energetic chiropractic

Embracing Aloneness

Dr. Amanda Love 1 Comment

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

Magic of the Spine

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MAGIC OF THE SPINE 

Conduit between spirit and form

You might not have heard or known, but your spine is a conduit for magic.  Real, live, magic.  Yes, that’s right.  Perhaps you’ve only thought of your spine as just a bunch of bones that make up your back, but there is much more going on back there then what meets the ordinary eye.  First of all your spine is not just a bunch of bones.  Yes there are bones, lots of beautiful bones, but the bones aren’t even the most exciting structure back there.  The bones house or encase the spinal cord.  Thank goddess for those bones.  We need them in order to protect that spinal cord.  The spinal cord is that ever so precious structure that allows communication between spirit and body to take place.  Yep you read that correctly, spirit communicates to your body right through your glorious spinal cord.  

A few definitions first.  What is spirit?  Spirit is intelligence.  It is awareness.  It is the source of all knowing and life.  It is all information that is available for everything in creation.  It is breath.  It enlivens or gives life to all forms.  What is body?  Body is form.  It is where awareness (ie. spirit) has localized and configured into a specific structure that we call body.  It is also typically what we identify as ourselves.  Sometimes we like to differentiate our brain from our body, but the brain is body as well.  It’s form equally enlivened or organized by the intelligence of spirit.  Just like your liver has the functions of detoxification and bile production, your brain has the functions of memory, thinking, personality and so many other functions, many of which are not even activated or awake.

The tone of the structures of the body determine how spirit moves through it.  What does that mean?  It means that the positioning, holding and posturing of the tissues of the body, directly influence how intelligent awareness can enliven, move through, and organize them.  The spinal cord is the central tissue structure in the body, which connects to and has immediate impact on every single structure inside of the body.  The tone of the spinal cord determines how information gets communicated to the liver, kidneys, muscles, brain and everything else in the body.  This is why the spine is a conduit for magic.  It provides the path for how spirit moves through, energizes and wakes up all the functions that these bodies have.   

KUNDALINI ENERGY

Movement of the spine

It is no accident that our chakras (i.e. our body’s energy centers) are aligned along the vertical axis of the spine, and why yogis and meditators pay special attention to their posture and unwinding tissue tension in order to achieve desired states of consciousness through their practices.  If you are familiar with yogic Indian teachings you’ve likely heard about kundalini energy.  It is described as an energy that is coiled in the shape of serpent at the base of the spine.  It lies dormant there until the right conditions for when it can begin to rise up the spine.  As it rises up the spine it activates, clears and awakens the chakras that are aligned along the vertical axis.  As each chakra is enlivened, functions of the body and its various components can change.  New sensory faculties can awaken, different perspectives can be seen, personalities can alter, until Nirvana or enlightenment is experienced.  For some this experience is the natural progression of inner work and spiritual discipline.  For others it can occur spontaneously during energy work, ingestion of medicinal substances, sexual experiences, or in the presence of someone who has activated their own kundalini.  

In Network Spinal Analysis we use the term “Somatopsychic Wave” rather than kundalini energy, but regardless of the term used, it is pointing to the same thing.  Network Spinal supports the unwinding of the tonal tissue patterns in the spinal cord.  When those tissue patterns begin to unwind, the energy that sits at the base of the spine begins to awaken.  With that awakening there is a rising of energy up the spine.   For some this is a gradual, subtle sensation of movement from deep inside of the body.  For others it is an intense expression of movement that seems to be beyond the physical body and can be clearly seen by the visual eye.  

Kundalini is a force of instability.  Its purpose is to clear stuff out and shake stuff up.  It destabilizes tension patterns so that spirit can move through and more fully infuse, invigorate and activate these bodies of ours.  It clears the way for intelligence to freely circulate throughout.  It helps support personal transformation and spiritual growth.  It assists in the embodiment of our soul and states of ecstatic rapture.  Physically it allows life force intelligence to flow to our organs and glands.  Emotionally it helps us open into and feel our emotions.   Mentally it clears the way for more confidence, brightest and clarity.  Soulfully it helps us find the center of ourselves, our inner knowing, our truth and our heart.  

It’s evident, our spines are downright magical.  When the tone of the tissues of the spinal cord change, so does our entire experience of life, for better or worse.  The body and all of its components come alive because of spirit, and spirit organizes the body.  When was the last time you thought of your body as spirit’s home rather than as your personal identity?  Heaven is already on earth by the simple fact that spirit enlivens a body.  We are everything we’ve been waiting for and everything we’ve been waiting for has been here all along.  

