self-improvement

Ending Urgency

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ENDING URGENCY 

There is nowhere better to get

Everyone in the world seems to be in a mad dash to get things done or be somewhere other than where they are.  We drive fast, think fast, move fast, send text messages fast, eat fast… fast, fast, fast.  Always onto the next thing and never being inside of what is now.  We have some kind of belief that somewhere else is better, more fun, more exciting, more relaxing, or more peaceful than where we are now.  If we could just get to those moments or times when everything looks and feels better and lock them in for eternity, then we could stop with all the urgency and just be.  Yet even when those transitory moments of peace or better come, we can’t seem to stop, slow down and enjoy the moment.  We only recognize that this moment will change and be gone soon enough.  

How do we ever live relaxed and in a state of “be”ing with the near constant change, activity and movement of life?  How do we stop trying to get somewhere and rather be where we are in each and every moment?  One of the most fundamental beliefs that we must work with in ourselves is the one that says that something is better than now.  How many times throughout your day do you find yourself engaged in an activity just hoping to get is over and done with?  Perhaps you feel this way during your morning workout, or when you are at work and things don’t seem to going as you want them too.  Maybe you can’t get something to work right on the computer, or you have a class at school you don’t enjoy, or an annoying neighbor, roommate or some other person you have to deal with.  When we find ourselves in these types of situations we mostly just want to be out.  For it to be done and over with because we do not feel pleasant, relaxed or at peace.  We think once this activity, task, conversation or situation is over then we can relax and be.  

The thing is life is loaded with movement, and might I even say what seems to feel like chaos, stickiness or mess.  There is simply a lot of stuff going on that never seems to stop and things are rarely perfectly packaged and placed as we would like them to be.  So what’s the answer here?  How do we bring what we want to experience to every situation that we find ourselves in?  Attempting to manipulate each and every experience, circumstance and/or person in our life (including ourselves) is exhausting, and quite frankly impossible, even though this is what most people try to do.  The answer rather is that we must pause our sense of urgency, of wanting to get out of our experience of “ick” or overwhelm, and drop into it rather than try to get out of it.  By moving into our experience the possibility to transform ourselves inside of it becomes available.  When we transform ourselves we transform our experience of whatever it is we are experiencing.   

LIFE’S PACING 

Surrendering beyond ourselves

Have you ever noticed that life seems to have its own pacing?  It operates at a speed or rhythm that sometimes aligns with our own and at other times not so much.  Sometimes the pace of life feels too fast and at other times too slow.  We may find ourselves feeling urgent in either scenario.  If the pace of life feels like it’s moving too fast then we try to speed ourselves us to meet that pace and the demands of all of the movement of life.  If the pace of life is too slow for us then again we try to speed ourselves up hoping that life will respond to us and speed up as well.  Either way we are gearing ourselves up for the race to somewhere else.  

Life’s pacing is largely out of our control.  There is a bigger orchestration at play to which we are mostly unaware.  Sure there might be things that you can do such as putting more or less activities into your day to day schedule, which you may actually need to do, but the bigger message here is in how you walk with life and it’s pace.  Not getting ahead of it or behind it, but rather being right with it as it unfolds.  What this requires is a surrender to the rhythm that is present rather than the rhythm we would prefer to be present.  While this might seem bold to say here it is: our preferences matter, but not that much.  While we are the kings and queens of our own world inside of our own heads, when it comes to the larger orchestration of life, we are part of the whole.  Often we don’t see from the whole, but only from the part we play.   In this way we are egocentric, not in a negative way, as it’s mostly innocent on our part.  Rather in a way in which we just simply don’t see the bigger picture.  We are not inside the heads of every single being in this universe seeing from the perspective of universal consciousness, therefore our scope and sight is limited to our own.  This creates immense confusion and frustration for us as we often don’t understand the what’s and why’s to the pacing and timing of things.  

Accepting confusion is one of the best ways to come back into rhythm with life’s pacing.  Understanding is not required for us to have acceptance.  In fact this is one of the great lessons of having this human experience.  Not necessarily an easy lesson, yet it does the job of eventually getting us into a state of surrender.  Surrendering to what is rather than what we prefer to be.  Only once we move into acceptance and surrender can we begin to see beyond ourselves and our egocentric human point of view.  We are in the unknown of what the moment is, contains and could be, rather than in our ideas, preferences or insistences about what is occurring.  

There is so much about the happenings that we don’t get to decide, even the happenings of our own bodies.  What we do get to decide is how we be, and whether or not we try to get out or be in rhythm with the moment.  When you feel urgency arise inside of you begin the practice of pausing.  Take a breath and let go of whatever you are energetically holding onto or trying to get done, and allow the state of “be”ing to be present inside of your experience.  Recognize that you can both be and engage in activity.  There is nothing to get over with, as there will always be more things.  Rather see the moment that you desire is now.  What you wish to experience is now.  Bring that to your experience and watch the magic reveal itself to you.  

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

ENTRAIN TO YOUR HIGHER SELF

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ENTRAIN TO YOUR HIGHER SELF 

Your high self is here now

Entrainment is a process of two independent systems or frequencies coming into alignment or phase with one another.  We can see this in biology as our circadian rhythms (i.e. light/dark sleep cycles) come into alignment with the seasons or time changes.  We also see this in physical systems such as when two individual pendulum clocks that are sitting on the same surface become synchronized to each other in their movements.  Energy gets transferred between the two independent moving systems and eventually they get locked into phase or frequency together for the period of time that they are interacting.  

Our individual physiological, psychological and I’ll even say our spiritual frequencies or rhythms can respond and lock into phase with other frequencies or oscillating bodies.  This in fact how spinal entrainment works when you are laying on the table receiving Network Care.  One spinal segment or oscillator interacts with another spinal segment or oscillator and they entrain to each other, hence why we call the sessions entrainments.  Entrainment is happening all of the time though it’s mostly unconscious to us.  Individual cells in our body are entraining to rhythms or frequencies put out by master gland or organ systems.  If we are around one person a lot we will start mimicking some of their behaviors or even moving or sounding like them.  When we attend a retreat or healing program we will start entraining to the field that is created there with the intention that is set by those who are running the program.  This is why we might have access to different thoughts, emotions or spiritual frequencies that we don’t typically have access to when we are there.  

