Uncategorized

NOTHING CAN TAKE YOU OUT OF GOD

Dr. Amanda Love Leave a comment

NOTHING CAN TAKE YOU OUT OF GOD 

Wholeness is here

No thought, no feeling, no sensation could ever take you out of God. That would be utterly impossible. There is nothing you could do or not do that could remove you from God. You can never leave God no matter what. We are conditioned over and over that God exists elsewhere, over there, out there, in something, in someone, but not here now.  That which is in plain sight, which is the only thing that is fully evident, we bypass, dismiss and fail to recognize.  

God is wholeness, completeness, unity, love and oneness.  This means you are never in any other state of being other than completion and unity. Now you can think you’re not, you can feel you’re not, you can sense you’re not, you can act like you’re not, however you can’t not ever be. This is crucial to understand and know. For without this knowing you will forever be chasing your wholeness, chasing your healing and you will never feel like you arrive.  

It’s not that you don’t arrive because in truth you can’t arrive other than right where you are.  There is no where to get, but only to see that where you are is complete even if it includes thoughts, feelings and sensations that you don’t like or prefer would be different than they are.  Attempting to change the sensations, feelings and thoughts is a backward approach to healing. It puts the chicken before the egg and keeps you chasing chicken after chicken. You can’t discover wholeness by changing the stuff of your experience. You can only recognize the wholeness that already is and then watch as all the stuff changes.  

As simple and logical as this people tend to take the complex and illogical approach.  They think it must be hard or take a long time, that healing will happen later when they integrate or figure something else out.  But what else is there to figure out?  How much more do you have to try to think, feel or sense your way into wholeness rather than just knowing your wholeness now?  It is so obvious, almost too obvious for us to see.  We think it must be more complicated, or that we aren’t worthy of it, that we need to work harder and see ourselves more clearly first.  This is just mind games we use to postpone our embrace of the truth of our already whole state. 

ALREADY WHOLE 

Receive what you are

How would you be if you already knew you where totally and completely healed in this moment?  How would you act, who would you be, how would you relate to others, and how would you serve and show up?  To contemplate how you would feel, serve, think, share, act and be in the knowingness of your wholeness is an important line of contemplation.  It is one that will open you up into that knowingness more and more, activating that which is already here to be seen and known by you.    

There is nothing that will make you complete.  There is no situation, event, circumstance, person, relationship, journey, experience, tool, technique, realization, insight, teaching, learning or anything else that will make you complete.  Absolutely nothing will make you complete.  There will be learning inside of experiences, but no experience will touch you or your already whole state of being.  While some aspect of your mind may feel sadden by this as it was hoping to find its completion inside of something, to the larger aspect of your being this is a total relief.  Nothing will make you complete because you already are complete.  

Now as much as this might sound like more spiritual hogwash and before you dismiss it as something you think you already know, stop and take a look at how much you attempt to change sensations, feelings and thoughts because you think that through changing them you will get closer to a state of peace, grace or love.  Look at how much you hope that your new relationship or some profound experience will change you for the better.  See how much you give your power, your well-being and your joy to the stuff of life.  Get this, you can’t get better, more loving, more peaceful, more graceful, or more joyful than you already are in this moment.  You are already all of those things.

When we stop trying to get what we are and instead receive what we are we change positions in the game of life.  We become the source of, the creator of, rather than the victim or the one done onto.  We stop attempting to fill the empty, endless, never ending void of un-healed un-wholeness, which could never actually exist outside of our thought of it.  The getting game becomes the giving game and the giving is sourced by the source that we know ourselves to be.  The abundance naturally exudes out and we can’t not share what we are.  

You are not broken.  No sensations, feeling or thought indicates that there is anything wrong, missing or incomplete about you.  Instead sensations, feelings and thoughts are simply information that guide your moves, motivate your actions and fuel your directions along this game board.  Nothing is serious unless you make it so, this is a game after all.  How do you want to play this game should be the only question you really ask yourself.  The game is not happening to you, it is for you and happens through you.  

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

LIVING FREELY

Dr. Amanda Love Leave a comment

LIVING FREELY 

Giving to life

In spiritual circles we often talk about freedom and what it is to live freely, but we don’t actually live freely.  The number one reason why most people don’t live freely is due to their attachments, which are rooted in lack and scarcity beliefs.  Those beliefs are centered around the themes of not having enough, being enough, and not being safe or supported.  There is fear of what will be lost and what you might not have that you think that you want or need.  The focus of all scarcity beliefs is self-survival and self-preservation.  

When our self-preservation mode is in the driver’s seat of our life it is impossible to live freely.  We are hooked into getting and making sure everything we need is gotten.  We want to hold onto what we have and we tend to not like change or disruption to what we know, as that instability activates feelings of uncertainty.  We therefore prioritize sameness and the illusion of consistency over novelty and the ever changing moment.  Our appearance of life is that each day seems almost the same as the previous one with slight nuances and we paste the same identity onto ourselves and everyone we know.  In these ways the world seems relatively safe, secure, unchanging and kind of mundane or flat.  There isn’t a lot of new energy that is allowed for inside of the world view of self-preservation therefore the exchange of energy is unidirectional, meaning it ends with you.  

