presence

Completion of the Moment

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COMPLETION OF THE MOMENT 

Experiencing presence

Every moment, including this very one, is already complete.  Whole onto itself without anything at all lacking or missing.  The recognition of the wholeness of this moment, and every moment, is the experience of presence.  To be present is to be in the fullness of whatever is here.  When we are not experiencing this fullness it is because our mind has created a story about something not being here.  We have pasted a story of lack on top of wholeness.  Subsequently we then experience our story of lack rather than what actually is.  If we only came from completion we would only ever experience presence, but because we come from lack, we experience trying to get to completion from the state of feeling that something is missing.  

Trying to get to completion is a common experience for most.  We all have our to do lists, goals, and all the activities of life.  Often we go about our day doing all of things, hoping it all goes smoothly and we can get it all done.  We move from one thing to the next, checking our list off as we go.  We feel closer and closer to a sense of completion so that we can rest, and then do it all over again tomorrow.  The thing is though that activities will never seize as so long as you are human.  While managing and prioritizing your activities is important, what is even more valuable is where you come from as you do the stuff of life.  If you come from needing to alter, or be finished with an experience, so that you can feel whatever you desire to feel (ie. rested, happy, relaxed, not stressed, etc.), you will be in a constant chase.  You never arrive where you desire.  Maybe you have moments of still and peace, but then something moves again and you’ve lost it.  

As soon as you stop trying to get somewhere, or have something else happen than what is happening, you instantly arrive.  You arrive where you are attempting to get to through all of your incessant doing.  What we often don’t recognize is that we can begin with completion rather than get to it.  This doesn’t mean that you will stop doing stuff, you won’t.  You will continue to do stuff until the day you die.  Instead it means that you get to experience the abundant fullness of what is happening now, rather than rushing past it while you get it over and done with.  We desire to feel the fullness even if we don’t know that’s what we want.  The fullness is always here.  To experience it we need only stop trying to be finished with it already.   

LIVING FULLNESS 

All is healed

All of your misery would stop if you simply recognized the absolute, complete fullness that is here now.  When we see fullness there is nothing for us to complain or worry about.  Seeing fullness also means that we are full, complete and already whole.  Wholeness equals healed.  When we no longer see ourselves or the world as not whole, all is instantly healed because what is, is seen as its true self.  What is returns to itself, from which it never left.  This self, and global healing, is in our hands, because it is all a matter of how we see.  How we see, so it is.  What we perceive, we will experience.  

Some may fear that if they entertain that completion is the way it is, then they won’t have meaning or purpose.  If everything is already perfect you might wonder what is there to do.  You are right in that there really isn’t anything to do to create completion, however you still are a creator.  You will still create.  Energy and information will still move through the vehicles or your body and mind, and you will have desires that steer your actions.  Those desires could be as basic as wanting to take a shower, eat some food, or call a friend.  They could also be more involved such as creating a social change movement, building a business or writing a book.  The only difference, which makes all the difference, is that you won’t be attempting to get somewhere, but rather will enjoy each and every moment of the creation process.  Which said another way is that you will enjoy each and every moment of life.  Life is creation.  Creation is life.

Rather than effort and striving, there is activity and flow.  You can still have big visions for this planetary experience while coming from completion.  In fact, if you do come from completion, it is 100% more likely that you will experience the big visions that you have.  We don’t get to our creations, alternatively we create where we come from and then experience that.  There are still steps of walking towards the ideas and desires, but the ideas and desires are not the goal.  The goal is simply to experience the fullness of this moment, while walking and understanding that you will never get anywhere.  

Suspending your stories about what this moment does or doesn’t contain, and complete surrender to what is here, drops you into the only destination there is.  Suffering ceases as you stop deluding yourself with your stories about what is not here and open into everything you desire, which is here now.  The journey is and always has been to arrive now.  Now is endless, eternal and infinite.  So are your creations and what it is you can experience.  Fullness is just a perspective away.  It doesn’t take much except you reorienting yourself to it.  The energy and aliveness that comes with fullness is magic itself.  There is a revealing of the mystery moment by moment.  You are there for the ride of it all.  While it may not feel like you choose/choice your perspectives, I assure you that you do.  There is no one else inside of your head, but you, to do the choosing.  Recognize where and when you choose lack and no matter how convicted you are in the lack you perceive, somehow, someway, deliberately find yourself back into completion.  

