emotional intelligence

THE EDGE OF EMOTION

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THE EDGE OF EMOTION 

Risking feeling

Feeling feels risky.  So much so that we often stay on the edge of it.  Feeling emotion means something is going to change, which is destabilizing to our sense of the known.  It is a mini death and rebirth, and most of us don’t like the death part very much.  Death of an idea, dream, or way of being.  Oftentimes we think we are feeling emotion, but we are just on the surface of what is really going on.  To authentically feel, rather than regurgitating triggered surface emotions, is the difference between acceptance of what is and resistance to it.  Acceptance is hard for most, so rather than feeling we stay in the spin of frustration, irritation or mental activity, which keeps us from having to actually feel even though we think that we are.  

Why is it that we avoid feeling like it’s the plague?  It boils down to the fact that in general most of us don’t like to feel heartbreak, and heartbreak is what authentic feeling feels like.  It’s tender, raw, and vulnerable.  The heartbreak we feel is in association with something occurring that we wished was different.  Perhaps it was a way we were treated that we didn’t like, a need or desire that wasn’t met, or some situation that went down in a way we wished it wouldn’t have.  The tendency for most people is to start to think about the situation or event rather than feel what they feel about it.  They rationalize, they judge or condemn, they feel irritated or maybe aloof and disconnected, they can’t seem to let it go no matter what amount spiritual self-talk they do around it.  There is a tendency to feel at a loss or confused about “what to do” and many attempts to figure it out.  The intense mental thought of needing to figure out what to do or say is a high indication that there is resistance to what is, and deeper more real feelings to be felt.

There is a phrase I heard in chiropractic college that went “you have to feel it to heal it”.  What it boils down to is that healing is accepting what is.  When we accept what is, change then effortlessly flows from acceptance.  There is no more needing to figure anything out or mental looping about it.  We simply know what to do if anything needs to be done.  Sometimes there is nothing to do and that can be super challenging for our minds, particularly when we really want something to be different, hence our prolonged resistance to actual feeling.  However as soon as we do feel the heartbreak of the dream, the idea, the hope, or the thing, acceptance ensues and it becomes easy to let be what is.  This leaves us with inner peace and spaciousness of mind.  We become receptive rather than insistent.  In our receptivity the path of what’s next is revealed to us.   

FREEDOM THROUGH EMOTION 

Action from love

Sometimes the difference between thinking our emotions versus feeling our emotions can be tricky for us to discern.  A good indicator to use for yourself is that if you don’t feel freer than you aren’t actually feeling, but rather you are caught in a story about feeling.  Another way to discern this is the amount of time you are “feeling”.  Emotions, when felt, have a very short time span.  Typically a few seconds to a few minutes at most.  If you are going on hours, days or weeks of “feeling” something then you are often in the story of it rather than the feeling of it.  Now after you feel something deeply there can be residual feelings, but your general disposition is lighter and more free even if some residual effects are still present.  Also after feeling there you are softer and in a slower pace of being.  

Emotions are simply energy.  When we feel the energy of emotion we liberate fuel.  Fuel for acceptance and change.  That acceptance or change can be of ourselves, or it can be in relation to the outer appearance of our lives.  Change occurring through acceptance, or said another way, change occurring through love, is different than the way we typically try to make things happen.  While there is still intention, vision or goals, there is also more of a listening to the unfolding and participating with it rather than an attempt to push or force to make happen.  While this might seem more apparent for our outer world, it goes for our inner world as well.  Say for example you have a tendency to think you are not valuable or have nothing of value to give.  You could try a million self-help methods to change these thoughts about yourself, go to every class and workshop, and on and on, really throwing everything at it.  Yet when you start with acceptance, coming from love in your attempt to change these thoughts, you don’t insist that they need to be different.  It’s a bit of a paradox, but as soon as we stop insisting something be a certain way or be different than it is, it relaxes and often reorganizes itself.

All the things we desperately think need to be different about ourselves or the world find resolution through acceptance.  The mind can’t grok this and yet it is so.  Acceptance doesn’t mean inaction, rather it means action from love.  To be clear action from love doesn’t mean that our perspective, idea or way of approaching something wins over because we think it’s more altruistic, evolved or better than the alternative perspectives.  This is called righteousness of which our world is rampant with.  Action from love is listening to the inner impulse to move in a particular way or direction, taking action in that direction, and then listening.  Seeing what you feel now and now and now, and following.  When you allow your emotions you see that they guide you moment by moment.  This doesn’t mean that all of your ideals will be met or creations created, but it does mean that you will always be coming from your alignment, from who you are, from what you desire to be, now and now and now.  This is to fulfill your destiny.  It is to be your mission.  It equates to success at all levels of your being.  

