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Remembering Your Future

Dr. Amanda Love 1 Comment

REMEMBERING YOUR FUTURE

Conviction in what has already been

What if you knew that you were capable of achieving whatever it is that you desire, even if from where you stand now it feels confusing, scary or overwhelming?  If somehow you saw the path of your future self, the one that already accomplished whatever it is you are currently wanting to do?  Imagine the sense of confidence you would feel in the knowing that you already did whatever it is you are working towards now.  That you already somehow, someway did it, and now you know it can and has been done by you.  Perhaps you don’t know all the details, but you’ve glimpsed that it’s possible, and beyond possible, that you literally have already found the way, already walked the steps, figured all the things out, that you now know.  Just like you know what you did yesterday, last week and last year, you also somehow know what you did tomorrow, next week and next year.

Perhaps this seems far stretched for some of you.  After all it appears that time goes in one linear direction and that you can only know what has happened in the past.  You may wonder how you could possibly know what happens in the future from where you stand now, but what if you can?  What if you can remember your future just like you remember your past?  You may argue that the future hasn’t happened yet, so how could you know it, but how do you know for certain that the future hasn’t happened yet?  How do you know for certain that everything isn’t happening all at once, but that your awareness is simply tuning into this particular location, which you call your current present moment?  Just because you’ve been experiencing life in a certain way doesn’t mean that it’s only that way.  

The conviction that we have of our past experiences is strong.  For example say that you went to the grocery store yesterday to get groceries.  If I asked you right now if you went to the grocery store yesterday you would be 100% convicted that you did.  It would likely be impossible for me to tell you differently.  You simply wouldn’t believe me, because you have 100% knowing that you did.  You can see the groceries in your refrigerator as proof.  You could say you are fully confident in what you did yesterday.  What if you could use that same skill, but for the future.  If you were 100% convicted today in what you did tomorrow.  If you already knew what you did in the future it would be impossible for me or anyone else to tell you differently, including your own self.  You would have zero doubt in what’s possible, what you are capable of, and what’s been achieved.  

BLUEPRINT OF COMPLETION 

Information from your future self

While remembering your future equally to remembering your past might not yet seem possible to you, recognize it’s only because you have a belief that life doesn’t work this way.  You have a belief that life goes in just one linear direction and your belief gets reinforced by you then experiencing life in one linear like fashion.  Entertaining the possibility that perhaps life is happening in all directions might seem like sci-fi.  Yet the conviction we feel by the certainty of our experience is a potent determiner of our experience.  Getting this and opening into the possibility that perhaps you can experience life in a different order than you’ve been experiencing it up this point, will clearly provide you with an unshakeable certainty of what is.  This unshakeable certainty will/does manifest as your reality, because what we experience as reality is simply what we are certain about.  

Take anything that you desire to experience or hope for in the future, and put it in the forefront of your mind.  Perhaps it’s financial abundance, a contribution to others, a beach house, a relationship, a healthy body or really anything else that you desire.  Rather than somehow trying to create or manifest this vision, simply tune into how you’ve already gotten there.  Even if you don’t yet know all the details, simply allow yourself to see how you’ve already done it.  Just like you see what you did yesterday, see what you did tomorrow.  Also see how you’ve previously accomplished things that you once felt like you didn’t know how, but that you did accomplish them somehow.  See that you did and can.  See that you know the path even if the details aren’t fully clear.  This isn’t make believe although it might feel like you are making it up at first.  Recognize that you have already done this thing that you desire to do or experience.  Somehow, someway you’ve already accomplished this.  Feel how good it feels to arrive and also how good it feels to know that you already know how to arrive.  

What we know, we experience.  What we feel uncertain about we hope and pray will work out, which never feels good because our locus of power is outside of us.  Knowing is self-generated.  It doesn’t come from your experience, it comes from you and then it penetrates your experience.  You can simply just decide to have conviction in whatever it is you want.  You don’t need to wait for some special knowledge or experience first, unless you want to.  When you come from your future self that has already achieved what you desire to now, there is no special thing you will tell yourself per say.  Rather it’s simply the knowingness of, “well of course that’s how it is.” 

Let your future self be the vibrational blueprint of completion for you.  When you do there will be nothing stopping you, because the only thing that ever stops us are our doubts.  When you simply know, you take actions inside of that knowing, which you know will lead to what you already know has been accomplished.  In this way you can just relax and enjoy the ride.  Your conviction is what is steering the ship, the completion has already been taken care of.  Life is the experience of the details in between the two now moments.  You get to experience those details in whatever way you would like, but when you come from conviction it is often a more joyful experience.  As always the choice is yours.

Dr. Amanda Love, Network Spinal Chiropractic, Boulder, Colorado

Emptying into Openness

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EMPTYING INTO OPENNESS 

Beyond open-mindedness

Most people like to think of themselves as being open-minded.  What is often meant by this is that we are available to perspectives, points of views and ways of thinking or behaving that are different than our own.  While we might not take on those ways of behaving or thinking, we don’t judge, shame or ridicule others for doing so.  While this is a valuable developmental stage in becoming less egocentric, it is rather rudimentary in the larger scheme of what it is to be open.  I could very simply state that to be open is not only the acceptance of all points of views, but beyond that the dissolution of all perspectives and points of view, most importantly your own.  That is another level of openness, where even your own perspectives don’t interfere with what is.  

