inner stability

TINY LITTLE PEACE DISRUPTERS

Dr. Amanda Love Leave a comment

TINY LITTLE PEACE DISRUPTERS 

Good days and bad days

Most all of us desire a state of inner peace.  That sustainably stable center of being, that remains undisturbed regardless of situation or circumstance.  I really don’t know anyone who isn’t in someway looking or desiring this for themselves.  Often times we taste peace.  For example we might wake up in the morning after a great night’s sleep feeling rested and fantastic.  Then we start our day and tiny little peace disrupters attempt to find their way inside of our experiences.  Maybe our partner is grouchy and that affects our state of joy a little bit.  Perhaps we don’t have the food in our refrigerator that we want to eat for breakfast because our kids ate it last night.  Possibly you receive a phone call from your doctor telling you they didn’t like the look of some your routine blood work that you did last week for your annual check up.  Then you get in your car, start it up and it’s making some strange noise.  You arrive at your scheduled lunch meeting only to find out the person you are meeting is running 40 minutes late.  You get the idea.  The list could go on and on and on endlessly forever.  

It’s really no wonder that we feel stressed out most of time and not really as present and centered as we’d like to be.  It seems to be that there are a thousand tiny, little (and sometimes big) peace disrupters that happen in a give day.  You can find them in nearly every moment it seems.  Little ways that life does not appear to run smoothly, where things are less desirable than we want them to be, and where life just doesn’t feel like we want it to feel.  We worry about the outcome of all the things and if everything will turn out alright.  We dread the hassle of taking care of things that we aren’t sometimes even sure how to take care of.  We live in this state of a sort of powerlessness to life and its occurrences, and we hold our breath while we are in the uncertainty of it all.  I’d say that this is a pretty regular experience of life for most.  

Days that we call “good days” are typically days where we either perceive that less peace disrupters are present or where they are present but don’t seem to effect us.  In these situations it is often that something that we perceive as really good happened in a day so we are less easily affected by the other going ons of life.  It can also be that we have more distance from the occurrences of life on a given day (i.e. less attachment to the outcome of things and more acceptance of what is) so the little things seem to grab us less.  Some things are easier for us to accept, others not as much.  The more we resistance we create, the less resourced and energized we are and the more those tiny little peace disrupters run the show. 

STABLE INNER CENTER 

Playing the game of challenge

All of those tiny little peace disrupters are really just little challengers in the game of life.  They are opportunities for you to learn greater and greater inner stability.  One of the things I hear most frequently from people whom I work with is that they want to have stability in feeling good, energized, joyful and in their center or truth.  They want to less taken by the circumstance of life and be in more choice about what and how they are feeling on a day to day basis.  So often people don’t feel in choice about how they are feeling and that is actually what feels bad, that is not being in choice and not necessarily the bad feeling itself.

One of the fundamental perspectives to take on this whole matter is that everything that happens is happening for you not to you.  If you make that shift in perspective than you can easily see that all of those tiny little peace disrupters (and even the big ones) are simply coming into your experience to help you learn how to have a stable inner center.  See we ask to have a stable inner center and yet when we are given a thousand opportunities a day to practice it we fail to see that we are being given exactly that which we need to learn exactly that which we desire to learn.  It’s tricky because when we see through the perspective that life is happening to us we feel powerless to circumstance and feel that we have no choice in the matter of how we feel about what is happening to us.  However if we pick up and put on a different pair of glasses for the day, glasses that see that every single occurrence inside of our experience is happening for us then we are much more readily available to learn from life rather than feel victim to it.  We can also more clearly see things as opportunities to learn and not as permanent, never ending states of being of which we will never escape.

Most people don’t realize how powerful they are.  In fact most don’t realize that they have any power at all.  Some level of denial, confusion and lack of awareness seems to be present for most people when it comes to knowing themselves as the all powerful creators that they are.  Yet the evidence is everywhere.  How you perceive everything that you perceive is evidence of your power.  How you perceive is how you will experience life.  What is more powerful than that?  How you perceive is how you create and thus how you will experience life.  At any moment your free will to perceive is intact.  Free will the first expression of creation.  It is what you are.  Free will itself.  You are free to perceive however it is you would like to, and you will thus create an experience of life based on your perception.  Perception is creation.  If you see things as bad or wrong, you will experience bad, wrong or the threat of bad/wrong.  If you see things as good, you will experience good and that life is working for you.  