To me the process of entrainment clearly demonstrates that everything is vibrating/oscillating energy or frequency, and when we come into different environmental conditions, energies will vibrate or oscillate together.  In the process of entrainment, whatever energy or vibration is stronger or more coherent, that is the one that the two will come together and oscillate as.  If you have followed this so far then you could extrapolate that your higher self, which is that self that knows, understands, and sees from a much wider vantage point such as like the perspectives of an eagle to an ant, is also energy or frequency.  It’s simply vibrating at a different frequency than the one that your conscious mind is vibrating at right now.  Energy can never be created or destroyed which means that the frequency of your higher self is here now in existence.  Even if you don’t have conscious awareness of it, it is here among the frequencies of creation and is part of the cosmic environment.   

UTILIZING FOCUS 

Becoming in phase with your higher self

I often talk about focus and where we place it.  Our focus, meaning our awareness, will only notice what we choose to tune into.  For example if we are not at all interested in basketball we will probably never see a basketball game.  We know it exists, but we place no awareness or energy into noticing its existence.  If however you are incredibly interested in chocolate you will likely seek out chocolate wherever you go, meaning it will be inside of your experience a lot of the time.  Even though it seems like “spiritual” things are more elusive than say basketball or chocolate, using your focus or awareness works the same way.  If you have no interest in seeing angels you will likely never see one, however if you have an intense desire and love of angels you will more likely interact with them because your desire, focus and love brings them into your environment.  I see this the same as for your higher self.  

You might ask yourself how much energy, time or focus you give to your higher self?  Equally you may ask yourself how connected you feel to it?  You may even have to ask yourself if you believe in it.  If not that is totally ok, however you will likely need to shift that belief if you have desire to make contact with it, as our beliefs generate our experiences.  Imagine for a moment what it would be like to feel clear, confident, easeful, peaceful, rested, vital, aligned, fearless, abundant, blissful, wise, loving, compassionate, discerning and endlessly energized.  These are some of the frequencies that your higher self is constituted as.  What if connecting to these frequencies is the equivalent of entraining to your higher self?  What if as you use your focus to tune into these qualities of higher self you entrain or become more and more in phase with the frequency of your higher self?  It is after all just physics and biology at play in the realm beyond our ordinary visual sense awareness of what is.

Focus is one of those things that is not very natural for most.  Most of us can’t choose to one-pointedly focus on whatever we choose for as long we want.  We will get distracted nine hundred billion times by thoughts, feelings and sensations.  So if we want to use focus then we must train it just like we would train any other muscle.  In my humble opinion training your focus is probably the most worthwhile muscle to train because your ability to focus is your power.  Focus can activate every single super power that currently lays dormant in the infinite field of vast consciousness.  It is the attractive force of the universe.  It is what allows instant manifestation to occur.  Meditation is probably the best tool currently in existence to help you build your focus muscle.  

Entraining to the frequency of your higher self locks your current state of being into phase with your higher state of being, meaning your current state entrains to your higher state.  For as long as you maintain your focus on your higher self you will create the environmental conditions for entrainment to happen.  As soon as you lose focus, you fall out of the conditions required for entrainment and begin operating as a separate independent system again, entraining to your ordinary state of being and knowing.  Focus is the key, which is fueled by practice and your desire to live a more magical experience of existence.  

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

SELF-CENSORSHIP

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SELF-CENSORSHIP 

Being dishonest

There is often controversy around censorship, particularly about information getting hidden or concealed in or by the media.  It is a popular topic of conversation as many people feel like they aren’t getting the full story or all of the information that is going on behind the scenes, or behind the appearance of things.  There are narratives that people want to be seen or heard more than other narratives.  Each person or group does their best to be the loudest or have the most attention placed on what they want to be seen or heard.  This often lends to debates around violations of free speech or free expression.  For some people this is a very heated debate.  Ultimately this censorship leads to feelings of mistrust and that no one is being honest about what is really going because the full story isn’t being shared.  

As we see this all being played out before us, sort of like watching a movie on a big screen, we are getting a peak into the inner workings of our own collective and personal psyche.  The way I see it is is that everything is projection.  That which we have the most inner charge around we will work out in our outer environment, and it will become our experience or what we call fact or reality.  The outer experience of censorship and the unfairness or violation around it, is a mere reflection of the massive amounts of self-censorship we do on a day to day basis.  Many are frustrated by how un-fully expressed they feel and simultaneously they are constantly censoring themselves.  Why do we self-censor?  There are a multitude of reasons.  We don’t want to hurt someone’s feelings, we don’t feel like who we are is valid or good enough to express, we don’t want to appear to come off as rude or insensitive, we think other people won’t accept us, like us or maybe will even leave us if we don’t censor ourselves.  

Another way to say self-censor would be to say that we aren’t being authentic or honest.  When we censor ourselves we become un-trustable.  People don’t know if we are being honest or not and this makes them not trust us.  How much do you trust someone who you know isn’t telling you the truth?  Probably not much, and rightfully so.  If we want to live authentically, and authentically relate with others, then we must be ourselves.  Now on the flip side of this, sometimes we might not really want to know the truth that someone is expressing to us, because it isn’t what we want to hear, see or know.  As a “recipient” of authenticity we must be willing to receive the information as it is.  When we don’t receive the information well, it breads more of an environment where censorship is the socially accepted way of engagement in our collective and personal relationships.   

