energy rich

INTUITION & ALIGNMENT

Dr. Amanda Love 1 Comment

INTUITION & ALIGNMENT

Convincing ourselves other

We always know what is and isn’t in alignment for us.  Even if we don’t know certain facts, details, or the specifics of things, we know what feels on and what feels off.  All children know this.  In fact it’s even easier as children because there aren’t as many inner stories or rules to interfere.  We are naturally intuitive.  Where we run into trouble with ourselves is when we stop listening, ignore or take action in the opposite direction of what feels energizing to us.  When we choose the less energizing choice we feel the agony of inner conflict.  A conflict that is often reinforced by a sense of obligation, feeling like you have to do it a certain way or like you don’t know what else to do.  When doubt, fear and obligation rear their heads we can find ourselves sliding into what we know and what is familiar to us rather than what is actually aligned.

Convincing ourselves to take unaligned actions even when we know we will feel less energized by doing so, sometimes feels like the only way.  Why is this?  It’s because we don’t want to feel the uncertainty of not knowing what’s next.  We let our avoidance of uncertainty of outer things override our knowing of inner things.  We start to accommodate to the appearance of outer things rather than stay centered in our inner knowing.  Sometimes it feels just so tempting to do so.  We feel lost because the outer world isn’t giving us facts, details and certainty.  Our inner world, while feeling good in its alignment, gets swayed by the seeming lack of things showing themselves to us.  Alas we get swayed by that part of us that feels like it has to know what will happen and needs some solid evidence of it.

We know we’ve been swayed when we start to feel heavy.  Our energy feels drained and it takes a lot of work to do little things.  It feels hard to make things happen.  Nothing seems to work and we feel unclear.  We become impatient and demanding.  We lose touch with gratitude.  We don’t see the magic in life and typically we complain a bit.  We work harder to make something, anything, happen.  We don’t even know what we specifically feel anymore, only that whatever it is we don’t like it and we want some information, details, facts and certainty to show up already.  We’ve all experienced this a time or two.  You wouldn’t be human if you hadn’t.  This is what it feels like to be disconnected.  Disconnected from yourself and therefore being or choosing differently than what is actually in alignment for you and where you would like to come from.   

CHOOSING THE ENERGIZING WAY 

Building the alignment muscle

Surprisingly choosing what feels more aligned or more energized might freak you out a little bit.  Sometimes it’s easy and sometimes it will require that you allow yourself to feel the mystery of not knowing.  However if you can handle the heat you will develop the muscle of following your alignment, and that is a muscle worth developing.  Some people might call this faith or trust, and in addition to that there is a huge heap of courage needed to listen and follow what it is you already know inside.  To break this down a little further, uncertainty can manifest as someone not responding favorably to a choice you make.  It might also look like not having a back up plan.  It can be taking an action towards something that feels exciting without any clue what the results with be.  It can be pausing or waiting when no answers or options are presenting themselves.  There is perceived risk in these things.  Risk to our sense of identity, to our relationships, to our feelings of safety and sense of progress.

Yet if we desire to feel energized, to feel alive and vital, then we must learn to follow our inner knowing.  Call it intuition, inner knowing or alignment, it’s all the same.  When we choose the choice, the way or the path that energizes us, whether that means taking no action or taking massive action, we always feel better.  It always feels better to choose our alignment even if it feels scary, threatening or uncertain, and even if it means we have to let something go.  Letting something go could be letting go of a way of being, thinking or seeing that is very familiar to us.  It might be letting go of a relationship configuration so that it can reconfigure.  It might be shifting physical locations or letting go of objects.  It might be letting go of ideas that aren’t really exciting to us, but that we’ve convinced ourselves we need or want.  When we let go we create space for life to show us what is really in alignment and what the appearance of our true alignment looks like.

We all have the capacity to take actions in alignment.  It is of course our free will to choose whether or not we will.  It is more exciting and unnerving to follow our inner knower all of the time.  Our inner knower is our compass, our guide, and our friend in this lifetime.  It is constantly informing us even when we aren’t listening.  However if you choose to listen and have the courage to take action in response to its messages, you will always feel like you are on purpose even when you don’t know what the heck you’re doing or what heck is going on.  You can simultaneously be in the total mystery and complete alignment at the same time.  Having your mind know something based on the appearance of what is showing up in your life pales in comparison to living an aligned life in complete mystery.  Again courage is required and with more and more aligned action you will come to understand the basic mechanisms of how life works.  Life will show you what your alignment looks like when you come from being aligned.  You can forget about what you think life should look like from your ideas of alignment and instead watch the movie be revealed to you before your very eyes.  It’s exciting, and it’s a mystery. 

