chiropractic

Say Bye-Bye to Worry

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SAY BYE-BYE👋 TO WORRY 

Your most intimate friend

Most of us are familiar with worry.  In fact worry might be your most intimate friend.  We tend to spend more time with worry than we do our partner, family members, kids or friends.  Worry is often so intimate that it’s present inside of all of the activities that we do.  It’s there when we shower, while we exercise, as we’re working, and while we are getting groceries or pumping gas.  Subtly, or not so subtly, in the background is the thought, “will things work out” or “will things be ok”?  It’s like we are deathly afraid of how all the details of life will orchestrate themselves and we can’t seem to let it be.  Our best attempt to not feel totally helpless or powerless is to worry.  Somehow we think if we worry about whatever it is we are worried about then we can control how it all happens.  However because we know we can’t really control it, we stay in a perpetual state of worry, which you could also call stress or overwhelm.

In order to let go of worry we also have to let go of whatever outcome we are attempting to control.  Whatever thing we want to happen or not happen, the timing of something, and the flow of the details in between, we have to let it all have its own will.  We must give away our hope, agenda, insistence, and demand for the thing to happen in any particular way, or at all.  This is where it feels tricky to us because we perceive potential loss or lack.  If things don’t happen how we desire in our minds for them to happen, at the bare minimum we perceive inconvenience, and beyond that, that something might be lost.  That loss could be of anything.  A new possibility coming to birth, a relationship, how someone views or sees us, money, time or other resources, objects of our desire, a job, a project, our health, other’s health, and on and on.  We will do whatever we can not to experience loss of what we desire because loss feels like death, failure and can lead us into hopelessness, depression or despair.  So rather than facing the potential of all of that, instead we choose worry, because worry feels easier to feel compared to feeling the death of our dreams and desires.

The thing about worry though is that it hijacks the shit out of us.  We fall out of presence and into thinking about all of the things.  We are not available for what actually matters to us, who it is that we want to be and our chosen state of being.  We lose touch with the magic of life and ourselves.  On a physiologically level our body gets to experience the chemical cascade of worry, which looks like the inability to digest our food, sleep well, or feel energized, and we experience pain and tension in the body.  Then we get fixated on trying to fix all of these bodily expressions without addressing the core essence which creates their arising, which is worry.  While moving towards feeling loss, lack, or death of our dreams feels like a less desirable choice, you must ask yourself if it’s really worth the cost to keep avoiding your sense of feeling lack of control over all of the happenings of your life.   

THE OTHER SIDE OF WORRY 

Mystery revealing itself

We tend not to think too much about what is on the other side of worry.  Mostly we either wait in anxious anticipation, or we take massive action because we can’t sit still, and then we hope for the best.  The “best” being whatever our chosen preference is for the desired outcome.  The funny thing about being human is that we have such a small perspective on things, and despite our tiny viewpoint we think we know what’s best to happen.  It is a form of self-deceit that is mostly unconscious, because the majority of us have good intentions for what we desire.  However those good intentions, and our ideas of what those intentions look like when they are manifested at the physical level, interferes with our seeing.  It distorts and filters our perceptions.  We then create judgments or assumptions about what we are seeing rather than simply seeing it.  Those judgments and assumptions always feel bad because they are coming from our tiny little vantage point that thinks it knows what it’s looking at, all the while it’s missing 99.99% of the picture.  

Big picture here is that we have no idea what, the details or the timing of how things are supposed to occur.  We have ideas of how we would like it to all happen, but our knowledge of the actual reality of it stops there.  If we don’t recognize the limitation of our vantage point, of our filters and the distorted picture we have based on our preferences, then we will fall or push our way into control.  We will feel anxious.  We will experience overwhelm.  We will complain about being stressed.  All as avoidance to feel how much control we don’t have over things.  

Not having control over things does not mean that you are without power.  In fact it means the opposite.  Surrender is the ultimate power.  This is what you discover on the other side of worry.  When you stop avoiding feeling potential loss, a sense of powerlessness, or inconvenience you arrive into a state of presence and openness for life to reveal itself to you.  Presence in the ever present moment of revelation, meaning you come to know what it’s like to be in the unfolding rather than trying to managing the unfolding.  When you are no longer trying to control something it frees things up to respond and move, and what I really mean by that is that it frees you up to respond and move.  You become less rigid and fixated and more able to be a part of the unfolding.  This is also where the power of intention shines.  You can still intend for whatever it is you desire to intend, but rather than forcing the flow of it, you are in the flow with it.  It’s not two opposing forces, but one force moving and responding to itself.  You are not separate from what you desire, you are one with it, but as soon as you place what you desire out there onto a happening, object, event or person, you relate to it as separate from you and you have to figure out how to control or manipulate it in order for your preference to be experienced or expressed.  

