letting go

YOU’RE THE LIGHT

Dr. Amanda Love Leave a comment

YOU’RE THE LIGHT 

Fear busting

In essence we are all light.  We are not the forms, the identities, or the names we been given or have given ourselves.  We are pure, radiating light.  Even though this is true most of us do not experience ourselves as light.  Rather we experience ourselves as a body and a personality that has thoughts, ideas and assumptions about what it is and what it’s not.  The more thoughts we have about what we are, the less we know what we actually are.  Thoughts create filters from which the light that we are bends and distorts itself.  The more thoughts we have, the more twists and turns the light that we are takes, and the further we are from knowing ourselves.  We become more identified with the forms and we forget the formlessness from which we came.  This makes our experience of ourselves feel dense, solid, and often scary as we are disconnected from true source of self.  We come to trust only what is physical, which is ever changing and provides no true stability, as we’ve lost sight of the light.  

Fear of anything, regardless of what it is, is simply the loss of remembering self, or said another way, a forgetting of the light.  When fear becomes the dominant lens that we look through the light can seem scary or overwhelming to us.  That which provides rest, relaxation or levity becomes a threat, because it threatens our perspective of fear which feels very real to us and is our only known source of stability.  Even though we may desire reprieve from the feelings, thoughts and sensations of fear, we desire more the stability in what we know, in what is familiar, even if it is unpleasant.  

If we let go of our perspective of fear then we are left in uncertainty.  We feel exposed and vulnerable and open.  Rather than guarding ourselves against potential experience we open ourselves to experience.  Experience is what it is regardless if we are open or closed to it.  The only difference is in how we will experience it, how we will relate to and interact with it, and how we will move and participate with life or not.  We can’t control experience despite our often galant efforts to do so.  We are not the deciders of what occurs, but we are the deciders of how we experience what occurs.  This is our free will, our choice and nothing or no-one can take that from us.  We can only willing give away how we experience what is.  This occurs when we default to programs and conditioning that say we are powerless and where we choose to believe that we have no other choice.  Understand those beliefs and perspectives are required in order for one to disown their power to choose how they experience.   

BRIGHTEN UP

Moving towards fear

Fear creates an experience of vigilance or an over attunement to our inner and outer environment.  This may be thought of as sensitivity, but it’s a sensitivity in which one feels powerless or threatened rather than a sensitivity where one feels more connected and at peace with the light that they are.  As we open and become less defended we actually want more sensitivity, more attunement and more subtle awareness.  This is an indication of spiritual developmental progression, a movement towards remembering self.  Yet we want it rooted in power and trust, not powerlessness and fear.  When rooted in power it is the experience of co-participation with life, with the unfolding and there is agreement with what is occurring.  When rooted in powerlessness it feels as though it is happening to you, as though you can’t turn it off and you have just have to be subjected to whatever is occurring in your inner and outer environment. 

The funny thing about fear is that it all comes down to us not knowing what is going happen, yet how could we know what isn’t yet and why do we ever think that we should know.  Fear is simply the resistance we have to not knowing mixed in while some thoughts that something bad might occur inside, or on the other side, of that not knowing.  While we become overly identified with the physical so much so that we’ve come to gain our sense of stability in it, yet its blatantly obvious that there is nothing stable about the physical.  Nothing is more certain than birth and death of forms, yet we continue to try to find our source of stability inside of them and get shaken up when they start to destabilize.  

The way I see it is that nothing should be taken too seriously, even our fears, especially our fears.  The moment we take them seriously is the moment we move further away from the light.  I have a practice of opening into that which feels scary or unknown.  When I feel fear I notice my tension, my clenching, my resistance and then I notice that I am the one doing all of those things – tensing, clenching, and resisting.  In that moment of recognition I open and allow my experience rather than continuing to close off from it.  See the experience is what the experience is, but I get to experience it how I want to experience it.  Moving towards the uncomfortableness rather than away from it is key, is pivotal, is required for transformation of how we experience what we experience.  In turning towards and opening, there is allowance to feel.  To feel the feelings about the experience which may feel intense for a few moments, and then after that there is peace.  There is no longer resistance.  There is simply openness with the fear, with the unknown.  Presence, breath and ease return.

The return of presence is the return of the light.  No longer is our resistance to our experience blocking the light.  Now we can see, less distorted, less filtered.  This is the process of allowing the light that you are to become brighter and brighter.  The brighter the light, the clearer you feel even though all is still a mystery.  The unknown becomes exciting rather than scary.  This is how you shine, how you radiate and how you move into greater coherence, greater wholeness, greater knowing of yourself.  That is the entire spiritual game. Knowledge of self is the ultimate outcome.  