Dr. Amanda Love, Network Spinal Analysis Chiropractor, Boulder, Colorado

Moment to Moment Surrender

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MOMENT TO MOMENT SURRENDER 

Nuanced subtlety

What does it mean to live surrendered?  We often speak of surrender as something we do in situations where we are relinquishing the outcome of anything happening in a particular way.  For example we might find ourselves intensely desiring or holding onto a specific thing occurring or not occurring.  We mentally regurgitate it over and over and create tension in our body as we attempt to control the unfolding of it with our mind.  Often we will reach a point where we simply can’t try to control it any longer and we let go.  This is what we refer to as surrender.  We let the outcome be the outcome even if it is an undesirable outcome.  Our attachment dissolves.  We feel the release of trying to impose our will on the situation and we simply let it be.  We’ve surrendered.  Now we can just be and allow the movements of life to move about.  

When there is a situation that feels big to us, it is easy to see how this process works.  There is a build up of tension to the point where we simply can’t take it anymore and it seems that the only choice is to let go.  But what about all of the space in between, the small tensions that arise in our day to day living that we just live with, that we’ve accommodated to tolerating as our baseline for existing?  We often wonder why we don’t always feel flow, or why some days seem easy and others so challenging?  It seems that our stable base of goodness comes and goes, and that it isn’t in our control.  We don’t realize that what seems to interfere with our stable base of flow and ease is our tolerance for small little tensions that we hold onto without really knowing that we are.  We may notice tension in our body, or that our breath doesn’t feel as full, or we may feel the clunkiness of the day or week, but it’s a mystery to us why we feel this way and why we can’t just get back to flow.  We can get back to flow, but first we must realize what small little tensions we are tolerating in our life.

Recognizing what we are tolerating and holding onto requires subtlety.  We must become more subtle and nuanced in paying attention to ourselves in an inquisitive way.  Often this means slowing down for moments throughout our day so that we can pay attention.  As soon as we notice effort, pushing, non-presence, or trying to just get through, we need to use this as a signal to ourselves to pause and inquire as to what we are feeling below the effort.  Diving in and bringing to awareness or light whatever subtle thing(s) we are trying to manipulate, control or manage.  Once you identity it, you can, just like that let it go.   

FINDING FLOW

Knowing what you are holding

The flow we desire is here now inside the same moment where we feel effort, strain or tension.  By recognizing the subtle little tensions you hold and being willing to let go of them as you notice them, you come into moment to moment surrender.  This is living surrendered.  It doesn’t mean that you are passive to life, but rather that you allow life to be as it is in response to you.  You take action on life in the ways you desire and then you allow life to give you the fruits of those actions in whatever ways it will.  You detach from insisting that your desires should manifest in any particular way.  If you do this you will experience the freedom that is always here, but which you simply are not attuned to when you are bound inside of your tensions.  

You might wonder why you tolerate a bunch of little tensions throughout your day or why you indulge in being non-present.  It’s this.  We tend to think that all of the things we hold onto are important.  Somehow we perceive that it’s vital that we hold on to say a certain perspective we have, a feeling we are feeling, or a thought that we are mulling over and over.  There is some value we find in not letting go of whatever it is we are holding onto.  Some of it is habit, meaning we are unconscious to what we are holding so we just hold it, but as soon as we are aware of what we are holding onto it is no longer a habit, but rather a choice.  When we bring into awareness our tensions we make the them conscious.  Once we are conscious we are in charge. 

We may or may not like being in charge of ourselves.  We may not want to have as much power over ourselves as we think we want.  Regardless the power is yours.  There is nothing you can do about the power that you are/have except give it away to circumstances, events, situations or other people, or claim it as your own.  Either way it’s still yours.  You are free to do whatever you’d like to do with your power.  If you choose to claim it then you are able to let go of whatever you’d like to and also hold onto whatever you want to hold onto.  It’s now what you are choosing rather than it seemingly being the random state of being that you are in.  You now know why you feel effort or flow, and you realize that you can shift whenever you want to.  

Each time you notice that you are not in the state of being that you desire, you can check in and discover what little tension is interfering and let it go if you want to experience flow again.  It’s this commitment that creates a stability in your state of being because now you recognize that you can consciously choose your state.  This is moment to moment surrender.  It’s the giving away of what your mind thinks is so important and opening into what is instead.  At our core we all want to be open into the presence of being and the aliveness of this moment.  It’s where all the richness resides.  We hold on because we somehow think that through holding onto whatever we are holding onto, that we will arrive in this richness because we will get what we want.  Surrender allows us to receive what we truly want which is often beyond what our minds can perceive. 