The other side of worry is acceptance and peace.  It is a relinquishment of thinking that you know and a becoming present to what actually wants to happen, rather than what you think you want to happen.  You let things breathe, which ironically also means you breathe.  You experience life force returning to its unimpeded flow.  The intelligence that is life organizes itself with you included.  It still doesn’t mean that you will get what you want or that your desired preference will occur in the timing you desire, or even at all.  It does however mean that you breathe, you are at peace and in acceptance, your body receives easeful chemical cascades that allow it to function well and you get to be in the dance of the unfolding of the mystery revealing itself.

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

INTUITION & ALIGNMENT

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INTUITION & ALIGNMENT

Convincing ourselves other

We always know what is and isn’t in alignment for us.  Even if we don’t know certain facts, details, or the specifics of things, we know what feels on and what feels off.  All children know this.  In fact it’s even easier as children because there aren’t as many inner stories or rules to interfere.  We are naturally intuitive.  Where we run into trouble with ourselves is when we stop listening, ignore or take action in the opposite direction of what feels energizing to us.  When we choose the less energizing choice we feel the agony of inner conflict.  A conflict that is often reinforced by a sense of obligation, feeling like you have to do it a certain way or like you don’t know what else to do.  When doubt, fear and obligation rear their heads we can find ourselves sliding into what we know and what is familiar to us rather than what is actually aligned.

Convincing ourselves to take unaligned actions even when we know we will feel less energized by doing so, sometimes feels like the only way.  Why is this?  It’s because we don’t want to feel the uncertainty of not knowing what’s next.  We let our avoidance of uncertainty of outer things override our knowing of inner things.  We start to accommodate to the appearance of outer things rather than stay centered in our inner knowing.  Sometimes it feels just so tempting to do so.  We feel lost because the outer world isn’t giving us facts, details and certainty.  Our inner world, while feeling good in its alignment, gets swayed by the seeming lack of things showing themselves to us.  Alas we get swayed by that part of us that feels like it has to know what will happen and needs some solid evidence of it.

We know we’ve been swayed when we start to feel heavy.  Our energy feels drained and it takes a lot of work to do little things.  It feels hard to make things happen.  Nothing seems to work and we feel unclear.  We become impatient and demanding.  We lose touch with gratitude.  We don’t see the magic in life and typically we complain a bit.  We work harder to make something, anything, happen.  We don’t even know what we specifically feel anymore, only that whatever it is we don’t like it and we want some information, details, facts and certainty to show up already.  We’ve all experienced this a time or two.  You wouldn’t be human if you hadn’t.  This is what it feels like to be disconnected.  Disconnected from yourself and therefore being or choosing differently than what is actually in alignment for you and where you would like to come from.   

CHOOSING THE ENERGIZING WAY 

Building the alignment muscle

Surprisingly choosing what feels more aligned or more energized might freak you out a little bit.  Sometimes it’s easy and sometimes it will require that you allow yourself to feel the mystery of not knowing.  However if you can handle the heat you will develop the muscle of following your alignment, and that is a muscle worth developing.  Some people might call this faith or trust, and in addition to that there is a huge heap of courage needed to listen and follow what it is you already know inside.  To break this down a little further, uncertainty can manifest as someone not responding favorably to a choice you make.  It might also look like not having a back up plan.  It can be taking an action towards something that feels exciting without any clue what the results with be.  It can be pausing or waiting when no answers or options are presenting themselves.  There is perceived risk in these things.  Risk to our sense of identity, to our relationships, to our feelings of safety and sense of progress.

Yet if we desire to feel energized, to feel alive and vital, then we must learn to follow our inner knowing.  Call it intuition, inner knowing or alignment, it’s all the same.  When we choose the choice, the way or the path that energizes us, whether that means taking no action or taking massive action, we always feel better.  It always feels better to choose our alignment even if it feels scary, threatening or uncertain, and even if it means we have to let something go.  Letting something go could be letting go of a way of being, thinking or seeing that is very familiar to us.  It might be letting go of a relationship configuration so that it can reconfigure.  It might be shifting physical locations or letting go of objects.  It might be letting go of ideas that aren’t really exciting to us, but that we’ve convinced ourselves we need or want.  When we let go we create space for life to show us what is really in alignment and what the appearance of our true alignment looks like.

We all have the capacity to take actions in alignment.  It is of course our free will to choose whether or not we will.  It is more exciting and unnerving to follow our inner knower all of the time.  Our inner knower is our compass, our guide, and our friend in this lifetime.  It is constantly informing us even when we aren’t listening.  However if you choose to listen and have the courage to take action in response to its messages, you will always feel like you are on purpose even when you don’t know what the heck you’re doing or what heck is going on.  You can simultaneously be in the total mystery and complete alignment at the same time.  Having your mind know something based on the appearance of what is showing up in your life pales in comparison to living an aligned life in complete mystery.  Again courage is required and with more and more aligned action you will come to understand the basic mechanisms of how life works.  Life will show you what your alignment looks like when you come from being aligned.  You can forget about what you think life should look like from your ideas of alignment and instead watch the movie be revealed to you before your very eyes.  It’s exciting, and it’s a mystery. 