Living freely is about open energy exchange with life.  It does not attempt to keep things the same as it realizes that that is impossible.  It is not attached to the comings and goings of relationships, projects, family, friends, business ideas, vacations, cars, houses and other objects and such.  This does not mean that it does not care or invest itself fully into what it is doing or into things, it does, but it does so empty of any attempt to derive safety, security, validation and ok-ness from them.  Imagine doing only because of what you can give or bring to something and completely devoid of what your doing may bring you.  This is a taste of what living freely really is.  It is pure committed devotion to what feels important to you from the energy or perspective of giving to it.  To give in this way is to simultaneously receive the world of your giving as you become your giving.  This is creation mastery.   

UNATTACHED DEVOTION 

Self-purification

You might ponder what in this life you feel is important enough to devote your entire existence to.  Perhaps it’s love, connection, magic, unity, truth, bliss, generosity, kindness, etc.  This is a worthwhile self-exploration at any stage of life.  Most people follow the unspoken script of life rather than realize their creator self potential.  Living a life devoted to creating something that feels of prime importance or deeply exciting for you is key to living freely.  While total devotion and freedom might seem like a paradox for some who may think that commitment and freedom are opposites, devotion is a clear path to liberation.  It immediately cuts out anything that is not in alignment with your truest intention for existing and in that way you are free to be, and share your being, uninhibited by anything.

Devotion is by its very nature unattached.  If there is attachment then it is not devotion, but rather attempting to get something.  Explore where you feel resistance to give.  Where you don’t want to share yourself, be yourself, or give to life.    Another way to explore is to notice where you feel closed off, separate from, distant or not a part of.  Also notice situations or aspects or your life that feel depleting.  These are all cues into where you are doing out of perceived necessity or “have to” rather than in joyous being and giving.  This will also show you your attachments and where you are compromising in your life out of fear of loss or belief in scarcity.

When you give to life you free it and by default you free yourself.  When you are free your heart is naturally open and it radiates.  The radiation of the heart is giving to life and it feels natural and organic.  It is not hard to radiate.  It is not hard to give, particularly when you are not attached to your giving.  The hardness only comes when want something specific to happen through our giving.  This distorts it and makes it feel tough.  Living a life in pure devotion to giving while also giving away our desired outcome of our giving is what living free is all about.

This is the path of self-purification rather than self-preservation.  Through purification you realize that all needs are met and all wants that are true wants have come into manifestation through your being and radiating.  Your journey becomes increasingly singularly focused and this makes it easy.  Again the toughness only comes into account through our attachments.  Self-purification is not like turning on light switch.  It does take time, dedication, persistence, and energy in order to purify.  It is an ongoing journey and it can be fun even when it may feel challenging to let go attachments to things or ways of being.  In fact learning ways to make purifying more and more fun will accelerate and increase your capacity to give, radiate and be of service.  Loving and accepting yourself at every moment of the journey is the journey.  

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

Deciding

Dr. Amanda Love Leave a comment

DECIDING 

End the cycle of waiting

No matter how impossible something may have seemed, the moment you decide that it’s going to happen it does. The lag time between thinking about something or wanting something and it’s actual occurrence is simply due to your indecision. When you are in the  phase of still deciding your frequencies are mixed and not directionally intentional, so what manifests is a reflection of that not fully aligned frequency. 

Now there is a distinction between insisting on what something will look like and the knowingness that something is possible. The knowingness that something is possible comes with a readiness of its timing to emerge. The form or expression of that knowingness is irrelevant. So often we confuse or replace our desire for something in particular to be in our experience for our knowingness that its possible. This is what I would call effortful or “trying” manifestation. We attempt at all cost to make something specific appear through strategy rather than through already having decided that it’s there or happening.  When we aren’t ready yet we try.  When we are ready we decide and therefore know. 

Our knowing does not come prior to our decision to know. The mind always thinks that it is the reverse of this, that the knowing will come before our deciding, so we wait for something to appear to us to tell us that we know,  so that we “can” know, so we have proof to validate or back up our knowing, because ultimately what it boils down to is that we don’t trust ourselves. The number one way that we postpone our decision to know is through the waiting for something outside of us  (in the reflected manifest world that is simply a reflection of our own consciousness) to tell us that we know.  In spiritual circles we call this “waiting for a sign” rather than realizing that we are the sign we are looking for.  Ultimately we are simply waiting for ourselves to decide. If something appears and we decide to use that appearance as a permission slip, as a “sign” to decide than so be it, but do realize that either way it’s simply by your deciding that allows your manifest physical reality to appear as it does.  

