abundance

COMING FROM ABUNDANCE

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COMING FROM ABUNDANCE 

Lessons in trust & faith

Abundance is the natural of being or is-ness.  Abundance is what is.  In truth lack does not exist because it would be impossible for existence to be lacking.  What is can’t not be.  What gives the appearance of lack is not the appearance itself, but our perception of what appears.  This may seem a bit tricky to understand, but if you sit with it for a few moments the truth of it will begin to reveal itself to you.  

We are conditioned in a perspective that says when I don’t have ‘xyz’, it means something is, or might be, lacking/missing from my experience.  This perspective of lacking/missing is what causes suffering or our sense of disconnection.  It also perpetuates the illusion of our separateness, or independence from the larger existence.  Viewing through the lens of lack means something is not enough, we might not have enough, and often we feel like we are alone in our quest to be enough or get enough of what we need or want, whether that be resources or experiences.  There is no trust in the orchestration of life, but instead fear of how we will make it work or get what we desire or need.  

Why do we so often blindly and unconsciously choose this lens of lack or scarcity?  What purpose does it serve us?  I think largely we choose it because it is the most accessible to us, to our psyche, and to the lessons we were born to learn.  One cannot learn faith and trust, which are the primary lessons of the human incarnation, if one sees the natural state of abundance.  For inside of abundance one knows entirely that they are supported so there is nothing to help us learn faith.  The conditions on this planet and the perspective of lack are prime for helping us learn trust and faith.  

For centuries we have been playing out the game of lack.  Fighting or attempting to manipulate life, ourselves or others, so that we have enough or more of what we want or need.  Manipulation that is often disguised in a multitude of ways, many of those being service or caring, but really its just about us doing and getting what we think we need or want.  Our lives for the most part are entirely self-centric and about gain even if they appear altruistic.  This isn’t bad or wrong.  It’s simply important to know where we are coming from and why we are coming from there.  With this understanding we can more consciously choose what serves now rather than sleep walk our way through our life.   

LIVING IN AGREEMENT  WITH LIFE

To know abundance

Part of viewing from the lens of scarcity means that we tend to not live in agreement with life, or with what is.  Rather we wish, dream, or envision it to be more luxurious, glorious, radiant or just better somehow.  We “miss” what’s here by wishing or hoping for something else to be here.  We fail to see abundance of what is because we are focused on something else being in our experience.  This is the recipe for living continually unsatisfied, unfulfilled, and chasing fulfillment inside of the promise of whatever is next.  I am not suggesting that you don’t dream or envision beauty, glory or your desires, but rather that you see it here now in your current moment experience rather than at some future date or time when things look different and there are different people, objects or experiences in your life.  To view this way would be to see the truth, which is abundance, rather than your perspective of not good enough somehow now.  This would be the equivalent of dreaming awake or seeing what is now.

While we wait for life to look different so that we can say it’s better is to negate the abundance of this very moment.  That future moment where you perceive perfection or better-ness will simply be another moment of perfect abundance that will be followed by someone else who wants to make it better and on and on.  On and on that is until we stop projecting into the future what is already here now.  No matter how shitty it seems or appears to us, if we don’t see that it is currently abundant we suffer, and through our perception of suffering we continue to create it.  Through how we see, we create the very thing we are attempting to make better.  

We have responsibility of how we see.  I think this is our one and only true responsibility.  Though this might seem trivial or not really that impactful or important, I’d argue that nothing else is more important than this.  See no one can really see how we see.  There are no outward signs to cue others to the lens we look through.  Only we know how we see; what lens we choose.  There are no accolades or external praises for choosing the perspectives we choose.  They are silent, quiet and only those that are also silent and quiet can see where you come from.  To them there is simply an internal recognition and gratitude for where you come from.  Yet even though our lens are unseen by most, they create the entire world.  Everything that is, is born from this lens from which you choose to come from.

Coming from abundance won’t necessarily make you materially rich.  It won’t necessarily give you all the things you want or think you need.  It won’t always provide the picture of life that you hoped for, however there is a silver lining.  That lining is that you will now live in agreement with life.  You will experience the peace that passes all understanding.  Your being serves despite whatever it is you do or don’t do, or create/don’t create.  It also allows you to be a conduit for life to move through you rather than you being the chief decider of all things that the mind then tries to figure out, manipulate and grasp.  You are free to be and to allow all the experiences of life to be as they are.  It is the end of resistance and the end of suffering.  This is to live/know abundance.  