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

GIVE WHAT YOU WANT TO GET

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GIVE WHAT YOU WANT TO GET

Reversing directions

Nearly all of us, in some way or other, are focused on what we want.   We’ve created our vision boards, completed our intention setting, prayed our manifestation prayers, did our ceremonies and rituals, recited the mantras and affirmations, all to bring about what it is we want.  Always it seems we are asking the inner question “how will I get what I want today” or a more sophisticated version of that is “how will the world and my experiences be how I want them too?”  When we ask these questions, either deliberately or automatically, what happens is that we align our actions around that sole quest.  The quest of what we want.  What frequently comes with the quest of following our desires is an idea or picture of what our desires look like to us when they are fulfilled.  The most tangible example of this would be to say that we want something physical like a house, car or any other physical object.  We typically have a pretty clear idea of what it is we want or don’t want.  An image forms in our mind and we move towards that image.  We may “sacrifice” on some of details, but other things are non-negotiable.  If we really want a convertible car we are unlikely to buy a truck, as it’s too far off from our desires.  

What arises however when what we want isn’t available or not present inside of our immediate experience?  We want a convertible, but there are none available.  The house we want isn’t for sale.  The latest iPhone we want is out of stock.  We could also extrapolate this to less “physical” objects such as relationships, opportunities, health, safety, security, stability or particular emotional states.  When there are no suitable partners, the trip we want to go on is sold out, we don’t feel secure or stable in our life, or we feel sick, angry, frustrated or sad, it seems that what we want is not available.  Where does our focus go?  Our focus is on what isn’t inside of our experience.  We actually lose touch with our true desire because we are so focused on what isn’t here.  Then we have some version of a freak out and we feel anxious or depressed, because that is really the only way to feel when we are focused on what isn’t.  

We internally stir, attempting to figure out how we will get what we want.  We do more to get the things.  Work harder, manifest longer, say our affirmations more frequently.  We can’t seem to figure out why with everything we are doing we still don’t have what we want.  We wonder why isn’t life working for us or with us.  What we want seems outside of us, like it’s something over there, somewhere inside of an object or some other person or place, and if we could just figure out how to get it.   The secret is that our desire is not outside of us.  We are it.  However when we merge our desire with the objects we think possess our desire, we feel helpless, frustrated and confused.   

BE YOUR DESIRE

Shifting focus

Desire steers the ship of this life, but life is not about us getting our desires.  Rather life is about being our desires.  This can seem very confusing to our mind that projects everything onto our experience rather than seeing ourselves as the source of our experience.  This projection is why it seems that what we want is inside of something or someplace else, and why we get anxious or depressed when our experience of life, or the appearance of things, is not how we want it to be.  What appears (ie. our experience) is a reflection of us, and when we feel something is lacking or missing (scarcity mindset) it ultimately seems that something is lacking or missing in us, hence the epidemic of feeling not enough that runs through the human experience.  

This brings me to the most important point, which is to give what you want.  I will repeat again what I wrote above, life is not about you getting what you want, but rather about being it, being your desire.  The only way to experience what you want is to give it, which is the same thing as being it.  Now your mind will want to come in and insist that this is impossible.  How can you give what you perceive to be missing or not present?  How can you give what you want life to give you?  Let’s say that you want to be loved by another person in a relationship, your mind will say that the only way you can fulfill that desire is to be loved by another person. How can you give that, doesn’t that come from someone else?  But does it really?  Is it not you that feels loved inside of you?  Say you want safety or security from another person.  How do you give that too?  Let’s go to the more physical examples.  You might argue that a house, car or any other physical object doesn’t live inside of you.  You are correct, they don’t physically live inside of you, but your desire for them does.  We never want the thing, we only want the feeling that we think the thing will bring us.  Maybe your desire for a house is because you want a feeling of stability.  Again how can you be or give stability rather get stability?  

Simply notice whenever you feel that life is not working out for you or not what you want.  You will always be focused on what isn’t rather than on what you desire.  You must train yourself to find what is it you really want and when you connect with your actual desire you will begin to feel good again.  If you start to focus too much on the forms, appearance or happenings of your experience rather than your desire, you will likely suffer again.  Sometimes the appearance of life will be as we want it to be and sometimes it won’t be.  As far as I can tell this is constant inside of this human experience.  This may feel like a bold statement, but the appearance doesn’t matter.  What matters is that you give to life what you desire too.  That you be what you want to be.  That you are an expression your heart’s desires.  Unlike the mind’s complexity the heart is simple.  It desires only love, connection and bliss.  You must recognize when you stop choosing that, when you stop focusing on that, when you stop desiring that, and instead get lost in what doesn’t seem to be here that you think will give you the experience of love, connection and bliss.  As soon as you recognize that you’ve lost your focus on what matters, you must do everything within your capacity to shift your focus back onto giving that which you desire to be.  Herein lies fulfillment beyond any getting that you can ever get.

