creation

FROM CONSUMPTION TO CREATION

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FROM CONSUMPTION TO  CREATION

Life is not ours to get

As much at it might seem that we are here to consume life, we are actually here to create it.  Due to the fact that most people are disconnected from the awareness of themselves as a creator, there is a tendency to experience life as an effect, a destination or something to consume.  Our minds like to generate trajectories of getting.  Getting to the next location, the next exciting opportunity, the next moment when we can relax, the next meal, or getting any one of our million perceived needs and wants met or fulfilled.  Consumption, or getting, is so natural to us that we don’t even notice that is how we are operating.  We might think that we are completely without agenda, yet if we investigate ourselves a bit deeper we will find where and how we attempt to manipulate life in order to get or consume for ourselves.

Consuming life comes from an attempt to create safety and pleasure, through and in, your outer experience.  Most look to find ease, stability and comfort through sensation, feeling and getting what we want or need.  This comes in a multitude of forms from what you put in your mouth, what you purchase, the thoughts you think, the motivation behind your actions and the structure of your life.  We attempt to feel satisfaction and fulfillment by what we consume, as if somehow consumption will make us feel permanently good, even if we know it is only temporary.  We must keep getting our fix so that we can maintain feeling good, relaxed and safe.  This becomes a chase.  A chase to keep consuming life.

Recognizing yourself as a creator has nothing to do with creating stability in the picture of life and safely consuming it so that the illusion of all of your needs and wants is met.  Rather it is about moving with life and what you are inspired and excited to bring forth.  Not for your own individual pleasures and safety, but simply because it’s fun for you to create.  Creating for nothing more than the action of creating itself.  A response to an impulse or a call that moves you.  Not creating to consume it, but rather to give your creation to life as your offering, your sharing, and your contribution of the impulse of excitement and desire that runs through you. 

Many create in order to consume.  We build businesses, buy things, create a family, plan trips, develop community, etc. in order to consume it, rather than giving it as a gift to life.  When was the last time you looked at your life and all you’ve created so far and saw it through the lens of what you are giving to life.  Your home, your car, your belongings, your business, your children, your family, your partner, your community, and on and on, are not yours.  They are not things or stuff you have, but rather they are what you can offer to life.  How do you use what you’ve created to give it to life rather than relate to it as something that is yours? 

GIFTS OF CREATING 

Magic of giving

There is an energetic reward of sorts for creating or giving to life.  The more we give to life, rather than attempt to get from life, the more energy we feel.  You might even say that our vibration, or state of being, elevates.  This comes with a sense of levity, spontaneity, aliveness, and excitement.  Things seem to flow and move together even if we don’t know or see how it’s all related and connected.  Giving to life, or giving to the things in our life, brings us into greater energetic coherence.  Asking how or what can I give to this will instantly align you with how you can serve in any moment.  Rather than feeling lost, confused, frustrated or hopeless, you will feel the inspiration of the impulse of giving and sharing yourself.  

For some people this might all sound exhausting.  All this giving.  A part of you might say, what about me?  How am I going to be ok?  Another part might insist that it doesn’t have any extra time or energy to give or create more.  You might feel or find yourself wanting to conserve what little energy you have, so you limit or cap your creation and fall into consumption.  Believe it or not, it actually drains our energy and lowers our state of vibration to simply consume life.  A life of consumption is kind of like a bottomless pit that can never be filled.  It feels heavy, tired and doesn’t have much motivation or desire.  It keeps getting and taking yet never feels full.  It only experiences temporary fulfillment.  Motivation and desire comes from creating and therefore the only way to fill this pit is to give to life.  

There is a magic that happens in creating that you don’t experience until you shift from consuming life to creating it.  See creating is the same as loving.  To create is to love.  When you create or give to life you are instantly included in all of it.  When you follow the call or the inspiration to create, you are taken care of.  Somehow, someway life will always support you.  You likely will not know how it will happen, and you might fall into doubt from time to time, but with continued focus on creating simply to create you will come to see that this is the case.  

There is nothing to grab and hold onto in this life.  You are a creator not a getter.  You are not a passive recipient or an effect of life, you are the creator of it.  When we try to stabilize life, or stabilize our outer experience so that we can consume it, we stagnate and feel lifeless.  We feel lifeless because we aren’t utilizing our life giving potential.  We focus on what isn’t, what we don’t have that we want, and feel powerless to our circumstance.  When instead you see that everything inside of your current experience is something you can ‘give life/love to’ rather than something you ‘have or get’, you activate and utilize your creator power.  When you ask yourself in every situation, what can I give to this, you come to life.  You feel energized.  You elevate.  It doesn’t even matter what you do or the things you create.  It matters only that you come from being the creator, from giving, from loving.  

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

CREATING FROM PEACE

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CREATING FROM PEACE 

It’s possible 

We are constantly creating.  In fact we are creation machines.  Creators through and through.  There is nothing that you do that isn’t an act of creation.  From brushing your teeth in the morning to closing your eyes before bed, everything in between is an act of creation.  While some acts may seem more routine or mundane than others, they are all nonetheless still acts of creation, being birthed by and through you.  In most of the activities of our day we don’t really realize that we are creating, rather we see the activities of our day as our ‘“to do list” and we aspire to get everything done on the list.  Our sense of accomplishment, or rest or peace, is in the completion of our doing not in the act of doing it.  