For a moment feel what it is like to be empty of all things that you think you know.  All things that you’ve learned and experienced up to this point.  The easiest way to do this is to stop engaging with any thought that might be passing through your mind in this moment.  Just let it be rather than merging your awareness with and into it.  When you stop engaging with your thoughts, you are left with the clear space of being.  Some people call this emptiness, awareness or the open sky.  The thing about this is that there is nothing for the mind to grab onto and therefore nothing for it to identify itself with.  Some minds interpret this negatively and may feel fear at this level of non-engagement with stuff.  Fear of dissolving, of not mattering, of not having significance or worth, and of feeling like everything in the world will fall apart.  It is not so much that everything in the external world will fall apart or that your body will dissolve into thin air, rather its simply that your mind quits interpreting everything it perceives through the lenses you’ve learned and worn.  

While this may feel scary to some, my friends, this is freedom.  Yes freedom can feel scary to the mind that has ever only known imprisonment.  A mind that has been stuck inside of its’ perspectives and points of view that have given it a sense of the known.  Perspectives that you don’t even know that you’re trapped inside of.  The openness of being is stepping into the moment, which is unknown, and which unfolds itself inside of itself.  It cannot be pre-known or preplanned.  It can only be experienced presently.  While we are hungry for this level of unbridled novelty and aliveness, we are simultaneously terrified of what happens to the sense of stability, safety and security that we get from thinking that we know stuff.   

DEATH OF SELF-DELUSION 

Stable ground of self

When we are without our learned perspectives for even just a few moments, we get a taste freedom.  Yet letting go of what we know feels sometimes confusing and like a bunch of little micro-deaths.  That belief, thought or idea about life, that we had so much conviction in just a moment ago, now no longer gets front stage, as we relinquish our grasp on it.  What happens now to our sense of self, to our identity, to who we think we are and what we know?  You might wonder how can we function in this space of not knowing.  What I can say is that you are already functioning in this space of not knowing, it’s only that you’ve deluded yourself into believing that you know.  That deluded knowledge or knowing, while comforting, is also a prison of monotonous stagnation.  So it’s not so much about “how” will you function if you let go of all of your preconceived notions about everything, because you already are functioning in empirical uncertainty, but more about consciously choosing to not delude yourself anymore.  

The choice to not delude yourself anymore awakens you out of your self-imposed prison.  To not indulge in the stories or fantasies that your mind conjures up about what is, and not give any type of meaning to what is occurring or not occurring and rather simply experience it in its innocence, is the freedom that we all dream of.  The full permission for everything, including ourselves, to just be, in every single moment.  Anew.  Like a child seeing the world.  While we all think we want this, what we don’t realize is that we have to give up everything we think we know first.  That can seem like a high stake gamble to the one that is thoroughly invested in its’ identity, what it thinks it wants and needs, it’s stories, and all of the stuff that seems so tangible that it has created.  

Surrendering our thoughts can feel like death of our dreams, worth, purpose, significance and stable ground.  Yet thoughts are not as stable as we like to think they are.  One moment the thought “I am amazing” can arise and in the next moment “I suck” can arise.  We grapple.  Which is right, and which is wrong?  Am I this or am I that?  How stable does that feel to you?  Not stable at all, which is why, underneath it all, none of us feel like we have any stability.  We attempt to create stability through the ever changing sea of thoughts that run through our minds, rather than in just being.  In “I am”, rather than I am this or that, we find the stability we seek.  That stability is in an identity that is not fused with anything.  No thought, feeling or sensation about itself, but rather simply itself being.  

To live open we must untether ourselves from the false, from the points of views and perspectives that keep us seeing through dirty glasses.  Tempting the emptiness is like seducing the mystery to show herself to us.  It’s playful, exciting and light.  It’s like falling into the abyss and discovering the net that’s been there all along.  There is no real danger in the emptiness of freedom, only the imagined danger of what you think recognizing your open self might be.  Emptying into openness reveals only the innocence of pure being and the rested stable ground of yourself.

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

Embracing Aloneness

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EMBRACING ALONENESS 

Alone & relational time

Most everyone likes a little alone time.  Time to reset, time to reflect, and time to just be.  We all seem to welcome a little bit of alone time.  What happens though when that alone time is longer than we want it to be?  We switch from welcoming aloneness into feeling lonely.  We begin to mark our worth, value and significance based on who wants to spend time with us and aloneness becomes our worst enemy.  We feel frustrated, resentful and jealous of others that seem to not be alone and wonder why we are.  If we aren’t desiring aloneness and we are alone, it can really activate our insecurities about who we are as a person in relation to others, and beyond that our purpose in this world.  

Alone time, and spending time with others, are both important.  The balance of that is different for each person.  Sometimes though it seems like we don’t really get to choose.  That’s where we go off keel.  We want alone time but feel like we can’t get it.  Or the flip of that, we want social-relational connection and it’s not available.  Our lack of feeling of choice in the matter leaves us feeling all sorts of unpleasant things.  There is so much tied up into aloneness.  Most people have strategies to somehow avoid feeling it.  They do this by planning many, many activities and keeping their lives as busy as possible with stuff, much of which they don’t even enjoy or like, so that they never have a chance to feel lonely.  Other people have strategies that keep other people at bay, which can be beneficial when we do indeed want alone time, however when we don’t want to be by ourselves this strategy reinforces our sense or story of aloneness.  

Regardless of the strategy used to navigate aloneness, at the core it boils down to our feeling of choice in the matter, and in desiring what’s present rather than focusing on what’s not.  Our mind’s obsession of focusing on lack doesn’t help us.  We have a fixation on noticing what isn’t present, rather than what is.  This focus keeps us feeling disempowered when really we have all the power.  If we shifted our focus onto what is, rather than what we think isn’t, we’d realize the power we have.  Whether we are with other people or not, our state of is-ness never changes.  Being with people can’t add or subtract to our beingness.  We can’t be more or less based on if another person is present with us, notices us or cares about us.  We can only think or feel that we can be.  Even our thought or feeling that our worth or significance can be impacted by another person’s presence or absence, doesn’t affect our state of beingness.  We still are the same being regardless of how or what we think of our self, or how other’s think or view us.  Nothing can affect our being and therefore nothing can affect our worth, value or significance, including another person’s presence or absence. 