Dr. Amanda Love, 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

Effortless Stream of Giving

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EFFORTLESS STREAM OF GIVING 

Giving to life

Giving often feels like effort.  In fact most of us feel like we are giving all day long and find ourselves completely drained by the days end.  Giving can come with activity, busyness and action, and there is no doubt that activity without periods of rest can deplete our systems.  Yet there is a giving to life that happens even before action or activity occurs.  A state of being of giving that is prior to anything that we physically or mentally do.  In fact I’d suffice to say that much of our tiredness and depletion comes not from the activities themselves, but rather from not being in a state of giving while we go about doing our activities.  Again it’s not to deny that we need both periods of activity and rest, however the place from which we come from makes all the difference.

So how do we find this effortless stream of giving?  The good news is that we don’t have to go anywhere to find it because it lives right inside of us.  We only need to tap into it so to speak.  You’ve probably tapped into it before, but you likely didn’t know exactly what you were touching.  You might have related the experience of tapping into the effortless stream of giving as feeling defeat.  In fact the feeling of defeat is an entry point into the effortless stream of giving.  Yet most people get lost in their story about what is happening and keep trying to make their experience match their desire rather than feel defeat.  They keep banging away at attempting to make the appearance different rather than admitting defeat to the appearance.  Hence why they get so damn tired.  Hence why we are all so damn tired.  

When you stop trying to make the operations and happenings of life be different, there is no other choice but to let them be.  When you let them be as they are and participate with them as such, you stop forcing anything.  When forcing stops, so does resistance, tiredness and efforting.  If you’re constantly fighting the stream you are going to be expending a lot more energy and it’s going to feel like a lot more work than if you just went with it.  However going with the stream will at times feel like defeat and you must be willing to feel this defeat.  The beautiful thing about this, if you really get this, is that when you accept defeat you naturally open into giving.  You can’t not give to your experience when you are no longer fighting it.  When you allow what is to be how and what it is, you become the stream of giving organically.  There is nothing extra that you need to do.  It’s simply how it is when you are with life rather than at odds with it.  You may still not like your experience, but you won’t be as tired and the need to check yourself out of life so that you can rest and recover will be less.  You will start to find and feel rest inside of your experience, and here is where you are actually present, maybe for the first time ever. 

STOP WISHING INTENSITY AWAY 

Opportunities for being present

Sometimes life has to kind of beat us up a little bit before we are willing to accept defeat, so that we ultimately learn to live presently in full participation with the unfolding of life.  When we are experiencing this “beating up” of sorts we often label it under the disguise of the word “intensity.”  You’ve probably heard someone or maybe even yourself say, “wow things are really intense right now.”  It’s a very popular spiritual thing to say.  I hear that phrase many times a week.  When people say this often they are wanting that experience of intensity to go away,.  They are internally waiting, though they might not know they are waiting, until appearances and circumstances change so that they can feel lighter, better or less intensity.  The energy of this inner dynamic feels like wanting whatever is happening to just be over with already, because once it’s over you think you feel better.  Once the intensity is gone then you think you will be able to relax.

This is a trap.  It’s a trap because life is full of intensity and if you are waiting or trying to force the situations of intensity to go away, you will find yourself doing this until the day your body dies, and maybe even beyond, who knows.  Besides for it being a trap, when you wish your intensities to go away you rob yourself of incredibly potent opportunities for learning, which I call catalyst.  This catalyst, or these moments of extra intensity, bring the gift of breaking us down.  Why do we need to be broken down you ask?  Bluntly stated because most of us are living in arrogant, self-centered ways and seeing through limited perspectives that have nothing to do with what is actually occurring.  Most of these perspectives harm us or others rather than being helpful, yet they can be very convincing that they are trying to help.  These sneaky arrogant, self-centered ways along with their limited perspectives need to be dismantled so that we can stop acting in opposition to the unfolding of life and rather move with it.

The little bit tricky thing about all of this is that we typically greatly identify with these parts and perspectives that need to be dismantled, so we tend to not let them go out without a fight.  Hence the way of effort, force, resistance, which eventually results in tiredness and depletion that we may then lead to sickness, illness or adrenal fatigue.  This then brings us to the dire need for intensity in our lives, because often intensity is our only hope in dismantling these ways of being and limited perspectives once and for all.  Stopping wishing your intensities away.  See them rather as an opportunity to open into the effortless stream of giving.  