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

STRETCHING OPEN

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STRETCHING OPEN 

New ranges of motion

We tend to live in a pretty comfortable range of motion of ourselves.  This range is a container, box or bandwidth that includes who and what we know ourselves to be.  We often don’t even know that we are living our life inside of this range, it’s simply what we know.  There wouldn’t even be the thought to question or stretch it because we are merged as it.  However there comes a rhythm where we know we need to stretch.  We feel the confinement and don’t even really know what we are confined in.  We simply feel that the clothes we are wearing are too tight and a sense of restlessness and impeding uncomfortableness is on the horizon.  

When we hit the point where the way we have been living, operating and viewing ourselves from is too small or limited we must stretch.  That stretch occurs outside of the normal range of motion.  Due to the fact that it is beyond where we normally hang out, or perhaps have ever been, it feels uncomfortable and unfamiliar.  That uncomfortableness can deter people from stretching.  If the stretch is deferred then we will go back into our familiar range, inside our familiar box of self, but feel slightly miserable.  Often our tolerance for misery is high, some people even pride themselves in this.  Yet this high tolerance to low level misery is the enemy of stretching out of our current range of motion.

The pain of staying inside of our limited perspective, with it habits and ways of functioning, must become greater than the perceived pain of uncomfortableness, uncertainty and the potential lack of something we aren’t even really clear about, but which boils down to loss of love in some form or another.  If the pain doesn’t become greater, or our tolerance is exceptionally high for misery, then we will stay un-stretched and feel ourselves slowly wither away as we resist our own change and progress.  When we thwart ourselves in such a way we remain in a sea of our own frustration, often feeling like nothing works and like we will never be different than we are.  If instead we use the fuel of misery, and allow, feel and actively participate with the stretch, even though its uncomfortable and we don’t know what’s on the other side yet, we start the journey of going beyond the box of our current self.  The truth is that the range that we have been in has someway and somehow served us, perhaps even really, really well.  We must however be willing to un-attach to our ranges and release the aspects of our identity that are connected with those ranges, when the rhythm of stretch presents itself.   

EMBODYING YOUR STRETCH 

Inviting change

When the rhythm of stretch presents itself it is ultimately stretching us open into more of ourselves.  It is not stretching us into some bad or wrong place even though our mind might try to convince us in these ways.  Stretching does however imply change.  Change in experience, change in feeling, and change in sense of self.  When I have you stretch certain parts of your body on the table it is the activation of stretching your range of motion and thus range of self of sense.  You may find it hard to stretch certain areas and easier for other areas.  You may feel not entirely present during the stretch or find yourself mechanically moving your body without your awareness behind it.  You may find yourself meet some resistance to the stretch or you may go into automatic pilot mode having stretched that area before.  

It is important to notice your experience of stretching.  How does it feel to stretch?  Where do you go?  Are you present? Does it feel hard?  Does it feel too easy?  Do you want to give up in the middle of it?  Do you want it to be over?  Are you bored and not present?  Are you slow to move?  Are you fast to move?  Do you release into the stretch?  Do you resist the stretch and maintain your holding patterns?  You can use these questions as a way to see how you respond to stretch in your life.  How we respond to stretch in our bodies is how we will respond to it in our lives.  

On a physiologically level when you stretch your body in the spots that I am touching it activates certain receptors in the tissues in that area.  The activation of those receptors allows oscillation to occur at the tissue level in the area of stretch.  That oscillation can be felt as vibration or energy at the area.  In Network terms this is the development of the energetic portion of the spinal gateway.  Remember the spinal gateways are those areas that get touched during entrainments and which grow into little energetic vortices as you continue to stretch them open.  As you stretch they grow.  They grow into your subtle energetic body, first reaching into your emotional body and then beyond that into your mental bodies.  When the spinal gateways are in subtle layers of your mental bodies you are able to more clearly see the boxes, stories and limited containers of self that you are in.  Through this sight you gain more energy for transformation and greater fuel to be ready to relinquish those more limited ranges of self that come from your limited perspectives.  

The stretch is the beginning of something anew.  It’s the birthplace of a new range.  You must stretch in order to come out of the birth canal so that the new expressions of you can come into form.  Yes it’s uncomfortable.  Yes it’s uncertain as to what will come out exactly.  Yet we must move forward.  We must emerge and we must be fully in.  Along the way of our emergence all that no longer works and no longer serves must go.  There simply isn’t room for it.  Holding onto it weighs us down and interferes with what’s coming through now.  There is a sweet love and a sweet goodbye to who we were.  There is deep gratitude for how it served and shared.  Now there is this here, a new range, a new expression, a new experience, a new sense of self, a new way to participate, and a new contribution and sharing.  