STOP WAITING 

Realizing yourself as the chooser

Why do we insist on waiting for something to tell us that we know? We wait because we don’t realize ourselves as the choice maker, we don’t realize the power that we are. Most people feel fairly disempowered most all of time. Even if they’ve been able to become successful through strategy, or learning a thing and mastering it, they may still be very disconnected from their actual selves and therefore their source of true power and confidence. 

To know yourself is to know your power. The two are inseparable. To recognize yourself as the decider, as the chooser, opens up an awareness of self-responsibility to your creation or what you perceive to be your external reality.  Though many people say that they want to be empowered most truly do not, because it means that what they see is up to them and them alone. It’s “easier” to blame others, blame situations or blame the world for what we see, to take no responsibility in the seeing of what we see, to blindly accept other people’s views, adopt them as our own (even when they don’t feel good or make sense) then it is to decide for ourselves and to potentially go against the grain of the collective. 

Due to our perceived difficulty of being different or not in agreement with others we disown our power. We turn our back on our own selves and instead unconsciously (or sometimes consciously) choose disempowerment so that we fit in. In the choosing of disempowerment we give up the seeing of ourselves as the decider and therefore we wait. We wait for circumstances to change (circumstances being our permission slip) so that we can change our perspective.  This is a long, arduous path of unrealized potential laying dormant for eons. It is the dead halt to our evolution because the only choice is to wait. 

To wake up to the fact that in reality you are the chooser, no if’s, and’s or but’s, is a radical transformation for most. You have to give up all trying, all hope, and all illusion that something out there can decide for you.  You must realize your own autonomy, your self-hood, apart from the story and apart from appearances.  The illusion that there is a separate world out there that operates independent from you must die.  It is then that you realize that waiting on life to change is a futile waste. 

You’ve been the power that generates all of this the entire time. Wake up to that fact. Decide to no longer be the punching bag of circumstances and step into yourself. Take up the space of yourself and your precise, clear knowingness will take charge of your life rather than all the crap of randomness and indecision you let fill it now. Decide.  Decide that you know and stop waiting on signs, magic, or situations to tell you or inform of what is. Your development as a being will rapidly accelerate if do.  Know that you know and the readiness, and reflection of that readiness through circumstances (rather than because of circumstances) will naturally and instantaneous emerge as you show up. 

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

Living Integrated

Dr. Amanda Love Leave a comment

LIVING INTEGRATED 

Actualized Self-Realization

Living integrated is not an act of doing but rather a state of knowing from which all doing and activity arises.  Living integrated is simply knowing yourself and being that no matter what is showing up in appearance in either your inner or outer worlds. 

Many people have at some point in their life touched or awakened to an aspect of themselves that is beyond their ordinary body-mind self.  Names we give to this newly recognized aspect of ourselves are things such as Soul, Heart, Universe, God, Source or Love.  Once touched many (but not all) people hunger to live and experience this awareness of self as Love in their every day moment to moment existence.  When people have this awareness of something beyond what they normally identify themselves as but aren’t yet living as it we tend to say that they are integrating or in the integration process.  

If we make it really really simple, integration is the process of aligning all of ourselves to that awakened or new found awareness of ourselves, aka our Heart.  What this means is that we are “integrating” only as long as we choose to stay out of alignment with the recognition of ourselves as Love.  In this way you can see integrating as a way that we postpone the full acceptance of ourselves as what we truly are.  Now granted there is a timing and rhythm to everything and all will unfold accordingly,, however it is also important to realize where we put the brakes on our own development, expansion and forward progression.  How long do we want to delay the reality of living as love that we desire?  When will we quit making excuses and accept that we are Love already?  What needs to be perfectly and precisely aligned in the world of appearances before we do?  

Sometimes after having a self-expanding experience people have the tendency to try to bring that awareness of Soul into mind, meaning they make it conceptual so that they can explain the experience to their more ordinary self or make it more relatable to others.  This is frequently what people call integrating, but its really just making the experience mental, and it is an attempt to bring a more unified awareness of self into a less unified awareness of self.  I would invite rather to include soul in addition to the mind-body-human experience as something beyond it rather than trying to put it inside of mental containers. Soul is not supposed to fit inside of mind or be reduced to it.  Soul is not to be flattened into the mundane and ordinary so that “more people can get it” or it can be more relatable to your mind or other’s minds. Everyone already has soul. It’s not by shrinking Soul that more people get it, instead it’s simply the shining of more light/awareness onto that which already is, that enables the “spreading” or waking up of it to more of itself.   

TRUSTING LOVE 

Getting in Alignment with how the Universe sees

Integration is prior to knowing. To say you must integrate is to hold onto a less than complete version of you or a lesser truth. To integrate, or to live as yourself, you must discard your story of incompleteness. Each moment you hold onto it you create an illusionary reality for yourself in which you experience suffering, separation and disconnection. 