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

NEUROLOGICAL DEFENSE

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NEUROLOGICAL DEFENSE 

Moving away from pain

Much of how we operate, move, behave, perceive, think, feel and sense is learned and habitual.  We develop strategies, patterns and ways of being through our experiences.  We learn to perceive and move about our world based on internal and external cues.  If we do the same thing over and over, or see something the same way over and over, we learn to create wiring or neurological patterning in our nervous system based on our perceptions or behaviors.  If we repeat the same thing enough times then the way we perceive something or how we move about becomes automatic or habitual.  This means that there is very little “registering” or conscious awareness that happens as we engage with life.  Life is simply a series of habits and reactions, that is unless we create novelty inside of our perceptions. 

If something hurts we instinctually move away from it and if it feels good we move towards it.  Hurt can be physical such as if we place our hand on a hot stove, or it can be emotional or mental such as feeling rejection or like we aren’t good enough.  Regardless of where the hurt hits us we learn early on how to protect ourselves from the pain of feeling it.  We might flee or run in order to move away from it.  We might fight back in order to push something away from us.  We also might freeze in place or go numb in attempt to avoid the hurt or pain.  On a neurological level there is a response to this avoidance of pain, which is commonly known as the stress response.  Most people are quite familiar with the terminology “stress response” yet most people don’t really get what it means for how they experience their life on a day to day basis.  

When we are in protection (i.e. avoidance) mode our nervous system wires and fires pathways that create various messages throughout the body.  These messages gear us up for fighting until we eventually burnout and the effect of this is what we call adrenal fatigue.  These messages also put us on alert, or in a hyper-vigilant state.  They get us to focus on what’s wrong or what might be out to harm us.  They create tension in the body so that we don’t feel the impact of harm or pain.  They effect our sleep cycles making it hard to feel rested or get good sleep.   They make it harder to digest our food, and they move energy out of self-healing and into self-protection.  This state of being is called neurological defense.  At any point in our life we can have experiences that don’t feel good to us and we activate these patterns of defense rather than feel the impact of pain or harm or potential pain/harm.  There is intelligence in these defensive patterns, however they greatly limit our experience of life.  We cannot move into healing and neurological openness unless we are willing to move towards that which we avoid feeling.   

NEUROLOGICAL OPENNESS   

Moving towards life

While there is intelligence to our defensive reactions and patterns in the body they also create great limitation in our experience of life.  They allow us to experience only a limited range of feelings, sensations, and thoughts.  They limit our behaviors, perceptions, and our relationships with self and others.  They cap the amount of energy we have access to receiving, giving and sharing.  They keep our bodies running in suboptimal energy conditions effecting our health and overall well-being.  They keep us from fully experiencing the range of our hearts and the hearts of others.  There is great cost to our avoidance of feeling pain.  

When we stop avoiding pain and allow ourselves to feel and be with it, some pretty amazing things happen.  First is that you can no longer be angry.  Feeling the pain we’ve experienced softens us.  Some people don’t even know just how angry they are because they’ve adopted other strategies of self-protection such as always being positive, people pleasing, or the more quiet version of anger which is self-hatred.  This can manifest very subtly as negative self-talk or simply not feeling yourself to be great.  If you don’t unequivocally know that you are fucking amazing then you probably have some work to do here.  Second is that your neurological, and thus physiological state, shifts.  All those messages that your nervous system sends out change in nature when you move towards life experiences.  Rather than messages gearing you up to fight, flight or freeze, it sends messages of relaxation and ease.  Food can then be digested, sleep happens naturally, and the self-healing mechanism occurs unimpeded.  Muscles relax, the posture becomes more upright and open, and your focus shifts onto what is here, what’s working, and on how life is supporting you.  Nothing is out to get you anymore.  You look for invitations and openings.  More opportunities seem to be available to you.  You feel more confident in yourself.  This is what I call neurological openness.

In neurological openness we participate more fully with life.  We perceive things that we didn’t perceive before, and we sense, feel and think differently because we are more open to life rather than in protection from it.  We become more awake or aware of our impact on life, others and ourselves.  We recognize more and more that we have choice.  This recognition of choice is the beginning place of novelty.  We start trying on new feelings, thoughts, behaviors and perceptions, which create and lay down new patterns in our neurology.  We become different and therefore experience life differently.  

