizing we are the water that makes up the wave.  If we realized we are the water, that we are the substance that makes up the wave to begin with, we would be at much peace and resolve.    

MAKING PEACE WITH EVERYTHING 

Not minding what happens

One of my favorite quotes comes from Jiddu Krishnamurti and it goes, “Here is my secret: I don’t mind what happens.”  If you really take this quote in, you will see just how far reaching it is.  You will also discover all of the places where you do mind what happens and hence all of the places that will take you out of your center, stable being.  See when we decide, think or insist that something be other than it is or be any particular way at all we suffer.  It is really that simple.  Suffering is a state of being, which most of us do not prefer.  In fact the preferred state of being for most is connectedness.  However due to the fact that most do not want to let go of what they think they want or desire, they by default choose to be unstable in their state of being.  They choose to be swayed, to be pulled, to be the wave rather than the water.  

What would your life and world experience be like if you made peace with everything right now?  I am not suggesting that you don’t feel what you feel, but rather that you make peace with whatever it is you feel.  I am not suggesting that you don’t have desires, but rather that you find peace with whatever your desires want to look like.  Without making peace with what is here now in this moment you will be hijacked by your thoughts and feelings that want it to be different.  

People think they want stable being.  In fact I’d say this is the crux of the spiritual journey, but what I’ve found that most really want is life to feel and look like what they want it too.  They want this rather than peace now, because they falsely believe that when life feels and looks like they want it to then they will be happy and experience a sense of perfect completeness.  I am pretty certain that as an experience this never arrives at some future place, but yet we are persistent in believing that it does.  We think it couldn’t possibly be found inside the mess we currently perceive things to be, but only in the perfect, clean clarity that lives elsewhere.  This is why we are all on this treadmill, going nowhere, but trying really hard to get somewhere.  

What would it take for you to make peace now?  What would be required?  This is important to ask yourself and to know what stands in between you and peace, or in between you and stable being.  Through asking yourself this question you will begin to see that you are in charge of your state of being.  It is not dependent on any circumstances or conditions.  It doesn’t matter what is going on in the world at large, in your relationships, in your inner world, in your body, on how much sleep you had, what food you ate or anything else.  Your state of being is dependent only on your choosing of it and your willingness to not mind what happens.  Here you will find stable state of being.  You will be unmoved by the stuff of life and will be responding only to your own inner alignment and choice for peace and presence now.  Your experience of life is then rested wakeful presence and attunement with this moment.  

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

WAKING UP FROM FEAR PARALYSIS

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WAKING UP FROM FEAR PARALYSIS 

The collective freezer

We are living in a collective freezer and largely unaware of the frigid weather all around us.  These cold conditions have paralyzed many of us into a state of contraction, numbness and disconnection.   Side effects of frozenness are subtlety holding your breath, tensing your body, not feeling safe to be yourself, not fully sharing or expressing yourself in world, believing things might go bad or not work out and feeling like you are not going to be ok.  Frozenness is riddled with worry, doubt, insecurity, inhibition, vigilance and absence of trust in self, other or life.  Its focus is on minimizing disruption, change, and uncertainty at all costs.  It is not concerned with thriving, evolution or advancement, but instead solely with preservation of what is and attempting to keep things the same.

Clearly it is impossible to keep things the same.  The one screamingly obvious truth is that everything is constantly changing.  Yet despite the obviousness of this we attempt to control the change.  This state of inner non-acceptance of what is keeps us looking in the rearview mirror.  Trying to keep a version of ourselves, our body, or our environment that was previously known to us.  Perhaps a version of our life that we liked more or that felt safer because it was more known to us thus giving us the illusion of greater stability.  What we fail to really accept is that everything has a rhythm, a beginning, middle and an end.  This is true for everything within the physical universe.  All will come and go.  