Imagine for a moment what you would feel like if opened your eyes in the morning and your first line of priority was to generate a state of being of peace.  What if you did not allow yourself to get out of bed until peace was achieved throughout the entirety of your being.  No conflict, no restlessness, no worry, no thoughts of the day, just peace.  Now imagine getting out of bed and everything that you do comes from this state of peace.  How do you feel?  I’d imagine you feel totally amazing, and a feeling of fulfillment far beyond the satisfaction of getting things done.  Ask yourself now in this moment, do you believe it’s possible to operate and live life coming from peace?  If you don’t, what arises for you?  Many think they will not get things done, they believe all the stuff they want to produce won’t get created, and at the core of it they feel purposeless.  In general people derive a tremendous amount of their sense of worth from the things they do.  When the doing stops or gets threatened it feels like a threat to our value and worth.

To come from peace means you have nothing to prove (particularly your own worth and value) and nothing that you have to create or do.  It means you are creating/doing not from a sense of deficiency or perceiving a problem, but rather from pure joyful desire to create what you create and do what you do.  This is the end of inner chaos and dysregulation.  When you start with peace there are no problems to fix, only fun things to do with your body and mind.   How often do your creations come from lack, or from the perception that something is wrong that you think needs to be fixed or done?  Lack motivates most of our actions.  Yet if we zoom out and see a bigger picture, we can see that nothing is wrong and nothing needs fixed.  This seeing is foundational to consistently coming from peace.  You must only ask yourself how badly you want peace versus the chaos and dysregulation you regularly choose.  While it may seem that peace isn’t always available, it always is.  Even in the most distressed state of being, peace is there as an option for you to choose.  To step into it you must only let go of that which you are perceiving as wrong. 

BRINGING JOY TO EVERYTHING 

Creativity in action

Some people do not view themselves as creative, and yet it is impossible not to be.  What seems to distinguish someone who is “creative” versus someone who is “not creative” (which again is impossible) is how much fun they are having inside of their creation.  You could make the bed as a routine you do every morning, which may seem uncreative to you, or you could make the bed in joy, and alas it becomes a creation that feels creative to you.  You may find yourself making pillow and blanket art.  When you see that everything is creative nothing seems mundane anymore.  There is no more just getting through your day or your to do list.  Mundane is simply something we have yet to find how to bring joy too.  

When you start with peace, when you come from peace, you quickly realize that there is nowhere to get.  Most of our doing is an attempt to get to peace, but when you start in peace all of your attempts to get somewhere disappear.  You arrive and are alive.  Not the kind of alive that is a waking zombie that we call being human, but the awake kind of alive.  The rested alive wakefulness, which allows us to flow with life and for life to flow through us.  How wiling are you to give up your un-peace?  Are you ready to die to your insistence on chaos and distress?  Do you want to claim peace, joy and creativity as your consistent state of being from here on out?

It sometimes feels hard to imagine or believe that we can truly be peaceful.  Yet when we choose distress over peace we create a world of distress rather than peace, and while perhaps you have the perception that what you choose as one individual doesn’t really matter, it does.  Your choice for peace or distress impacts this collective reality that we experience as one consciousness.  We are all part of one unified awareness and we can’t help influence and impact one another.  The generation of reality starts and ends with awareness, with us.  We as one are the awareness that creates all, creates this entire universe, all dimensions of the cosmos.  You are more powerful that you currently dream you are.  

Find ways to bring joy to all that you create/do.  Rather than avoiding, ignoring or refusing to do things that you perceive as un-joyful, find ways to bring joy to them.  It is not the activity that is un-joyful, but rather your state of being from where you come from in your doing.  All creating can be made fun when you realize that nothing has to be done.  Release yourself from the prison of thinking that what you create needs to be created, and reclaim your joy.   This doesn’t mean that you won’t create or do, you will, but no longer will you need to for any reason whatsoever.  Here is where pure innocent organic joy is found.  Only your desire and choice to put your energy and attention where you put it will guide you.  No longer will you need anything from anything or anyone.  Nothing has to work out in any specific way according to your preferences and likes.  This is freedom.  You are the power for this.  Choose peace.  Come from peace.  Start in peace.  If you do the only reality you will experience will be joy, not because your reality is joy, but because that is what you choose.  

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

LACK OF PERCEIVED SELF-WORTH

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LACK OF PERCEIVED  SELF-WORTH

Self-absorption & taking from the field

Not valuing ourselves is a rather common disposition among humans.  It tends to be more socially acceptable to share feelings of lack of self-worth than it is to share expressions of worthiness.  If someone is confident they are often viewed as arrogant or conceded, and if someone lacks self-worth they are viewed as altruistic or humble.  Due to this social conditioning many who are confident don’t share themselves fully for concern of not wanting to “make” others feel bad about themselves or appear non-caring or un-empathetic.  Meanwhile those that don’t value themselves set the social bar for the level of self-love that it’s ok to share and express.  

Not valuing one’s self is the lowest energy state.  It literally takes energy from everything that it interacts with because it never feels like it’s enough.  Not only does it perceive itself as not enough, but it views everything else from the same lens that it views itself.  It can’t not.  It does not give to the field, but rather takes from it.  It is the most self-absorbed state.  Some people may find this paradoxical because what is perceived as confident or arrogant is most commonly associated with self-absorption.  However this is opposite to the energetic dynamics that get played out.  

Understand that to not care for yourself or see value in who/what you are is not humble or altruistic.  You viewing yourself as less than does not make you more kind, loving or selfless.  Rather it makes you more selfish and more wrapped up in your own self-created delusion of inadequacy and lack.  This sucks the life out of you, and out of everything and everyone around you.  Lack of self-worth is like a black hole that absorbs all the light of the world into it and yet remains empty because there isn’t enough light in the entire universe to illuminate it.  