BEING AUTHENTIC 

Facing your fears

Making the shift from inauthenticity to authenticity may feel tough.  It may bring up some of your biggest fears such as rejection, worthlessness, or being a bad person.  These fears run pretty deep through most all of us as human beings.  What it boils down to though is the type of experience you both want to have and create, which are the same thing.  Even though authenticity can feel super scary and threatening, being inauthentic feels miserable in other ways.  We usually feel disgruntled, frustrated, stuck, trapped, unaligned, disempowered, heavy, tired, irritated, annoyed and not at peace when we are choosing inauthenticity.  On a bigger level it can also feel like we aren’t living our purpose or engaging with life in the ways we desire too.  We each must personally evaluate the cost and decide if authenticity or inauthenticity makes more sense to us.  We may perceive that we get certain things like survival needs, love, attention, approval, validation, or respect if we engage inauthentically, or in ways we think other people want us too.  On the other hand being ourselves, having self-acceptance, feeling at peace and being aligned with our purpose may hold more weight.   

Now being authentic isn’t a permission slip to be mean or righteous, rather it’s only to be truthful.  If the receiver of your authentic expression can’t receive you, first know that it isn’t about you.  It’s about them not being able to accept what is being presented to them in the reflection of you.  Secondly you can consciously choose not to express an aspect of yourself in any situation or relationship that you find it relevant not to do so.  The key here is that you are deliberately choosing to withhold because you feel greater relevance in not expressing yourself.  When you are in the position of chooser there are no feelings of violation of self-expression, no frustration in not expressing yourself and you feel nothing is lost.  It can sometimes be a bit tricky to discern if you are avoiding authenticity or truly feeling it relevant not to express yourself.  The determining factor is often how much inner peace you have at the end of it all. 

There are overt ways that we self-censor that are often very obvious.  Examples would be not saying something we are feeling to someone, flat out lying to others, saying we will do things that we don’t want to do, shutting down completely and not speaking.  These things are obvious to just about anyone that is aware.  There are also subtle way that we self-censor that may not be as apparent.  Examples would be ways that we posture our body, being stiff or rigid, holding our breath, not making eye contact, smiling or nodding a lot, being agreeable, shyness, and not feeling.  In order to uncover these for yourself simply notice when you feel most yourself and contrast that with when you feel the most not yourself, and then pay attention to some of these subtleties.  

To live uncensored is simply to be yourself and to receive what life offers you.  It is to be trustable in self and of life.  It is to live aligned and feel inner peace.  Being authentic with others is being authentic with self.  

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

LETTING PEOPLE HAVE THIR EXPERIENCE

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LETTING PEOPLE HAVE THEIR EXPERIENCE

Ending control

We tend to be really good at trying to control life.  One of our most favorite ways to do this is through attempting to control ourselves or others in effort to make things amiable and peaceful.  In part this tendency is born out not wanting to see, or be the elicitor, of suffering and distress in another person.  The other part is that it creates a sense of external safety and security for us when everyone is happy.  As an effect of this we learn to not fully express ourselves, make things ok that really aren’t ok, not say or do what is true for us, and walk on the eggshells of life trying not to create too much distress or suffering in the experience of those around us.  This helps us feel like a “nice or good” person and like we won’t be left, abandoned, cast out or hated by others.  It keeps us feeling like we belong and like we will have our basic human needs met for survival and connection because people will like us.  This however comes at tremendous cost.  Cost to our own energy system because it’s draining to not be ourselves, and this drain on our energy system effects our physical, emotional and mental health.  That equates to not being able to maximally utilize your body, mind and life to play and be of service.  There are also costs in terms of learning for self and others.  When we control ourselves or try to control another person’s experience, we delay or lose out on development steps or stages in our personal and soul evolution.  We also don’t get to be mirrors for others assisting them in their growth.  

There is no denying that feeling bad at any level of our being sucks.  Suffering and distress is not a walk in the park.  It makes sense that we want to avoid and move in any direction but towards it.  While I believe that we can learn and grow without suffering, it currently tends to be part of the experience of learning for most.  Many of us will choose our own suffering over seeing another person suffer.  We will mold ourselves any which way we need to in order to try to take away, or not be the seeming source of suffering from someone, particularly someone we love.  Even though this seems incredibly honorable and kind, it robs people from fully having their experience.  Our addiction to fixing, alleviating or avoiding suffering and distress does not allow people to have their experience, whatever that experience might be.  This doesn’t in any way mean that you don’t lend a helping hand or words of kindness to someone who needs it, but rather that you don’t try to control their experience of their experience.  When we can fully be with our experience, liberation ensues.  We don’t end suffering by trying to manipulate people’s experience of it, but rather by helping to usher them through it.  Assistance and support in the ways that feel authentic and true are always in alignment, but it is not your responsibility to fix how someone feels.  It is not your job to make people feel differently than they do.  Notice where your own uncomfortableness with other people’s uncomfortableness comes in and runs the show of your words, actions and the ways you do or don’t express yourself.  Recognize where you might feel threatened if someone doesn’t feel good around you.  These are the indicators that you are hijacked by your own emotions, and whatever your actions are in the moment are not from coming from alignment, but rather from your own uncomfortablenesses and sense of threat. 

WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO CARE ABOUT OTHERS? 

Moving beyond manipulation

This might all create some sense of confusion for you around what it means to care about others.  We are quite conditioned to believe that caring about others means that we help them feel a certain way about themselves or have certain experiences.  This assumes that we have some type of control over others, their free will in choosing their state of being and that somehow we know best.  It creates a power dynamic, which typically goes unseen, but can be felt as a subtle tension in the field of you and them.  It may also show up as a feeling of disempowerment, inferiority, distance or uncertainty that is is temporarily satiated externally by another, but isn’t sourced from your own knowing and therefore comes with subtle feelings of mistrust or instability.  

What if caring about others simply meant that you are without agenda in relationship with other.  To be a container of acceptance and love for whatever is present.  To not take anything as a personal insult or threat.  To not run or move away from anything and also not fix anything.  To not hold on or insist that anything stay, go or change out of your own desire for it be a certain way.  What if this is what it means to care rather than trying to make people happy and give them what you think they want so that they feel good and un-triggered, and you feel safe.  That, by the way, is a recipe for stagnation, lack of intimacy, and suffering if you ask me.  Again I am not suggesting that you not do or say things that are authentic acts of caring for you and that you desire to do, but rather that you stop protecting yourself and others in order to avoid unpleasantness.  What if transmutation of suffering occurs through allowing it rather than trying to get rid of it?  I get this is radical for most people and yet this is what healing (i.e. wholeness) is.  In order to come to know our wholeness we must include all, allow all and be with all, even the unpleasantries that we try to ignore, smash or manipulate out of existence.  