It is through stretching yourself into greater acceptance of this fact of the ever changing nature of the universe that you will begin the unthawing process.  When you stop trying to hold things in place you begin to recognize the movement that is all around you.  The block of ice that you’ve been keeping yourself inside of starts to melt.  The frigid, rigid fear container loses its sharp harshness and with that you begin to notice your breath again.  A warmth arrives that allows the muscles to relax.  That which you withheld or kept separate or silent now begins to move inside of you and take expression.  You stop worrying so much about yourself and instead start living again or maybe living for the first time.  

The important thing to realize here is that you are in charge of the defrosting process.  In fact it is 100% solely up to you.  That doesn’t mean that support isn’t available, because it is, but the choice to end the choice for fear is yours.  You don’t have to keep picking up the same fear story, feelings and sensations.  You are bigger than and beyond any fear thought.   

BEYOND THE CHOICE FOR FEAR

Finding all the places that you hide out

The first step in ending your attachment relationship with fear is by finding all the places where you choose it.  See our choosing of fear is largely unconscious to us.  We simply imbibe it as part of the air we breathe and don’t do much to question it because it’s one of those collectively agreed upon assumptions that has been left un-investigated.  Its takes a certain slowing down of the mind  and recognition of our more subtle beingness so that we can attune and clearly see these unconscious assumption patterns that we have about life.  

As you begin this investigation process into yourself you may find that there are certain things or situations that arise which you feel that fear is the only choice.  Where you get hijacked and your nervous system responds with the fear cascade of attack, protection, disconnection and vigilance.  These are your growth edges.  Wherever it is that you feel like you have no choice but to respond in a certain way is a misinformed and disempowered perspective.  The key that I want to keep pointing to here is choice.  It is one thing to deliberately choose fear and allow that choice to create the programmed nervous system response for that choice, it is another thing entirely to not consciously choose it and be swept into that response.  If a lion is chasing you choosing fear and the subsequent neurophysiological cascade that follows may be appropriate unless you want to get eaten, however rarely are any real lions chasing us.  

So outside those incredibly rare moments in our lives when we truly need our survival mechanism to be activated the choice for pure survival/preservation and the attack, flight or freeze response is just a default mode.  This should feel like really great news to you because it means that you are in charge.  You are not victim to your nervous system, instead it responds to you.  Its only that you have not been aware of your choice, of what you’ve been choosing or even that you can/do choose.  

This is why at some point we have to turn our attention from the outside world and all the seeming external triggers and look within.  Sometimes this seems like a dark and bleak void, and perhaps even boring direction.  This is only because we haven’t spent much time paying actual attention to ourselves and therefore there is this undiscovered terrain of which we have not navigated before.  You may feel like you don’t know how or what you are doing, and when you first open that inner door you may not see much.  But as with any worthwhile endeavor persistence pays off.  Your willingness and dedication to continue to peer inside reveals an previously unknown or unconscious world to you.  You come to see and know yourself.  You see the intricacies of your psyche and illuminate their workings simply with your attention and awareness on them.  It is here that you dismantle your conditioned responses to life and reclaim your active choice.  In truth the choice has always been yours, but until you turn within and unequivocally see that fact, your mind will play tricks of denial on you and you will project your power outwards onto objects, situations and other people.  The choice beyond fear is the choice for freedom and an experience of life where you are present, available and fully alive.  

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

FEEL GOOD NO MATTER WHAT

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FEEL GOOD NO MATTER WHAT 

Moving past the indirect approach

The “thing” that most all of us want is to feel good.  We might think that we want this thing or that thing, but that is only because we think that this or that thing will give us the state of feeling good.  This is an indirect approach.  The obvious truth is that its not the thing that brings us the good feelings, it is instead our choice to allow the thing to shift our feeling state.  Now even though the fact that we are in charge of our feeling state is relatively obvious I’m certain to get lots of objections about this as we often don’t like to take full responsibility for how we are feeling.  If we did people would move through their emotional rollercoaster ride with more ease and grace and less blame, shame, attack, repression and hatred of self or other.  With that feelings would be no big deal rather than the seeming crisis they seem to be for many.