The only thing that can shift this is if that which views itself changes its perspective of itself, meaning you change your perception of yourself.  If rather than seeing yourself as lack and valueless, you see yourself as you truly are, which is abundant, complete and full.  If that simple perception shift occurs, than no longer does one need to get from its environment or from other people in order to attempt to fill itself up.  Only then will you stop sucking energy out of the field and become a radiating stream that gives to the field by its very beingness.  Rather than being self-absorbing you become self-emitting, shining light wherever you go.  Many desire this, to be a light, and yet simultaneously don’t understand that their perception of themselves and their worth influences all of the energetic dynamics about them.   

FUELING YOUR BELIEF IN SELF

Prisoned disempowerment or free will

The larger truth is that its impossible to not be worthy.  You can only perceive yourself to be unworthy, and that perception creates the reality you experience, whether it’s true or not.  The only questions become, how do you want to participate with/play the game of life, and will you wake up to your choice?  See nothing in life happens to you unless you view it as such; unless you choose the victim position.  Most people unconsciously choose the victim position because the sea our consciousness swims in is filled with that programming.   The whole process and point of waking up is to consciously recognize that you are choosing and also then what you are choosing.  In this way you can consciously create your world rather than blindly accept the status quo.  Just because the large majority of people choose prisoned disempowerment as their story doesn’t mean that you must as well.   

The fuel of the reality of prisoned disempowerment is re-enforcing the belief of non-worth, non-value, and powerlessness.   In this reality some people have power and some don’t.  Some people matter and some don’t.  Some people are valuable and some aren’t.  You must ask yourself if that is the reality that you want to fuel, and also be willing to see how you do fuel it though the “innocent” interaction you have with how you see yourself as unworthy.   If you desire to create a different reality you will require a different fuel source.  The reality of free will is fueled by the belief of infinite value, inherent worth and powerfulness.  What is required for you to experience free will is the knowing of your worth.  Your power is your worth, your worth is your power.  In this reality all have power, all matter and all are valuable.

Its important to know what reality your energetic vote and perception of self, contribute to creating.  People tend not to know the power of their inner dialogue and the power of the lenses that they wear when they look at self or at the world.  How you view becomes your reality.  Even though your power could never be more or less than it is, which is synonymous with saying that your worth could never be more or less than it is, in this relative game we are playing there are two ways to increase power/worth/energy.  One way is to control others; the other way is to empower others.  If you control others you then gain/take their free will and it adds to your own.  You gain power.  If you empower others you give free will and it adds to the greater collective all of which you are included.  This is essentially your “how to” recipe: view yourself as valuable, help others view themselves as such through your capacity to view yourself as such, create a lived reality where free will is your direct experience.  

Understand that to view yourself as unworthy or not valuable is to disregard the beauty of God and it’s creation.  It’s to deny the perfection of the creator expressed through you.  It’s paradoxically the most self-absorbed perspective through its rejection of self.  Its the lowest energy state, which you then experience as your life.  Through viewing yourself as unworthy you create a disempowered reality and willingly give your free will, your energy and your power over to it.  When will you have had enough?  When will you decide you are more then you’ve been perceiving yourself to be?  What will it take for you to stop insisting that you aren’t worthy?  How much more suffering are you willing to create by holding onto your view of unworthiness?  

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

GIVING YOUR LIFE OVER TO WHY YOU EXIST

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GIVING YOUR LIFE OVER TO WHY YOU EXIST 

Focused on the things of life

As human beings with faculties of mind and memory we create images, stories and ideas about our life. What it should look like, how it should feel, what should occur and not occur, and the like. We are nearly constantly investing our energy and attention into the things of life. This is so natural and second nature to us that we don’t question or entertain that any other way of being/doing would be possible. This investment of our resources (i.e. our energy and awareness) into the things of life creates a dynamic where our well-being is contingent upon those things. With this we become fused, merged and attached to the things of life, including our stories and ideas about them, and we lose touch with the essence of our nature and why we exist at all. This creates an inner experience of simply trying to get through life as if there is some destination to arrive at and we miss out on the experience of what it is to be living.

When our focus is on the things of life we create agendas and expect outcomes. No matter how agenda-less and detached from outcome you think you are, the truth is you probably aren’t. Most people still want things and perceive they need things and therefore subtly, or not so subtly, attempt to get those needs and wants met through their thoughts and actions. This is agenda. As long as you perceive lack, meaning you perceive that you don’t have something you need or want, you will attempt in whatever ways you can to get it. This is a survival strategy based in the perspective that something is missing right now and that somehow what is is not complete. This is the most pervasive perspective on planet Earth right now, however it’s pervasiveness does not make it accurate.

It is important to get that you are the creator of your experience.  What you think or believe to be true will generate the image that you see reality to be.  What you put your energy and awareness into will dominate your life.  This is not just a fancy new age concept.  This is how creation works.  Perception is creation.  What you perceive, meaning how you see, will dictate what you see.  Giving your life (ie. your energy and attention) over to things, images, ideas and stories about life generates a very physical experience of life where you believe that you are the physicality.  You suffer when the image doesn’t reflect what you desire because you think you are the image and don’t recognize that you are the creator of the image.  You feel powerless to the image that you have created because you don’t realize you created it.  In this way we are victims to our own selves, yet don’t see ourselves and therefore don’t realize how we victimize ourselves to ourselves.  If that confusing its because it is confusing.  We have confused ourselves to be things (which we are not) and therefore experience limitation, frustration, powerless and lack.   