You could say that we live in a sea of manipulation of sorts.  Manipulating ourselves, others and buying into all of the manipulation of media, schools, healthcare system and such in order to feel as good as possible.  Not all manipulation is negative, but I do believe that it’s important to be intentional in its use.  Is it used to help one know that one is the source of all experiences?  That one is in charge of one’s own self?  If not you become reliant on external sources of manipulation to feel certain ways rather than moving through all of your life experiences that are there to guide you into greater self-knowing and self-sourcing.  

Letting people have their experience is caring about them even if that means that they will experience things that don’t feel good.  It’s ok to not feel good sometimes.  It’s ok for others to not feel good sometimes.  There is so much rapid learning that can occur when we stop trying to control life.  When we simply allow the truth of what is in our experience to be expressed we create liberation for everyone even if it doesn’t feel like it right away.  It’s ok to feel shaky, scared and frightened that you might lose something you love dearly if you be yourself and act authentically.  However you might also be surprised at how your fears don’t always live themselves out how you imagine they might.  The path takes courage and trust that all is well despite our experience of it.  

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

INEXHAUSTIBLE SOURCE OF LOVE

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INEXHAUSTIBLE SOURCE OF LOVE  

Recognizing what is

What moves us?  What drives us?  What is our fuel source? What are we made of?  At the source of everything is love.  We know this, at least we know it conceptually, but how do we really grok this, get this and live this?  Love is boundless, infinite and inexhaustible, yet why does it seem scarce and limited inside of our experience?  Let’s first be clear on our definitions.  Love is not an emotion, but it is the source of all emotion.  Love is not a thought, but it is the source of all thought.  Love is not a sensation, but it is the source of all sensations.  Understand we often confuse love for its expressions rather than recognize it as the source of all expressions.  Love is the birthplace/birth space of all of creation.  It’s the very fabric of the universe, that which everything is made from.  

Love is exchanged or expressed when it is recognized, acknowledged or made aware of by you, by your awareness.  The primary reason that love seems to be limited or scare is because it remains largely unrecognized in our day to day life.  Whatever we tune our awareness to or focus on we see.  Sometimes, or rather oftentimes, we look out and we see our judgments, labels, stories and ideas about what we think we are seeing rather than seeing what is, which is love.  When our judgments, labels, stories and ideas dominate our awareness, which they do for most people, then our life experience is the fabrication of those things.  We see what we think rather than what actually is.   

You can see here that love is not what’s limited, but only our experience of it is limited based on what we choose to see.  To see all as love, as what it is, is a high ask of ourselves.  Our conditioning is such that to our mind’s stories and ideas this seems ridiculous.  We have a multitude of perspectives, experiences, situations and things that we do not, and often refuse to see as love.  For example things that have created physical, mental or emotional pain for ourselves or others we tend not to see as love.  Things that we don’t understand or that we disagree with we tend to leave out of love.   While some expressions of love may be sourced from a more distorted or confused perspective, at their core they are still love.  When love in its purity isn’t recognized as such then it continues to play out and create expressions of love that are more twisted or bent.  Not until the source of love can be looked upon and seen as what it is and have itself reflected back to it, can it come to see itself and unbind some of its bent or confused perspectives.  But we tend to not do this for ourselves or for others.  Rather we look at the confused expression of love and offer only our judgments, fears and condemnation.  Hence we live in a collective reality where love seems limited and scarce.   

KNOWING YOURSELF AS LOVE 

Seeing self as the source

In order to see all as love, and to recognize love at its source, you must first know yourself as the source of love.  You are not able to mirror or reflect love to other aspects of creation if you don’t first know yourself as it.  While this might seem obvious it’s a pretty big missing link for most.  The primary human wounding is unworthiness and unlovability, which is the opposite end of the spectrum of knowing yourself as love.  Knowing yourself as love is seeing yourself as it.  It’s beyond sensing, feeling or thinking of yourself as love.  Although those are great entry points they still don’t go direct to the source of love, but rather utilize expressions of it.  To be rested as love, to know it without doubt, to recognize yourself unequivocally as it, to no longer need to think, feel or sense yourself as it because you are it, is to know yourself as love.  

Why don’t we know it?  Primarily because we’ve agreed to forget for learning sake.  Also because there are not many pure mirrors available on this planet to reflect this knowing to us.  The result is that we don’t see ourselves very clearly.  It’s like we are constantly looking at reflections in the mirror that are bent, twisted and distorted, except they look “normal” to us.  They look like who we think we are and therefore we’ve come to identify with those reflections more and more as the years have gone by.  Just because something feels normal or has become familiar to us, such as our sense of identity, it doesn’t mean it’s accurate.  As we’ve come to believe and accept the reflections given to us from distorted mirrors about what/who we are, we’ve naturally created our life experiences based upon these beliefs and see life through our bent perspectives.  Hence again we experience a world scarce and limited in love and genuinely can’t figure out why because we don’t recognize the source of the reflections is our very own self, and how we see our very own being is what we experience life to be.  

If we are indeed love, then how do we know ourselves to be it?  The most direct path would be to simply accept it as fact.  This is however a radical shift for most people’s belief systems and therefore direct acceptance, while entirely possible, is not highly probable.  The more experiential way is to commit/devote to seeing yourself as love.  Multiple times a day reflect to yourself that you are love.  I suggest not focusing on your form when you do this.  Many times people will practice loving their form/body, or qualities they have, or things that they do for themselves or others.  Again those are expressions of love, but they are not recognizing the source of it.  Instead go to the source.  The essence of you is love.  It is what you are made of.  It is what/who you are.  Yes your body, your qualities  and all the things you do are expressions of love, but they aren’t the source of it.  Come to know yourself, your actual self, not the fabricated body-personality of you that is made up of thoughts, labels and ideas that have been conditioned.  As you get this, begin to see others as this same source, and all things/experiences as well.   It is not out of your hands/heart to shift this entire creation.  The change is and has always been with and inside of us.  As we insist on seeing ourselves as what we are, and including the rest of creation inside of that perspective, we live a very different reality where love is abundant and inexhaustible.