It is really that simple folks.  You might like to insist that you don’t have any power, and that you can’t change how you perceive, but you’re the only one that can.  No one can give you a stable inner center.  Tools, techniques and programs can guide you towards it, but ultimately you must learn it through the opportunity of tiny little (and sometimes big) peace disrupters.  The gift of them is the re-remembering your power and your never ending free will to perceive/create as you’d like.

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

STABLE BEING

Dr. Amanda Love Leave a comment

STABLE BEING 

Unaffected by the storm

Many of us desire stability in our state of being.  To feel good, relaxed, rested, while being attentive, present and aware.  To not get caught, pulled or hung up on the things of life.  It can seem at times that we are constantly getting drug down in one way or another by the stuff of life, all the doings, details and coming and goings.  It can feel like a mystery as to how to be stably rested despite all of the physical and mental activity that ensues.  

One of the prime awarenesses that we must develop of ourselves is how ahead of ourselves we get.  When our to do lists get long, our activity calendars get filled up, or life is a seeming crazy, chaotic mess we often get swept into the furry.  We are no longer the eye of the storm, but become part of the storm itself.  We leave our center behind us and focus on some illusionary future that has yet to come into existence outside of our thinking about it.  Our experience becomes one of unstable, frantic exhaustion as we are attempting to keep up the pace with what we think the pace should be.  

Most of the time when we are in the storm we don’t even realize that we’ve lost our center.  We only know that we feel tired, disconnected, not joyful or not as present as we would like to be.  We are on the treadmill of life trying to get to some destination, working up a ginormous sweat, but never actually going anywhere.  We also don’t realize, from the perspective of the storm, that we are choosing our experience.  Rather we feel that our experience is happening to us and that there is nothing that we can do about it.  We therefore spend a lot of time and energy not being at peace.  Constantly wanting things to be done, different, better, or somehow other than they are.  This underlying desire to arrive, for some semblance of organization, peace, rest or completion, propels us in this seeming forward aiming direction from beginning to end.  It is a tireless journey, particularly if our focus is on getting any part of it done and over.  

In order for us to find stability of being we must ultimately become unaffected by the storm.  The degree to which we are affected by the storm is the degree to which we will be unstable in our state of being.  Many people like to go on the ride, get charged up, take stances, fight causes, be right, not give up what we think we want, not feel defeat or disappointment, not feel un-resolve, and on and on.  The result is that we are often off center, not really present and feel like we are the wave that comes up and crashes down rather than realizing we are the water that makes up the wave.  If we realized we are the water, that we are the substance that makes up the wave to begin with, we would be at much peace and resolve.    

MAKING PEACE WITH EVERYTHING 

Not minding what happens

One of my favorite quotes comes from Jiddu Krishnamurti and it goes, “Here is my secret: I don’t mind what happens.”  If you really take this quote in, you will see just how far reaching it is.  You will also discover all of the places where you do mind what happens and hence all of the places that will take you out of your center, stable being.  See when we decide, think or insist that something be other than it is or be any particular way at all we suffer.  It is really that simple.  Suffering is a state of being, which most of us do not prefer.  In fact the preferred state of being for most is connectedness.  However due to the fact that most do not want to let go of what they think they want or desire, they by default choose to be unstable in their state of being.  They choose to be swayed, to be pulled, to be the wave rather than the water.  

What would your life and world experience be like if you made peace with everything right now?  I am not suggesting that you don’t feel what you feel, but rather that you make peace with whatever it is you feel.  I am not suggesting that you don’t have desires, but rather that you find peace with whatever your desires want to look like.  Without making peace with what is here now in this moment you will be hijacked by your thoughts and feelings that want it to be different.  

People think they want stable being.  In fact I’d say this is the crux of the spiritual journey, but what I’ve found that most really want is life to feel and look like what they want it too.  They want this rather than peace now, because they falsely believe that when life feels and looks like they want it to then they will be happy and experience a sense of perfect completeness.  I am pretty certain that as an experience this never arrives at some future place, but yet we are persistent in believing that it does.  We think it couldn’t possibly be found inside the mess we currently perceive things to be, but only in the perfect, clean clarity that lives elsewhere.  This is why we are all on this treadmill, going nowhere, but trying really hard to get somewhere.  