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

Ending Urgency

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ENDING URGENCY 

There is nowhere better to get

Everyone in the world seems to be in a mad dash to get things done or be somewhere other than where they are.  We drive fast, think fast, move fast, send text messages fast, eat fast… fast, fast, fast.  Always onto the next thing and never being inside of what is now.  We have some kind of belief that somewhere else is better, more fun, more exciting, more relaxing, or more peaceful than where we are now.  If we could just get to those moments or times when everything looks and feels better and lock them in for eternity, then we could stop with all the urgency and just be.  Yet even when those transitory moments of peace or better come, we can’t seem to stop, slow down and enjoy the moment.  We only recognize that this moment will change and be gone soon enough.  

How do we ever live relaxed and in a state of “be”ing with the near constant change, activity and movement of life?  How do we stop trying to get somewhere and rather be where we are in each and every moment?  One of the most fundamental beliefs that we must work with in ourselves is the one that says that something is better than now.  How many times throughout your day do you find yourself engaged in an activity just hoping to get is over and done with?  Perhaps you feel this way during your morning workout, or when you are at work and things don’t seem to going as you want them too.  Maybe you can’t get something to work right on the computer, or you have a class at school you don’t enjoy, or an annoying neighbor, roommate or some other person you have to deal with.  When we find ourselves in these types of situations we mostly just want to be out.  For it to be done and over with because we do not feel pleasant, relaxed or at peace.  We think once this activity, task, conversation or situation is over then we can relax and be.  

The thing is life is loaded with movement, and might I even say what seems to feel like chaos, stickiness or mess.  There is simply a lot of stuff going on that never seems to stop and things are rarely perfectly packaged and placed as we would like them to be.  So what’s the answer here?  How do we bring what we want to experience to every situation that we find ourselves in?  Attempting to manipulate each and every experience, circumstance and/or person in our life (including ourselves) is exhausting, and quite frankly impossible, even though this is what most people try to do.  The answer rather is that we must pause our sense of urgency, of wanting to get out of our experience of “ick” or overwhelm, and drop into it rather than try to get out of it.  By moving into our experience the possibility to transform ourselves inside of it becomes available.  When we transform ourselves we transform our experience of whatever it is we are experiencing.   

LIFE’S PACING 

Surrendering beyond ourselves

Have you ever noticed that life seems to have its own pacing?  It operates at a speed or rhythm that sometimes aligns with our own and at other times not so much.  Sometimes the pace of life feels too fast and at other times too slow.  We may find ourselves feeling urgent in either scenario.  If the pace of life feels like it’s moving too fast then we try to speed ourselves us to meet that pace and the demands of all of the movement of life.  If the pace of life is too slow for us then again we try to speed ourselves up hoping that life will respond to us and speed up as well.  Either way we are gearing ourselves up for the race to somewhere else.  

Life’s pacing is largely out of our control.  There is a bigger orchestration at play to which we are mostly unaware.  Sure there might be things that you can do such as putting more or less activities into your day to day schedule, which you may actually need to do, but the bigger message here is in how you walk with life and it’s pace.  Not getting ahead of it or behind it, but rather being right with it as it unfolds.  What this requires is a surrender to the rhythm that is present rather than the rhythm we would prefer to be present.  While this might seem bold to say here it is: our preferences matter, but not that much.  While we are the kings and queens of our own world inside of our own heads, when it comes to the larger orchestration of life, we are part of the whole.  Often we don’t see from the whole, but only from the part we play.   In this way we are egocentric, not in a negative way, as it’s mostly innocent on our part.  Rather in a way in which we just simply don’t see the bigger picture.  We are not inside the heads of every single being in this universe seeing from the perspective of universal consciousness, therefore our scope and sight is limited to our own.  This creates immense confusion and frustration for us as we often don’t understand the what’s and why’s to the pacing and timing of things.  

Accepting confusion is one of the best ways to come back into rhythm with life’s pacing.  Understanding is not required for us to have acceptance.  In fact this is one of the great lessons of having this human experience.  Not necessarily an easy lesson, yet it does the job of eventually getting us into a state of surrender.  Surrendering to what is rather than what we prefer to be.  Only once we move into acceptance and surrender can we begin to see beyond ourselves and our egocentric human point of view.  We are in the unknown of what the moment is, contains and could be, rather than in our ideas, preferences or insistences about what is occurring.  

There is so much about the happenings that we don’t get to decide, even the happenings of our own bodies.  What we do get to decide is how we be, and whether or not we try to get out or be in rhythm with the moment.  When you feel urgency arise inside of you begin the practice of pausing.  Take a breath and let go of whatever you are energetically holding onto or trying to get done, and allow the state of “be”ing to be present inside of your experience.  Recognize that you can both be and engage in activity.  There is nothing to get over with, as there will always be more things.  Rather see the moment that you desire is now.  What you wish to experience is now.  Bring that to your experience and watch the magic reveal itself to you.  