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

NEUROLOGICAL DEFENSE

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NEUROLOGICAL DEFENSE 

Moving away from pain

Much of how we operate, move, behave, perceive, think, feel and sense is learned and habitual.  We develop strategies, patterns and ways of being through our experiences.  We learn to perceive and move about our world based on internal and external cues.  If we do the same thing over and over, or see something the same way over and over, we learn to create wiring or neurological patterning in our nervous system based on our perceptions or behaviors.  If we repeat the same thing enough times then the way we perceive something or how we move about becomes automatic or habitual.  This means that there is very little “registering” or conscious awareness that happens as we engage with life.  Life is simply a series of habits and reactions, that is unless we create novelty inside of our perceptions. 

If something hurts we instinctually move away from it and if it feels good we move towards it.  Hurt can be physical such as if we place our hand on a hot stove, or it can be emotional or mental such as feeling rejection or like we aren’t good enough.  Regardless of where the hurt hits us we learn early on how to protect ourselves from the pain of feeling it.  We might flee or run in order to move away from it.  We might fight back in order to push something away from us.  We also might freeze in place or go numb in attempt to avoid the hurt or pain.  On a neurological level there is a response to this avoidance of pain, which is commonly known as the stress response.  Most people are quite familiar with the terminology “stress response” yet most people don’t really get what it means for how they experience their life on a day to day basis.  

When we are in protection (i.e. avoidance) mode our nervous system wires and fires pathways that create various messages throughout the body.  These messages gear us up for fighting until we eventually burnout and the effect of this is what we call adrenal fatigue.  These messages also put us on alert, or in a hyper-vigilant state.  They get us to focus on what’s wrong or what might be out to harm us.  They create tension in the body so that we don’t feel the impact of harm or pain.  They effect our sleep cycles making it hard to feel rested or get good sleep.   They make it harder to digest our food, and they move energy out of self-healing and into self-protection.  This state of being is called neurological defense.  At any point in our life we can have experiences that don’t feel good to us and we activate these patterns of defense rather than feel the impact of pain or harm or potential pain/harm.  There is intelligence in these defensive patterns, however they greatly limit our experience of life.  We cannot move into healing and neurological openness unless we are willing to move towards that which we avoid feeling.   

NEUROLOGICAL OPENNESS   

Moving towards life

While there is intelligence to our defensive reactions and patterns in the body they also create great limitation in our experience of life.  They allow us to experience only a limited range of feelings, sensations, and thoughts.  They limit our behaviors, perceptions, and our relationships with self and others.  They cap the amount of energy we have access to receiving, giving and sharing.  They keep our bodies running in suboptimal energy conditions effecting our health and overall well-being.  They keep us from fully experiencing the range of our hearts and the hearts of others.  There is great cost to our avoidance of feeling pain.  

When we stop avoiding pain and allow ourselves to feel and be with it, some pretty amazing things happen.  First is that you can no longer be angry.  Feeling the pain we’ve experienced softens us.  Some people don’t even know just how angry they are because they’ve adopted other strategies of self-protection such as always being positive, people pleasing, or the more quiet version of anger which is self-hatred.  This can manifest very subtly as negative self-talk or simply not feeling yourself to be great.  If you don’t unequivocally know that you are fucking amazing then you probably have some work to do here.  Second is that your neurological, and thus physiological state, shifts.  All those messages that your nervous system sends out change in nature when you move towards life experiences.  Rather than messages gearing you up to fight, flight or freeze, it sends messages of relaxation and ease.  Food can then be digested, sleep happens naturally, and the self-healing mechanism occurs unimpeded.  Muscles relax, the posture becomes more upright and open, and your focus shifts onto what is here, what’s working, and on how life is supporting you.  Nothing is out to get you anymore.  You look for invitations and openings.  More opportunities seem to be available to you.  You feel more confident in yourself.  This is what I call neurological openness.

In neurological openness we participate more fully with life.  We perceive things that we didn’t perceive before, and we sense, feel and think differently because we are more open to life rather than in protection from it.  We become more awake or aware of our impact on life, others and ourselves.  We recognize more and more that we have choice.  This recognition of choice is the beginning place of novelty.  We start trying on new feelings, thoughts, behaviors and perceptions, which create and lay down new patterns in our neurology.  We become different and therefore experience life differently.  