ARE THERE EVEN OTHER PEOPLE? 

Oneness

It seems very convincing that there are other people.  After all you see, feel and think inside of your body and then it seems like other people are doing that inside of their bodies.  But what exactly are other people and at what level of consciousness does the consciousness of other people, and that of yours, merge into one?  Maybe that sounds a little sci-fi for you, or perhaps a little to woo.  Yet I believe that is where we are headed.  Isn’t that what all of this oneness stuff eludes too?  How can there many if there is just one?  Is many the illusion or is one the illusion?  All good questions for your contemplations.

What I can tell you from my direct experience is that as I become less different, distinct or distinguished in my sense of self the more telepathic I’ve become, meaning the less separate my thoughts are from other’s thoughts.  The more I make what seems to be other, the same as me, the more interconnected, or dare I even say, one we become.  We move and act in response to the same stimulus, that stimulus being love.  Essentially what this means is that the more we move into love and include everything in/as that love, the less distinctions exist.  The more you realize that you couldn’t be alone even if you tried because everything that exists, exists in/as one.  One may seem lonely, because after all it’s just one, yet it’s one that includes all. 

That may all be a bit to nondual for you and perhaps a bit conceptual, so I will bring it back to the relational level.  Coming into alignment with life, or said another way, choosing what is, shifts you from feeling powerless into feeling powerful.  When we feel powerful, and decide to choose aloneness when it presents itself inside of our experience rather than wanting it to be different, we embrace aloneness.  It ends the stories we have about aloneness and transforms the experience that we have of it.  The charge we had about being alone dissolves.  We see the opportunity and gift inside of both alone time and relational time. Yes this can really be your experience of aloneness.

When we embrace aloneness and transform our experience to it we get to find the stillness and silence of our own mind.  That silence is a great teacher.  Through it we discover what we be.  There is nothing more fundamental for the human being to discover than this.  Our being often gets lost or covered up in all of the engaging and interacting that we do.  Finding that which just is, that be’s, is the root or ground for all interacting and relating to occur in the first place.  Getting to know this being that we are, that never changes, never goes anywhere, that is the most stable, unwavering presence that is, brings a richness, aliveness and fullness to our experience of ourselves.  In the fullness of being, loneliness isn’t even a thought.  You realize that being is all there is whether you are by yourself or with others.  You cannot escape this beingness.  You can’t not be.  You can only come to know the being that you are, and through that knowing discover the fullness of yourself that always was, is and will ever be.

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

Heart Magic

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HEART MAGIC

Dying to the self

There is no doubt, the energy of the heart is magic.  Those who have tasted, felt or touched their heart know its power, its bliss and its vastness.  It is the most advanced intelligence, and I would even say technology or tool, that we have access to inside of this human experience.  When we find our heart we realize that everything that our mind or body has created or tries to create, pales in comparison to what and how the heart creates.  Resting into the heart reveals a way of being, seeing and relating that includes everything and everyone inside of it.  Nothing is left out and everything is loved.  With this knowingness everything is possible.

If the heart is so powerful how come more of us don’t access and use it?  Well my friends that is a good question.  Why don’t we?  The easiest answer I can give is because it means death of our ego.  This means death of thinking that our minds know best, death of what we think we want, death of our life lived for own pleasures and preferences.  Death, death, death.  My friends we don’t like death.  In fact as a society we pretend that death doesn’t exist.  If we do acknowledge its existence our perspective of it is grim, depressing and full of sadness.  Something that is so obvious and undeniably evident and yet we deny it, try to postpone it, hold on for dear life, that is until we simply can’t anymore.  If we learned to allow things to die, if we gave everything it’s rights back to it’s natural course, including our wants, desires, dreams, ideas, perspectives, and so on, we would more easily find our heart.  We would naturally find ourselves open to whatever is and in the field of infinite possibilities rather than finite completion.  We would instantly reconnect to the magic.

Why death you ask?  It is death of the individualistic, of the egocentric, of the self-centric focus, of which none of us escape.  We are born innocent, without a self and in connection with our essence.  Then we develop an ego in order to survive our world.  The more our personality and identity develops the more we forget our original self.  It is the natural course of human development.  Without our ego mind we would have a very hard time adapting to or being part of this world.  But the journey doesn’t stop there.  There is development of our being which is beyond the mind, it’s simply that we have to give the reigns over and let something else be in charge.  From the perspective of our human identity this feels like death.  To our soul however it feels like coming home.  It is a birth, yet to our mind’s ideas about what life is or should be, it feels like misery.  We can either involuntarily collapse into suffering and feel victimized by the happenings of life, or we can voluntarily die to our stories, ideas, hopes and dreams and open into a world of wonder beyond where our mind’s imaginations lie.   

WORLD OF WONDER 

Voluntary relinquishment

The voluntary choice to relinquish ourselves is what is called surrender.  People like to think that surrender is easy and they use the term casually, but to truly surrender means that you will likely feel the pain of death.  It means you are willingly opening into that pain which you’ve done your ultimate best to avoid acknowledging or feeling, and you are choosing to let die that which is ready to die.  

So you’ve gone through the death portal, now what?  Now you are open, available and you just are.  Your heart is free.  You are at peace.  You’ve let the resentments, angers, insistences, pushes and pulls all go.  You are simply available for exactly what is in front of you.  You are no longer wishing that something else was.  The longing for something different dies and you arrive into the present moment of what is here now.  You feel humble and available.  You don’t know any grand knowledge.  You’ve just let the things go.  They’re gone.  Now life can move through you unimpeded.  This is the beginning of the field of heart magic and the world of wonder and awe.  