I’m a believer that our natural state is that of feeling good.  Anything that does not feel good is added to our natural state of being.  What I mean by that is that if we do not feel good it is because we have somehow agreed to believe something that isn’t fully true.  We’ve added something on top of our natural good feeling self.  We all know truth.  This knowing is innate.  Truth always feels best, even if it sometimes stings or we don’t like it.  We would much rather have people be forthright than lie to us, to be in the know rather than left out of it.  The same is true for inner truths.  When we lie to ourselves by believing something to be true that isn’t the result is that we feel bad.  When we create a story whose tagline is about how horrible we are or how awful something is, we will always feel bad, because it simply isn’t true.  

So here come the objections.  What about murder, rape, sickness, pain, death, abuse, violation, and loss of anything in general, how is one supposed to feel good about that?  I am not suggesting that you must feel good about any of those things, however I will say that when people feel good about themselves and about life many of things either do not occur or if they do occur (like the inevitability of death) our experience of them is radically different.  For example we don’t go out and murder, rape or abuse someone when we feel good about ourselves.  Harming self or others is simply not on our radar when we feel good.  I would also venture to say (obviously hypothetically) that when we feel authentically rested in a state of feeling good, we would probably stop manifesting sickness and disease in our individual and collective body.  I would also say that when we feel good, loss seems much less traumatic.  Maybe a relationship ends or we loss our job or even lose a loved one, there is a normal grieving time, but there isn’t inner suffering about the loss.  Grief is simply the process of releasing of what was and does not have to come with suffering.  Suffering always comes when we feel that whatever happened was wrong or bad.   

WELCOME INNER CONTRADICTION 

Working through objections

Even though feeling good may feel contradictory at times I can absolutely guarantee you that you will move through whatever is occurring in your life with greater ease and grace if you do.  So I say welcome the contradiction in yourself and test out the theory.  How can you feel good about something that you have been perceiving as feeling bad?  Maybe your partner just gave you some news you didn’t like, or a sales call or job offer fell through, or you’ve had persistent painful sensation in your back for weeks, how can you take one of those things and shift your feeling state towards it?  This is your homework.  Test it out and see how it works.  

Now because we have so many objections to choosing to feel good (crazy I know, but true) here are some more things that arise.  Some of you might say well if I feel good about a “bad” situation then I allow or invite the situation and it keeps manifesting.  First off I would say the situation already is, so your choosing to feel good about it or to not feel good about it is not going to change that fact.  Secondly I would also say that when you feel good you naturally manifest things into your life that are in alignment therefore you do not have to worry about generating more of what you don’t want.  You only manifest what you don’t want when you feel bad.  

Others of you might say isn’t this spiritual bypassing?  It depends.  It’s spiritual bypassing if you don’t authentically choose feeling good.  What I mean is if you pretend to feel good, but you don’t actually feel good then you are a fraud and doing a half ass job.  You must do it completely otherwise you are bypassing because after all bypassing is simply being inauthentic, pretending to be or feel something you aren’t/don’t and staying conceptual rather than embodied in your knowing.  What I am suggesting is that you fully embody feeling good, don’t just think about it, let every cell in your body feel and know it.  I am also not suggesting that you repress emotions that are alive for you.  Believe it or not you can be in the midst of extreme discomfort, whether physically or psychologically, and still access feeling good.  It does not have to be an either/or, but rather a yes/and.  

Still some of you others might say if I don’t stay mad or angry how will people learn when they do something I don’t like.  Yes feelings of anger and frustration can be used to set boundaries, however we must simultaneously state to the other person what works for us and what doesn’t work for us.  I find that the anger and frustration we feel is typically not at the person, but instead at a behavior we don’t like or prefer (this is true for ourselves as well).  We tend to misdirect our anger onto the person rather than using the anger to say to ourselves “hey something isn’t working for me and I need to change it.”  I need to state my needs, wants or preferences and set guidelines for certain behaviors that are and aren’t acceptable for me.”  This is taking responsibility for what you feel which is a healthy use of emotions and their intended purpose.  Emotions are not meant to be felt over and over indefinitely.  They are meant to be felt and propel us into action that is in alignment with us.  