THE ILLUSION OF SACRIFICE 

A soul-driven life

So if we don’t give our life over to our ideas, then what do we give it over too? If we stop focusing on getting the money, relationships, family, house, car, health, our next business idea, our next save the world idea, social status, validation, approval, and the like then what else is there? See all that is the stuff of life and none of it is why you exist. Sure you will use certain of those expressions to carry out the why of why you exist, but none of the things of life are why you exist. This is incredibly important to understand. Without this awareness you will live disconnected from why you are, from why your soul took on a body in the first place. I can guarantee you that it did not do so just to smell the flowers and get absorbed in the stuff of living on planet earth. There is a mission, a calling, a purpose for your being here in a body, and from what I have discovered it is the only worthwhile focal point for this incarnative experience. All else is just distractions.

To the you that you think you are, living in such a singularly focused way where your sole purpose is the only determiner for all of the stuff that you do through this body, will feel like a sacrifice. The one you think you are (i.e. your name, personality, profession and all the ways you identify yourself) will feel let down, discouraged, at times aimless, confused and destabilized by this shift in focus. Again no matter how agenda-less you think you are, you probably aren’t. Are you willing to let everything, and I mean everything go, and shift to your sole purpose or calling being the only determiner for you? I can promise you that if you are willing you will never feel purposeless again. You will never wonder if you are doing what you came here to do, you will stop experiencing self-doubt, and you won’t regret your life when you are on your death bed. However I can also promise you that your life may not look like or feel like you want it too. Your life will no longer be “your” own, meaning your body-mind-personality ideas of what your life is. The paradox however is that it will also be the first time your life is in alignment because you will be in full connection with yourself.

From the perspective of the person this will be a colossal and complete sacrifice in complete uncertainty.  From the perspective of the soul it will be a coming home.  The one constant is free will.  You get to decide how you participate with all of this.  If you decide to make the transition from a person-centered life to soul-centered life a tremendous amount of faith will be required of you.  Your person will not know.  It will perpetually feel like it doesn’t know.  This is just part of the territory.  This is an act of faith that you will take several times a day.  You can’t get the soul to fit inside of the personality and therefore the personality will not understand.  It has to surrender itself.  There is no other way.  

Giving your life over to why you exist instead of the stuff of life liberates and aligns you with you. It frees you to actually be of service to life in every single moment. To give to life rather than get from life. There is not a single moment where your purpose, your calling, cannot be executed. Until you arrive here and become agenda-less you cannot be of true service because there will always be some underlying sneaky agenda running the show. You being you, knowing you, sharing you is the service. You generate this world of your purpose by aligning yourself with it over and over and over again. You come to see the illusion of sacrifice is just that, an illusion, because there is nothing else worth living for. You detach from being the stuff and rest into your calling, into your soul, and experience inner stability despite the ever changing appearances of life.

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

LOVE

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LOVE 

Perceived & perceiver

Love.  We are all trying to find love, get love, give love, be love.  As the New Year arises and people set their intentions it is clearly evident that every intention is simply a call, cry, or plea for love.  For love to be felt and lived.  For love to be seen, experienced, rested into and breathed moment to moment.  For the heart to be flung open, consuming all that is inside of it.  The hunger for lived love is palpable, more palpable than ever before on this planet.  

How do we fall so fully into love?  How do we let love consume us completely?  How do we vow and unshakably commit to remain in love no matter what?  Love is the natural state.  It is the truth.  It is pure, it is free and it is contentless.  Everything that appears is what we put on top of love.  Labels, definitions, stories, worldly desires, rules, ideas, constructs, people, relationships, etc are all made out of love, yet these things can cloud our vision if we lose sight of the substance from which they are made.  When we get caught in the appearance and forget the essence we feel disconnected from love.  When we feel disconnected it’s not that love has gone anywhere, its simply that we’ve shifted our focus from love to an assumed object or thing instead.  

To stay acutely focused on the nature of a perceived thing or object rather than to focus on the object itself is the gateway into seeing, knowing, remembering and resting into Love.  At times some of the appearances that arise inside of our human experience do not feel or seem to be made out of love.  They seem to be made out of some other substance because we wonder how something that hurts, looks ugly, smells bad or is clearly unkind could be made out Love.  There is however no other substance in the universe for anything to be made up out of so how could anything be other than this primordial essence that we call love.  

Rather than the thing/appearance itself not being love it is instead the observer, judger or subject that deems it so, meaning it is you that deems it so.  You as the decider of what you see decide what you see.  It is a worthwhile self-investigation to thoroughly assess what you include and what you un-include as love.  That which you view as made up of something other than love is where the jewels of healing wait for you.  It is in the seeing of what you keep outside, different or other than love that gives you the answer to the question of how to remain in love no matter what.  Acceptance of all, even that which we do not understand brings us deeper and deeper into love’s all encompassing embrace.   

EVER PRESENT LOVE 

Seeing what already is

When you’ve lost connection to the heart re-connecting can be instantaneous or it can be a long drawn out process.  It simply depends on how long you want to insist that a particular flavor or experience is something other than love.  Sometimes that flavor which we resist to include in love is our own self.  Perhaps its something about our body or the way we look, what value we feel we contribute or not, or a personality trait we have or don’t have.  Whatever it is, we view its presence or lack therefore, as an indicator of something that is not love.  

As you move deeper into acceptance, and in particular self-acceptance, you can’t not begin to see the perfected everything of allness.  All of your own and others idiosynchronicities, behaviors, thoughts and perspectives seem to matter less and less and the illuminated background of them comes more into view.  This is a purification process where the distilled compound that remains is the natural essence that was always there, but simply covered from view by you.  