The more times you go through the death portal, the more you rest into this field.  As you let things be as they are, more and more this field of wonder opens up to you.  You might not be overtly aware of it at first.  It may be more subtle and just beyond your ordinary resting awareness.  You might notice an increase in synchronicities or being more telepathic, such as knowing when someone is going to call you or manifesting the best parking spot.  You might feel less tense.  Your breath might be easier and you feel less agitated or anxious in a general sense.  Things seem to take a bit less effort and you feel less depleted.  As you rest more and more into the field of the heart its presence is more obvious to you, and you begin to see and know the interconnectedness and inseparability of everything.  More and more you see everything as one all pervasive, intelligent and sovereign love.   

The field of heart magic is a collective or unified field.  When you are rested in the heart, then other hearts will feel this and respond to it.  They might not even know why they respond, they just do because all are connected at this level of the field.  Even if people knowingly or unknowingly respond to it, they may still have doubts, insecurities, feel separate, and choose their mind’s ideas over this all loving love.  Again giving up on our picture of life does not come easy.  We typically need to experience some life disruption, pain or suffering to get us to even entertain surrender.  If our life is too easy or comfortable there is nothing to push us into the next stage of development.  We need some kind of catalyst.  All of the catalyst you experience, the disruption, the pain, the suffering, the confusion is all to get you to your edge, to where you will willingly surrender, so that you can find your way into the heart.  Next time you are experiencing some kind of distress, something that you don’t want to be feeling or experiencing, remember this is exactly what you need in order to help you open into the field of heart magic.  Rather than turning away, face forward and move into whatever is presenting itself to you.  Even if it doesn’t feel like it, it is a gift.  Given to you by you, to help you remember your very nature, your most essential self, and your complete heart.

Dr. Amanda Love, Network Spinal Chiropractor, Boulder, Colorado

See As Your Higher Self Sees

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SEE AS YOUR HIGHER SELF SEES 

Working with discontent

Many of us relate to our presence and purpose for being here on this earth as bridging the gap between spiritual knowing and human experience.  But what does that really mean, and beyond meaning, what does it require of us?  We may be aware of our higher self, or of a self that sees and knows that all is well and perfect.  While the perspectives and knowings of this self are easy to tap into when we like what we see and feel inside of our human experience, our higher self’s perspectives and knowings just as easily go out the window the moment we experience discontent, powerlessness, irritation, sadness or anything else that we don’t like feeling.  The heaviness of heart that arises in the face of experiencing what we don’t want or prefer to, disconnects us from the view that our higher self sees.

Likely most are familiar with heaviness of heart.  For many it may actually be all they know.  Some people live in a perpetual state of discontent and it is so familiar that they don’t even realize they are living it.  Discontent has simply become their mode of operation.  This state of heaviness comes with the point of view that if only things, people and experiences could somehow be different, then everything would be better.  While this point of view may be valid, things might be better if they were different than they are, it doesn’t change the fact that things are as they are now.  Our hoping that things will be different keeps us from accepting things as they are.  The paradox of this all is that things often don’t shift or change until they are accepted in their current configuration.

If we want to bridge the gap between our spiritual knowings and human experiencing we must bring our spiritual knowings into this human experiencing.  That doesn’t mean teaching others about what the most enlightened perspective is from our point of view.  Rather it means seeing spirit inside of this human experience exactly as it is currently configured.  While you may have incarnated to do or create particular things, your intention for doing those things should simply be because it brings you joy to do them, not because you think they are going to fix this world or the people in it.  The people and the world don’t need fixing, they only need love.  If you really tune into your true desire for existing it is likely only to be and share love through your creations and not to fix anything.  Fixing brings a weight, pressure or burden with it, where creating just to express and share love, feels joyous and light.    

BEYOND UNDERSTANDING

Avoiding death and failure

One of the prime things that keeps us out of accepting what is now, is that we don’t understand why things are the way they are.  Especially if we have vision and can see all of the grand possibilities for what the human experience could be for ourselves or others, we get stuck in our own confusion about the way it is and needing to make sense of it all.  This needing to make sense of it or coming to terms with the state of whatever it is you are currently experiencing in your reality, postpones your acceptance of it.  Sometimes acceptance feels like death.  That death is the death of the dream or the vision that you are wishing was, rather than what is.  Sometimes acceptance feels like failure.   The failure of making happen what you think you were supposed to make happen, or things being what you hoped they would have been or are. 

We avoid feeling failure and death at all costs, hence the postponement of acceptance.  The thing is that all we are really avoiding are our ideas about what is or is supposed to be.  If we let go of our ideas about perfectionism, idealism, better than and the like, then we can actually experience those things inside of our current experience.  It is our ideas about what is or what is supposed to be, that keep us from bridging the gap of spiritual knowing and human experiencing.  These ideas or ideals keep us from seeing as our higher self sees.  

I am not suggesting that you lower your standards.  Quite the opposite.  You must continue to discern what feels aligned for you to participate with or not.  Beyond that I invite you to raise the standards for how much love you can be and see inside of what is.  Your reality responds to how you see it.  If there are aspects of your reality that persist in the ignorance of themselves and deny the love you see them as, then you may find it appropriate to not directly engage with those elements.  Not from a place of resistance, frustration or irritation, but rather from a moving towards or along the path where the love you see everything as is available to be received.  You don’t need to exhaust yourself in attempting to have love be received.  Rather allow it to simply be an invitation or offering that can be received or not, and move along your path appropriately.  There is no failure when you come from love, even if things don’t match up to how your ideas think they should be.  