Insisting on our own imperfection or the world’s imperfections is the prime way we disconnect from our true selves and hence we need to continually integrate. It is our lack of trust in Love/God that keeps us on the outside and in a world of objects and appearances.  When we don’t trust Love we are constantly trying to control the in’s and out’s of our moment to moment experience rather than place our focus on Love.  Most people are not taught that they can choose where to place their focused awareness so many of us have our awareness placed in the world of things rather than rested in God/Love. The turning point where you see that the choice is yours is instrumental to living integrated or fully self-realized and actualized.   A key practice is remembering God moment to moment. Putting the knowingness of God in the forefront of everything else. Placing the attention of your mind solely on God rather than appearances or things. This illuminates all appearances with the awareness of God as all that is and all that can be, and makes integration, or the being of one’s self, seamless and effortless.  An inherent trust in a natural order also arises which enables your body-mind to rest more deeply in a larger container of wisdom and Love.

The only thing that then remains is the perfection working through your vehicles of mind-body.  Any time your mind comes up and insists that something is even just one hair thread out of alignment then your experience of the life will be out of alignment.  You will not only perceive out of alignment-ness in the external world, but the generation of it internally as well.  You will begin to feel like life is up to you, that you have to manage it on your own, and you will attempt to control it all costs because you are disconnected from the larger you and out of alignment with how the universe/God perceives, which is always the lens of perfection.  

Disciplining your mind to see as God/Universe/Love sees is really the only practice you ever need.  All doubts will dissolve.  Only trust in Love will remain and thus your experience of life will be connected, open, inviting, embracing, encouraging, and expansive.  Your discovery of the container that holds all inside of it, as yourself, enables the perception of you as Creator, as God.  All movement, all actions and all unfoldings happening within you.  To resist, reject, attempt to leave out, push away, or even make different begins to seems ridiculous as you recognize everything, even all of the thoughts, feelings, sensations, things, situations people, as you.  There isn’t anything that isn’t Love and its becomes evidently clear to you once you stop insisting on incompleteness and imperfection.  

Incompleteness and imperfection are merely thoughts in your mind, nothing more.  Master the thoughts in your mind to align with the one perception that the Universe has of creation as complete unified perfection, and that is the reality that you will create.  All of physical reality will follow your singular perception.  We don’t create or re-create the world through physically and mentally hard work and toil.  We create it with our perception.   I know it seems like things happen out there, but they don’t.  They happen inside of your consciousness.  Now is the moment to realize that every form follows consciousness whether that consciousness is awake to itself or asleep to its self.  The benefit of being awake and thus creating awake is that rather than experiencing cyclic suffering you experience eternal bliss.  The bliss that comes from knowing yourself and being yourself.  Alive, awake and integrated.  

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

Prioritizing Presence

Dr. Amanda Love Leave a comment

Prioritizing Presence

Consumption, distraction & dissociation

There are a thousand million ways that we avoid being present.  Many of the strategies that we use to avoid being present revolve around consumption, distraction and dissociation as these things provide relief from all of the uncomfortable sensations, feelings and experiences that come along with being human.  Let’s investigate how these strategies manifest so that you can identify them in yourself when they arise.  

Consumption is king when it comes to avoidance of the present.  Over eating, over drinking, over shopping, over scrolling, over thinking, over watching, over looking, over searching and seeking, all provide a temporary feeling of satiation or fullness.  This fullness activates the parasympathetic part of the nervous system, which gives us a sense of relaxation and the ability to check out of life (aka our thoughts) for a few moments.  Just to clarify that while relaxation is integral with the development of your ability to be present, relaxation for most people is a checking out rather than a checking in, which is the opposite of presence.  The goal is to be stably present which is a state of calm, steadiness wakefulness no matter what arises, which is very different than relaxation which is a temporary disengagement from stressful conscious or unconscious thoughts.  

Distraction and consumption are closely related.  Distractions often come in the form of consumption.  This can be the busyness that we keep ourselves occupied with, constantly needing to be engaged with something or doing something and not having the ability to simply allow things to be.  This can look/feel like difficulty unwinding or physically sitting still, inability to still your thoughts/mind, and not being able to pay attention or focus your awareness to be productive in ways you desire.  Distraction could be summarized as giving your attention to things, activities, thoughts and doing more than your state of being.  

Lastly there is dissociation.  Dissociation is a disappearance of your awareness from the here now.  With dissociation there is a charge or something unresolved, and instead of being with it you learn how to escape it completely.  This can be seen as people who meditate into emptiness states and feel peacefully calm there yet feel unrest at all other times.  Taking recreational or other types of drugs/medicines also provide the opportunity to dissociate where you experience bliss elsewhere and have resistance/charge on this earthy plane of reality.  Other ways to recognize this are feeing spacey without a ground, feeling like you have no idea what is going on, or not engaging with others or certain aspects of your life.  The difference between dissociation and healthy disengagement which allows you to see a bigger picture of life is that with dissociation there is resistance to the experience of now, where in healthy disengagement there is full acceptance of now.   