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

ATTUNEMENT

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ATTUNEMENT 

Harmony with self & other

Attunement seems to be a rarity in today’s age.  To attune is to bring harmony or tune with another’s rhythms and their emotional/spiritual well-being.  When one is attuning with, or attuned to another, there is a sense of connectedness between the two and of being met and seen.  Most people very much desire attunement because when they are attuned to they know that someone else is present, paying attention, invested, and involved.  It allows the person to relax and not have to fight for the presence of another.  Yet in today’s world we are ensued in the world of distraction.  We are hyper-focused on our phones, social media, email, news, and all of the noise it creates inside of our heads.  It leaves very little room for us to be present and in relationship with others in a way that is human, rather than robotic or purely functional.  

Our massive lack of attunement to others (and to ourselves) results in a sense of aloneness or disconnection.  In a world that is highly interdependent on and with other beings this sets up quite a predicament.  It can feel like no one is there, that people don’t show up and that they don’t care.  This makes us become super self-reliant, which at an extreme level makes it challenging for us to receive support when support does actually present itself, and beyond that we may even push support away.  Also when we are not attuned to ourselves we feel disconnected from our own inner rhythms and from knowing what is going on inside of us.  The only thing that seems to get our attention is strong physical sensations (ie. pain or hunger) or mental-emotional intensity, while the subtle nature of our being remains elusive to us.  

While at our deepest level we desire attunement, it can also feel uncomfortable if we are not used to it, which many of us are not.  Attunement is intimate.  It sees you, but you must also allow yourself to be seen in order to fully receive that attuning.  Most people have many layers of protection or defense that they place around themselves due to previous pains and hurts.  Those layers become barriers to allowing ourselves to drink in the nurturance that attunement provides.  So even if attunement is present often we can’t fully let it in based on the protection we’ve created around ourselves from previous experiences.  Its like listening to the symphony with head phones on and ear plugs in.  You may be able to hear some semblance of the musical harmony being offered, but there are layers in the way of you being able to fully hear and receive it.   

ATTUNING, HARMONIZING & ENTRAINING 

Into the heart

Attuning with, harmonizing or entraining (which are all the same thing) with another being allows for a shared experience when both beings are receptive to it.  Attunement requires heart, presence and caring.  If you don’t care or have desire for others than you won’t experience attunement with them.  Seems obvious, but maybe not for all, as some people truly don’t see or understand why they don’t experience the level of connection with self or others that they desire.  The field, intelligence and energy of the heart is what allows you to go beyond individual person into interconnectedness.  Without heart there is separate individuated beings doing their own thing, which pretty much sums up a large portion of how our society thinks and functions.  With heart there is a interwoven web of beingness all impacting itself, which is the next level of development for the beings on this planet to reach.  

From time to time people express to me that they want more experience from their experience, whether on the table during a session or in their life with others (I find the two to be synonymous).  They want to feel more or experience more, even if they don’t know what it is exactly that they to feel or experience more of.  Others are more clear in their desire.  They know they want to be more expansive, feel more connected, be more aware of subtlety or of their energetic nature, experience more inter-dimensionality, feel more loving, more bliss, more ecstatic, more open.  The first thing I say is that it is important to get clear on exactly what it is you want in the first place.  Put words to it.  Begin to feel it already and notice where you might have even the subtlest amount of resistance, doubt or uncertainty around what you think you want to more of.  These are layers or protection that interfere with you being able to attune and harmonize with your desires.  The second thing I say is that our very nature is all of those things: open, bliss, love, and infinitely deep and expansive.  There is no lack of open, ecstatic bliss because it is what you are.  It is not a destination to get to, but a realization of what you already are.  Notice where you put your “wholeness” in the future, where it seems unattainable or where you feel undeserving of it.  These are more layers that create interference.  Lastly I say that all of those things desired are found in the heart.  Opening into love for self and love for others is a portal into having the ability to connect to all levels of yourself and all aspects of other.  This provides the capacity for attuning to others and the willingness to be attuned too, which at our deepest level we are all starving for.

Attuning, harmonizing and entraining is the core of all relationships.  There is no real relationship without them.  There may be practicalities that get carried out, but no real connection occurs inside of a relationship without the capacity and willingness for attunement.  While practicalities are important they are not the juice of life that make us come alive and feel that life is worth living.  Instead relating, community, connection, interconnectedness, and the play of the heart are what lights us up.  This is where we forget all the things we thought where so important to remember, figure out, heal or know.  We forget about all the stuff we think we want to get and all the places we want to go.  We become present.  We are here.  Infinite energy, possibilities and connection live here now.  

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