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

STOP DOING TO GET THINGS DONE

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STOP DOING TO GET THINGS DONE 

Be finished with finishing

So often we do to get things done.  In fact most of our days are spent getting through one activity or task after another.  It seems as though the doing is ceaseless, except perhaps for a few moments at the end of our day or week.  Why do we live in the constant cycle of doing?  It as if we are all trying to get somewhere.  A place where we can rest, relax and be at ease.  We think that we might arrive there if we can just get done all of the stuff we feel like we have to do.  Such is the case that most of us are not enjoying much of our doing, but rather wanting to simply get it over with so we can move onto doing the next thing that we don’t enjoy.  All so that hopefully, at some point, we can get to an activity we like or simply just rest. 

In a culture where we value productivity more than enjoyment, connection or presence, and perceive non-activity as laziness, we are set up to live as doing machines.  The foundation for our dominant train of thought is how much or how many.  When we go to our jobs we don’t get praised or promoted for our non-productivity or for our presence, but rather for how much we get done.  We don’t get paid for how much we enjoy what we are doing, but rather only for the job done.  While the culture creates this container for us, it is still us that values productivity more than enjoyment of what we are doing, and we continue to insist that perhaps we will arrive somewhere better at some future time.  

As a result of this we are fairly disconnected from own impulses, urges to move and natural rhythms.  You might call this intuition, but really it’s just listening and following your inner rhythms rather than your conditioned response to things. We constantly feel like we need “know something out there” because we can’t hear our own inner knowing.  We seek for safety and certainty inside of situations or circumstances rather than within our own selves.   So like any good and reliable machine we produce.  We meet all of the outer expectations from bosses, friends and family members.  We live up to all the marks the best we can and do whatever we perceive we need to do in order to be ok.  With this we often ignore, repress, or deny our own rhythms of activity and non-activity.  We feel stressed, not necessarily because of the situation, but because of our own disregard for listening to what feels good to us.  We fear we won’t be taken care of, supported, or have all of our physical, emotional or social needs met if we don’t answer to the doing machine.  We reserve relaxation for the few moments in our life where we don’t perceive threat.  Then we call this being human.  I’m not sure about you, but I think being human can be better than this.   

DOING FROM ENJOYMENT 

Courageously choose joy

What would it take for you to do all you do through enjoyment, and never simply to get something done again?  How would you have to think or structure your life differently?  What if the purpose of activity is not to finish it, but rather to actively participate with the doing of it?  What if you did not allow yourself to do something unless you were in a state of enjoyment about the doing?  This is what it would be like to enjoy life rather than do life.  It’s pretty much guaranteed that the activity of life will never come to a halting stop, but what can is how we engage with activity and what we value in terms of productivity and presence.  There are no hard and fast rules here.  It’s all about creating your experience of life how you want to be rather than the way it currently seems to be set up.

Many live as if there isn’t enough time.  Like we can’t, or won’t be able to do all the things we need or want to in the time allotted.  What if you create a new story for yourself that there is enough time for everything.  Beyond that, what if rather than focusing on time altogether and what will or won’t be done inside of that time, you focus on enjoying whatever is occurring now.  What if you stop should-ing and hav-ing yourself, and dismantle all of your resistance to enjoyment.  Yes believe it or not most people resist enjoyment, but gladly accept suffering through things to get them done.  It’s not logical, but it is normalized.  

You might realize that you have some pretty hardcore beliefs in there that you are supposed to do stuff at whatever cost it is to your own enjoyment.  That to enjoy life is a luxury rather than a must.  But what if you made it must?  What if you realized that enjoyment is not luxury, but rather it’s the value or standard you firmly ground your feet in and make it more important than productivity and getting things done.  What if you don’t force yourself to do things that you don’t feel like doing, and what if you made it ok to rest and be, without guilt or fear, rather than always be engaged in activity?  See it’s really your choice even if you think it’s not.  

You might be wondering, won’t there be “consequences” for your actions, or more particularly for your non-actions?  There will most definitely be effects, however they may not be as negative as you conjure them up to be in your mind.  You might discover and fully embrace resting and enjoying, without judging it as lazy or making it mean something about your worth as a human being, which is something that not many people are successful at achieving (pun intended).  Also as you let go of the pressure you place on yourself to do many of things you do or think you should do, you may find that you want to do some of those things, and in that way they become desirable and enjoyable rather than tasks to get done.  This  is all to come to the knowing that your ok-ness, worth, validation, approval, permission to feel good about yourself, security and safety is not dependent on your actions or non-actions.  This frees you to do only from and through enjoyment.  To longer be manipulated by your own or other’s stories about what you must do.  Believe it or not, doing only from enjoyment takes tremendous courage, even though it’s the most natural way of living, which points to the fact that we live quite unnaturally.  Be courageous and do only from enjoyment.  