The more we lay down the patterns of openness in our nervous system the more we move into the field of our heart.  The yummy bliss of yes.  Beyond participation with life we move into oneness with it.  We see that nothing in not us therefore there has never been anything to protect from.  This is the awakened stage of the healing journey.  From separation and self-protection into unification and love.  It is all available to you as you are ready for it.  

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

FROM SPIRITUAL SEEKING TO SPIRITUAL BEING

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FROM SPIRITUAL SEEKING TO  SPIRITUAL BEING

Misidentification with the objects of our awareness

Conceptually most all of us know that we are spiritual beings.  We somehow recognize that there is something more to us than flesh, bones and the thoughts we think.  We theoretically understand this, but have difficultly coming from being.  Rather we come from mental concepts and physical sensations, using those as proof of our existence, without really investigating the source of our concepts and sensations.  If we did do a little bit of investigation we would come to see that we are what is aware of the thoughts and the body and everything in between.  We are the being, the awareness, that notices those things, therefore we can’t be them.  It’s kind of like looking at a table and identifying yourself as it.  However you know that you aren’t the table, but rather that you are aware of the table.  The same is true for everything that you are aware of, it’s simply that most of us have misidentified ourselves as the objects of our awareness rather than see ourselves as the being that knows the objects.  

This misidentification with the objects of our awareness is the reason that we spiritually seek.  We seek because we feel that there is something missing.  That something which feels like it’s missing only feels that way because we have placed our focus and sense of self onto things that are not our self.  This leaves a feeling of a void, an emptiness of sorts, or a longing for something that we know exists, but that we just can’t seem to figure out how to get, realize or know it.  We somehow feel separate from and that feeling of separateness comes from thinking that we are an object of our awareness.  So we seek to find and feel whole, because we have misidentified ourselves as a part.  This seeking for wholeness or oneness is the core of the healing or spiritual journey.  

It is not bad or wrong to seek.  In fact the seeking impulse can provide us with the experiences we need in order to remember what we are and the skills, knowledge, and awareness to realize what is already here.  When we realize what is already here spiritual seeking shifts into spiritual being.  There is however a bit of a dog chasing its tail scenario that can happen on the spiritual path if you are not clear in your intentions.  What I mean is that if you don’t have genuine desire to know yourself, you can get lost in all of the glitter and sparkle of the spiritual journey.  You can fall into chasing more objects of physical and metaphysical pleasure, rather than keeping your eye on the ball.  You get lost in the game and take detours on the path that bring you back to where you started rather than in the direction of spiritual being.  Purifying your desire to know yourself is the brightest light you can shine on your path.   

SILENCE IS YOUR NEW BEST FRIEND 

Just Be 

Somewhere some great master said that ‘silence is the greatest teacher.”   I couldn’t agree more.  To our busy mind with all of its thoughts this seems like a strange impossibility.  How could you ever learn anything from silence, after all there is nothing there?  Don’t you need content or information in order to learn?  This is how we are conditioned yes, but this conditioning has also brought us to the state of being we are currently experiencing as life.  One where we are constantly searching for more content, more answers, more reasons, which we think will provide us with the clarity of being we desire, but all they ever do is send us down more and more rabbit holes and leave us feeling overwhelmed.  Yet we continue to function in this way hoping that somewhere we will find the light at the end of hole.  

The light we are seeking lives in the silence of our own minds.  Getting ourselves to be innerly silent can be a mighty task, which we why we must have such a strong desire to know ourselves in the first place.  If we don’t then we will simply continue to allow ourselves to be distracted in and by thoughts, feelings, sensations and any other content we can find to latch our awareness onto.  The mind really, really loves content.  It is, its jam.  It’s bread and butter.  It’s life force.  Without content the mind feel useless, and because we are merged with the mind and its content as who we are, then we personally feel useless.  Other experiences that arise in silence are boredom, frustration or irritation, loneliness, restlessness, purposeless, and others.  

I have found that there are stages to the “getting innerly silent process.”  When you are first learning how to get silent by sitting or lying down and just beginning to let go of some of the content, taking a few breaths, you start feeling some sense of relaxation.  This typically feels good to us.  If however you go a bit deeper into the letting go process, sitting or lying longer, you will find lots of areas where you don’t want to let go.  You may notice this as tension in areas of the body, sensations getting louder, mental tension, thinking and being lost in the thoughts, scattered, restlessness, or feeling emotions.  Once you move through that stage, I often find the next stage to be an insightful stage.  This is where you still aren’t completely focused on being yet, but you are less fixated with the objects of your awareness.  There is now more space for you to see things from a larger perspective.  You might get insights, intuitions or be able to see your patterns or habits more clearly.  Once you move through that, I find the next stage to be simply noticing that you are, that you be.  There may still be thoughts, feelings or sensations, but you are no longer focused on them.  You are only focused on that you be.  This is often peaceful, restful and the tendency is to want to stay here, to be absorbed in simply being.  Sometimes this stage will come with feelings of bliss, energy or an increased alertness or wakefulness.  None of those things are required, but they can be present.  