The more we lay down the patterns of openness in our nervous system the more we move into the field of our heart.  The yummy bliss of yes.  Beyond participation with life we move into oneness with it.  We see that nothing in not us therefore there has never been anything to protect from.  This is the awakened stage of the healing journey.  From separation and self-protection into unification and love.  It is all available to you as you are ready for it.  

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

WANT WHAT YOU WANT MORE

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WANT WHAT YOU WANT MORE 

Stop living mixed frequencies 

Oftentimes we find ourselves mixed.  We want this, but feel that.  As badly as we think or say that we want to experience certain things or feelings more, we simultaneously tolerate not experiencing what we say we desire.  I call this living in mixed frequency.  When we have mixed frequencies we create experiences in our lives that don’t quite match up with our true desires and life doesn’t have that continuous flow to it.  We often feel like we are walking up hill, just getting through each day.   This is a low to neutral energy state where life feels mundane and we don’t really experience the magic of it.

When you find yourself in this state of being, of low to neutral energy levels, your experience of life may be ok, but it’s not great.  You may feel frustration or you may just feel like this is as good as it gets.  You might know that there’s more because you’ve tasted more, but you can’t seem to live there all of the time and you aren’t exactly sure why.  The reason is most likely because you have mixed frequencies and are tolerating things in your life that you don’t want.  “Things” that you don’t want could be physical in nature, but also, and maybe more importantly include tolerating thoughts, feelings and states of being that are incongruent with what you say you want.  For example you might say that you want to feel love all of the time.  You may tell yourself that your entire life is about feeling love.  In fact you may even think that the reason you exist is to feel and express love, and yet you tolerate feeling unloving.  Hence the birth of a mixed frequency.  You’re confused because your life isn’t what you want it to be and yet you don’t see that it’s because you are incongruent.  

We tend not to see this because we are generally not taught that we are responsible for our state of being.  Rather we believe that our state of being happens to us.  This means that when life looks like we want it to or expect it too, then we feel the state of being we desire.  When xyz happens then I feel love, or joy, or bliss.  We have it all backwards.  State of being comes first, and the happenings of life come second.  How it really works is when you feel love, joy, or bliss then xyz happens.  This is a massive rewire for most people, and it’s where our true conscious creator-ship power lives.  It’s where we learn that the stuff we create is made up of what we are.  If we don’t start with love, joy or bliss then whatever it is that we create has a different energetic signature.  That being the signature of whatever state of being we were in when we created, even if we were unconscious of our state of being or in automatic pilot mode while we where creating.   

TURN UP YOUR VIBRATIONAL FREQUENCY

Making the shift

Making the shift from being subjected to your state of being, to being the source of your state of being, is revolutionary for your  experience and creation of life.  Yes you are the creator of this experience you are having whether or not it feels like you are, and whether or not you like what you’ve created.  So you might wonder how to stop creating from a state of mixed frequencies.  The first and perhaps only piece, is to turn up your vibrational frequency by wanting what you want more.  Turning up you desire knob.  Many people don’t feel that desirous.  Yet desire is your creative power.  The intensity with which you desire is the intensity with which you create what you want and un-mix your frequencies.  If you really wanted to run a marathon than you would get up every morning and practice running.  If you really wanted to be a doctor you would take all the courses you needed to get the degree.  If you really wanted to feel bliss, joy or love you would focus intensely on feeling those states of being.  It really isn’t rocket science, it’s simply desire.  

What it boils down to is that we don’t desire enough what we say/think we desire.  The great thing is that you can always increase your desire levels.  You simply have to make what you desire more important.  You have to really mean it.  You can call this discipline, or commitment, or devotion, but ultimately it’s desire.  Our human nature is quite lazy and so if it doesn’t perceive that it “has to be” disciplined or committed, then we won’t discipline or commit ourselves.  The result of that is that we tolerate things in our life that we really don’t want and we live in the energy low to neutral place.  It’s helpful to have a bit of discomfort or unease in order to propel us into action, into desire, into wanting what we really want.  If we are comfortable or too easeful we tend to flatten out.  