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

THOUGHT INDUCED COMA

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THOUGHT INDUCED COMA

Snapping yourself out of it

Sometimes we feel stuck, bored and tired.  We want to feel purposeful, excited and productive, but rather we are looped in our habitual ways of being and doing.  The mundane quality of everyday life is taking up the front and center space of our awareness.  We search for a way out of our misery of the ordinary, hoping to find some shiny object, thing or person that will re-inspire life in us.  Only to experience the fleetingness of the shiny object, or coming up empty handed altogether.  It seems as though all we can do is let these feelings of lack of inspiration pass in their own timing and rhythm.  It seems as though our only choice is to keep feeling stuck, bored, tired and kind of miserable.  

What is really happening in these moments or rhythms of our life?  What it boils down to is that we are out of alignment with ourselves.  This could be said lots of ways.  We are not present, we are not in gratitude, we are seeing through the perspective of lack, we are disconnected, we are checked out, we are focused on appearance rather than essence, and on and on.  You get the point.  When this is our general disposition then nothing is exciting and we’d rather be somewhere other than where we are.  In this state of being we tend think/believe that happiness is somewhere else.  That joy, love and peace is somewhere else.  That what we want is somewhere else.  This mysterious, magical, fantastical somewhere else lives nowhere other than in the thoughts of our minds.  While it’s lovely to fantasize, it keeps us in our head and does little to bring us into now.  Now is the only place that anything is happening.  Now is the place where we feel alive.  Now is the place of lived reality-fantasy instead of thought fantasy.  Again while thinking about things is nice, it doesn’t lead to presence, it only leads to more thoughts.  

We need to snap ourselves out of our thought induced comas and come back to what is happening now.  We must ask ourselves why we are choosing to be asleep during our day?  Why are we attempting to get certain things over or finished?  Maybe it’s that we don’t like certain activities. Why is that?  How can you make them more enjoyable if you are not enjoying them? Maybe certain things feel like they aren’t working or responding to you as you would like them too.  Where is your focus in that moment?  Is it on getting something or trying to make something happen, which by the way are the same thing.  Can you reorient to giving rather than getting?  I mean really giving which has absolutely nothing to do with what you will get in return. Do you need to make changes in your life to make it work better, but you refuse to change and therefore choose to be stuck, bored and tired instead?  Do you fail to see and therefore have gratitude for what is in front of your eyes because you desire the picture to be different?   

SERVE WHAT’S HERE 

Becoming present

In general our lives are pretty good.  Probably most people reading this article are neither starving or homeless.  Your basic needs are met and you are even likely doing some things in the world that feel like they are contributing to something beyond your own personal selves.  Most here also have some level of self-awareness, impact on others, and personal and spiritual development.  This puts us in a prime position to really hone our alignment and be of service no matter what is occurring.  I’ve said this before, but I will say it again, being of service is not about martyrdom or self-denial.  It is about being yourself and having the desire to give to others.  Once all of your basic bodily human needs are met and your personal and social connection needs are met, there really isn’t much left to do but be of service in some way.  If you aren’t then you tend to feel stagnant, bored and slightly miserable.  

Now you might find yourself perseverating on a few things you want, but still don’t have.  If you perseverate long enough then that focus might overwhelm your desire to serve because service is not about getting anything.  Not even the things you think you really want badly or the things you think you need in order to be of service.  There is never anything you need to be of service except the desire to serve.  One thing I can promise is that being of service is 1,000 times more fulfilling than getting those last few things you think you really want like a partner, a house or having the next big project or breakthrough happen.  Also being of service has nothing to do with your job or work, but rather it’s about what you give to everything you do.  

Next time you find yourself bored, tired, stuck, or slightly miserable, wishing you were somewhere else or in some other moment in time where things were different or you felt differently, I invite you to do this one thing.  Internally ask yourself the question, “how can I serve this?” or “how can I be of service here?”  It’s simple, like most things I recommend, but incredibly effective at getting you to shift out of your habitual, asleep, mundane reality and into the present moment.  Even though you might not feel completely shifted, you are beginning to shift.  You are shifting out of seeing what your mind thinks it’s seeing from its past experiences and memory banks, into the actual aliveness of what is always the present moment.  Understand nothing is ever mundane or the same as it was yesterday or even 5 minutes ago.  It’s only your thoughts recreating the same images, thoughts and ideas, which gives the appearance of sameness.  