Presence is life 

What we truly desire

In order to prioritize presence you must first identify your strategies and ways that you check out of it.  Only when you can identify and see your patterns can you change them.  The next piece after this awareness of self is the commitment, desire and prioritization of presence.  Without making this a priority you will simply fall back into your patterns as they are easy, known, somewhat comfortable and the more grooved path.  Checking out takes less energy then checking in and by default we tend to take the path that requires less energy and therefore less from us.  If you want to bring more energy and awareness into your system (energy & awareness are the components of life, health and vitality by the way) then you must want it more than anything else.

Presence is life.  Presence is ground.  Presence is being.  Its components are energy and awareness.  When you prioritize presence you prioritize life, ground and beingness more than all of the content and experiences that fill it up.  When you turn your attention, your awareness, to the beingness rather than the stuff you will begin to experience the freedom, lightness and bliss that most people desire deep down yet struggle to find their way to.  On the surface it seems that what we want are certain sensations, feelings and experiences to be a particular way, but if we dive a bit deeper into our being we will discover that its not the sensations, feelings or experiences that we truly desire to be a certain way, but instead we desire inner stillness and peace no matter what is occurring.  We desire to be free from having to constantly navigate, plan and prepare our life’s trajectory attempting to prevent the “bad”.  We desire to be in the mystery unafraid and in trust and faith of the magic of the moment.

Being present means you give away the control that was never yours in the first place.  You let life be as it is and unfold with it rather than try to plan, fix, mange and coordinate the unfoldings.  You realize that while you are in the driver’s seat of your own state of being, that is really the only thing you are in the driver’s seat of.  You stop saying or thinking that anything should be different than it is.  You stop insisting on rightness/wrongness thinking and perspectives.  This alone bumps you up to the next stage of awareness or consciousness that is beyond simply fighting for your survival and making sure you are taken care of.  

What’s beyond survival and trying to make sure you are taken care of you ask?  Freedom, peace and love.  All of this does not mean inaction, it doesn’t mean not standing up for yourself or causes that you feel inspired too, it doesn’t not mean you stop expressing or creating.  It simply means that your actions are in direct response to an intelligence that is beyond the intelligence in your own head.  It means moving beyond the person you, which you are so concerned and fused with, and that you’ve come to believe is who you are so much so that you’ve forgotten your true identity.

Your true identity lies beyond your own head, beyond the eyes that look out from this human body.  You cannot know it until you prioritize it over everything else.  You must make presence and a focus on your beingness more important than anything else that arises in your experience.  You must be willing to let everything go and become focused on existence rather than experience.  This is how/where you will come to recognize your true identity as being rather than as person or thing.  This will be your shift out of a survival state of being that is full of fear, threat and insecurity into a rested, stable ground of presence that is all pervasive, doesn’t come and go and is always ever presently here.  

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

Self-Love School

Dr. Amanda Love Leave a comment

Self-Love School

12 week online course to master self-love

Hi friends & avid blog readers.  I am excited to announced that I have just completed and launched SELF-LOVE SCHOOL.  This is something that I have wanted to create for several years and it has now come into full manifestation.  Self-Love School is a 12 week online course designed to help you master self-love.  The largest pain we have as human beings is feeling unworthy and unlovable.  However you don’t need to keep living out this story.  You have the ability to reclaim and know your worth so that you are unshakably rested as love now.

Self-Love School provides you with all the teachings and tools that you need to master self-love.  Through self-love mastery you will know what it feels like to love yourself and experience living a life knowing your worth and thus increasing your contribution to life and others.

The curriculum includes 12 separate modules (one released each week for 12 weeks) on different topics related to self-love.  Here is a list of each week’s topic:

Week 1: Cultivating Desire for Self-Love

Week 2: Self-Love & Survival

Week 3: Self-Love & Emotions

Week 4: Self-Love & Sense of Self

Week 5: Self-Love & Service

Week 6: Self-Love & Wisdom

Week 7: Self-Love & Energy

Week 8: Self-Love & Spirituality

Week 9: Self-Love & Your Health

Week 10: Self-Love & Relationships

Week 11: Self-Love & Gratitude

Week 12: Self-Love Mastery

 

Why Self-Love?

  • Every single thing in your life works better when you love yourself
  • You feel comfortable inside of your own skin and body
  • Life feels less hard and more fun
  • You easily see how to support yourself and others
  • Trusting yourself becomes natural
  • You recognize that love really does heal all
  • Presence becomes effortless
  • Kindness to yourself and others emerges freely
  • You enjoy yourself and feel like you and your life matters
  • And so much more….

 

What’s included?

  • Each week, for 12 weeks, you will receive access to an online teaching module that includes a core teaching on a specific topic related to self-love.  The core teaching is approximately one hour in length.
  • In addition each module has bonus and supplemental materials.  These include guided meditations, exercises to help you connect with yourself, additional teachings, articles to read and homework/practical assignments to do each week.
  • Inclusion in a private Facebook group dedicated solely to participants of the 12 week Self-Love course
  • Access to all materials and modules for 1 year from purchase date allowing you take the program up to 4 times

 

How does it work?