See situations can stay the same, sensations can be as they are, thoughts can keep their limited view and yet you can come to see beyond them.  Rather than the incessant impulse to change them you can’t but help to fall in love with them just as they are.  The inner battle quiets down as the clarity of the power of love to recognize itself becomes evident.  When love wakes up to love, meaning when you realize your nature as love, when you see the truth, then nothing is left out and nothing needs or could be different than it is.  

Love is always here, always accessible, even in the darkest of places in our minds.  Its not a matter of creating love, generating love, or becoming more love because all of those things are actually impossible.  You couldn’t be more love than you are right now.  There couldn’t be more love in the world than there is now.  Creation is love itself.  We can’t put love into creation, we can only see that it is already there and end the delusion in our minds that it is not.  

Anytime we hope for something we push it away because we fail to see that it’s already here.  This goes for love.  Anytime we hope that we will feel more love or that the world will be a more loving place we push away that reality.  The only real “change” naturally takes place through the seeing of what already is here, not by attempting to make it different.  Difference occurs, change happens, through recognition of the essence of all being love, not through force or power over.  We must wake up to see love now in every situation, thought, feeling, sensation, image, idea, concept, word, person, dynamic and the entirety of creation.  It is through this recognition, this seeing of Self, that the natural harmonious interplay of all the dancing pieces and parts can be seen.  When one sees itself, remembers itself, then everything moves in the seamless, perfected, orchestrated magic and nothing operates separate from anything else.  

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

Your Life is not Your Own

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Your Life is not Your Own 

The Grand Symphony

We tend to believe that our life is about us.  We make goals, plans, and have dreams and aspirations that propel our life in certain directions.  We think that we are driving the train of those directions and that the fruition of our aspirations means something about who we are.  While in some ways and to some degrees this is true, ultimately the events of our life including the ways that we feel about our life mean very little about who we are or what we think our lives are about.

You may wonder why this is.  You may think “but my life feels like mine”.  The larger truth however is that there really is no “you” for which to have a life that feels like yours.  The you that you think that you are is based only on thoughts and ideas that have come together to create the personality that you’ve come to label as you.  There is no real separate personality you.  There is only thoughts of a separate personality you.  Everyone in spiritual circles knows conceptually that everything is one and that there is no separation yet we continue to believe ourselves to be a separate person.  Separate from not only other people, but also spirit, god or “higher self”.

This idea of you that you’ve come to know yourself to be, which has become your full identity, is what interferes with you knowing who and what you really are.  If you had the recognition of yourself that was not filtered through the lens of you being a separate person than you would instantly realize that your life is not your own.  That all the events that occur are are simply a web of interconnected dots in the larger matrix of creation and really have nothing to do with you personally.  Now this doesn’t mean that things and events don’t occur through this perceived sense of you as this particular body and mind because they absolutely do.  Your body-mind vehicle is the way that things get expressed and brought into creation.  It’s simply that those things that express through you are not about you.  The root of much of our suffering as humans is due to this simple misidentification of believing that that which gets expressed or created through us is ours.  

The desires, dreams and aspirations that excite us and propel us are impulses from spirit or higher self.  These impulses, which we call our desires, are the way that spirit orchestrates all the parts of the symphony getting us to play our parts at exactly the right moment and in the exact right harmony.  In this way the masterful song of creation comes together whether or not we can see or hear what all the other parts of the symphony are playing.  Only the grand master, who is the ultimate organizer can put all the pieces together to make the most coherent musical masterpiece.   

Perceiving Perfection 

The End of Fear

It should by now be clearly evident that there is something going on beyond what our minds know and what our senses can perceive.  Our lives are not just about what it is we think they are about.  Our actions, the directions that we take or don’t take in our lives, and the things we create, are really part of a much bigger picture that we mostly can’t see.  Considering this is the case why is it that we worry, fear, fret, overanalyze, and judge our actions, others actions and everything that is going on in our world?  Why do we try to control and manage the details of it all?  Its simply because we believe that our life is our own, that we are solely responsible for it all and we are disconnected from that larger organizing principle or the grand master of the symphony.

Due to this disconnection from the larger and the feeling like we are on our own we doubt and judge rather than trust.  Because we grip onto our life as our own we live from our head and not from our heart.  We wonder why we don’t feel divinely guided, supported or lost and unfulfilled and can’t see that we have not created the invitation for spirit in our lives because we have been so busy deciding and determining what all of the events of our lives mean.  We’ve left no space inside of our interpretations for anything other than what we think.  We can’t seem to get out of the way long enough to see that what is occurring or happening is exactly what is perfectly supposed to be happening or occurring.  

Facing the perfection of everything requires us to face our own ignorance.  Our ignorance which thinks it knows what is supposed to be occurring from its tiny, minuscule perspective.  The truth is that our minds don’t have a clue and yet we believe them to a fault.  This is our error and our suffering.  We all want some magic bullet that will make everything perfect and peaceful and happy and yet we fail to recognize that we are the magic bullet that we seek.  It is our sole responsibility, our one and only true responsibility, to align ourselves with the accurate perspective that there is nothing that is not in perfection just as it is.  Until we are willing to align ourselves to the perspective of perfection and give up our faulty perspective of perceiving error we will experience our own judgment over and over and over again and remain in the circle of suffering.  

The end of perceiving error is the end of fear.  When you no longer see wrong you no longer have any reasons left to fear.  Survival physiology ends, defense posturing becomes irrelevant.  There is no longer anything you need to protect yourself from.  It’s the end of the over-analyzer, the worrier, and the anxious one.  Simultaneously it is the birth of the healed one, of love physiology and of the posturing of openness and commune with spirit.  It is the recognition that there is no “your life” separate from anything and the allowing of the movement and impulse of life to move through your body-mind.  