Breaking isn’t bad.  What’s breaking is energetic architecture that isn’t serving us living fully present.  Those structures need to break.  If they don’t we stay trapped and wonder why our experience of life doesn’t change for the better.  Even though many of us try to not feel the break of anything, breaking is natural.  The journey of growth is deconstruction and reconstruction.  If you aren’t regularly destructing then you probably aren’t growing much either.  Don’t try to always make things “good”, let things be “bad” or intense at times.  Even celebrate intensity if you can because within it is immense opportunity for something great to be born. 

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

Breaking Up with Shame

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BREAKING UP WITH SHAME 

Exposing our hidden selves

Shame, which is an underlying sense that we ourselves are somehow bad or wrong, is a well grooved inner pathway for most.  Some people might first default to blame, which is simply shame projected outwards onto others.  Why do we carry around with us this sense that we are, or could be, bad or wrong?  Why is it that when other people disagree with how we are, or have opinions about how we should be, that we nearly immediately go into self-defense in the form of hatred or rejection of ourselves?  Shame is one of the most pervasive and debilitating feeling states.  When we feel it we tend to freeze, withdraw and judge ourselves.  We think thoughts along the lines of “if only I could be better or different than I am, then I wouldn’t be deficient, or bad or wrong, and people would love and include me.”  Talk about one of the most painful states of being in which there seems to be no good way out.  From the perspective of shame the only answer is for you to be different or better than you are in order to be loved and accepted.  This is battle that you will always end up losing.  You will lose because your sense of being loved and included is outside of you, and you will forever be chasing it because being loved and included is the most primary of all human needs and wants.  

We have endless strategies to avoid feeling shame.  One of the most primary ones is to stay hidden, to not allow others to see who we are, to put up fronts and be inauthentic so that people won’t judge us.  If we don’t let people see us then they can’t reject us or tell us that we are wrong.  If there is no one “real” at home inside of us for people to see then we can’t be accountable to being “wrong”.  If we just stay quiet enough, keep the peace, pretend to not know much including knowing who we are or what value we have to contribute or share, then we can avoid the painstaking judgment of others.  That is until we can’t.  There will be a time when someone judges us, when they disagree with us, when they perceive some kind of insufficiency in our actions or beingness.  There is no hiding then.  The cloak is off and we are exposed.  This is when the shame gets in.  We might react in anger, recoil in self-defense, or completely cut ourselves off from our own heart.  We are left with the feeling that we are bad and wrong, and often beating ourselves up about it or lashing out at others.  

You might be wondering where does shame come from.  It’s simple really.  It comes from a belief that you are bad or wrong.  Where did the belief come from?  The belief in badness or wrongness is such a pervasive societal belief that you would be hard pressed not to have pick it up somewhere along your human journey.  Maybe someone told you were bad or wrong when you were growing up.  Perhaps you learned it socially through peers groups, in school, or in your family.  It’s actually not so important where you picked up the belief, rather what is important is that you identify the belief living inside of yourself.  That you see it and recognize that you are now the source of it.  You are the one that keeps that belief alive, active, and true for you in your own psyche. 

NEVER BEEN WRONG 

Graceful learning

What if you’ve never ever been wrong?  Seems like a bold question, eh?  Would you believe it if I told you that you never have been?  For a moment you might feel some relief at that thought, but most people will go on to validate for themselves how it’s not true.  They will conjure up all of the times they’ve been bad or wrong in the past.  They will reinforce the belief in their wrongness or badness for themselves.  Most people don’t really want to believe that they are right and good.  When I speak about right and wrong as it relates to us as beings, I am not talking about detailed or factual information.  Yes you can be inaccurate about facts, or in recalling certain details, or about information.  What I am pointing to rather is who you are, including the things that you do and say.  If someone is frequently found to be insisting on their rightness by needing to be right about facts and information it’s often because they feel deeply wrong inside as to who they are.  It’s simply another shame avoidance strategy.  

Imagine for a minute if you could really embrace non-badness and non-wrongness.  If that could really be a reality for you.  How would you feel?  For most I would imagine that you would feel some sense of freedom.  It would be the end of self-doubt, the end of self-hatred and the beginning of an availability to life that you might have never experienced before.  See most of what we believe to be bad/good or wrong/right is based on what other people think or what culture/society says we should be like.  It’s not based on our own knowing.  If it was we would all just be being ourselves and wouldn’t think twice about it.  But almost no one is being fully and authentically who they are all of the time.  