  • Once you enroll in the course you will receive an email that leads you directly to the course where you will have access to the welcome information along with the first module of the course
  • Each week a new module will open up for your viewing.  You will get an email notification when your access to it is available.
  • You will need to devote 1.5 – 2 hours each week to get through the material in each week’s module.  The course is self-paced meaningif you need more time for each module you can take as much time as you need to complete it.  Once the module becomes available to you, you will have open access to it for an entire year.
  • The course is open enrollment, meaning new participantswill be joining every day.

 

How much does it cost?

There are 2 options for payment:

  • One time paid in full cost is $299 or
  • 3 monthly payments of $133

You save $100 by paying in full

Please feel free to contact me if you have questions about the course.  For more information or to enroll please visit: https://www.livelovealigned.com/self-love-school

 

Dr. Amanda Hessel, DC

Owner of Chiropractic Alchemy

Founder of Aligned as Love

Creator of Self-Love School

True healing

Dr. Amanda Love Leave a comment

True healing 

Learning how to un-control your experience

healing and transformationOften when we experience some type of dysfunction in our body our first response is panic or fear as we feel the threat of how things have been functioning being compromised.  We may feel the fear of loss of a certain way of living or being in this world, which is currently not acceptable to us.  Our ideas about ourselves and who we are get shaken up as this force of instability that we call disease, pain and dysfunction arises in our experiencing.  

In response to this potential loss of ourselves as we’ve known ourselves to be we often go into management mode in order to make sure that we can keep the sense of self that we’ve learned ourselves to be.  In this phase we look for the modalities, treatments and people that will fix us so that we can return to the life and who we knew ourselves to be before this situation arose.  Sadly many people stay in this phase of trying to control and manage their experience of themselves for the duration of their lives and never truly find acceptance for themselves as they are now.  Instead they stay stuck in an outdated version of themselves that has come and gone.  

Due to the fact that many people stay here trying to live as this past version of self, controlling and managing every aspect of their life, they don’t transform and come to know the new self that has emerged.  Their focus is in the rearview mirror so to speak and they keep looking backwards rather than seeing where they are at right now.  With this they will often feel sad, like they aren’t making progress, and like it takes so much effort to maintain everything.  They may frequently feel low energy, be resentful of all the compromises and the degree of vigilance that they have to have in order to maintain their previous sense of self which they are still holding onto as who they are.  They simultaneously continue to fear the unknown, fear who they would be if they accepted what and who is here now.  This is often too destabilizing for our sense of self and so we will fight tooth and nail to keep who and what we’ve known ourselves to be.   

Beyond controlling

Mastering healing & transformation

chain disconnectedWhat does is take to get beyond controlling your experience?  The first step is full acceptance of what is here now.  Zero transformation can occur if you don’t do this first fundamental step.  You will always feel like you are fighting something and “transformation or healing” will feel effortful because you are literally in a state of resistance to what is.  Acceptance is often the hardest because it will feel like defeat to your mind.  Like you are losing and something else is winning.  Again this is only because you have been holding onto a previous version of yourself that is no longer really here or relevant for you anymore.  You may still have attachment and desire for that previous version of yourself, not ready to let it go, even though its already gone.  It only stays “alive” through your mental clinging to it.

Once you accept what is, healing and transformation can now effortlessly occur.  This does not mean that there is lack of activity or doing, its simply that it becomes very clear to you exactly what you need to do, what methods will support you as you embrace this new version of yourself that is here now, and what changes you need to make in your life.  It becomes crystal clear because you are no longer in resistance/control mode.  There is no longer this aimless searching where you keep hoping that the next thing you try will fix you and you will feel like your previous self again.  The resentment and effort is gone and you are simply doing what you must do.  

What I’ve discovered through all my years of healing and transformative type of work is that when disease, pain and dysfunction arises it is always a source of destabilization to help us wake up to more of ourselves.  We live in these limited bubbles of knowing ourselves and when we come to edge of a bubble that we’ve been living in that bubble needs to somehow burst.  If we are really comfortable in our bubble it is harder for us to want to deliberately pop it and so life gives us situations (disease, pain, accidents, etc.) to make us a little less comfortable so that we will pop that limited bubble that we were previously living in.  In this way we go beyond, stretch into more of ourselves, and into a range of ourselves that we previously weren’t experiencing.  

This process is typically never comfortable.  I believe that is done purposely.  One of the gifts of having this human incarnation is that there is often a massive amount of discomfort that comes along with it.  This discomfort gives us the opportunity to accelerate our soul’s journey at exponential rates, but this requires that we walk towards the discomfort rather than palliate or try to get rid of it.  The more willing we are to let go of what is gone and accept the new, the more versions and flavors of ourselves we will get to experience and play with in this single lifetime.  Healing and transformation will be a game that we master.  We will become adepts of listening, moving with life, learning what we came here to learn and embodying the range of who and what we are.  