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

Power of Love

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Power of Love 

Infinite Life Force

16152518 - beautiful lotus backgroundMost all of us make claims to the power of love.  On some level we know that love is the ultimate everything and yet when things get “serious” or when we get caught up in our emotional or thinking bodies the power of love is forgotten.  Why is it that we drop love or downplay its position as the grand orchestrator of all of life when things get messy, unclear or uncertain?  Why does our thinking mind along with its linearity and rationality become the prime ruler rather than the heart?  

First of all let me just say that love is the source of infinite life force.  Life force is love, love is life force.  Life force is what makes everything come alive.  It is the breath of the universe and everything within it.  This is why when we feel like we are in love we feel alive, awake, alert and juiced up, because we actually are.  Love, whether for self, other or just as a state of being, brings with it infinite, inexhaustible life force.  It can not because love and life force are one and the same.  

Life force, energy and love are terms that can be used interchangeably.  Life force is the quite literal energy source that powers everything in the universe including your physical body.  It is fairly common knowledge at this point that everything in the universe is energy.  When all matter is broken down into its most basic components all that remains is vibrating energy.  That vibrating energy is life force/love.  Patterns of thoughts, beliefs and perceptions then give shape to that energy and the world of forms that we see with our eyes.

As powerful as our thoughts are in their ability to bring forms to life, they are nothing without the energy source of love to back them up.  Pure, unconditioned love is the most coherent, whole energy source that there is.  When we have thoughts that are fueled by less coherent states of energy, such as fear, rage, or rationality, they are much less efficient or effective and therefore the forms they create are not as optimal, complex or productive.  Less coherent states of energy are simply states of energy that are not as aware of their inherent wholeness.  Love knows it wholeness which is where its extreme power arises.   

Fall from Grace 

Perception of Wrongness

Spiritual conceptual image of a female angelWhen we think about the power of love without being connected with the knowingness of love our power is greatly diminished.  True power does not come from thought alone, but from the intimate acknowledging and resting into love so that its power naturally expresses.  The primarily perception that keeps us disconnected from knowing love intimately is the perception of wrongness.  

When we view through the perception of wrongness we create separation where there is none.  Separation creates a less coherent state of energy because within separation implies a lack of wholeness.  Wrongness means that something must be thrown out of the whole and when that occurs there is less energy/life force available to the system (individual or collective).  Say for example you (or your culture) judge multiple things about yourself, another person, or the environment as wrong.  The more you judge the more you shrink your perspective.  With this comes a sense of confinement and limitation.  Simultaneously the less innately good you feel and the less energy you have available to you.  Manifestation feels more effortful and there is greater disorganization in what gets created. This is a state of decreased coherency where your knowingness of love and ability to utilize the power of love is diminished.  This does not mean that love is actually diminished, but only your perception of it.  Again this happens at individual and collective system levels.  

Perceiving wrongness also brings on both sides of it righteousness and shame.  To defend one’s rightness or hide in one’s shame birth the entire gamut of defensive patterns of self-protection.  This is our fall from grace or love.  This is the imposition of limitation on life force.  This is the disconnection from our power, which is the power of love.   To restore connection and remember the power of love we must dismantle our belief in our own or others wrongness.  To know love rather than think love requires this.  

Love has no boundaries, it penetrates all.  Love brings light to even the darkest dark, to every recess of unconsciousness.  Nothing is brighter than love.  To stand in the radiance of love is to illuminate the entire world.  All healed, all whole, all intimately aware of itself.  From here the purest and most efficiently organized forms of creation are created.  Life force vitalizes all.  This doesn’t happen independently of you, it happens because of you.  At some point we must all surrender to love.  It is inevitable.  We must give away our addiction to less coherent thoughts of wrongness, missing and lack of wholeness, and open our system into greater coherency, full force life force and the power of love.  

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

Grounding into Love

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Grounding into Love 

Finding presence

37167614 - green leaves in heart shapeGrounding is a term that is used by many people in spiritual growth communities.  Often the idea is to feel one’s feet or to have the sense of more fully being in one’s body.  Due to the fact that most people spend a great deal of time in their heads being absorbed in their thoughts this idea of grounding is useful as a strategy to be more present or embodied.  

All of this begs the question as to what exactly is it that we are grounding into when we ground?  Most people will tend to create the sensation/felt experience of grounding into the earth or into their physical body.  They may go sit by a tree, lay on the grass or go for a hike to support the creation of this experience for themselves.  This time-out of sorts can help us decrease our focus on our thoughts and bring us more in touch with our sensorially body experience.  This frequently creates a temporary sense of ease, calmness and steadiness that we associate as being grounded.  When we give ourselves the space and environment to permission ourselves to unwind from our thoughts we naturally become more present.  Presence is what people are ultimately striving to achieve through this practice of grounding themselves.  Most all of us hunger to feel alive in the moment and not bogged down by thoughts about the past or the future.  To be presence is to be responsive, attuned and in the magical, effortless flow of life.  Thought or the process of thinking is the primary distractor of presence.  

Although presence is the true goal of grounding, sometimes people confuse grounding as the need to become more physical. Grounding truly has nothing to do with becoming more physical, or becoming “more your body”, or even having your awareness be located only inside your body.  To attempt to become more physical is to merge yourself further with the appearance of your body.  This may lead to a different sensorial-feeling experience, but does not necessarily lead to greater presence.  

You are the awareness having an experience of grounding rather than being the one that becomes more grounded.  Said another way, you are the one that knows grounded-ness or presence rather than the one that becomes grounded or present.  Grounding at its best is used for this purpose of turning your focus back onto yourself or onto awareness having the experience of having a body rather than focusing on trying to feel more of your body from the perspective of being inside of the body.    