Dr. Amanda Love, Network Chiropractor Boulder Colorado

Network Spinal Analysis & Somato-Respiratory Integration

Abundance as the Natural State

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ABUNDANCE AS THE NATURAL STATE

Focusing on what is

So much we are focused on what isn’t.  We spend our energy thinking about all the things that we desire as if they are somehow lacking now with the aspiration that we will attain them at some future date.  This is the near constant game that our mind’s play on us.  It goes something like this.  Look out at the manifestation of this thing that we call physical reality.  See how there are certain things not in your visual or mental perspective that you would like to see or believe are there.  Things such as cars, houses, clothes, friendships, partnerships, children, jobs, degrees, money, vacations, etc.  Decide that at some future date those things will be there.  Work to achieve said things until they arrive at future date.  Become happy when things arrive and become sad when they don’t arrive.  In many ways this sums up our human existence.  

While exciting at first, or exciting when you are feeling successful, living simply to achieve your desires is temporary unsustainable happiness that is dependent on what is showing up being in alignment with what you think should be there.  Read that sentence again until it really sinks in.  What if there is another way to live besides for the achievement of your desires?  Would you be willing to stop focusing on what is missing from your experience and trying to get something from it that you perceive isn’t there?  Many people might initially say yes however when it comes to implementation, follow through is often poor.  We are addicted to focusing on what we think isn’t there and such our experience is one of lack, followed by effort and trying, and feeling only success if we can somehow get the thing to appear to us.  This is the cycle of suffering.

You might be thinking how do I not perceive lack when clearly I can’t perceive the thing that I want as being in my direct experience.  First I will say that your focus on it not being here is all that keeps it from being perceivable to you and what pushes it away or keeps it out from your direct experience.  Mostly we are unaware that we are even doing this, however whatever we insist upon will be what we experience even when we are unconscious as to what it is that we are insisting upon.  Something to entertain to help you open up your perspective is the recognition that somewhere what you desire exists.  It is not out of creation, it just simply is not directly here now.  This perspective can be a bridge for you until you can more fully rest in the abundance of is-ness itself and begin to slowly shift your focus on what is rather than what isn’t.  If you fully shift your focus solely onto what is, even if only for a few seconds, the abundance of life as the natural state will be evidently clear. 

COMPLETENESS OF ISNESS

Want nothing to be different than it is

Due to that fact that most all of us think that the goal of life is to achieve our desires and then die we completely miss the fact of our own existence.  We place most of our attention on the stuff of life and very little, if any, attention on the fact that we exist, that we be, that we are, and so we are unfamiliar with ourselves or with is-ness.  Simply is-ness is.  Is-ness is before any forms or before anything takes shape in our perceptible and sensorial experience.  Recognizing is-ness is the recognition of completion, abundance and the natural state prior to phenomena.  

You may wonder how you can more fully pay attention to the fact that you exist.  The easiest way that I have found is to set yourself in the attitude of not wanting anything to be different than it is.  When you stop resisting what is, either through giving up your focus on what is not or by directly surrendering to your conflict with whatever the appearances are that are showing up for you in any given moment, you are left only with is-ness.  That pure state of beingness before thought forms emerge which begin to inform your experience.  In addition to not wanting anything to be different than it is, is also not wanting anything from anything.  In this way you end your desires to get something from anything.  When you do this you will see how much of your energy and attention it takes to engage in life by trying to get something that you perceive you want, think will benefit you, keep you safe or ensure your survival.  Once suspended, all of that energy and attention that was bound up in getting, can then be redirected into the pure focus on your beingness rather than on trying to somehow manipulate life to your liking.

What I am pointing to here is quite simple in application, so it begs the question as to why we don’t follow through.  Why do we stop ourselves even before we try?  Why do we want so much to hold onto our perspective of lack which leads to effort and trying rather than surrender to life and experience the abundance of it?  First the mind doesn’t like simplicity.  It wants it to be more complicated than that so it will do its best to try and complicate and confuse things for you.  Two, we often think that our desires and preferences are more important than they actually are, so we don’t want to give them up.  We confuse our desires, preferences and what we think should be (rather than what is) for self-empowerment and therefore think we need to justly fight or stand up for what we want.  When we don’t get what we want, or achieve what we want, we feel cheated or somehow worthless or not valuable.  It’s hard for our egos to swallow the fact that they really aren’t that important.  That what we want isn’t that important and often not even relevant.  It feels like a punch in the stomach, or a death of sorts, like everything you thought was so important no longer being so.  This is the beginning of the dis-identification of the ego as you and the surrender into the god state where you come to know the real you.  