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

NO WHERE TO NOW HERE

Dr. Amanda Love Leave a comment

NO WHERE TO NOW HERE 

Stop trying to go somewhere

It’s curious where we are all trying to get.  Seems like there is always somewhere to go, some other destination to arrive at and some other experience to be gotten to already.  We live in this forward trajectory of next and next and next, while never realizing that we are living our former next now and that the nexts will keep coming indefinitely.  To pause our focus on what’s next and be where we are now seems trivial, mundane or as if its lacking something that we must get.  

One must wonder what fuels this quest to get something or somewhere other than where we are.  If we really just cut to the chase here, all trying to get somewhere other than where we are (which is impossible by the way) is rooted, fueled and motivated by a perception we have of lack.  We believe that something is not in our experience that should be or that we want to be in our experience.  So we attempt to fulfill that seeming void that we perceive.  That lack could be of anything.  Perhaps it’s lack of happiness, lack of feeling good, lack of freedom, lack of movement, lack of connection, lack of resources, lack of money, lack of love, lack of purpose and on and on.  

I promise you that however tempting and true it may seem that what you are looking for exists somewhere else, it does not.  There is nothing that exists “over there” that doesn’t also exist here now.  If we take it a step further there isn’t even really an “over there” or anything other than now.  Try to find proof that something outside of now exists.  To find proof you would somehow have to prove that you could be other than existence, essentially that you could not exist.  Try to not exist, to not be, to not is, to not be here and let me know how it goes and if you find success.  

There is only now happening and now is all that ever happens.  To live this is to be in eternal peace.  This is the end of resistance and of all getting, striving, attaining, moving towards, and progress.  To not fight with where you are, which is now and to not fight what is, relaxes everything inside of you and therefore your experience relaxes as well.  When now is recognized and received you work inside the moment, with creation, with the unfolding, rather than as a separate object that is trying to get somewhere else or to the next thing.  Experiences and appearances continue to move and change, but there is no more trying to get things to change.  You are, all is, and this moment which is all moments, can be nothing other than fully perfect and complete.  No lack.  Nothing missing.  No where to go or get.  All remembers and sees what it is and that nothing ever left itself.   

LETTING EVERYTHING GO 

Release all wanting of things to be different

Let everything go.  Let everything be.  Want nothing from anything.  This is the way to know freedom.  This is the way to be at peace forever.  This is the way to have everything you truly desire, which is everlasting presence.  To want something or someone to show up differently, act differently, be differently than they are, is to attempt to control life or control others and not allow them to be themselves.  When we hope, pray, or plea that things will be different than they are, we lose our center and act in ways that are not in alignment or integrity with who we are in order to get what we think we want.  We then doubt, question, over-analyze, lash out, withdraw, react and endlessly stir in the thoughts of our mind.  The result of this is that we feel stuck, trapped, lost, powerless and at the mercy of others or to our experience of life.  

Our attachments to our ideas of what we want and the forms that those ideas take, steer the boat of our life if we let them.  In fact most people spend their life trying to get all of their desires to manifest so that they can give themselves the permission slip to relax and feel good.  Our desires are the guiding light, the spark that fuels the choices we make and the directions we choose, however when we attach to the outcome of our desires in order to get a perceived need or want met that we feel is missing, we have a recipe for suffering.  

In letting everything go we are open to receive everything as it is.  We allow our desires to take on whatever forms and shapes that they want to take on rather than the ones we think they should take on.  In this way we let the mystery of what will be reveal itself to us here now rather than fixating on how it will turn out, which puts us in the “next” mode.  This frees us from having to control life or others.  For most of us controlling isn’t our most natural state so it feels bad to us yet we continue to do it because we perceive lack.  Letting everything go means letting go of our control, letting go of our insistences, letting go of our rights, wrongs and and injustices, and letting go of our ideas and perceptions of lack.

To let go is to live love.  It is to be love, to be your natural state, to receive everything as it is.  It is to be here now, to be present and experience the bliss that is presence.  It doesn’t mean that you will never have painful sensations, intense emotions, unpleasant thoughts or challenges.  It doesn’t mean that you will never experience discomfort or dis-ease.  It doesn’t mean that all of your dreams and desires will be made manifest.  It only means that you will be present, you will be awake, you will be here.  You will stop trying to get anywhere and you will be where you are.  You will learn-share everything you are meant to learn-share.  You will stop missing out on your life because you realize you can’t miss out.  You will stop resisting, pushing away or forcing anything.  Instead you let whatever comes to you come.

The thing about now here is that it never leaves.  There is no situation, circumstance, event, activity, or experience that is separate from here now.  This means that presence is all pervasive.  There is no anything that needs to push you into next mode.  Full permission to be here, just as it is and find peace inside of now.  