Holding onto feeling bad does not generate feeling good.  To feel good we have to change our feeling state.  The addiction to feeling bad is strong.  It’s a hell of a program, but we can decondition ourselves and rewrite a new one.  It really boils down to asking yourself what you really want and what serves.  Do you want to feel good or feel bad?  Is there benefit in remaining to feel bad?  Perhaps there is because there is something you need to change.  Make the required change as quickly as possible and then come back into alignment with your natural state of feeling good.  The bottom line is don’t let the situation decide for you either way.  You decide.  You choose.  It is 100% in your power to do so.  

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

SECURE DESTRUCTION YOU CAN TRUST

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SECURE DESTRUCTION YOU  CAN TRUST

The healing shake up

Earlier this week I was sitting in my car while stopped at a traffic intersection.  There was a large cargo truck in front of me that had the words “secure destruction you can trust” written on it.  I found this to be a very interesting and slightly comical phrase.  As I further looked at the truck it became evident to me that this truck belonged to a document destruction company, which clearly is an appropriate tagline for such a business.  However I also thought what an appropriate slogan for the healing process!  Healing is indeed a process of secure destruction that must be navigated through trust.  

Many people in the general public don’t perceive the destructive or destabilizing aspect of healing.  In fact most look for “healing” because they want more stability or less perceived uncertainty.  Often what these people are really looking for is not healing, but instead something to return them to a previous state of being or functioning that has been disrupted by a set of conditions in their body or life.  Returning to a previous state of functioning is not healing, it is a temporary bandaid.  Its buys you time until you are ready to actually heal.  Healing is a deep remembering of self, of what you are beyond the conditioning, a return to unshakable and undeniable love.  What I have found is that when our life gets shook up in unfavorable ways (what we might term a crisis of sorts) this is prime fertile ground for healing.  In fact little to no healing happens without the shake up.  

You might wonder why do we need the shake up?  Why don’t we just heal without things, including our bodies or lives, needing to fall apart?  The reason is that most people are not motivated in comfort.  When we feel comfortably stable there often isn’t momentum to grow.  When we are in comfort we may not even recognize that there is more to explore, share and know about ourselves.  Also we may not be able to see some of our limiting patterns and beliefs that keep us trapped in boxes inside of our own minds without the shake up.  

So the shake up, the destabilization and destruction, serves.  It serves our remembrance of ourselves, which is our healing.   Its serves by breaking down that which no longer serves.  Even though we often don’t like it and would rather be anywhere else then inside of massive instability, it is required which is why it is present.   When it no longer serves it will no longer be necessary and therefore will not manifest itself, but until then it is part of the way we grow.  One of the main reasons that we suffer inside of the destruction phase of a healing process is because we don’t trust it.  We don’t trust the intelligent process of life and therefore attempt to fix it so that we can return to our previous sense of self and stability.  But what if you aren’t meant to go back to who you were before?  What if you are meant to instead recognize a new version of yourself entirely?  That is after all what healing, growth and evolution is all about.   

CONSCIOUSNESS & PHYSICAL HEALING 

Spirit-matter

Consciousness is a state of wakefulness or awareness.  The brighter your wakefulness or awareness is the more you recognize yourself.  This is healing.  It’s healing because to see, recognize, or remember ourselves aligns our individual perspective with the larger, more encompassing perspective that we are.  We are often looking through this tiny pinhole perspective and extrapolating it to be the ultimate truth of all that we are, when in actuality we are much, much, much more then what we see through our tiny little viewpoint.  The wider our lens becomes, the more inclusive it becomes, the more allowing we are of life and the less we attempt to control and manipulate it.  We learn to love and accept what is just as it is.  This means accepting what we don’t understand, what we don’t agree with, often what we don’t want and discovering that this is what heals us.