Lastly we’ve confused our happiness, joy, bliss, safety, security and ok-ness to be locked up in something seemingly out there so we keep trying to get it from out there somewhere, in circumstances and conditions.  It will never be found there because conditions always change.  What doesn’t change is you, is is-ness.  Is-ness always is.  It doesn’t come and go.  It is the stability in the ever changing sea of appearances.  Lock onto that instead and you will know yourself and what true sustainable abundant, bliss, joy, freedom and safety is.  No more will you need to seek it out in the world of appearances. When you arrive here you will begin to see that your necessity to make things happen through the physical lessens and your more formless nature will be more real than the form.  Greater ease and effortless doing naturally emerges.  You become more in agreement with God, with the real you, and that alignment, though death to your ego, will set you free.  That is divine union.  That is mergence with God.  That is the return of oneness remembering itself.  My best advice is to stop being so stubborn and just let God be as God is and you will discover everlasting peace.  

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

Lack is imaginary

Dr. Amanda Love Leave a comment

Lack is imaginary 

Just because you don’t have something doesn’t mean it does not exist 

14396897 - happy young blonde girl opening a gift boxSay a stranger walked up to you and gave you tickets to watch your favorite musical artist at RedRocks this summer.  Prior to receiving these tickets you weren’t even aware that your favorite group was coming to town.  What a gift!  Later on that day when you get home you look in your bag for the tickets to put them in a safe place and you realize that they are not there.  After searching for hours, retracing steps and going over every possible place they could be you give up and deem that the tickets are lost forever.

The next day you go to your favorite coffee shop and it dawns on you that you took the tickets out of bag when you paid for your coffee yesterday.  When you ask the barista if they found your tickets, the barista says no, but you can feel that there is more to the story.  You can’t prove it, but you have sense that someone in that coffee shop found and took your tickets for themselves.  You feel bummed, a little angry and like you are missing out big time.

In this story it seems that you are now lacking tickets, however if you follow the story you see that the tickets have simply moved from one person, to you, and now to another person.  Before the stranger gave you the tickets you did not feel you where lacking them, in fact, you didn’t even know that your musical group was coming to town.  As you can see lack is simply a story (aka an imagination that you made up) that you don’t have something, not an actual deficiency of it existing.

Expanding your imagination

Moving from lack to always present: “I” to “We”

When something is not in our immediate experience we have the tendency to think that it is lacking, especially if we had a taste of it before and now its not here.  We do this with money, relationships, health, business and happiness.  Perhaps you see other people with the things you want or behaving in the ways you want to be in the world and you feel jealous.  Jealously is simply a desire paired with your belief that you can’t have, get or deserve what it is you want (which by the way is another made up story of lack).

To move from lack to always present (also known as abundance) requires a shift in “I” consciousness to “we” consciousness.  When you believe that you are a separate person, living in your bubble of reality, and feeling that life revolves around your story of it, then you will perceive lack.  Most people are living their lives in this way.  It drives us to protect ourselves, secure our future, and remain in survival mode perpetuating the belief that I must take care of myself to preserve my life and attain the things that I want.  It is why we do things that we don’t really want to be doing and why we suffer so greatly.

Shifting into “we” consciousness means that just because I don’t have something present in my immediate experience doesn’t mean that some other aspect of me doesn’t.  In “we” consciousness there is less distinction between me and you.  There are still two different expressions (you and me), but of one being.  It requires that you put aside your thoughts of what you need to survive or what your family needs to survive, and think bigger, include bigger.  Ask better questions.  What does humanity need to thrive?  How is humanity already thriving?  How can I appreciate that even more?  What can I give to another aspect of me?  In this way you give instead of lose something and perceive lack.  You feel appreciation of what others now have, instead of jealous of what you don’t have.  In “We” you feel intimately connected with everything else.  Your personal self becomes less relevant than your collective self.  You begin to experience love, happiness, purpose and contribution on bigger scales.

Don’t just believe me, experience this for yourself.  Start by seeing something your previously perceived as lost or lacking as a gift to someone else.  Then include yourself in someone else and begin to taste “We-ness”.

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