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

HEALING TO SERVING

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HEALING TO SERVING 

Rhythms of development

There are many rhythms in this cosmic-human dance.  Stages of development, themes, and learnings that we all experience.  The stages themselves are quite predictable, but the content of them and how we learn what we learn, is unique for each being.  Each stage or rhythm is whole onto itself and yet is part of larger wholeness.  The goal of each stage or rhythm is to be in it.  To be where you are even if you don’t like where you are or wish you were at some other place on the path.  Integration or learning occurs when you accept where you are, and then naturally the next rhythm or stage reveals itself to you.  It’s synonymous with a child who rolls over, sits up, crawls, stands and then walks.  Each next developmental step reveals itself as the child masters where it’s at.  The child does not go from rolling over straight to walking even it really wants to.  There is a natural sequence and staging to the learning.  

We are all like children, learning and developing as we go.  While our development is less focused on achieving sensory-motor milestones and more on the development of our consciousness, perspectives and inner workings, it is nonetheless still development.  Sometimes there are shortcuts or quick accelerations, but they are rare.   We must master each stage before moving to the next one.  For example, it’s quite challenging to sustainably go from believing you are a separate person, into knowing there are no others in a quick flash.  While you might have a momentary experience of this in a peak state, there are many stages in between that must first be learned in order for you to go beyond conceptual knowing into living your knowing.

One such stage of our development could be called “healing”.  There are many rhythms inside of healing, but for simplicity sake we could say that healing is the stage of our development where we believe that we are not whole.  Our perspective is such that something is/was wrong or lacking in our self, experience or environment, and we seek to find completion or wholeness.  The end of healing is the knowing that there is no (and never was) disharmony, imperfection or lack.  It’s knowing that the natural state of all is complete.  That there is nothing lacking inside or outside in all of creation.  In the perceived space from healing to wholeness there is a whole slew of learning that is primarily concerned with you reclaiming and remembering your power, what you are, and that you are the creator of all you experience.  So much so until your only response to any event, sensation, emotion, thought, or experience is love.  Once achieved, you know wholeness as all that is, and move forward into the next stage of development called service.   

LIFE BEYOND HEALING 

Dare to heal

Some people might think it’s arrogant to think that you could ever stop needing to heal.  They see healing as something you must do forever, that it has no end, and that you are either arrogant or spiritually bypassing something if you even entertain that you could live whole.  I personally don’t agree with that perspective, but as always choose whichever perspective resonates and feels more accurate for you.  I see healing as a stage of development, not the be all end all.  Healing is a stage where the focus is on ourselves and our inner workings.  It is about unearthing or unpacking our disempowering, discordant and incoherent patterns and ways of being.  It is revealing the ways we have deceived ourselves, how we’ve believed things that feel bad and ultimately are not true, and where we see ourselves as a product or circumstance of life rather than as the creator of our life.  It is a correction of the perspective of seeing lack into seeing only wholeness.  Healing is an absolutely important, vital, and necessary stage of development, one that can’t be overstepped or passed by, and there is both learning and life beyond healing.  

Life beyond healing is serving.  In service the focus is no longer on you.  It’s not about what you think is right or better.  It’s not about what you want to happen or any outcome at all.  It’s not about validating, empowering yourself or making yourself feel good.  It’s not about sensations in your body coming or going away.  It’s not about becoming worthy.  All of those things must be known, must be intact, must be taken care of, for the next rhythm of your development to be revealed to you, which is that of serving.  Service is oriented towards giving and is rested in the heart.  If you don’t clear up all of those other things in your life and know all as whole, than your service will always have some personal agenda in it, which is not really service, but is still part of your own healing process.  There is absolutely nothing wrong with this, in fact I’d say almost all of us do this as we are healing and developing, but at some point there is a demarcation.  A kind of line in the sand in which where you come from is serving rather than healing.  

Serving is not better than healing.  It’s simply the next developmental stage on the path.  Just like for the toddler, walking is not better than standing up.  Walking simply proceeds as the next learning once we master standing.  Mastering healing is knowing your worth, knowing all is well & has always been well, and that nothing is outside of perfection even if you don’t like it or agree with it.  As you move towards mastering healing you realize that your life is not yours; it never has been.  You’ve never been a separate person with a separate life.  To the person that is in an early to middle stage of healing, this would be ludicrous to entertain.  In fact it is imperative that they realize that they are a person and that they can impact their emotions, their body and their environment.  That learning must be integrated first, which is why you must always accept where you are.  Learn the lessons of the place and stage that you are in.  Nothing is better somewhere else, it’s just different.  Enjoy wherever you are.  Find levity in everything.  Make it as fun as you can.  Ultimately it’s all smoke and mirrors.  Energetic patterns configuring and reconfiguring into infinity.  Just play and enjoy it all.  

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

GETTING BEYOND COMPLACENCY

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GETTING BEYOND COMPLACENCY

What do you tolerate? 

It’s easy to get lazy.  As humans we are creatures of habit.  After we do something a time or two or three, and the novelty of it wears off, we go into automatic pilot mode.  We assume that what is will always be the way it is because now we are used to it being that way.  We create the illusion of solid and fixed, and with this we stop being fully present.  Our experience of what was once novel and exciting now become more ordinary and with that we slip into a habituated state of being, which you could also call your “usual” state of awareness.  But who really wants usual and ordinary?  None of us do and yet it’s easier to maintain the lower frequency of usual than it is the higher frequency of excitement.  