Understand that you don’t need to understand why it all is the way it is.  Why things have occurred or do occur as they do.  Understanding is not required in order to love.  Love is how your higher self sees.  It sees and knows all as love.  Even if there are elements or aspects of creation that are ignorant to knowing themselves as love, still your higher self sees and knows it all to be love.  Next time you experience or see ignorance inside of this human experience, simply remind yourself that ignorance too is love, love that has forgotten itself.  Turn your heart towards love and move in the direction that is most aligned for you.  

Dr. Amanda Love, Network Chiropractic & Somato-Respiratory Integration, Boulder, Colorado

Learning to Love Life

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LEARNING TO LOVE LIFE 

Logic is not the answer

This life is not always a walk in the park.  In fact much of the time there is challenge, hard work and lots of arduous learning to be had.  Sure there are rhythms when things flow smoothly and all goes according to our desired plan, yet there are many rhythms when things don’t.  Rhythms where we feel lost, confused, bored, restless, stressed, and where we are ready to be off planet in some peaceful paradise where things work easily and we feel good all of the time.  Yet the fact remains that we are here on this planet, with this physical human body and there are things to be learned, shared and created right here where we are.  How do we make peace with being where we are even when we don’t like it?  How do we live in acceptance rather than resistance to our experience of challenge, work and learning?

When things are difficult many of us are good at logically rationalizing the situation.  For example say you are experiencing a tough rhythm.  Something you really want isn’t working out.  You feel confused and lost as to what is going on in your life.  You keep trying to think and find a logistical way out of the situation or something that will make it work out, but you are just spinning.  You can’t seem to find your way through.  You feel stuck, and little hopeless.  This is an incredibly common scenario.  You might logically know that somehow everything is going to be just fine, and while you logically know this you can’t quite seem to get yourself to really believe it because you are still spinning inside of it all.  Utilizing logic is not the solution at this stage of the game.

While logic is not the solution, this doesn’t stop us from trying to use it in order to get out of whatever it is we don’t want to experience in this life.  The reason why logic is not the answer is because from our mind’s perspective it is illogical to accept what we don’t like or understand, and ultimately acceptance is the solution to learning to love life as it is.  Your logic will likely not get you into acceptance of whatever is, but rather will keep you continuing to strategize how to not accept whatever is showing up in your life that you don’t want or understand.  Accepting what is also means that we have to feel what is.  This is again why we default to logic.  Most people prefer being tortured inside of the tornado of their thoughts rather than feel their emotions about what is.   

LOVING WHERE YOU ARE 

Accepting what is

Feeling our emotion about what is, bridges the gap between what we are logically trying to get ourselves to figure out and accepting what is.  When we feel emotion it clears out our resistances.  We stop trying to fight an uphill battle and therefore we can take a breath.  We may still not like, prefer or want what is, but we are no longer trying to deny, escape or get out of its existence.  We are rather just with what is, no longer fleeing from the dangers of feeling our emotions about it.  We’ve felt the thing, or more accurately we’ve felt our emotions about the thing.  We now experience some space, some ease and some peace.  We may not have clarity or know what we need to do, because perhaps there is nothing to do, or maybe there is, but either way we are more embracing of being in this moment rather than trying to get out of it and into the next one where we perceive we will feel more peace, joy or excitement.  

How does all of this lead to loving where you are?  When you are more accepting you are naturally more loving of everything.  You can still not like certain things, but your liking or not of what is, doesn’t touch you loving it.  Yes that’s right you can love what is, and simultaneously not like it.  You can respond with authenticity and grace, receiving what you don’t like and loving it exactly as it is.  But as long as you are in resistance to what is and not feeling your emotions about it, your mind can’t grok how this would be even possible.  Acceptance of what is opens the doorway in your mind so that you can comprehend this.  

Until we reach acceptance of what is no real change can occur in us or in how we perceive or feel about the situations of our life.  Instead we will just keep trying to fight or flee from it.  We won’t find love where we are if we are resisting what’s here.  You can’t escape your resistances.  You will take them with you into your next situation, and your next one, and the one after that, and on and on for eternity.  They don’t just go away because you insulate yourself from them through carefully crafting or controlling your environments.  Rather you only keep them at bay while they lurk in the depths waiting for their next opportunity to present themselves so that you can heal, resolve, and integrate them rather than move away from them.  

To not love where you are in this moment is to reject life and be in a state of unappreciation, and there is nothing more painful than that.  If your circumstances or situations change to your liking and then you decide to love life, your love is conditional.  The condition of your love being that your preferences are met.  This is not the stable, unshakeable, unconditional, divine love that we all seek to know.  To know this love is to become it.  How bold is to love life even when it’s not up to your liking?  How brave do you need to be in order to feel, accept and love life as it is and know that it will work out perfectly for you even if you don’t like it? This is what takes in order to learn to love life and to love where you are in this moment.  

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

Navigating the Space Between

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NAVIGATING THE SPACE BETWEEN 

Allowing un-resolve

Life is constant flux.  Always moving from one thing to the next.  Projects, relationships, activities and even healing, constantly starting, going, ending and then arising again.  Seems to be that most of us have energy in the beginnings of things.  We also tend to like the completion or sense of resolution that comes at the end of things.  But what about the space in between?  The time after the initial excitement to get something going or make something happen, and before the completion of whatever the activity, project or thing is.  The space of unknown, of navigating the process, of ups and downs, certainties and uncertainties.  How do we navigate inside the middle?  

The truth is that this is the space where most of life happens, and it’s the space that we tend to dislike the most because it is unfinished.  This is where all of our protective mechanisms reside and our triggers live, where we just want to get out or get it over with, whatever it is.  The space between often feels chaotic, overwhelming, like we don’t know how we can make it all work out.  Sometimes it even feels boring.  The harder we try the more frustrated or hopeless we feel.  Our head spins, we feel restless, we get bogged down, our energy state is lower, and our excitement or drive wanes.  We can begin to feel like we aren’t making progress, not moving forward and we get depressed, angry, irritated or restless trying to find a way into completion already.