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

BEING DIRECT

Dr. Amanda Love Leave a comment

BEING DIRECT 

Showing up for what you want

So often we beat around the bush of life, holding our breath, hoping no one gets upset and that everything magically works out.  Rather than be direct, upfront and approach things face on we attempt to see what we can get away with in saying or doing as little as possible.  When we don’t face things head on we tend to experience a lot of anxiety.  We get caught up in thoughts about how things will turn out because we’ve left so much unclear and unattended too.  This is a main source of confusion for most, not the external situation but our own ambiguity.  

Why do we choose confusion and ambiguity?  Primarily because we don’t want to the lose the thing that we think we want.  The fear of loss of the desired object is greater than that of clarity and knowing and so we often choose confusion over clarity.  Let’s take relationships for example.  Say that you desire something from your partner, maybe its more affection or intimate connection, yet you are afraid to ask your partner for this because you don’t want to rock the boat.  You are afraid of their response, and beyond that, that their response will create greater disconnection or separation, which is exactly the thing you don’t desire.  By not rocking the boat your resentment over not asking for what you want starts to build and build.  The distance in your relationship grows greater even though you might still be together and your true desire for more connection remains unmet or un-actualized.  You get opposite of what you truly want, and what’s worse is that you have prolonged it. You’ve stayed stuck for fear to move forward and be direct.

In being direct you must be willing to let the thing that you think you want go.  If you can’t let it go, then you will not be free in your actions or words to move in the direction of your true desire.  Instead you will be guarded, full of agenda and trying to preserve what is, which again is what you don’t actually want.  Simply notice where you hold back, where you don’t speak up when you have something to say, or where you feel anxious in uncertainty.  These are all indicators of indirectness and of choosing ambiguity over clarity.  When you let go of the things, all the things you think you need or want, a lightness opens up in you.  It’s like the sky of your mind becomes clear again and whatever actions need to be taken reveal themselves to you.  Fear of loss is what cripples us from taking action and moving forward in our lives.  It creates missed opportunities, postponement of true desires and mixed frequencies of intent.  It’s what we call stress, but really it us not being direct with ourselves and others.   

LETTING OUTCOME GO 

Desiring & not expecting

Not wanting anything from anything or anyone is the way to be the clearest, most direct version of yourself and have everything in your life be a mirror of this clarity.  Not wanting anything from anything or anyone is not opposite to being direct and asking for what you want even though it seems paradoxical.  It’s being direct about what works for you and doesn’t work for you, what you want and what you don’t want, without needing the person or thing you are being direct with to respond or react in any specific way.  Instead you remain open.  Open to whatever the response, reactions and results are and then you take your next actions from there.  This is love, transparency and being true.  Your wants and desires drive you into a particular direction (that direction is the fulfillment of your purpose or service) while simultaneously not mattering at all what outcomes come as a result.  

As a collective we are very outcome driven.  We are conditioned to think that only the results matter.  This couldn’t be further from the truth.  In fact I would suggest that the results matter not at all, not even the ones you think you want really badly.  That might seem crazy and contradictory to some.  See its not the thing, its never the thing we want, ever.  Not the relationship, the person, the car, the house, the connection, the job, etc.  Its the state of being or feeling that thing seems to give us that we want.  That state of being typically has something to do with clarity, presence and love.  At the core that is what most everybody wants, but we project that onto people and stuff and then think it comes from them and that it looks a specific way.  

Not wanting anything from anything or anyone while still moving in the direction of your wants and desires is being in love.  We’ve all tasted this before.  It’s especially easy to experience this in the beginning of a new relationship where you simply enjoy the person without wanting anything from them.  As soon as we expect or want a certain outcome to occur the relationship feels tougher because we are no longer operating honoring the freedom that each person is.  Instead we are trying to get our needs and wants met.  For a moment simply entertain this- having wants and desires, moving boldly, at all costs and with your heart fully engaged in the direction of those wants and desires, while simultaneously not needing any of them to be met in any specific way.  If I had to give love a definition that would be it.  It is to be in full alignment with yourself, to be direct, to be clear, to allow the impulse of your desires to move you forward and guide your actions and direction, and to give all the rest of it away.  

Don’t back down, don’t be shy, go for it.  Be willing to keep your heart fully open and engaged as your guiding light and let everything and everyone have their experience.  No need to manipulate or control it at all.  Not even a little bit.  No need to dumb it down by being indirect and creating ambiguity.  No need to hold your breath and hope it all works out.  This is ease and flow, but not the light and airy kind, instead the fully open and committed to life, self and service kind.  Be bold.  Be courageous.  Let your heart speak.  Risk vulnerability.  Risk it all.  

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