Let’s talk about actions and things we say.  First of all people who love themselves and know that they are right and good don’t harm other people.  There simply isn’t motivation for it.  Doing harm to others is an outward expression that comes from a deep sense of self-hatred and self-rejection (i.e. shame).  Believe it or not, and it’s of course up to you to choose for yourself, but there are no actions or words that are bad or wrong.  Yikes.  You might disagree and you are more than welcome too, however the shame cycle never ends for you then.  You perceive some action or word as wrong in another.  You project that wrongness onto that person who now feels shame from your projection regarding their words or actions.  In response they act in some distorted fashion in order to not feel the shame.  Same goes for your own words and actions. What we perceive and feel we create.  The cycle continues unchecked into infinity.  

So then what about learning?  How do we learn if we don’t feel shame?  How do we up level and become more refined, loving and aware creatures towards ourselves and others?  Well again believe it or not, we don’t have to be bad or wrong in order to learn, and learning doesn’t mean that we are/were bad or wrong.  People can give their opinion to us, of something we did or shared, without us going into shame.  We can both stay open to the feedback and then decide what we want to do with that information.  Is there something constructive that we could learn from that person’s information without going into wrongness?  Could we just receive that information and note it or integrate it.  Perhaps there is nothing bad or wrong about what we did or didn’t do, but only learning to be had.  Also what if when you shared your experience of others with them you simply shared impact rather than judgment.  What if you took accountability for how you feel about what occurred while still providing information to another person about how their words/behaviors impacted you.  This is a high level skill yet it is learnable.  

We are all constantly learning and it doesn’t mean we are bad or wrong.  When you get this you can break up with shame.  While at one stage of your development perhaps shame was a good learning strategy for you, it’s also one that at some point quits serving you.  It limits your growth and keeps you disconnected from yourself, which in turn helps and serves no one. 

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

More than Enough

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MORE THAN ENOUGH

Coping strategies to avoid

Feeling like we are not enough is the most pervasive of human wounds.  It is a cloak nearly all of us wear.  A deep sense of inadequacy, unworthiness, and unlovability.  Our biggest fear is that we are not lovable and that who we are is not valuable, and because of this we seek outside of ourselves for significance and love, thinking that it must be elsewhere.  That it must be something that we need to earn, achieve or somehow otherwise get.  This patterning, and our belief in our unlovability interferes more with the expression of ourselves than anything else does.  It is our biggest roadblock to fulfillment, health and well-being.  It stops us in our tracks, keeps us in our comfort zone, allows us to think small, live small and keep a certain distance from ourselves and others.

We have all learned strategies to cope or manage with the sense of fundamentally being not enough.  So much so that you might not even recognize the not enough story playing in the background of your psyche.  Some people learn to achieve, do and accomplish in order to not hear that voice of not enough.  Others learn to give as much as possible to others hoping that their not enoughness won’t be seen in the flurry of doing for others.  Other strategies include distracting ourselves with whatever we can find to distract ourselves with, leaving our body and living up in our heads or far away in the stars, creating or maintaining unaligned relationships, and/or distancing ourselves from life and others.  We all have utilized or are utilizing some or all of these strategies.  Without doing so life would be unimaginably hard.  Yet there is a cost to these strategies, which is that we never get to really just be or relax as ourselves.  

This keeps us exhausted and the fulfillment of the moment and the sweetness of life never seem to arrive.  It often feels like they are somewhere other than where we are.  If we can just keep up our strategies then we will get there.  We can see it on the horizon, even taste it, but it always seems like it’s just right out of our reach.  Never being able to surrender to and feel the not enoughness we keep at our strategies, convinced we will arrive in bliss, yet bliss can’t get in.  It can’t reach us or touch us because it is a completely different frequency than what we are currently constituting ourselves as (ie. not enough).  We can’t see how we are keeping all of it at bay.  We just believe that we are almost there while continuing to convince ourselves that there is somewhere else we can get too.  The thing is that there isn’t.  So that idea that we have in our mind stays just as that, an idea of fulfillment, bliss, and well-being that we continually chase and almost just touch, but never live. 