To be of service you must be present.  It is the only way you can attune or be in rhythm with the unfolding dance of life.  Rather than believing that you must get somewhere else first before you can serve, recognize and serve what is already here.  After all there is nothing else.  Even if what’s here is not your preference, find your way into the state of being of service.  If you do you will snap yourself out of your thought coma and find aliveness.  You will start participating with life rather than thinking about it.  You will quit caring so much about all the things and experiences you think you want.  You will feel more love and gratitude as your ever present state of being.  

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

ATTEMPTING TO FIND PERFECTION

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ATTEMPTING TO FIND  PERFECTION

Restless endeavors to arrive

So often we are attempting to find the perfect state.  That state of being where everything is calm, we feel rested, and things are in their place just as we’d like them to be.  This state of perceived rested completion gives us permission to feel settled and peaceful.  Yet most of the time life is in flux and motion.  Pieces and parts are moving, things are changing and growing, and perfection seems like a far off distant place.  During such rhythms we may feel tired, heavy, or experience a sense of overwhelm, chaos or out of “control-ness”as the shear amount of activity continues and continues without a seeming end point.  We tend to perceive these rhythms, which are predominant in our experience, as something to get through, or a work in progress, rather than seeing the perfection that already is inside of them.  We strive to get somewhere so that we can give ourselves the permission to feel a sense of completion.

While it’s often not our deliberate intention to strive to arrive somewhere rather than be present with where we are now, it is how most people operate.  We have been deeply conditioned that there is somewhere to get.  Most minds have trouble believing other than this as they project a future that sees potentials, possibilities and desired outcomes.  Within this projection there is a restlessness with what is here now.  That restlessness is sourced in a perception of lack, the belief/feeling that something is missing, something that we feel needs to be or that we want to be present.  Due to our perception that lack is, we become restless.  We find ourselves wanting to feel complete or a sense of completion, yet the lens that our mind looks through is one that sees what’s not.  This perception of lack is the root of all of restlessness and our attempts to find perfection elsewhere in some other moment or circumstance.

Due to the fact that most people base their state of being and the lens they choose to look through on the circumstances that are showing up in their life, it is easy to attempt to find perfection through making all the stuff look or feel right.  If things are messy or not where we want them to be, or if we feel tired, heavy or have other various sensations in our body, we often match our state of being to those things.  What most people don’t realize is that they get to choose their state of being despite whatever is showing up in their life or body.  Simply because you are tired or experiencing certain sensations in your body doesn’t mean you can’t be present, or that anything is wrong.  Simply because something hasn’t manifested itself physically into your direct sensorial experience doesn’t mean that anything is lacking in you or in life.  When you get this you see that is doesn’t matter at all what’s happening or not happening because you arrive in the present moment that is fully complete and abundant in and of itself. 

RESTED COMPLETION 

It’s in your hands

The only thing that stands between you and a sense of rested completion (aka presence) is the perception that anything should be other than it is.  When you stop insisting that what is appearing should appear differently you experience the peace that passes all understanding.  All restlessness is an inner battle.  The battle being the conflict in the mind of what it wants to see, and what it perceives it is seeing that is other than what it wants to see.  It has nothing to do with the experience or appearance of things, and yet the mind projects out onto the experience its inner resistance of what is.  It then appears to us that it is the thing that is responsible for how we feel, rather than us having any ownership in the way that we feel.  

When we give away our power to the appearance of life we are easily swayed by our experiences.  We don’t feel stable in ourselves and we don’t feel that what we feel is up to us.  The bigger truth is that however it is that we feel or don’t feel, however it is that we show up or don’t show up, however it is that we are present or not, is entirely up to us.  It is your decision to choose your state of being.  Its not up to a sensation in your body, its not dependent on certain people being in or out of your experience, it doesn’t matter how much sleep you got, what foods you ate, how much money you have, how the stars are aligning or anything else.  At all times you choose your state independent of the stuff of experience.

I suggest getting in the habit of deliberately choosing how it is you want to feel, be, show up and see yourself and the world each and every day.  Without the deliberate choosing you will default to the state of being that is most familiar to you.  When instead you consciously choose, you lift yourself through experiences that would otherwise bog you down and where you might attempt to get through it rather than be present.  When you choose your state of being in this manner it is easier and easier to not want to get anywhere other than where you are, and to sink into your experience.  This sinking into your experience allows you to feel the completion that is here now in this moment despite what the appearance of the experience looks like.

