External permission slips 

Subtle ways we give away our power 

We all love magical cures and quick fixes.  So much so that we seek them out pretty much all of the time without even realizing that we are.  This is especially true when things don’t seem to be going how we want them to be or we feel in ways we prefer not to feel (i.e. in pain, tired, low energy, dissatisfied, etc).  We search for things that will make us feel good and give us what we want.

Whenever we perceive a need or have a want for something to be different we create a sense of separation between what we currently have and our perceived need/want.  If we are separate from that which we desire (it could be a different mood or for our body to feel differently, etc.) then that thing is something we have to figure out how to attain instead of simply realize and become.  When you believe you are separate from what you want your relationship to what you want is that you are not that but this instead.  Your thinking is either/or, this/that, right/wrong.  In this mode of thinking you cannot be both the state you are in and simultaneously the state that you want to be.  You polarize to one side of the spectrum, typically out of disbelief or lack of awareness that you are the other as well.  This is the consciousness of SRI stage 2.

When there is a sense or perception of being separate from something there is a subsequent feeling of powerlessness and hence suffering.  This eventually is what creates the impulse that drives us to find a magical cure to search for anything that can “re-connect” us with what we desire (which is always in some form or other connection and wholeness).  As soon as something has a hint of promise we are quick to give our power over to it, hoping that it will fix our perceived problem and change our state.  If this something that we have found is successful at changing our state (even if only temporarily) we believe that it is the ‘thing’ that changed us.  What we fail to realize in this process is that we are the ones that decided to change in response to this ‘thing’.  In fact this ‘thing’ has nothing to do with our new state except that it was an external permission slip of sorts, that gave us the internal permission we needed to change.

How to not need external permission slips anymore

Reclaiming your power 

So how do you skip the step of needing an external permission slip to change?  The simplest way is to reclaim your power and begin to know that you are in charge of you. To get to this place you often have to back up a little bit first.  You need to see and feel the ways you have given away your power to things, people and circumstances.  How you’ve searched for magical cures to fix you, your state or your problems.  You need to unravel your patterns so that you can clearly see them, how you are creating them and how you are keeping them in play.  You then must take responsibility for yourself in every single way.  No longer blaming anything or anyone for the way you feel, what is happening in your body, or your life circumstances.  You must realize that you are 100% in charge.  Any part of you that doesn’t know this fully must be challenged.

This is a fierce process.  It is how you become a person who knows why they do what they do, why they feel what they feel, who they are and what they’re here to do.  When you become your own person you can no longer hide in the shadows of previously learned conditioning, because this is the process of freeing yourself from learned conditioning.  You start creating the rules for your life, for how things work, for how you feel, for how your body functions, etc.  You realize that you are the map maker and creator of your life.  It’s up to you.

In this state of knowing who and what you are as a person you realize that you decide everything.  Things don’t just happen to you, instead things happens through you as you create them.  This is an active process.  There is no standing on the sidelines waiting for life to happen.  It requires commitment and accountability to you.

NSA level 2

Level one of Network Spinal Analysis care is all about discovery.  Discovering your patterns, how you’ve given your power away and how you’ve ended up in the current state that you are in.  This is an incredibly rich phase of care as you develop profound insight and awareness into yourself.  Level two of Network Spinal Analysis care is all about transformation.  It’s here that you reclaim your power, destabilize those old patterns and ways of doing you that no longer serve and create new patterns that serve you better.  All of this occurs through your nervous system and by creating neural strategies that support this process of self-empowerment, with the ultimate goal of healing and freeing yourself.

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