FINDING THE GIFT  

Being all that you are

Inside of every wound there is a gift.  In fact the entire spiritual journey is moving from wound into the gift of whatever the wound gives us.  It’s seeing how we couldn’t be who we are and share what we do without that wound.  However we can’t always just jump right into the gift from the wounded place.  There is learning involved (ie. transformation) before we can resolve, come to peace and give the gift that the wound gave us.  Even though most of us know conceptually that we are enough, many have not embodied it.  If they had we would be living in an incredibly self-empowered world, which we are not.  Rather we live constricted by our inner fears of expressing ourselves, of being not accepted by others, of not being able to make it, of not deserving, of being judged, cast out, separated, and of being left alone.  We feel these fears as limitations and often rather than noticing our deep story of inadequacy and unlovability we go into feeling like we don’t know how.  We think if we just knew the how or the what of our next step or steps then everything would be clear and we would feel better.

Not knowing how or what is our biggest “excuse”, if you will, to not move into our expression, power and worth.  It’s how we avoid, deny or escape the feelings of not enoughness.  The first step in any transformational process is courage.  That means courage to feel not enough rather than stuff it down or pretend that it’s not there (ie. spiritual bypassing).  Without acknowledging and feeling not enough we don’t have the energy, fuel or momentum to take new actions.  This is why we frequently feel like we don’t know how/what.  While it’s true that you may not know all of the details, when you face not enoughness head on you generate an inner power that knows how to figure it all out, even the stuff you currently don’t know.  

Often I hear people say that they don’t want to feel certain things, such as not enoughness, because they feel like they will never get out of them.  Like they will fall into a pit of despair from which there is no escape.  I find that the real pit of despair is avoidance of what we are feeling and/or staying in the story of what we are feeling, while not actually feeling what we feel.  The result of avoiding what we feel is that we experience stagnation, we feel stuck, we don’t grow, we continue to feel bound in limitation and never generate the energy we need to change.  While feeling things, like our sense of unworthiness or not enoughness, is not a picnic in the park, it will with time generate movement in your system.  You will start to see a pathway through.  You will begin to feel a hunger surge up inside of you.  You will take new action, think different thoughts, and see things in novel ways.  A power will rise up in you that says, “Enough of this!  I am enough! I do deserve! I do matter!”.  You become less and less afraid to express or be yourself.  You will discover the paradox of the simultaneity of relaxation and action.  

The gift in having the courage to face, feel and transform is that you give what you learn.  The world needs the gift of you.  No one else can be the specific frequency or flavor that you are.  Your flare is perfectly as it should be.  None is better or worse.  Moving that knowing from concept into embodiment is the missing link.  To surrender to who you are, just as you are, perceived inadequacies and all, everything included, is when you truly become a channel for all that you are here to be.  

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

Say Bye-Bye to Worry

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SAY BYE-BYE👋 TO WORRY 

Your most intimate friend

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

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

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

THE OTHER SIDE OF WORRY 

Mystery revealing itself

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

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

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

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

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

INTENTION & FOCUS

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INTENTION & FOCUS 

A dash of magic

Intention guides life.  Life follows focus.  To some degree we all know this yet most of us aren’t really utilizing the power of it in our day to day life.  Rather we are often unfocused, scattered and distracted.  We decide for a moment or maybe two, that we want to feel a certain way, walk in a particular direction, or take hold of our state of being, but in the next moment we forget it.  We then wonder why we can’t seem to have the healing, life or state of being that we desire.  Then, on top of it all, we have a long list of impossibility beliefs to add into the mix.  If we muster up our will and utilize our focus, then this or that impossibility belief rears its head.  Feeling overwhelmed by it all, we stop in our tracks and give up.  We return to distraction because we can’t seem to find a way through.  We find ourselves feeling stuck, like we (or things) will never change and we feel resigned to life the way it is.  

I think the prime difference between people who feel like they are living aligned and those that struggle to stay aligned is harnessing the power of intention and focus, along with not being afraid of a little magical thinking.  If you’ve ever spent any time around a baby you know that they see the world through the lens of magic.  Something appears in front of their visual field and they get absolutely ecstatic.  They have no idea how it arrived or even what it is.  They are simply enamored and in a state of bliss by whatever it is they see.  They attempt to interact with it however they can, having no idea at all what to do with it.  This is what we call playing.  Then due to the fact that they have no label, definition or meaning, all they experience is magic.  Magic being the essence of the thing and not the thing itself.  As soon as we give names to things we no longer see the magic, and rather see only what we’ve decided something is.  All other possibilities flatten.  