Creator & Creation

Resting into Awareness

Illustration of spiral arrangement in nature. Fibonacci patternAwareness is all pervasive and non-local, meaning it is everywhere and inside of every“thing”.  For that all pervasive, non-local awareness to be aware of all aspects of creation, inclusive of your body, would be the definition of a fully conscious or enlightened creation, meaning a creation that knew itself as not independent or separate from the creator (which is awareness).  To be rested in and eventually as the creator is the ultimate ground, what some call the ground of being.

This brings us back to that initial question of what is it that we are grounding into when we ground ourselves?  Clearly it is not our body or the earth or really any thing whatsoever as that would be grounding into a changing, unstable appearance which would not feel very restful once that thing decides to change.  If we are attempting to ground into an appearance (our body, a tree, the earth) we will never feel or know true stability and we will find ourselves continually needing to “ground” because our ground keeps changing.  I would call this the illusion of grounding rather than true grounding.  Understand that many attempt to do grounding in this way.

What we are actually grounding into when we truly ground is our own very nature as awareness/creator rather than some aspect of creation.  Sometimes when the word creator is used we think of a person.  Our minds create this idea of a separate person that is creating, but the ultimate creator is not an individual person.  It is just intelligent, infinite awareness.  Intelligent, infinite awareness creates all of creation, which includes universes, dimensions, densities, suns, galaxies and every single being and form.  Some people call this intelligent, infinite awareness by the name God, Source or Love.   

As we ground by turning our focus towards awareness rather than into or on appearances all appearances simultaneously get illuminated as awareness.  The duality between form and formless, creator and creation dissolves.  One is not more or less important then the other because there is just one.  You can not get any more intimate then creator and creation as they are the same.  The creator expressing and making itself visible as creation.  You’ve always been looking right at the creator, right at infinite intelligence and yet you have only seen your labels and definitions of forms. 

For many this awareness of awareness or awareness of infinite intelligence is veiled and thus appearances are what seem to be the only true reality.  Whenever this is the case we will always think that we have to ground more into the physical aspects of reality in order to be more present and impactful.  The recognition that the physical and nonphysical are one in the same and that formlessness (the creator) comes alive through form (creation) is to be in direct realization of what makes all come alive.  It is here that we find ourselves rested in and as the ground of love.  It is here that we are most present to ourselves and can have the most impact, symbiosis and harmony with all forms of creation.  

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

Embracing Magic

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Embracing Magic 

The seeming void

Beautiful, young elf, walking with a unicorn. She is wearing an incredible light, white dress. The girl lies on the horse. Sleeping Beauty. Artistic PhotographyWe all want magic.  This is evident from the time that we are little kids loving superheroes, “fiction”, and fantasy.  As adults we continue this love affair with magic seeking it through healing, spirituality, books, movies, relationships and various other pursuits.  Whatever form magic takes it entices us into it.  The yearning is that the mysteries may be revealed to us, that we may feel powerful, knowing, and connected, that we may have abilities to do and be beyond the physical sensibilities and that there is an ease, effortlessness and playfulness to life.  We are truly hungry for this underneath all of the things we think life is about and all of the things we think we have to do.  Yet magic seems to be missing for most.  Even those that are “tapped in” beyond their everyday ordinary mind are not always experiencing magic.  Where does the magic go?  Why is it not always 100% our experience?  

As a little girl pretty much the only thing that truly excited me was sensing beyond what was here and expanding my abilities to perceive beyond the ordinary senses.  I remember being as young as 8 or 9 years old diving into the paranormal section at the local library reading books on ESP and clairvoyance every chance I could get.  All of the TV shows I watched had something to do with the main character being seemingly “normal” while having some special power that she kept secret from everyone.  All of these things simply found me and I kept this intense curiosity and passion to myself as I did not perceive that other people in my life would either get it or share the interest.  

As I got older in my teens and early 20s a deep interest in energy work arrived and with it this feeling of being extremely limited or cut off from something.  It was as if I was navigating in the dark, walking around with a blindfold over my eyes and thick mittens on my hands not being able to see or feel what was there.  The awareness of limitation of the senses became screamingly evident.  By this point in my life any direct connection to the spirit realm that I had was long forgotten and otherwise non-reinforced by my experiences.  The seeming void of disconnection felt real along with the illusion that this physical world was the only reality.

You all have your own versions of this story.  It is the story that most all of us learn in one way or another.  A world void of magic and spirit.  We think that only what makes sense to our minds is true and only what we can experience with our physical senses is real, and we believe that story even when we don’t want to and even when something inside of us knows that there’s more.   

Magic comes alive 

From denial to embrace

48105490 - blue sparkling background with stars. vector illustration.This denial of spirit that we learn and adopt as our own belief allows us to fit into this world experience that we are currently having.  Friends, family members and society accept our rational choices and ordinary lives.  Anything beyond that makes them feel uncomfortable.  Many people live their entire lives not knowing anything beyond the physical world that in and of itself is void of magic.  Even if people do have some experiences of magic they can’t always perceive it because it doesn’t fit within their structures and stories of what is.  I’ve seen this occur many times over the course of my life where spirit directly moves through a person so profoundly and palpably and yet the person denies having had any experience of it.  This continues to baffle me to this day and yet I’ve come to realize that denial can be very strong and when something doesn’t fit into our mind’s boxes we simply don’t know how to process or place it, and therefore can’t perceive it even when we experience it.  