As much as we try we can’t force life, we can only learn how to participate with it.  To listen and to be guided as to how life wants to move through us.  Like I say often, this life isn’t about us.  It isn’t about our dreams, desires and ideas coming into fruition.  While I believe it’s our responsibility to follow the call of our soul and act on our dreams, desires and ideas, it is not up to us to force them to happen in any particular way.  There is an infinitely aware universal intelligence at play and we are part of the orchestration of much that is outside of our mind’s limited awareness.  Our learning is in faith and surrender.  Trust that all is well.  Trust that you are perfectly playing your part.  It could be no other way.  All is well, all is perfect, now and forevermore.  

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

EVERYTHING IS MAGIC

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EVERYTHING IS MAGIC 

Waking up to reality

Most people are excitement chasers, chasing the next thing and the next thing and the next thing that seems to promise a sense of aliveness inside of it.  Little time do most people want to spend in the grunt work, or in what they perceive to be ordinary or dull.  Most people have a fundamental and often elusive belief that some things are magically and others aren’t.  Due to the fact that most people have this belief, they end up polarizing themselves inside of their experience and make the assumption that some experiences or states of being are better than others.  When they find themselves in an undesirable experience or state of being they attempt to find the quickest route out.  

The thing with attempting to find the quickest route out is that we don’t give ourselves the experience of going through.  Therefore when we find ourselves in a similar experience or state of being in the future we don’t have the capacity to be present inside of it and continue to find ways to escape or withdraw from it.   We then wonder why we aren’t stably rested and centered in ourselves and can’t figure out why we don’t seem to be in control of ourselves.  You can’t expect to be stably rested in yourself if you avoid, push away, judge or make wrong certain states of being, experiences or aspects of yourself.  Anything that is pushed away creates a ripple or distortion in the coherence of your beingness.  That distortion then becomes a filter through which you experience life.

Filters taint, dim, and skew what you see.  You see what you think rather than what is actually present.  You project an incomplete picture from a limited perspective.  You make judgements about what is rather than seeing what is.  Another way to say that is you experience your thoughts or your perspectives, and not what is really present.  See, what is present just is.  The present is inherently neutral and the substratum of presence is love or bliss.  This is the natural state of everything.  This is why everything is magic.  However when we place our judgments, ideas, and perspectives on top of what is, we get to experience life through the lenses that they are filtered by.  If instead we remove our filters (i.e. our judgments, beliefs and biases) then the lens gets cleared up and we perceive reality rather than our thoughts and perspectives of it.   

LIVING MAGIC  

Magic can’t not be

There is really two ways to approach living magic.  One is to stop giving anything labels, and with practice, start seeing the true nature of reality.  The other way is simply to decide with conviction to change your belief that some things are magical and others aren’t.  With as much conviction you have that some things are better than others, you can have as much conviction that they are not.  You really can in one full swift moment simply change your mind.  It doesn’t have to involve some big process, ah-ha or breakthrough.  You can just do it now.  Nothing is stopping you except you and your insistence to believe otherwise.

In this way the mud sparkles even if it remains looking like mud.  The uncomfortable conversation you need to have with your partner, friend, boss, parents or kids is complete with bliss even if it comes with uncomfortable sensations in your body.  Your emotions, even the ones you label as bad, are welcome because you understand that they don’t mean anything about you or anyone else.  They are just emotions, no more, no less.  The intense sensations that come at times from having a human nervous system are waves of energy organizing and moving themselves around, no more, no less. The grand significance you give some things diminishes and the grand insignificance you give other things also neutralizes, and it is anything but flat.  The dissolution of charge doesn’t equate to bland, nothingness, but rather total peace and presence.

While people desire peace and presence, they tend to desire their judgments more.  It is quite logical, the path to peace that is, but we are not logical nor do we decide from logic no matter how level headed we think we are.  We decide from our beliefs and conditions, and what we think is right, which is massively deluded.  Most of the time we don’t even know what the heck we believe or what conditions we live by and under.  So we are left with chasing what seems most magical and avoiding what doesn’t and holding our breath while hoping for the best.  This is circumstantial, disempowered “well-being”.