The other thing to notice is that when babies are playing they are totally focused.  They quite dislike it when you remove their “object of magic”, which they are entirely engrossed in.  Their attention might move from toy to toy, but they are just as present with the next non-labelled, no meaning magical thing that arrives into their sensory experience.  As we become toddlers and begin to develop our analytical thinking mind we want to know what everything is and what it all means.  We start to get lost in the world of concepts rather than in the pure potential of what is.  Our minds learn to multi-task and focus on facts, details and the like.  We lose connection to the essence of things and begin to focus on the things themselves.   We move out of present moment and into thought.  

IMAGINATION & REALITY 

Increasing will

And well who doesn’t love thinking?  To just let your mind wander from this thing to that thing.  To be lost in thought.  To contemplate.  To imagine.  It’s fun to imagine, yet for many it stops here.  You might think that imagination is just imagination, not reality.  You may even be very good at imagining, yet if you don’t have any intention or focus behind your imaginations they remain formless.  This is not a problem, again it’s great fun to imagine in our minds, it’s only that you will not have a different human world life experience.  You will be living in thought or concept.  There will be a disconnection between your imaginal world (you could also say your desired world) and what you actually experience.  We are at a stage of human development, in this space-time nexus, where there is massive disconnection between our desired realities and the ones we are living in.  It doesn’t need to be that way, however it does take a heap of intentional focus in order to bridge the seeming gap.

Intentional focus might not be as hard as it seems, but it may appear to come at some sacrifice.  See when we align ourselves with our intention and focus we have to let all of the other stuff go.  That other stuff consists of a lot.  It includes, but is not limited to all of our divergent or distracting thoughts, all of our tendencies to avoid what we think can or can’t be, our habits of comfort, our low demand energy states, our pictures or ideas of what our intention is supposed to look, be or feel like. We have so so so so many ideas, and while ideas are great for imagining possibilities, they can also get in the way of letting the picture of it all reveal itself to you.  Our desires or imaginations are like the seeds, our intention and focus the water, and the sprouting flower just sprouts as it does.  We don’t get to decide it’s appearance.  We can guide and set conditions for it, but we can determine its expression.  We can only nurture it’s becoming and then let it be what it will be. 

If we are too fixated in our analytical mind then we will overly focus on the form of what is.  We will perceive disappointment if the form doesn’t match our desire.  If we return to our infant pre-mind state, we can see only the essence, the magic, the seed, the desire and then accept the form, the picture, the image that is the result.  This acceptance is very different than resignation.  Acceptance sees the beauty in the appearance regardless, where resignation sees only what is doesn’t want in the appearance.  The distinction is the seer (ie. you).  From where do you see?  

Harnessing the power of intention and focus is learning to increase your will.  To be determined without attachment.  This is the dance of will and surrender.  Coming from and with everything you’ve got and then with full embrace letting it be as it is.  Giving or aligning your whole self to your intention in any given moment is magic.  Essence is seen and the forms naturally reconfigure in response.  This is not a forceful or manipulative will, but rather a sacrificial will of sorts.  A will that will give away all of its petty distractions, impossibility beliefs and preconceived ideas for its true desire or intention.  A will that aligns behinds itself and that is self-generative.  A will that takes all of you, but of which you can find absolutely nothing better to give yourself too.  A will that eventually becomes much bigger than you.

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

LANGUAGE OF THE HEART

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LANGUAGE OF THE HEART

Opening the heart

Each of our hearts speaks a language.  The essence of that language is love, which gets shared and expressed in different ways.  Some hearts speak through vibration using words, tones or other sounds either written or spoken.  Some hearts express through art, movement and touch, and still others through just still being.  The heart does not need words, but it might use words to express itself.  It does not need to draw, mold, move or touch, but it might do so in order to share itself with others.  While the language of the heart can be interpreted by placing words, labels, definitions and meanings upon it, it is beyond all ideas and concepts.  The language of the heart tends to evoke feeling in us.  A felt sense that touches us in some way or brings with it a sense of connection, depth and beyondness.  