In order to get beyond the habit of our usual state of being we need to literally stretch our bandwidth or increase our capacity for what we can maintain.  For most people stretching is a bit uncomfortable because it comes with a sense of effort and work.  It takes more energy to get out of our normal habituated ways of being then is does to continue with our automatic thoughts, behaviors and perceptions.  This energy expenditure is exactly what is required to increase our capacity and maintain a higher frequency, yet many chose the way of utilizing as little effort and energy as possible.  You could also equate this to not having enough desire or momentum to create change.  You might think you want something to be different in your life, but you don’t really want to put in the energy to make it different.  

We all have different tolerance levels.  Some people might tolerate being 10 pounds overweight while another person won’t tolerate being more than 2 pounds over.  Some people tolerate being out of alignment or distracted 50% of their day, while others won’t tolerate more than 10%.  There is no right or wrong here in regards to where you are at, it’s simply important to take note of it.  Take inventory of what your tolerance levels are in all the important areas of your life.  Then honestly ask yourself if you are ready to shift your level.  If you aren’t ready, what would it take for you to be ready?  In this way you get clarity around where you are and even if you aren’t ready to shift anything at least you can accept it and do the preparatory work required in order to be ready.  

Our vibrational state is up to us and only us.  No one can or will shift it for us.  Your level of desire and willingness to participate is key.  To move from your normal baseline to your next level is your work and responsibility.  You can use things or people as permission slips to feel certain ways, but ultimately you must become the source of your frequency in order for it to sustainable. 

FREQUENCY OF EXCITEMENT 

Becoming more childlike 

As much as we all like to feel excitement, most people aren’t feeling it much.  Our focus tends to be on all the things that need to get done, rather than on feeling amazing and following what feels good.  Many of our automatic patterns of behavior help us be efficient doers, which can at times be helpful, but they can also make us robotic.  We are going through the motions of life and doing all the things, but for what?  To get everything done so that we can do everything again tomorrow?  Where exactly do we think we will get to once all the doing is finished?  From what I can tell the activity of life, of this infinite creation, never stops.  We could constantly find ourselves doing something.  The goal is not the cessation of doing or activity, but rather to be present right now.  To find and feel our excitement in this moment and not when something is finished or done.

The frequency of excitement is high.  Think of a small child and how excited they get, and how much energy they have.  It’s off the charts.  They are pure examples of living excitement.  Yet we often feel tired by that level of excitement.  We don’t have the energy to keep up.  Where does energy come from anyways?  Why does it feel limited to us, but infinite in a small child?  Energy comes from excitement.  You generate energy through excitement.  Now I am not saying that rest is not beneficial.  Rest is necessary for these bodies.  What I am taking about is all the rest of the time when you are not resting.  You may also find that you require less rest the more you are able to maintain a higher frequency of energy in your day to day life. 

Like I mentioned earlier there is a stretching phase.  A phase when it feels like it takes a lot of energy to elevate yourself.  It’s true, it does.  Stretching is not effortless.  It requires work.  Work that will then require rest.  However at some point you will maintain at a new higher level of vibration that feels lighter, freer, and more childlike.  A child may swing on the same swing 50 times at the park and it will not be normal or ordinary to them.  They will find a way to feel excited about it each time, and then when some other object at the park strikes their fancy they will run over to it and play on it.  They continue to generate and follow their excitement.  

Giving yourself permission to live life in a more joyfully free and excited way is a permission slip worth giving yourself.  Trust the rhythms of life more.  The comings and the goings.  The ebbs and flows.  The natural pacing and rhythms.  Trust yourself more.  Your feelings and intuitions.  Your joy and excitement.  Follow them.  Do your best not to let your rational mind make things ordinary and normal.  Find novelty in swinging on the same swing 50 times.  Life is not flat or mundane on its own.  It requires our perspective of it to be flat or mundane.  Through what perspective do you see life?  If it’s not what you desire, are you ready to shift it?  Be willing to do the work required to raise yourself up and to get to the next vibrational level of yourself.  

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

KNOW WHY YOU ARE

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KNOW WHY YOU ARE 

You do not exist to do

There really is nothing more pivotal, more important and more fundamental to your existence then knowing why you are.  Why you are is who you are.  Why you are is your existence.  It is the only function, the only purpose, the only intention that your existence serves.  So many people feel lost.  So many feel that they don’t know the very foundation of their being or why they exist at all.  It seems as though nothing makes sense and life feels hard as they attempt to try to make things happen from a state of disconnection from themselves.  When we don’t know why we are we feel helpless, like a circumstance to life, like a product of our environment of which we are powerless too.  It seems life can give and take things from us.  It seems like we have no control over it all.  

When we know why we are and we align our entire self with that knowing, we live without any agenda and nothing can interfere with what we know ourselves to be.  What we be, we are, and we give.  Our need to manipulate or control life to our desired appearance or picture ends.  All we care about is who we are, why we are and being that.  The outcome of anything ceases to matter at all.  This is freedom.  This is the full exercise and expression of our free will.  This is living power and the recognition that nothing can take that from you.  No person, no decision, no structure outside of yourself, and no inner thought, story, sensation or feeling can take away why you are.  

Why you are is not what you do.  What you do is informed by why you are when you know why you are, but what you do is not why you are.  You did not come here to be a doer.  You do not exist to do.  Doing is rather an extension or means of sharing why you are, but it is only a means to share and not the reason you exist.  So often we confuse why we are with what we do.  When we are more identified with our body, our personality and the things of our life, then we are with why we are, we feel at threat, unstable and we attempt to control all the parts and pieces of life.  When we are rested in why we are, the endless stream of thoughts about past and future pause.  You stop focusing on what you are doing and rather focus on why you are doing.  The ‘what’ seems almost trivial as you recognize that it is not the purpose or intention, but only a way to express the intention.  At first this can be a bit much to really look at as we gain so much of our identity, value and worth through what we do.  We may not want to let go of the doer/doing as our identity.  Yet as you reorient to why you are you will find freedom through letting go of the what, even if you worked really hard at creating it.   