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

Our need to know what’s “wrong”

Dr. Amanda Love Leave a comment

Our need to know what’s “wrong”

Labels, names, patterns and diagnoses

22175536 - set of tagsWe have a compulsion in our society to know what is “wrong”.  We somehow think that if we can figure out what’s wrong with us by giving it a label, name, pattern identification or diagnosis that some how we will be better equipped to fix it, heal it or change it.  Unfortunately this perspective is flawed.  

When we give something a label or name we make it more solid, fixed and “real”.  Though this gives our mind the ease it often needs by naming a previously “out of control” experience, sensation or feeling it simultaneously does little in helping us realize our wholeness which is true healing.  

Some might argue that when they discover a name for their state of being or condition that they then have a path or means in how to address their issue or condition.  Say for example you have a set of symptoms and you go to your doctor and he/she looks at your set of symptoms and says, “ah yes you have multiple sclerosis”.  Now you can take drugs or do therapies that address the symptoms that you are experiencing to try and repress them or get them to go away.  Some level of comfort or success may be felt by all parties yet has any actual healing happened; any return to a more unified and whole state?  

This entire scenario above is based on the assumption that the symptoms you experience are wrong and should be stopped or suppressed because they are interfering with the life you think you should be living.  What if there was a different scenario?  What if instead symptoms that you experience or sensations or feelings that you don’t like that you experience where simply life trying to teach you something?  What if they are meant to interrupt your life?  Would you still try to get rid of them or would you try to discover what it is they are there to teach you?  

 

Seeing life reorganize itself

Deep listening

8000948 - man looking through a telescope isolated on whiteI have found in my personal experience with symptoms over the years that once I’ve learned what they are there to teach me they abate on their own.  The intelligence of the body resolves them because their function is no longer needed or  useful.  Even things that would be considered “incurable” by western standards I’ve watched resolve time and time again.

So what is required to allow for this course of action?  A change in our perspective in how we view disruptive, disturbing or uncomfortable sensations or feelings.  What if symptoms were there to teach us how to love ourselves more?  Or what if they are there to teach us how to relax and be present or to guide us down a different path in life then the one that we are currently on?  These are some to the rich lessons that can be learned when we stop resisting and trying to figure out our symptoms, and rather listen to and be with them.  

This is a radical shift in perspective for most.  The tendency to resist, get rid of, change or “freak out” when we experience a sensation, feeling or state of being that doesn’t feel good or “right” is very strong.  We must first recognize our tendency to do this and catch ourselves in the act.  When we have the capacity to catch ourselves in the act we have an opportunity to change our perspective.  The perspective change is from one of operating out of wrongness and being motivated by fear to one of operating in acceptance of what is and being motivated by seeing what life is teaching us through this.  

This requires deep listening and a willingness to feel what is below the surface of our freak out. We will be different and we will transform as we change our perspective.  We will be able to see more clearly what is really going on rather than going on an epic search in the dark trying to finding the next magical cure that will be the one to fix us.  We will feel a drop into greater acceptance of what is and thus greater acceptance of ourselves.  This is the only way that true transformation can occur.  Everything else is efforting.  

We reorganize to more efficient configuration when we transform.  We essentially start to “work” better.  Though it may be challenging to really shift perspectives when we do a whole new world of possibilities becomes available to us.  

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

Maintaining energy richness

Dr. Amanda Love Leave a comment

Maintaining energy richness 

Energy states

energy statesOur energy state is pivotal to how we engage with life and how our body functions.  When we are in an energy poor state we have little capacity to do anything other than survive. We typically can’t engage fully in our daily activities, our bodies are ill and there isn’t any energy available for growth, social interactions or contribution.  We are merely trying to make it through the next moment or day.  

Energy neutral is one step beyond energy poor.  In energy neutral we have enough energy to engage in our day to day activities and be “functional” humans, but we are often tired, don’t feel like engaging with others much and have the need to disconnect or check out in order to recover.  Our bodies are not in crisis, but there may be a few things not working as well as we would like them too.  This is the zone where most humans hang out in their energy state.  

Then there is energy rich.  When we are in an energy rich state we are alive.  We actively participate in our lives, our bodies are not just maintaining status quo, but instead are getting healthier and more vital.  We can show up for ourselves and for others.  People often describe flow states as being energy rich.  This is where life seems to unfold effortlessly and in synchronicity with everything else.  

We all have probably had tastes of each of these energy states at various times in our lives.  More often than not when we are not in an energy rich state we are trying to figure out how we can get there again.  So what are the keys to maintaining energy richness?  How do we live there rather than just visit periodically?   

Choosing your state of being 

Realizing the power of choice

47912357 - businesswoman standing in front of opened doors and making decisionEnergy state is based on your level of awareness.  Let me explain.  Most of us do not realize that we are choosing our lives.  What this means is that we have thoughts, emotions and sensations that we believe are random occurrences; that these things simply happen to us.  We are not aware that we are the chooser of such things.  What is it like to stop for a moment and entertain that the sensations you feel, the emotions you experience and the thoughts that you have are not random?  Do you believe it or does some disbelief arrive?  