The longer you allow yourself to be present to “that you be” the more you come to know yourself and less identified you are with the objects of your awareness.  I have this to be the most direct path to self-realization.  Try it out.  It takes desire, commitment and some discipline, but the rewards are epic.  It’s the end of spiritual seeking and the beginning of spiritual being.  

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

UTILIZING IMAGINATION

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UTILIZING IMAGINATION

Giving non-reality form

Our imagination is the most potent creative tool that we have.  It far surpasses any mechanical device or conceptual knowledge we have in regards to bringing forth our creations into this world.  Without utilizing our imagination we simply create the same things that are known to us over and over again.  We then wonder why things look, feel and behave the same way and/or why our own patterns seem to never change.  What we often fail to recognize is that everything that is created has been imagined by someone at some point in time.  Imagination is the birthplace of all creation and the seed to transformation of all existing forms.  Part of what caps our imagination is that we have beliefs that say only x, y or z is possible.  Anything outside of our current beliefs is deemed impossible by our mind, and if we stretch too far, it’s just called fantasy or “made up non-reality.”

But what if made up non-reality is just the future of what is to come into creation.  I’d imagine that the person who created the airplane, the first MRI, the cell phone, the computer and on and on, had a hell of an imagination.  They would have to because they brought into existence creations that previously where uncreated.  Whether we are tapping into the collective unconscious and connecting with information contained there, or if we are simply making it all up in our own minds, we are bringing forth novelty into form.  This is the power of imagination.  Now it doesn’t stop at imagination.  If you want to make physical your imagination then there is work to be done.  Without the work imagination is just wishful thinking.  Physical manifestation requires output.  It requires taking action on what you envision, desire and dream of. 

I find that people are often either wonderful imagineers, but lack follow through in bringing their creations to life, or people are great doers, but don’t feel like they have much creative potential.  It can be easy to fall into thinking about stuff incessantly without following through on it, and equally easy to constantly be doing stuff without any time given to imaging new possibilities.  However both of these qualities are necessary in order to bring imagination to life and new and exciting manifestations into form.  This is after all how we up level our human experience.  The most important and key ingredient here is that you have to believe what you imagine is possible.  You don’t have to know how to do it, you just have to believe that it can be done.  I find this to be the bridge between imagination and action.  

IMAGINATION & SELF-DEVELOPMENT 

Creating new patterns

One of the overlooked areas is how we can use our imagination for self-development.  The same principles from above apply, however we utilize them in a more internal way.  Rather than focusing on something we want to create in our outer environment the focus shifts to our inner environment.  What new aspects, patterns or ways of being do we want to bring to life?  We can develop and recreate ourselves over and over again.  It’s unlikely that you possess all of the same characteristics that you did when you were 6 or 16 or 26.  Perhaps some things feel the same, but much has been altered, added or upgraded.  How we most often change aspects of ourselves comes through experiences that we have.  We learn through experiences and overtime we develop different ways of thinking, seeing and behaving.  For most people it seems that this process “just happens.”  What I mean by this is that most people are not actively pursuing change just for the sake of it and because they see everything as already perfect in themselves and their existence.  Rather life seems to give us experiences and then we develop through those experiences.  One of the cool things about imagination is that comes prior to our experience, not after it.  Imagining ourselves in novel ways, and changing our identity and the ways we engage with life can come before we have an experience that kind of “forces” us to change.  We don’t have to wait for life to hand us experiences (ie. opportunities) in order to up level ourselves.  We can simply choose to do it through using our imagination.  Once again there will need to be follow up with actions, and the fundamental belief that we can change is the foundational block that allows the entire picture to be built.    

You might be wondering what does all of this look like?  Well it’s really not that complex.  It starts with imagination.  What do you desire, envision and dream of for yourself?  How would you like to feel?  How would you like to be perceived or seen?  How would you like to behave, act or be?  Some of us are very good at doing this and for others it feels more challenging.  The challenge comes because we often feel like the same person because we are generating the same thoughts and feelings about ourselves.  This gives us the illusion of sameness and/or solidity in our identity.  However nothing is solid and everything can reorganize the energy of its form, therefore your identity is malleable.  As you begin the process of envisioning your most optimal configuration of self see where your impossibility beliefs arise.  Maybe you come up with a few things that feel alterable, but some that seem unalterable.  Simply take note.  Go to the edge of what your mind will still accept as possible.  This is where you can play.  If you perceive it to be impossible then you will have nowhere to go and you won’t take action on it.  Therefore go the edge of possibility and then start taking actions in alignment with whatever it is you come up with.  For example maybe one of things you desire is to feel joy.  The obvious action to this would be to activate more joy daily in your life.  Perhaps you want to become more intuitive.  Take actions that align with you in ways that you feel would help you bring your intuition to life.  Maybe you want to be seen as powerful, take actions that align with you feeling powerful.  This might mean changing the way you dress, how you drive, the places you eat, where you shop, the tone of your voice, the things you have in your house, and on and on.  This is a process, but with imagination and action you can become anew over and over again.  You can recreate yourself and all of your patterns.  Nothing is solid or fixed no matter how long you’ve been operating that way.  Nothing is irreversibly engrained.  