THE WHOLE PICTURE 

Why you are is who you are

The picture of why you are is different than the picture of what you think you want.  The picture of why you are comes with what you want others to experience and know through your presence.  This is way, way, way more simple than most people think.  See because we don’t exist to do and make shit happen, because that is not who we are, we must look a little bit past the surface appearance of ourselves to see why we fundamentally exist in the first place.  You may be wondering how to discover this for yourself.  Start by locating a profound moment in your life.  Perhaps a moment or some moments where you felt fulfilled or in a peak state of being.  Notice what you felt.  What was the essence that made up those experiences?  What did you know or feel in those moments?  See if you can find repeating patterns between moments.  Is there a core theme?  If that seems elusive to you then another way to discover ‘why you are’ is ask yourself: what do you want to leave the people of the world knowing?  If you were to transition out of your body tomorrow what would you want people to know, feel or experience?  Whatever words you can find to describe that feeling state of being or knowing is the reason why you are.  It’s not more complex than that.

But boy do we love complexity.  The more complex, complicated, and involved we can make it the better.  The mind just loves to be lost in its own creation of conceptual confusion, meanwhile creating postponement for us in thinking about our purpose rather than living it or being it.  The mind always thinks it needs more of something first before you can live or know your purpose.  It needs more information, more learning, more money, more connections, more resources, more clarity, more self-worth, more love, more, more, more.  It really is endless.  Meanwhile while you’re busy feeling lost and confused, attempting to get more more more in order to be better, so you can know why you are and be of service, you could have just been being your calling.  

Again your calling, purpose, intention, or why you are is not something you need to figure out.  It is who you are.  It is natural.  It is present when you feel great and when you feel crappy.  It is there when you are clear and when you feel confused.  It’s available when you’re energized and when you’re tired.  It exists no matter what actions, projects, activities or creations are being done or not.  Why you are is not contingent on anything.  When you deliberately use your awareness/focus and place it on why you exist, rather than on what you are doing, you turn the light up on your calling.  You feel it more.  You feel yourself become it more.  You feel more aligned.  Things flow differently for you because your focus is on why you are rather than what you’re doing or creating.  Life responds to that.  People respond to that.  The truth is life and people are always responding to how you are being you, and when you deliberately align your focus with why you are, you have the experience of mountains moving without you having to physically move the mountain.  What you want people to get they get.  You are fulfilling your own mission for existing.  You could even say your mission is complete and you are just dancing in the experience of it playing itself out.  So for whatever reason you exist, whatever the intention for your being is, whatever you want to give the world or want the world to get by your presence, it’s here now.  Always in the background and patiently waiting for you to use your focus and bring it to the foreground.  To do so is live fulfilled.  

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

THE EDGE OF EMOTION

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THE EDGE OF EMOTION 

Risking feeling

Feeling feels risky.  So much so that we often stay on the edge of it.  Feeling emotion means something is going to change, which is destabilizing to our sense of the known.  It is a mini death and rebirth, and most of us don’t like the death part very much.  Death of an idea, dream, or way of being.  Oftentimes we think we are feeling emotion, but we are just on the surface of what is really going on.  To authentically feel, rather than regurgitating triggered surface emotions, is the difference between acceptance of what is and resistance to it.  Acceptance is hard for most, so rather than feeling we stay in the spin of frustration, irritation or mental activity, which keeps us from having to actually feel even though we think that we are.  

Why is it that we avoid feeling like it’s the plague?  It boils down to the fact that in general most of us don’t like to feel heartbreak, and heartbreak is what authentic feeling feels like.  It’s tender, raw, and vulnerable.  The heartbreak we feel is in association with something occurring that we wished was different.  Perhaps it was a way we were treated that we didn’t like, a need or desire that wasn’t met, or some situation that went down in a way we wished it wouldn’t have.  The tendency for most people is to start to think about the situation or event rather than feel what they feel about it.  They rationalize, they judge or condemn, they feel irritated or maybe aloof and disconnected, they can’t seem to let it go no matter what amount spiritual self-talk they do around it.  There is a tendency to feel at a loss or confused about “what to do” and many attempts to figure it out.  The intense mental thought of needing to figure out what to do or say is a high indication that there is resistance to what is, and deeper more real feelings to be felt.

There is a phrase I heard in chiropractic college that went “you have to feel it to heal it”.  What it boils down to is that healing is accepting what is.  When we accept what is, change then effortlessly flows from acceptance.  There is no more needing to figure anything out or mental looping about it.  We simply know what to do if anything needs to be done.  Sometimes there is nothing to do and that can be super challenging for our minds, particularly when we really want something to be different, hence our prolonged resistance to actual feeling.  However as soon as we do feel the heartbreak of the dream, the idea, the hope, or the thing, acceptance ensues and it becomes easy to let be what is.  This leaves us with inner peace and spaciousness of mind.  We become receptive rather than insistent.  In our receptivity the path of what’s next is revealed to us.   

FREEDOM THROUGH EMOTION 

Action from love

Sometimes the difference between thinking our emotions versus feeling our emotions can be tricky for us to discern.  A good indicator to use for yourself is that if you don’t feel freer than you aren’t actually feeling, but rather you are caught in a story about feeling.  Another way to discern this is the amount of time you are “feeling”.  Emotions, when felt, have a very short time span.  Typically a few seconds to a few minutes at most.  If you are going on hours, days or weeks of “feeling” something then you are often in the story of it rather than the feeling of it.  Now after you feel something deeply there can be residual feelings, but your general disposition is lighter and more free even if some residual effects are still present.  Also after feeling there you are softer and in a slower pace of being.  

Emotions are simply energy.  When we feel the energy of emotion we liberate fuel.  Fuel for acceptance and change.  That acceptance or change can be of ourselves, or it can be in relation to the outer appearance of our lives.  Change occurring through acceptance, or said another way, change occurring through love, is different than the way we typically try to make things happen.  While there is still intention, vision or goals, there is also more of a listening to the unfolding and participating with it rather than an attempt to push or force to make happen.  While this might seem more apparent for our outer world, it goes for our inner world as well.  Say for example you have a tendency to think you are not valuable or have nothing of value to give.  You could try a million self-help methods to change these thoughts about yourself, go to every class and workshop, and on and on, really throwing everything at it.  Yet when you start with acceptance, coming from love in your attempt to change these thoughts, you don’t insist that they need to be different.  It’s a bit of a paradox, but as soon as we stop insisting something be a certain way or be different than it is, it relaxes and often reorganizes itself.