You could use the analogy of weight here.  Maybe you weigh 5-10 lbs more than you would like to, but you tolerate that because its not super uncomfortable yet.  When you get to 20-30 lbs more than you would like to weigh you are more uncomfortable and therefore have more momentum to commit to something in order to get to the weight you actually desire to be at.  Same thing applies for our internal state.  Maybe you tolerate not being in love, bliss or joy 50-60% of your day, but when its at 85-95% it gets to be unbearable and something must be done.  We all have different tolerance points.  As always I recommend making your tolerance level as close to 0% as you are willing.  If you do it will dramatically decrease and even end the mixed frequency cycle for you.  You will no longer be confused about why don’t experience what you know is possible, because you will be experiencing it more and more.  Your energy will move into higher or richer states of being.  This is simply an effect of being more in alignment with yourself, or said another way, more desirous of what you actually desire.  Be bold, and want what you want more despite your stories around it.  Dare to come into more alignment with yourself.  Utilize any tiny amount of uncomfortableness or unease as an indicator that you are not fully aligned with yourself somewhere and take action immediately.  Stop tolerating.  Discover that you are the creator of what you experience.  Turn up your vibrational frequency.  Experience aligned living.  

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

Maintaining energy richness

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Maintaining energy richness 

Energy states

energy statesOur energy state is pivotal to how we engage with life and how our body functions.  When we are in an energy poor state we have little capacity to do anything other than survive. We typically can’t engage fully in our daily activities, our bodies are ill and there isn’t any energy available for growth, social interactions or contribution.  We are merely trying to make it through the next moment or day.  

Energy neutral is one step beyond energy poor.  In energy neutral we have enough energy to engage in our day to day activities and be “functional” humans, but we are often tired, don’t feel like engaging with others much and have the need to disconnect or check out in order to recover.  Our bodies are not in crisis, but there may be a few things not working as well as we would like them too.  This is the zone where most humans hang out in their energy state.  

Then there is energy rich.  When we are in an energy rich state we are alive.  We actively participate in our lives, our bodies are not just maintaining status quo, but instead are getting healthier and more vital.  We can show up for ourselves and for others.  People often describe flow states as being energy rich.  This is where life seems to unfold effortlessly and in synchronicity with everything else.  

We all have probably had tastes of each of these energy states at various times in our lives.  More often than not when we are not in an energy rich state we are trying to figure out how we can get there again.  So what are the keys to maintaining energy richness?  How do we live there rather than just visit periodically?   

Choosing your state of being 

Realizing the power of choice

47912357 - businesswoman standing in front of opened doors and making decisionEnergy state is based on your level of awareness.  Let me explain.  Most of us do not realize that we are choosing our lives.  What this means is that we have thoughts, emotions and sensations that we believe are random occurrences; that these things simply happen to us.  We are not aware that we are the chooser of such things.  What is it like to stop for a moment and entertain that the sensations you feel, the emotions you experience and the thoughts that you have are not random?  Do you believe it or does some disbelief arrive?  

It is the disbelief that we are the chooser of the things that we experience and that there is seeming randomness in what occurs to us that makes it difficult for us to maintain the energy state of our choosing.  This is because we don’t realize yet that we are choosing.  So how do we realize that we are the chooser and that life is not happening to us, but instead that we are happening to life?  

It begins, as with everything, with awareness.  So what is awareness?  Awareness is the noticing of what is present without being merged with what is.  What this means is noticing your sensations, emotions and thoughts without identifying yourself with your sensations, emotions and thoughts.  For example, say you have the thought “I am stupid”  and you believe that thought to be a true reflection of who you are, you are merged with the thought instead of realizing it is simply a thought and not you.  When you are identifying with thoughts such as these the highest level of energy you will ever experience is energy neutral.  If you are identifying yourself with certain emotions you will have energy neutral to energy poor states and if you identify yourself with your sensations, such as being your pain or a physical condition, you will experience energy poor states.  

Energy rich states result when you realize that you are not your thoughts, feelings and sensations, but simply are aware of them.  When you are aware of them you can be present with them instead of merged with them.  It can seem scary to stay and be present with some sensations, feelings and thoughts.  As you do things may arise in your awareness that you have had a tendency to push down or avoid previously such as inadequacies of self, feelings of powerlessness, shame, etc., but as you stay present instead of merged with, you begin to realize that all of those things you were afraid of are just smoke and mirrors, illusions, never actually real.  As you stay present and aware more and more, you being the chooser of all of your life experiences becomes increasingly apparent.  This is ultimately how you claim, own and live energy richness.  

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