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

NOTHING IS A BIG DEAL

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NOTHING IS A BIG DEAL 

From big to not big

Nothing is a big deal.  That is a bold statement.  Imagine for a moment what it would feel like to claim that for yourself.  As you do you might initially feel relief, but then you may also notice that some things feel really big.  Things that feel too significant, too important or that you value too much to not be a big deal.  In order to really claim that nothing is a big deal would mean that all experiences you’ve had up to this point and all that you will have in the future, are not as significant as you might make them out to be.  That would burst a lot of bubbles in all kinds of ways.  In the most positive light you would not experience anything to be stressful anymore.  Likely you would feel a lasting levity like none you have ever known before.  On the other hand, what might feel more negative to you, is that it would also require you to let go of some of the things that give you a sense of worth, purpose, rightness, validation or fairness, and some ideas you value as special.  You would also have to give away fear and worry, which provide you with a sense of control over your experience.  In this way you would take some hits to your identity as certain experiences become less significant and you may feel more powerless, out of control, and/or confused about what matters.

When you come from the frame of mind that nothing is a big deal you nearly automatically become more allowing and accepting of whatever your experience is/was.  You let things, experiences and people come and go as they please.  You attach less to what happens in any scenario.  You feel relaxed and get a taste of freedom.  Despite all of this we still tend to make some things a big deal.  We choose charge, seriousness and our story of bigness of whatever is occurring, over feeling relaxed, at ease and free.  Then, kind of innocently, we wonder why we don’t feel good.  We genuinely can’t figure out why we don’t sleep well, digest well or experience ease in our body.  It’s a mystery to us.  We can’t seem to make the connection.  

How we are is what our experience is.  There is no difference or separation.  As we change, our experience changes with us because our experience is always reflecting us no matter how we are being.  Sometimes it can feel like quite a challenge to change our minds about something.  There can be a whole well of inner resistance to go from seeing something as a really big deal to seeing it as not a big deal.  Other times it is very quick and easy to make the transition.  It’s a matter of how much significance we place on something, how much of our identity is wrapped into our story of whatever is, and how much we want to attempt to not feel powerless and stay in control of whatever happened or is happening.  

EFFORTLESS GRATITUDE 

Caring without agenda

When we look at life and see the experiences of it as not such a big deal we effortlessly open into gratitude for what is.  A levity and simplicity arises when we aren’t indulging our energy and awareness into our story and feelings of bigness of whatever is occurring.  From that simplicity we appreciate more what’s here in the state, configuration or organization that it’s in.  When all of the experiences we’ve had and all the things we value aren’t such a big deal, we can more easily participate with life.  We enjoy more thoroughly what is here, and our enjoyment of what is, is gratitude.  People sometimes ask me how they can open their hearts more.  One of the ways to do so is to enjoy yourself and enjoy your life no matter what is.  Enjoyment is the expression of gratitude and that is a state of open heartedness.  In order to enjoy life we have often have to make the things of life a little (or a lot) less of a big deal.  

Some people may interpret not making things a big deal as not caring or being careless.  To that I would say that in order to care about something you have to enjoy it, be grateful for it and also let it be free or let it go.  That’s love.  For example if you value life then you have to enjoy it, feel gratitude for it and let it be lived rather than controlled.  The controlling of what we value (which is often confused for caring) squashes all joy out of whatever it is we value and the paradox is the we are the one doing the controlling even though it often seems external or other to us.  The more we control, the less we feel joy and gratitude for what is.  This also tends to be when we perceive things as a big deal.  Big deal usually means to us that we perceive a potential or actual threat (loss) or success (gain), something requires more energy than we want to give to it and we tend have a lot of charge or feelings around the situation.  This becomes an ideal environment for us to attempt to control outcomes, attach to things working out a certain way, and feel anxious or stressed about what will be.

The less charge, seriousness, specialness, control, fear and worry we have in relationship to the experiences of life the more caring we are.  The more capacity we have to be present, attuned and participate without agenda.  This means the less we make things a big deal the more we care, not less.  Don’t be swayed by the cultural story that says stress, worry and charged polarization means you care.  It’s really a disguise in our attempts to control life and not feel powerless.  Rather make things less of a big deal.  Your mind might resist it, and that’s ok.  If control, fear, worry, stress, anxiety, wanting fairness or something to turn out a certain way, rightness, validation or significance come up, it’s also ok.  It’s not about making yourself wrong, it’s simply about becoming more aware of how you do you, the ways you operate and moving more into choice about how you respond to life.  If you do this you will notice more openness to life, more acceptance, more gratitude and you will feel your freedom more.  As always don’t take my word for it.  Be your own scientist.  Try it out for yourself.  See how it works for you.  