It is the disbelief that we are the chooser of the things that we experience and that there is seeming randomness in what occurs to us that makes it difficult for us to maintain the energy state of our choosing.  This is because we don’t realize yet that we are choosing.  So how do we realize that we are the chooser and that life is not happening to us, but instead that we are happening to life?  

It begins, as with everything, with awareness.  So what is awareness?  Awareness is the noticing of what is present without being merged with what is.  What this means is noticing your sensations, emotions and thoughts without identifying yourself with your sensations, emotions and thoughts.  For example, say you have the thought “I am stupid”  and you believe that thought to be a true reflection of who you are, you are merged with the thought instead of realizing it is simply a thought and not you.  When you are identifying with thoughts such as these the highest level of energy you will ever experience is energy neutral.  If you are identifying yourself with certain emotions you will have energy neutral to energy poor states and if you identify yourself with your sensations, such as being your pain or a physical condition, you will experience energy poor states.  

Energy rich states result when you realize that you are not your thoughts, feelings and sensations, but simply are aware of them.  When you are aware of them you can be present with them instead of merged with them.  It can seem scary to stay and be present with some sensations, feelings and thoughts.  As you do things may arise in your awareness that you have had a tendency to push down or avoid previously such as inadequacies of self, feelings of powerlessness, shame, etc., but as you stay present instead of merged with, you begin to realize that all of those things you were afraid of are just smoke and mirrors, illusions, never actually real.  As you stay present and aware more and more, you being the chooser of all of your life experiences becomes increasingly apparent.  This is ultimately how you claim, own and live energy richness.  

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

Being an empty vessel

Dr. Amanda Love Leave a comment

Being an empty vessel 

Neurological bombardment

bombardedAll day long we are bombarded with things, people, thoughts, feelings and sensations.  Our nervous system is pretty much always taking in information and almost never throughout our day are we completely quiet or empty of these things.

For most people quiet or empty is scary.  It triggers our wounds of not doing enough, contributing enough or being enough and also feelings of being alone and separate.  Simultaneously, on a deeper level many people crave inner stillness and emptiness yet can’t seem to experience it because they are so entrenched in these patterns of production and doing.

In our culture production and achievement is honored, while quiet stillness is seen as lazy or unproductive.  The thing about production and achievement is that it keeps us continually out of the present moment and always into the future of what we are creating and doing.  It sets up the conditions of getting our “to do list” done and that equalling a productive day.  Rather than movement, action and productivity being inspired from inner stillness, it is an effortful process that is directed by our minds.

Now I’m not suggesting to stop all doing and action, but instead to value the quiet as much as the noise.  Since we are predominantly noise driven in our culture (whether externally or from our own minds) we have not learned how to rest in stillness and therefore can never really hear much beyond our own mental thoughts about things.  This limits us to one perspective, which is our own.  Our perspective is only one piece of the whole and therefore provides a limited amount of insight and wisdom.

Being of ultimate service 

Neurological freedom

58762013 - silhouette of woman meditating with energy beams surrounding himOne of our fears about stopping inner or outer activity is that we will not be in as great of service to others.  When we begin to value inner stillness it may require us at time to say no to things or not help people when perhaps we think we should be.  So we do and we do, and our doing fills a need, a need in us to feel significant through helping others or being productive, yet we also ignore the part of ourselves that actually feels a stronger no than yes at times.

It is not until we can become innerly still that we can really be of service.  When we empty out ourselves of our thoughts, feelings, sensations, and things we become present.  In presence all information that is needed is readily available.  Learning to rest in inner emptiness teaches us to be present.  Presence is the most powerful and energizing state that there is.

Being an empty vessel is of being in ultimate service.  Though it may seem that then you have nothing to give or contribute in this state, the opposite is true.  You now have everything to give and contribute.  You are dynamic and alive and also rested in presence.  You have emptied yourself of yourself, of a you, of a being that has needs, wants, desires and preferences, at least temporarily.  In a way you transcend your ego, which is your small, personal self in order to be of even greater service.  A service of which is yet unknown to you and to be revealed.  Surrendering the need to know and being ok in the mystery are necessary.  Things are revealed to you exactly when and how you need to know them when you are in a state of presence.

The clearer your nervous system is, the easier it is to be an empty vessel.   When you experience level 2C of Network care it is called a “clear out.” What that means is that your nervous system temporarily suspends all anchors to you as a sense of self (person) through your spine.  Momentarily you experience a state beyond who you believe yourself to be.  This is a pattern interruption and provides the opportunity to experience yourself differently (beyond yourself).  It requires surrender and the result is inner stillness, emptiness.   When you enter and progress through level 3 of Network care you realize that the emptiness is filled with light and the light is who you actually are.  Hearing the unheard and seeing the unseen become your reality.  I call this neurological freedom and find it is essential for being more empty of self so you can know even more of who/what you truly are and be in ultimate service to all.

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