One might say that everything in the universe is consciousness.  That all forms that you see, feel and touch are simply awareness.  I find it interesting that there is still a deep non-recognition of this.  We attempt to manipulate forms while not paying any attention to that which is awake, alive and the essence of the form.  We are deeply unaware of ourselves.  Even when we do begin to recognize and metaphorically taste, touch and smell ourselves beyond the forms we tend to externalize or make our essence other.  In fact we put it into this fancy category that we call “spirituality”.  Spirituality or spirit is none other than you.  It is inescapable as you cannot be other than you.  Spirituality is not reserved for some people or some times or places.  It is all that there is.  You could never leave it.  You can only not recognize it.  

Consciousness is not separate from matter.  It is matter.  It is simply vibrating at a slower wavelength than say thoughts or emotions.  Other words for consciousness are awareness, intelligence or information.  Awareness is intelligent.  The more your individual awareness recognizes itself the more intelligent you become.  I don’t mean the kind of mental intelligence that most of us think about as intelligence, though that is included as well, but instead I’m talking about self-organizing, self-healing, self-knowing intelligence.  This is the intelligence that organizes every single detail and moment in the universe.  Call it universal intelligence if you prefer.  This universal intelligence is in total and complete charge.  This intelligence is you.  

This is why all healing is remembering.  A remembering that you are this intelligence.  The focus on consciousness knowing itself turns the brightness knob up.  More brightness means more resourcefulness, more knowing, more intelligent navigating, and better listening and attuning to self.  Seeing and hearing the lessons you are learning more clearly and feeling less like a passive victim of circumstances and conditions.  At first you become co-creator, an active participant in the unfolding of each lesson and moment, until ultimately separation ceases to be perceived and you recognize the one creator as your true identity.  

Forms (including your body) are simply mirrors, pictures, reflections of consciousness, of you.  When you realize this inseparable nature you stop seeking outside of you for a magical pill or answer.  You are the magical pill and answer.  That doesn’t mean that there aren’t elements inside the seeming form mirage that will be supportive to you, as there most likely will be.  But do recognize their function as consciousness illuminators, permission slips or pathways that carve the way inside your own awareness to more deeply know itself and it’s inherent self-healing, self-organizing and self-knowing power.  

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

OPPORTUNITIES FOR HEALING

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OPPORTUNITIES FOR HEALING 

Remembering what we’ve forgotten

There is a tremendous amount of energy and time spent searching, looking and seeking healing.  We typically embark on this search because something inside of us hurts physically or emotionally and/or we know that there is more to life than what we are currently experiencing.  The healing journey is thus the search to somehow feel better and make our experience of life fuller, easier or more enjoyable.  

The thing about the healing journey is that often we seek outside of ourselves to find it.  It is one of those human tendencies to look for things out there rather than inside of us.  As such we expect to find healing in an answer, an insight, another person, a tool, a technique, a being from another planet, something we ingest, something we wear or breathe, a trip or adventure, a relationship, and the list goes on and on.  On the surface we measure success by seeing an external change, meaning our body changes its sensation patterns or a situation in our life shifts.  This is the example of someone who has a particular body symptom or condition whose pattern changes and they exclaim “I’m healed”, or a person that was desiring a certain situation in their life to change and it changed and now they feel whole.  However a sensation/symptom pattern shifting in your body or a situation in your life changing, in and of itself is not an indication of healing.  Not to say these things don’t occur along with healing, but as a stand alone they have nothing at all to do with it.