Even with all of the denial and disconnection from the world of magic and spirit some people have a deep knowing of something beyond the physicality of this world.  Its a knowing beyond just mind knowing.  Call it intuition or heart knowing or even faith.  Its like an inner compass that guides despite what our rational mind and beliefs tell us.  This was the case for me.  I always had a deep knowing of something beyond and a nearly complete devotion to expanding my perceptual abilities in order to be able to experience it.  This is the case for many who have penetrated the veil of the illusion of pure physicality into the world of magic and spirit.  

What makes magic come alive?  Ultimately love.  Love is magic, magic is love.  But let’s back it up a little bit so we can track how we get to love.  First is the letting go of the need to fit into this world.  Not from a place of resistance, hatred or unhappiness, but from a place of realizing that you can’t serve this world and perceive the magic beyond it if you are attempting to fit into it.  So its really a love for this world that inspires you to move beyond the need to fit into it.  Second, is the questioning of everything you’ve been told about this world.  You must dismantle your own beliefs about solidity and physicality being the only reality.  Next you must dismantle your beliefs about what you think you are and through that develop an intense hunger to know yourself beyond, to know spirit, as that is what you are beyond this physical body-personality.  This opens you into the heart and into the world of magic.  Your heart is the gateway into perceiving beyond the senses, to accessing infinite energy, to capabilities beyond your current capabilities, to greater ease, effortlessness and playfulness in the world of magic.   It becomes harder and harder to deny what you are, to deny spirit, to deny the aliveness that makes up the world.  You embrace and accept more and more this aspect of creation, and as you do it reveals itself and you directly experience it more and more as your everyday reality.  The key is love.  Nothing more than that.  Everything which you need is already here.  May the revealing of spirit and magic become the ever present reality within with you experience all of life.  

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

Body-Mind-Spirit

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Body-Mind-Spirit 

Where’s Spirit? 

Meditation - flower of lifeWe are all body-mind-spirit complexes.  Many of us are aware of the fact that we have a body and a mind.  Less of us are aware of the fact that we have a spirit.  Conceptually it may seem obvious to us that we have a spirit however experientially many of us may not be making direct contact or have direct knowing of our spirit.  In fact often times when we do make contact with our spirit we may experience a few moments of bliss and then our minds comes plunging in trying to make sense of it all or even deny, forget, or flatten the experience of spirit altogether.  

Why is it that even when we have been on a spiritual seeking path for many years that spirit remains an elusive mystery to us in our direct day to day experience?  Why do we continue to attempt to rationalize spirit and put it in some kind of box to make sense of it?  Our minds so badly want answers and want to feel safe, secure and like they know what is going on even when they don’t.  Because we have the tendency to heavily rely on and believe the thoughts that our minds create as the sole reality there seems to be no way around this.  The mind believes that if it can just figure spirit out then it will know what spirit is.  This would be equivalent to the body trying to sense the mind and through sensation know a thought.  A sensation however cannot know a thought, just like a thought cannot know spirit.  Meaning you can’t use your mind/thoughts to know spirit.  Your thoughts can think about spirit, this is called conceptual spirituality and where most spiritual seekers hang out, but a thought cannot directly experience and know spirit.  

Just like the mind can see what might be helpful for the body, which the body can’t necessarily see on its own, the spirit knows what is helpful for the mind (and body) more so than by their independent faculties alone.  Spirit is that next level of ourselves which many of us are waking up too.  Its that intelligence which moves us into alignment and greater coherence once we make direct contact with it.  As our awareness finds spirit, spirit is revealed to us and becomes active in our day to day lives.  What then does it take to bring greater awareness to the spirit aspect of ourselves rather than being so heavily dependent on the body-mind aspects of ourselves? 

Bringing spirit into greater awareness

Beliefs, worthiness and self-commitment

Man with conceptual spiritual body art

In order to bring spirit into greater awareness for your direct experience of it you must first investigate any stories and beliefs that you have about spirit which don’t support your capacity to perceive it.  Our beliefs are our filters.  They color everything we see and thus everything we will experience.  Even if we have thoughts about liking spirit or thinking spirit is real, our beliefs will trump those thoughts.  Many of us don’t even know what we believe because we haven’t ever really investigated ourselves to discover it.  Once we do find value in this self-investigative process we will begin to see ways in which our beliefs don’t support the direct perception of spirit.  If you don’t directly experience spirit at all times you can bet you have some beliefs that aren’t supporting your capacity to know spirit.

Another thing that often interferes with our direct experience of spirit is our sense of worth.  Many of us feel incredibly unworthy of spirit.  Substitute the word divine, God, or love for spirit and you may find some of these unworthy feelings arise.  If you feel unworthy of spirit you will be unable to perceive spirit, or anytime you begin to experience it, you will find some way to deflect or push away the experience.  Often people will go into their head to try and figure things out as a defense mechanism to prevent themselves from having to feel unworthy of spirit.  Allowing yourself to feel the unworthiness, rather than go into your head or flatten out your experience in some way, brings you closer to the experience of spirit.  

Lastly where you place your value and focus is of prime importance.  If you only conceptually value spirit and get some sense of personal identity or validation from being a “spiritual” person this will not lead to the direct experience of spirit.  You must create a hunger so intense inside of you to know spirit.  This is how you will begin to stably experience it at all times.  Until that is your sole value you will find yourself distracted and more focused in your body-mind reference point of self.  

Many will get tastes of spirit, but few will commit whole heartedly to a life where spirit is in awareness 100% of the time.  Without this commitment the value gets placed on other things and experiences which take precedence, and suffering continues as you don’t yet know yourself.  It takes a full-hearted commitment to want to know yourself completely.  When you do you activate the pure potential of life to emerge through you into a myriad of infinite expressions and into this play of forms we call creation.  

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