True well-being lives inside of your capacity to be willing to be present with whatever is present.  To not turn away.  To put your fingers in the mud and find how through doing so the mud turns into clay from which you create some piece of creation magic.  You can’t not create magic.  You can only think that it is possible to create something other than magic.  You also can’t not be or live magic.  You can only think you aren’t magical.  Your thoughts aren’t true.  What’s true is magic.  This can only be directly experienced to be known.  Dismantle your concepts, let go your judgments.  Nothing is better than the other.  No emotion or state of being is better than the other.  No appearance is better than the other.  It’s all magical creation created by a magical creator, which is you.  

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

BE USED

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BE USED 

Merging your will with Source

There is a divine, perfect intelligence that orchestrates this entire universe. From the rotation of planets and galaxies, down to the minuet aspects of your daily life, all is precisely positioned.  It seems like we are making choices, and yet even the decisions we make, no matter how hard or easy they seem, are sourced from a source that knows.  Whether we are aware of that source or not doesn’t matter in relation to what occurs.  What occurs will occur, the decisions and choices we make will be equally informed.  The only difference is our experience of what occurs, not in the actual occurrence itself.

This is not to say that all is preplanned or predestined.  Rather it is to say that in each moment there is an intelligence that knows and it is constantly informing all that occurs.  When I say that it is only our experience of what occurs that differs, is to say that how we view, perceive and respond to the appearances of life is our free will.  Our free will isn’t necessarily in the deciding or choosing of what occurs (though it seems that way), but rather how we decide to participate with what shows up.  In this way it is not a “separate from” or “life happening to you” experience.  Instead you are moved by this intelligence that knows in a symbiotic way where you are one with the occurrences and the intelligence.  

In order to know life and experience it in this way, your will must be one with the will of the creator of this orchestrated dance.  That means that what you think should happen or passionately desire to happen in your personal life or in the larger collective, must be surrendered to what is happening.  This is really a very easy thing to do outside of the fact that we attach greatly to what we think should be, what we perceive to be better or best, and to what we want.  It’s not the thoughts or the desire for what we want to experience that create the obstacles for us, but rather our attachment to them happening.  When our attachment to them happening supersedes our capacity to be present with what is actually occurring we suffer.  Even our suffering is perfectly positioned, part of the cosmic orchestration, of the creator expressing itself in all its various flavors, with the intention of knowing itself and purifying its perspectives into it’s own original source.   

THE CREATOR’S WILL 

Magic & love for whatever is

It is first important to remember that nothing happens outside of the creator’s will.  When I use the terms: creator, source or intelligence, I mean them to all point towards the same “thing”.  Pointing to that which knows, that which is, that which is aware.  Nothing can happen outside of awareness, therefore nothing happens outside of the creator’s will.  This is why surrendering to what is, which is a giving away of all of your insistences, preferences and righteousness, aligns your will (your awareness) with that of the creator’s will.  You know you have arrived here when there is no longer any charge left in your body-mind about anything that is occurring.  This is the first state of being where you can actually be useful and be used.

To be useful or be used is to be of service to the creator’s will.  Many people have a negative relationship to being used because they feel disempowered or less than.  However the only aspect that “gets disempowered” when you surrender is your own personal agendas and perceptions of what should be.  Not until you surrender can you participate with more awareness, with this larger source or intelligence that guides all of creation and life.  Until you arrive in surrender there will be fight, push/pull, attempting to figure it out or conquering energies.  This is all a result of your own (and the collective’s) resistance with what is.  If we all dropped our righteousness instantly, no charge would remain and the experience of life on this planet, with this collective beings, would be harmonious.  

Some of you might think or say: what about all of the stuff that is wrong, could be better or needs to be fixed?  What I would say to that is that the creator knows all, sees all and creates all.  To surrender your personal opinions, ideas and judgments of what is best, to an all knowing source of infinite intelligence does not make you more stupid or less useful.  It does the very opposite.  It gives you access to wisdom and resourcefulness that would otherwise be unseen by you.  As we clear out our own vessels we are better able to listen and follow.  We can more readily take action where the creator’s will moves us to take action.  When you realize your life is not about you, but rather that there is a much bigger game being played, you willingly take your position as a pawn on the board and let yourself be played.  

The result is magic and love for whatever is.  You get to fully participate in the present with what is.  You stop living in ideas and story, and open yourself to the mystery of creation happening now and now and now.  There is never dullness.  There is still feeling, desire and passion.  There is lots of movement.  There is clarity in not knowing, but in being moved, guided and used by that which does know.  There is deep satisfaction and fulfillment because you know nothing else more perfect could ever be other than what is now, and you share that knowing with every energy and person you meet.  You are in love and connection, and that love and connection consciously brings the will of the creator through you, and happening for all.  This is the creator’s will. 

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

STABLE BEING

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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

NO WHERE TO NOW HERE

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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