So what is healing if it’s not a change in external conditions (your body is also a condition) or circumstances, and how is it measured?  A true measure of healing is your state of being or identity.  The most healed state of being/identity is “I am” or just the pure recognition that you exist, nothing else added.  Your state of being informs the perspectives you are looking through.  Do you perceive life happens to you or do you perceive you are happening to life?  Do you feel powerless, like you have to wait for life to change or do you see that you are in charge?  Do you perceive things as right or wrong, good or bad or do you see the absolute perfection in everything?  These are very different perspectives informed by your state of being/identity and a much more accurate measure of “healed-ness”.  

If I was to sum up what healing is with one word I would choose the word remembering.  All healing is remembering.  Remembering who you are, remembering what you are, remembering the perfection of all.  It is quite literally that simplistic.  Yet what that remembering takes and our willingness to accept what we remember is the entire reason healing seems to be a process rather than just occurring in one full swoop.  In and through remembering everything returns to its original state, its original knowing, and all distortion corrects itself.  Said another way, all that was forgotten is remembered so distortion simply cannot be created because distortion is only created by not seeing or remembering the truth.   

INFINITE MIRRORS 

The how of healing

This brings me to how we heal.  For a moment imagine an entire dimension of infinite mirrors.  Everywhere you look all there is are mirrors and you can only see the image of yourself reflected back.  Who or what is seeing the reflection and what does that seer or perceiver project onto the image that it sees?  What gets projected or what you see depends on your perspectives, thoughts and beliefs.  Those are what filter or color the picture or image of you that you keep seeing everywhere in this infinite mirror dimension.  If you pause for a moment you can see that you are in a ocean of your own projections.  Inside this ocean it is very tricky to see anything other than what it is you keep projecting.  However an opportunity arises when one of your mirrors disagrees with what you are projecting onto it.  This becomes the how of healing.  

A healer is not one that does anything in particular to you (because truly that would impossible), but instead a healer is one that provides an opportunity for you to remember yourself as the truth of perfection so that you can align your perspectives accordingly.  The role of the healer is really singular; it is to help you remember.  The healer does this in a few ways.  One way is to disagree or create waves inside your incomplete or distorted projections of yourself.  This creation of waves or insertion of a new image inside of your ocean of projections is your carrot or golden healing nugget.  A moment of clarity.  A lightening of load.  An effortless breath.  Your only task is to accept this new reflection.  It is outstanding how relieving this new reflection feels and simultaneously incredibly ridiculous at how adamantly we refuse to accept it for much longer than a second or two.  However when we can unwaveringly accept this new image (some people call this embody) healing has occurred as we’ve shifted state of being (identity) and perspective.  

Other ways that healers help you remember is simply by resting in the truth of infinite complete perfection and emitting that through all their modes of expression.  Movement, words, sounds, touch, etc.  The importance is not on the expression or the form that it takes but instead on the awareness or knowing from which it comes.  For those that can see, or are open through their hunger to see, will receive that awareness broadcast just like an antenna receives waves.  Its like a meeting or a matching.  Awareness meeting itself through the projection of you and the projection of healer.  It is a transcendence of form and a knowing of the knower of form. Life then effortless moves itself, does itself, and there is no doer of it and no one done onto.

It should be evident by now that healing is an inside job.  No one can heal you.  Healers simply provide opportunities for it.  Healing occurs through you remembering and accepting the truth of you.  A different image then appears on your screen, meaning you see the world and yourself differently.  The projection is simply what the senses can perceive, but it is not real.  You are real, the projection is not, however you can use the projection to mirror yourself back to you.  You can use it as a measure of progress, but remember it is you that shifts not experience.  Experience, imagery, projection, and appearances all respond to you, they take their cue from you.  You heal, you remember yourself and then your body changes, and your circumstances change.  It is also important not to get caught up in trying to make circumstances change through your healing.  When you are truly healed you realize the simultaneity of it all and also that whatever circumstances are arising they are perfect as they are.  You are less concerned about trying to create or make the perfect life or world and instead you are waking up and realizing the already perfect world.  It is through your realizing of it that it instantly becomes lived reality.

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