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

BELIEVING IN MAGIC

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BELIEVING IN MAGIC 

Possibility, imagination & creation

Most of us love the idea of magic, but few of us actually believe in it.  It seems that magic is reserved only for small children.  Once we reach the age of “logical” brain development, magic becomes silly fantastical play that only little kids do and since we are becoming a “big” kid, magic goes out the window for us.  Why do we stop playing and believing in magic?  Why do we get so serious and realistic?  It’s really all about what we value as a society and what gets reinforced.  We get acknowledgment and praise for getting good grades, excelling at math and science, and for doing our school work well.  We don’t get acknowledgment for how well we play, the worlds we create with our imagination or how much we believed in magic today.  Since there is an innate human need to belong and be part of the group, we follow what the collective agrees to value even if it isn’t in alignment for us.  Despite our best efforts to stay connected to our steam of magic and all of its infinite possibilities, we often lose connection to it our mid-late childhood development.  

What is magic?  Magic is the space of possibility, imagination and creation.  What we often fail to realize is that we are imagining our entire reality.  We each are already master magicians (ie. creators).  The world we create/are creating is flat, mundane and logical because that is what has been reinforced to us as what’s real and important.  Therefore that is what we see and continue to create through our seeing.  In this way reality appears to be devoid of magic, but rather it’s that we’ve used our magical powers to create this seemingly ordinary experience.  Inside of this experience we pretend to know what is going to happen next, we create plans, schedules and routines that give us a sense of familiarity, and the world of infinite possibilities gets scaled down into just a few known potential outcomes for how things can be and operate.

You can see that regardless of whether or not you believe in magic, you are utilizing it everyday.  It’s simply a matter of tuning in, paying attention and inquiring into what it is you are creating.  We create with our imagination and our seeing.  Whatever you can imagine is possible you can create.  Again you are already doing it all of the time, it’s only that your range of what is possible is likely quite narrow and your active imaginative qualities are somewhat off line.  You keep creating the same reality because you aren’t conjuring up anything novel from the well of your creator powers.  The question then becomes how do you get yourself back on line, activating your imagination and making magic that makes your reality feel alive, invigorating, exciting, mysterious and blissful.  

GETTING TO THE HEART 

The well-spring of magic

The portal into our active imaginative qualities and creating a more magical reality experience for ourselves is finding our way into our heart.  We are born open and in the state of love.  This is why a young child’s heart is naturally open and why they have access to the world of their magic.  Even if you don’t perceive what they perceive or join them in their creations, they are in their own magically reality all of the time.  That is until they learn the seemingly “fixed and solid” natural of reality that we condition them with and they start to believe that they are a product of creation rather than the magician/creator of it.  This is when the world of infinite possibilities becomes only a small handful of options and we forget, lose touch or disconnect from the fact that we are the ones doing all of the creating.  

As time goes on, and we have more and more experiences of being human, we move further and further away from the source of ourselves.  This means we forget ourselves more and more with time.  In addition, many of the experiences that we have being human don’t feel good and we learn to protect ourselves from physical, emotional and mental pain.  Protection means that we shut down, close off and become less open and available to participate with creation.  Since we’ve forgotten that we are the magician/creator we feel powerless to the circumstances of life, and helpless to how we feel, sense and relate to life and others.  In essence it’s kind of big, confusing mess.  

Finding our way back into our heart often means feeling the things that shut it down in the first place.  When we feel the pain it breaks our hearts back open.  We move through the feelings rather than stay closed down and shut off.  We open into the pain rather than protect ourselves from it.  This is healing in a nutshell.  It’s not complicated, but it’s also not necessarily easy.  It takes quite a bit of courage and ginormous heap of trust in ourselves to reopen.  Well it might seem easier to stay closed and continue life as the mundane status quo, you will feel unsatisfied and non-magical.  Your experience of life will be functional, but it won’t necessarily be fun.  

Your heart is the well-spring of magic.  It makes everything come alive.  It allows all possibilities to emerge.  It activates your imagination and helps you remember that you are the magician of this creation.  The reward of feeling the pain becomes clearly evident as you embark on the journey.  Your commitment and devotion to the path is key.  Some days it will feel hard to find your heart, but your desire to do so will be your guiding light.  If your level of commitment or devotion is high then before you know it there will be nothing that doesn’t fit inside of your heart.  You will have engulfed all of creation in love.  This means you will undoubtedly experience magic as your lived reality moment to moment.  As always the choice lies in your hands, your heart and your desire.   

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