The most direct way to work with the space in between is to stop trying to get to the end of things while allowing things to be unorganized, unresolved or unknown.  This is a beast for many of us.  We like order, clarity, and knowing what to expect.  When these elements are not present we get unhinged.  Our emotions rise up and begin to take charge of our behaviors and state of being.  We become not “ourselves” and react from our charged emotional state.  This is fun for no one.  Along with allowing things to be undone it is equally important to actively accept the fact that life is a big mess.  One mess after another.  While you are busy cleaning up the messes, don’t forget to learn something through them.  The purpose of the mess is not to clean it up, but rather to learn through the experience of it.  When you understand this, you will experience how life cleans up its own messes once you’ve learn whatever you need to learn through them.

LIFE IS LEARNING 

Learning is the destination

Life is not supposed to be already done.  Life is supposed to be lived and created.  Creation is learning.  If you are a parent you get this.  You’ve created a child and now you are learning to be a parent.  You don’t know how to be a parent before you become one.  It’s learned as you go.  Sure you can read books and take courses to prepare, but you don’t learn until you do it.  While some of it is smooth sailing, likely most of it is a rocky adventure on uneven terrain.  Ups and downs, highs and lows, certainties and uncertainties.  However most people don’t quit along the way because they feel a social and moral responsibility to care for and tend to what they have created even when it get real, real hard.  It’s one of our creations that we generally commit to more than others, and therefore is incredibly growthful.

While we might have expectations to be a perfect parent, we soon discover that we aren’t.  We come to accept that we are learning.  If we don’t then we will have a  challenging time attempting to live up to ridiculous ideals.  With time and some experience under our belt we start to understand that the most magic and intimacy is experienced when we are on uneven terrain.  Without the rocks the journey is flat, and quite honestly a bit boring because there is very little learning.  Learning equates to feeling a sense of progress and eventual accomplishment, but the reward is in the learning itself rather than in your attempt to get the experience over with so you can feel resolve.  

It’s really like this with all of the space between.  When we create a business, start a project, get into a relationship, build a house, reform our body, or embark on healing, we are committing to create.  To bring something new into our experience.  There is a beginning, a space between, and an end to all of these.  The space of most learning is the space between.  When you reframe that life is about learning, rather than about accomplishing, finishing or getting things done, you can rest more in the space between.  Even if there is restlessness, uncertainty, mess, boredom and the like, you can rest into the larger perspective of learning.  There will still be uncomfortableness or sometimes numbness, because that is a part of learning.  You can’t get away from it regardless of how hard you try.  It will follow you into your next creation, and your next creation, and the next.  

There is no where to get, really.  Yes there will be things you will accomplish and complete, but then you will create more things.  We are creators.  I don’t think that creating is ever complete.  It’s simply that we need to interact with the space between differently.  Rather than it being a burden, a problem, or something we need to get out of or endure, we need to see it as learning and growth.  Recognize that the learning and growth is the actual destination, even before we reach completion or resolve of whatever we set out to create.  This is how you become present in the space between.  This is how you move into life rather than trying to get out of it.  

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

Revealing Spirit

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REVEALING SPIRIT 

Spirit is here

Whether we are attuned to or aware of it, spirit always is.  Spirit does not come and go.  It does not decide to be here in one moment and leave the next.  There are no conditions in which spirit does not exist.  Spirit is unconditional in its presence and in its beingness.  What does come and go is our focus on it.  Maybe you’ve had the experience where one day you feel completely connected to spirit and then the next day not so much.  You might wonder why does this happen?  Why does it seem that you can’t stay in connection with spirit all of the time?  The first thing to recognize is that you can.  It is entirely possible to live in a state of conscious awareness and connection with spirit at all times.  The second thing to know is that it’s going to take some work, focus and commitment to do so.  It’s likely not just going to happen.  While we might have insights, epiphanies and awakenings along the way, to live fully connected is not instantaneous for most people.  

What is spirit?  Spirit has a lot of words to describe it, yet it isn’t defined by any of the words.  The words simply help give the mind context.  Spirit is what enlivens all forms.  You could call that breath, energy, awareness, being, presence, aliveness, love, light or heart to name a few.  It is that which is before any thought, feeling or sensation arises and it is what every thought, feeling and sensation rests in.  It is what every form is born out of and that which penetrates every form.  It is the root of all wakefulness.  It is the stillness that guides all movement and motion.  It is the source of all things.  When you make contact with spirit you make contact with that one source that makes you, me and everything come alive.  

While the workings of Spirit are mysterious, its presence is not.  It is as close as your breath.  It’s as obvious as the fact that you are aware.  Often that which is the closest and most obvious is overlooked.  Our mind thinks that it is supposed to be something else.  Something more complex or occluded.  Something harder to see or know.  Something more “special”.  But that fact that you are aware that you exist is evidence enough.  Making spirit less mysterious and more obvious will help dissolve the apparent disconnect you sometimes feel.  Rather than thinking you need to find some magical or prescribed way back to spirit, really you can just notice the fact that you exist.  Notice your beingness and it will bring you back into conscious connection with Spirit.   

DEVOTION, COMMITMENT & PRACTICE

Noticing Spirit

Now that you are clear on the non-mysterious nature of the presence of Spirit that always is, we come to the practical piece of devotion, commitment and practice.  If we don’t practice noticing Spirit than we won’t notice it.  Obvious, right?  It is, yet most of us don’t get this.  We wonder why we feel disconnected when we haven’t really made an every day practice of noticing Spirit, or noticing that we exist.  I know this seems so simple, and it is, maybe too simple that your mind gets bored and starts focusing on the things of life that are moving all about.  Before you know it you are totally absorbed in your activities, your to do list, your thoughts, and all the things you need to figure out in order to heal.  While you are busy being focused on all the stuff, you are not paying attention to the fact that you exist, that Spirit is.  