All the things we desperately think need to be different about ourselves or the world find resolution through acceptance.  The mind can’t grok this and yet it is so.  Acceptance doesn’t mean inaction, rather it means action from love.  To be clear action from love doesn’t mean that our perspective, idea or way of approaching something wins over because we think it’s more altruistic, evolved or better than the alternative perspectives.  This is called righteousness of which our world is rampant with.  Action from love is listening to the inner impulse to move in a particular way or direction, taking action in that direction, and then listening.  Seeing what you feel now and now and now, and following.  When you allow your emotions you see that they guide you moment by moment.  This doesn’t mean that all of your ideals will be met or creations created, but it does mean that you will always be coming from your alignment, from who you are, from what you desire to be, now and now and now.  This is to fulfill your destiny.  It is to be your mission.  It equates to success at all levels of your being.  

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

AVOIDING NOT ENOUGH

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AVOIDING NOT ENOUGH 

Focusing on what isn’t

Most of us are on a rampage against not enoughness.  We work hard to achieve, prove ourselves, make money, know all the right people, have the relationships, the opportunities and all the stuff of life, in order to avoid not enoughness.  Most often people don’t even know that they are avoiding not enoughness, rather they feel like they are simply living their life in the ways set out by the standards they’ve created for themselves.  In this way not enoughness can be tricky to see as it is such a common, well-believed way of seeing one’s self and the world.  

The perspective of not enoughness can manifest in many ways.  Sometimes it shows up personally, meaning we feel like we are not enough.  This can look like never feeling that what we do is ever quite good enough.  We might do-do-do or over-do in order to attempt for it to be enough, which ends up leaving us feeling stressed and exhausted.  It can also manifest in the other direction of procrastination because we feel like whatever it is we want to share or bring about won’t be good enough, doesn’t matter or no one cares.  Not enoughness also manifests as being judgmental about ourselves, our actions/non-actions, the way our body looks, our position or status, or where we are in our lives.  It can also show up in our experience.  Rather than feeling that we are not enough we feel that there is never enough of something.  Frequently this shows up in the form of money for people.  It can also show up as not having the relationship(s) that we want, not having opportunities that we want or not getting the acknowledgment, recognition, praise or understanding for who we are or the things we do or create.  

There is a predominant tendency among our society to focus on what isn’t.  We could collectively call this focus scarcity consciousness.  If you look around you will see this pretty much everywhere.  It is blasted through marketing campaigns of all sorts, “don’t want to miss this”, “only a few left”, “you’ll get xyz though this”.  These messages are all based on the assumption or threat of lack, and because we want to avoid feeling lack so badly we fall for these messages.  We feel a sense of false urgency, as if we don’t act now all will be lost forever.  Our focus on what isn’t fills our conversations and internal dialogues.  We point to what hasn’t happened yet, where we aren’t yet, or where/what we are hoping to get too.  Consumerism and “getting” is based on scarcity, on what isn’t here yet.  Notice how much you focus on what will happen in the future, and how much you project abundance of self or resources into some future moment or happening, placing your center of attention on what isn’t here now or yet. In this way we create scarcity in the present, moment by moment, and place enoughness at some other moment in time that isn’t this one.     

ACCEPTING NOT ENOUGH 

You may never feel like enough

If we are aware enough to recognize our habitual tendencies to come from the perspective of not enoughness we may have gone on a crusade to dismantle our focus on what isn’t.  We might have taken all the “self-love” classes and “manifest the life of our dreams” courses (we might have even created a few).   Done the coaching, gone to therapy, given ourselves daily mantras that affirm our worth and abundance to ourselves.  We might have cleared out our childhood trauma, wrote all the letters, said all the things, faced our fears head on, yet there is a lingering feeling of not enoughness or that life still doesn’t quite reflect full abundance.  What’s that all about?

What I’ve found is that despite our gallant efforts to transform ourselves and transmute our life experience into one of fullness, what we often neglect to do is accept not enoughness.  We are so busy trying to make it different, to be enough, experience enough, know enough, that we miss this fundamental piece of accepting not enough.  So rather than being able to radically change our belief system about ourselves and what we think is, we are left attempting to paste on top of life, the story of abundance, without believing it’s possible or true.  

See nothing shifts without acceptance.  Yet acceptance of that which we don’t want to be true, or that we don’t like about ourselves or life, pisses our egos off.  We don’t like to feel a sense of failure so we will avoid the obvious thing we are experiencing or feeling by doing all the things to change it.  Yet to surrender to what is, to what we believe to be true, even if we don’t like or fully agree with it, is the only way to find peace inside of ourselves.  It the only way to stop all the avoidance strategies, because once you accept it you can’t avoid it anymore.  You can’t try to deny its presence, you no longer deny how you feel, you are just raw and real even though that rawness and realness is not how you want to be seen or see yourself.  To see yourself and let others see you as not enough, as a failure in your attempts to be enough, do enough or have enough, feels like suicide to our minds idea of what should be.

You may never feel like enough.  You may always perceive that there is not enough resources for you.  But so what.  Live your life anyways.  Be yourself anyways.  Let the not enoughness of self or resources exist and be, because it exists and “be’s” inside of your experience.  I promise if you do you will see the light at the end of the tunnel.  You will find your way through.  You will care less and less about your thoughts and stories of not enough the more you just let them be there.  Stop trying to change yourself to be better, different or more.  Have faith even in the not enoughness.  Enoughness exists inside of not enoughness, but you can’t know this until you accept not enough.  End your avoidance and strategizing your way out.  Rather go towards what is, fully 100% let it be as it is, even if you hate it or it disgusts you, even if you want it to change or be different more than anything else.  Anything that wants to change and transmute will do so naturally and organically once you accept what’s here.  This is the end of controlling yourself and attempting to control life.

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