What would it take for you to make peace now?  What would be required?  This is important to ask yourself and to know what stands in between you and peace, or in between you and stable being.  Through asking yourself this question you will begin to see that you are in charge of your state of being.  It is not dependent on any circumstances or conditions.  It doesn’t matter what is going on in the world at large, in your relationships, in your inner world, in your body, on how much sleep you had, what food you ate or anything else.  Your state of being is dependent only on your choosing of it and your willingness to not mind what happens.  Here you will find stable state of being.  You will be unmoved by the stuff of life and will be responding only to your own inner alignment and choice for peace and presence now.  Your experience of life is then rested wakeful presence and attunement with this moment.  

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

Appearances

Dr. Amanda Love Leave a comment

Appearances 

Seeing the surface

Enchanted mirrorEverything that we see, feel, touch or somehow sense is an appearance.  The world of appearances can be equated with the physical world that we see including our physical bodies.  Most of our daily attention and focus is on these appearances.  Appearances come and go.  That is their nature.  None of them are permanent, hence the seeming impermanence to this thing that we call life.  Despite this quality of impermanence and constant mutability most have come to believe appearances to be the most real, physical, and solid thing that exists.  It is with this seeming realness or physicality that we’ve created our baseline for what we think is, what we focus on and what we believe to be important and valuable.

With so much of our attention focused on appearances very little attention is brought to what is underneath or deep to appearances.  When our sense of stability and knowingness of what is, is fused with the appearance of things then when appearances change (which they always do) so does our sense of knowing what is.  If people are completely fused with appearances then when appearances change they will call it a crisis and the typical response they feel/experience is fear.  If people have some recognition beyond appearances then they will sense the subtle undertones of what is going on past what simply appears to be going on and will see/feel opportunity rather than fear.  If people are completely unfused with appearances then when appearances changes they will be completely undisturbed because their sense of knowing what is has not been affected in any way.  

It is good to take an inventory to see how fused you are with appearances because when you are fused with appearances you are unable to see what is actually there.  One way to easily assess this for yourself is to see where you feel an emotional charge about something that is occurring.  Emotional charge is an indication that there is some fusion with the appearance of what is.  That emotional charge and be positive or negative, meaning it can be either excitement, eagerness or anger, frustration towards something that is occurring.  Either way that charge will focus your awareness on the appearance of the experience that is occurring rather than the essence or unchangeable nature that is deep to all appearances and experiences.   

Diving beneath the  surface

Neutrality and unchangeability

Woman in a white dress under water.Your capacity to be unaffected, undisturbed or unshaken by what is occurring is a measure of how you are able to fully focus your awareness on the unchangeable aspect of your nature.  It is your ability to focus your attention in such a way that you go deep to appearance and feel the stability of yourself that never changes, never moves, and is always present.  When you are rested here, in the core of your being, every single thing in your appearance based world (including people, relationships, financial resources, jobs, state of your physical body or health, self-image, reputation, etc.) can all fall away or change dramatically and yet you remain in a rested state of never ending well-being.  This well-being is neutral, meaning without charge, yet the experience of it is safe, well, blissful, and abundant no matter what appearances are or aren’t in your experience.

This neutrality to those that have not experienced the well-being that comes along with it may seem boring or dull.  Some people will prefer the drama and chemical responses to charge over neutrality as the derive a sense of identity within experiencing life in that way.   To not be swayed and influenced by the ups and downs (typically what we call stress) of the appearance based world may feel like an “un-human” life, yet what are we if not evolving into the next version of new species on this planet that includes and transcends being human?  What does it take to bring that consciousness here?  It requires us to perceive and be anew.  To emit the frequency of well-being rather than be pulled out of our center each time we experience a new set of appearances.   

There are times when you being rested as the stable source that you are, that you must pick a bias.  Where you seemingly pick a side, preference or position on something in the world of appearances.  You may find yourself needing to express an underrepresented perspective to a group of people or find it of service to take a particular set of opinions and behaviors.  People who have not yet realized themselves will often confuse you as the ideas you are representing because again people tend to focus on appearances rather than essence.  Other people’s perception of you is simply them judging their own projection of you until they reach the point in their capacity to focus their awareness beyond appearances and know their own stability.  When they reach that point than all they will see is your essence and everything that they previously painted on top of you simply vanishes as a focal point.  It is for those that have found their own stability that the taking on of biases and preferences is simply in service to helping others realize that same source inside themselves.  

Being unswayed and stably present is one of, if not the biggest gift, that you can be and share with others that don’t know it yet.  Being that source of brilliantly bright stable safety allows everyone and everything around you to relax and rest.  You are not their source of stability, but rather you mirror their own stability to them so that they can experience it. 

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