Be honest, what percentage of the day do you simply pay attention to the fact that you be, that you are, that you are aware of being? 10% (1.5 hours of a waking day), 5% (45 minutes), 0%?  It’s no wonder we feel largely disconnected from Spirit and kind of a miracle that we ever feel connected at all, as little of our attention that we give to it.  As you are evaluating yourself here you may be surprised how little attention you give to noticing Spirit despite how many spiritual activities you do in a given day or week.  Oddly enough doing spiritual activities doesn’t always bring us back into conscious connection with Spirit.  Often we are just doing the activity such as meditation, yoga, prayer, etc., just to do it, but without really being devoted to reconnecting.  Being devoted or committed takes energy.  It requires that we elevate our state of being even when we feel low.  It also requires that we know what to pay attention too.  It’s one thing to be mindful or aware of things, it’s entirely another beast to mindful of pure being minus the things.  

Again while your mind might at first be bored by paying attention to Spirit or just being, there is a magic that reveals itself the more that you do.  Spirit is anything but boring, however to our overstimulated, instantly gratified mind, that thinks it can get to Spirit by thinking or doing something, we might just perceive Spirit as a vast boring beingness that is devoid of all things.  We might wonder when we can get up and just do something already so that we can get somewhere or figure something out.  How can anything come out of this nothingness?  You might think, “can’t I just try to get to somewhere else instead?”  Can’t I find a way to get to Spirit rather realize that I be Spirit? The human mind is so impatient, demanding, confused, and arrogant.

The more you absorb your attention and awareness onto Spirit the greater conscious connection you create.  You begin to lay down pathways to stably know and rest in connection with Spirit.  Remember Spirit always is.  It’s only you and the use of your will, devotion and commitment that shifts.  Nothing else does.  Regardless of what appears on the screen of your life you can learn to be consciously connected in Spirit at all times if you so choose.  

Dr. Amanda Love, Network Spinal Chiropractic & Chiropractor, Boulder, Colorado

Your Impact on the Field

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YOUR IMPACT ON THE FIELD 

Tuning your awareness

We tend to think that the world inside of our heads lives only there. What we internally focus on or pay attention to in our minds, we think affects only ourselves, if even that.  We don’t really realize the impact of our awareness on the field, space or environment all around.  Often our experience is that our thoughts are simply random passing flickers and we really don’t get the power that we have in how and what we pay attention too.  Due to this, many of us are not disciplined in utilizing the power of our minds and therefore we don’t feel that we are very powerful.  The thing is that regardless if you are aware of the power of your mind or not, you still have one, and you are consciously or unconsciously using it to focus in certain ways.  The way in which you focus is affecting you, the field you perceive around you, and arguably the expanse of the entire universe.  

The field is the interconnected web of which you cannot not be a part of, even if you don’t want to be.  Many might think of it as the empty space in between things, but it is much more than that.  Even though you can’t see the field with your physical eyes, it is densely packed with energy and information.  The energy and information that the field contains is made up of awareness or consciousness.  What that means is that the source of energy and information that makes up the field is you, as you are awareness.  You are the awareness that is aware of your body and of all the things you perceive in your environment.  You are not the objects or forms, but rather the awareness of the objects and forms.  Having this basic understanding of the field can help you see how you have direct impact on the field, as your awareness makes up the field.  

Why is this important?  It’s important for many reasons.  One of those reasons is that in recognizing that you impact the field you can begin to be more conscious of that impact and even utilize it.  The result of this is that you create an experience of life that is more in alignment with your desires and you feel more powerful in your ability to work with life.  You perceive the happenings of life to be less random and become more intentional and participatory with manifestation.  When I say manifestation I simply mean the physical, tangible world of experience.  One of the reasons that physical manifestation sometimes seems to not match our inner state of preference or desire is because we lack coherence with the whole.  Another reason is that we are not consciously aware of where we are manifesting from, meaning we are unconscious and undisciplined in the power of using our minds.   

BECOMING MORE AWAKE 

Bringing more magic to life

The more you realize your impact on the field, the more self-responsible you must become to your own state of being and how you use your focus.  This is the process of becoming more awake.  Being more awake doesn’t mean that you are more aware of spiritual concepts than your neighbors, family members or the average joe.  Or that you attend more spiritual workshops, read more books, or do more ceremonies than other people.  Rather being more awake means you are more accountable to your inner state and your impact on the field.  It’s a bit more practical and a little less woo then some people might prefer.  It’s not about someone or something saving you from your experience, but rather you bringing to your experience what you want it to be.  

The waking up process can be perceived as perhaps less magical and require more work than we would like it too.  After all being accountable to our state of being is not something we are really taught early on.  Rather we learn that our state of being is dependent on our life looking, feeling or being a certain way.   This is why we keep recreating the same experiences over and over and why it sometimes feels like nothing is changing and we aren’t growing, both individually or collectively.  When we don’t deliberately choose our state of being and focus, then life just seems to be happening on it’s own, and in a way it is.  We aren’t awake or conscious enough of ourselves to run the show, so the show just runs.  If we want to watch a new program, or have a different experience of life, then we must get up and change the station.  Getting up and changing the station is the equivalent to shifting what or how you use your focus.