In order to both express and receive the language of the heart your heart must be open.   You might wonder what it means exactly to have an open heart.  Simply put having an open heart means that you are without personal agenda, not attempting to protect your personal identity from others, but rather that you have a desire to share, express or serve others in some way through being yourself.  It means not being guarded from potential threats or loses to your personal sense of self (i.e. ego mind).  It means being available to and for life rather than closed off from it.  An open heart listens rather than insists.  It shares without force or manipulation.  It feels whatever is present without judgment or story of any kind.  It’s inclusive and discerning.  It cares about the essence of you and others.  It can be strong and even passionately ferrous at times, while rooted in being of service to love.  It doesn’t tolerate b.s. and yet loves all nonetheless.  It recognizes or knows that while life includes you it’s not about you.  

The language of the heart also has a different vibrational quality than what our thoughts, emotions or physical body have.  If you think of it in terms of wavelength, our physical bodies have the longest wavelength.  This is why they appear more solid, gross or dense.  Our emotions have a slightly shorter wavelength than our physical bodies, but a longer wavelength than our thoughts.  This is why you often have to slow yourself down in order to recognize what you are feeling and also why when you do feel something you move at a slower pace than if you are thinking.  Thoughts have a shorter wavelength than our emotions or our physical body.  This is why if you spend a lot of time thinking you might feel ungrounded or find yourself in a fast pace.  The frequency of the heart or soul body is an even shorter wavelength.  It is the subtlest of the bodies described here. Just like you can change the channel of the radio and tune into a different frequency, you can change the tone/tension in your nervous system and tune into these different frequencies of you.  No frequency/body is better than the other.  The key is to have them all energized and accessible to you.  Network entrainments help you shift the tonal patterns of your nervous system so that you can do this very thing.   

HEART VIBRATIONS 

Clearing the channels

The language and frequencies of the heart open us into a more multidimensional nature of reality.  While the mind tends to keep us in a linear, logical and 3D view of life, the heart breaks and bends all of those supposed rules.  This is why attempting to interpret or put meanings onto the expressions of the heart never really works.  We can do it, but really we just end up with a whole bunch of projections and the essence of the thing is covered up underneath all of our ideas and meanings about it.  Yet this is what the human mind likes to do.  It flattens the heart frequency out to its frequency so that the world seems safe, ordinary and consistent.  It’s boring, yet it’s what we tend to do so that we can make “sense” of it all, so that our minds feel like they understand something and can accept it.  While this isn’t bad it does postpone or dampen our access to our heart.  Even though the language of the heart’s expressions are varied and infinite their core message is the same.  Unification and oneness is the beat of their drum.  Knowing this can ease the mind’s endless search for meaning.  All meanings will eventually cease to be relevant in this realization.  

When we are ready and available the language of our heart simply expresses through us.  It’s not something we have to figure out how to do.  Your mind will really dislike that, yet it’s the way it is.  You can’t figure out your heart.  I mean you can try, but good luck.  Now there may be skill sets you need to learn or worldly knowledge that you need to acquire in order to give form to your heart’s frequency, but the form is not the essence of your heart.  Rather only the means to share it.  Don’t get too lost in perfecting forms and rather focus on the heart frequency that you are.  If more people did this we would have a lot less boring or mind numbing jobs that people are just trying to get through.  It’s not about the thing you do, but who you be inside of what you do.

While you can’t figure out your heart, you can prepare for its arrival and clear out the vessel of you for its expression.  Preparation for its arrival is doing the clean up work of all of your personal agendas.  This means doing the inner and outer work of dismantling the need to protect your personal separate self, as if there really even is one.  Remember this is what it takes to open the heart.  When the heart is open, expression is natural.  Just like when the bladder is open you naturally pee.  There’s nothing to figure out, it’s mechanics.   However if there is a bunch of stones in your bladder it makes it harder for the pee to come out.  That’s the clean up work you need to do.  Clear out the stones that interfere with you heart’s natural flow.  

There is nothing too non-ordinary for the heart.  In fact you can kind of think of the language of heart as non-ordinary.  If you are still self-conscious about looking weird, not being accepted by others, being judged or failing, then you know where to begin your clean up work.  When you are in your heart’s frequency you honestly don’t really care about that stuff anymore.  It’s just a non issue.  Your only intention is to be of service in the ways that your heart desires to express.  Your mind frequently won’t know what any of it means or what will come of it, but again you care less and less about needing to know.  You will find freedom in being you.

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

GIVE WHAT YOU WANT TO GET

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GIVE WHAT YOU WANT TO GET

Reversing directions

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

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

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

BE YOUR DESIRE

Shifting focus

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

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

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

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