Often as spiritual seekers we are attempting to bring some kind of levity, light, bliss, joy and ease into our experience and the world.   Yet we often fail to see how we aren’t bringing that.  We are caught in our feelings and sensations of heaviness, darkness, confusion and hard work, and genuinely don’t know why we aren’t experiencing butterflies and sunshine everyday.  This isn’t about denying or spiritually bypassing what we are feeling, but rather feeling what we are feeling, accepting it, and then choosing what we truly desire.  This is often hard to do.  It requires energy.  It requires changing our mind’s focus.  It requires that we care about ourselves and our experience of life.  

Your impact on the field is a real thing.  How you show up, what you choose to focus on, and where you place your awareness will determine your experience.  Beyond that it will also either enliven or drain the field, it will either add life or take life out it.  You can move mountains if you learn to discipline your focus.  You can do things that appear to be magic.  You can bring actual magic into your everyday experience for yourself and others in a very real and practical way.  You stop creating separation between your spiritually preferred reality and the ordinary reality that we seem to be living in.  There is no difference.  The forms of our ordinary reality will shift and change in response to the information they receive from the field, from you, from your awareness.  Learning to discipline your attention and focus might possibly be the most important thing you can do for yourself and others. 

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

Living Fear Free

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LIVING FEAR FREE 

A life without threat

Consider fear for a moment.  Perhaps you don’t think of yourself as a “fearful” person.  Maybe you feel that you only experience fear occasionally in moments when it’s called for or justified.  Fear is a sneaky little gremlin.  It is disguised as anxiousness, avoidance, tension, being non-confrontational, or trying to fix situations, yourself or other people’s experience of life.  It can manifest as sensations in the body such as digestive upset, headaches, muscular aches and pains, jaw clenching, gripping, inflexibility, tightness, trouble sleeping, difficulty relaxing and more.  Fear is the basic response we have to feeling a sense of powerlessness or like things are out of our control.  When fear is present our lower brain centers are activated and our higher, more conscious brain areas are not being utilized.  Self-survival and preservation is the name of the game.  We can only think about how we will get through the next few moments or minutes, and have little capacity to zoom out and see the big picture.

I would venture to say the fear is somewhere in the background of our experience most of the time even if we aren’t aware of its presence.  It can easily be called up into the forefront when we perceive a threatening situation, thought, emotion or sensation.  Evaluate for a moment the contrasting experience.  What percentage of the time, while you are awake, do you feel completely at peace with nothing to fix, nowhere to go, nothing to get done, no urgency, no tension in your body or mind, and non-reactive without a single disruptive thought?  All without utilizing any substances to be in this state.  

Because a peaceful inner state of being is desirable for most people, and because most people don’t experience that, we often turn to substances, foods or medications to numb out the fearful feelings and sensations, so that for a few moments of our day we can feel relaxed.  Due to our reliance on things that we ingest to shift our state of being, we might not even know what we are feeling.  This is true for many.  We are so disconnected from our fearful feeling state of being because we do our best to numb it down as much as possible.  While this is an ok short-term strategy, this is not a way to live.  Yet this is the way that most are living.  Kind numb, kind of checked out and just going through the motions of life and getting all the things done.  We think life is “ok”, but deep inside we know its really not that great and we aren’t sure how to be any other way.   

WANTING PEACE 

Fantasy or reality

Imagine for a moment what it would feel like to never feel or perceive threat again.  To be invincible in the yourself and in the knowing that nothing can harm or hurt you.  That nothing at all is out to get you.  That absolutely everything is working for you.  That every sensation, feeling and thought is there to support you somehow.  To be absolutely empowered.  This is a far stretch for most.  In fact many people likely think that this is an improbable state of being and living.  Yet what if it is our next evolutionary step?  The next rung on the ladder of our development.  To be completely fear free and live openly and invitingly with all of our experience of life.  It may seem like fantastical thinking, yet to me it feels more like waking up from the nightmare that our mind has created about our experience, and experiencing more of the actual reality that is.

How do we get there?  It’s simpler than you might think.  It requires only a few things.  First is the overarching desire to live in a peaceful state of being no matter what.  This desire must be strong.  I mean really, really strong.  If you don’t have an unshakeable desire for peace than you will be easily disturbed, because let’s face it life and most of our current perspectives about life, give us a lot to be disturbed by.  Your desire is the hope you have in overcoming your environment, the stories you currently have about your environment, and the fuel you need to make the changes in your life for inner peace.  The second thing required is the willingness to feel all the “bad”, uncomfortable or non-peaceful things you attempt to avoid feeling by numbing, controlling, tensing up, people pleasing and the like.  If you aren’t willing to face your underlying feelings than you will forever be running from them and paradoxically then they will run you.  Whatever we avoid rules and chooses for us.  We are not in charge when we are not feeling all of our feelings head on.

You can see it’s really not complicated.  It does however mean that you will need to do some things differently.  You are going to have to change some of your habits, preferences or addictions to certain substances or activities that check you out from feeling.  You may need to slow yourself down so that you can be more subtle in your awareness of yourself and pay attention to what you are feeling.  If you are someone who is always with other people you may need to prioritize some alone time so you can self-reflect.  None of these things are hard, but they require change.  When we don’t really want to change something, then it feels hard to change, but when our desire for something is strong, the change is easy.  That’s why I said that your desire must be strong or else the journey will feel treacherous to you and you will perceive obstacles that seem impossible for you to overcome.

It is possible, and even probable if you so desire, to live fear free.  To be an open channel of peace, love and presence.  To be a rested, still, stable presence in a world of nonstop activity.  This is not an impossible feat.  In fact I believe it is our next collective developmental step in consciousness.  To come back to wholeness and to heal, is to unify with all that is.  If we perceive threat we will keep some parts separate, which keeps us separate.  To drop our guards and be brave enough to feel all the things, will return us into remembrance of the one unified whole of which we are. 

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