present moment

GOING WITH LIFE

Dr. Amanda Love Leave a comment

GOING WITH LIFE 

Separation to liberation

We spend an awful lot of energy keeping ourselves separate from life, understandably so.  We are given a name, develop characteristics, preferences, likes, dislikes, roles, habits and patterns of thinking and behaving that create an identity of who we come to know ourselves as.  An identity that seems like a separate person who is distinct from other persons.  We have functional control over this physical body, we sense through it, and we assume that we are located inside of it.  We believe the information that our senses give us and what our thoughts tell us as fact.  We don’t recognize that we are what is aware of the sensations or thoughts, and not the sensations or thoughts themselves.  Said another way we become our experience rather than recognizing we are what is aware of our experience.  All of this reinforces our sense of separateness from awareness rather than one with it.  We feel powerless to something that seems other than us and find ourselves kind of at odds with life.  

When we feel at odds it’s like we are always working against something and there is a sense of hardness that comes with it.  It’s the feeling that there is you and then there is this other thing, object, or person, which you have to work with to do something to.  Like this other thing, object, or person is separate and you have to maintain that separateness.  If you decided to make a bold move one day and didn’t maintain that separateness, all of life would flow and you would recognize that you can pay attention to content (i.e. sensations & thoughts) or you can pay attention to the fact that you are aware while all the content comes and goes.  What is important here is that you would get that you aren’t what you experience, but rather you are what is aware of the experience.  You would feel freedom instantly rather than the bound-ness of maintaining separation, but this freedom of rejoining yourself feels chaotic, destabilizing and unknown to your current sense of being a separate person with the identity that you have created as yourself.

To go with life rather than feeling at odds, or like you have to go to work on it by attempting to do something to it, is to stop fighting anything.  It’s to end the thought that anything needs to be different.  It is the cessation of the idea that there is somewhere else to get to where you will feel amazing and where all of your prayers are answered.  There is no location that exists other than where you are.  The freedom you seek is contained inside this moment and every moment.  You will not ever arrive somewhere other because there is no other and there is no out there.  At some point we must stop running from thing to thing to thing hoping to find relief and answers.  There is nothing out there. 

ENDING NEEDS 

Arriving in the present

Part of maintaining separation is the illusion of needs.  When we believe ourselves to be a separate person we feel as though we have a lot of needs and that we somehow we have to work to get them met.  However as we merge back into ourselves, into non-separation, we realize that all needs are met because everything is gotten.  Meaning life has its own back.  It’s completely taken care of.  It’s fulfilled and all set.  When we are in contact with ourselves we know this, and when we are disconnected we don’t know it.  To be free of needing anything is to be truly free.  You lose all agenda that might have subtle underpinnings in your subconscious.  You can just be because there isn’t anything pulling you out of yourself to go and get or figure out.  Everything is also known even though paradoxically your mind knows nothing.

There are a few fundamental points to emphasize here in arriving where you are and the cessation of needs.  One is a foundational acceptance that absolutely nothing needs to change or be different than it is.  Along the same lines it would suffice to say that all is well just as it is.  Creating this as the container for your mind allows your mind to relax its incessant attempts to hook into thoughts in order to do or figure out something that it perceives to be other than itself.  There might still be thoughts, but you simply notice them rather than become them.  The next piece is giving yourself permission to not have to know and be in the space of the unknown, which is another term for the present moment.  When we arrive here to the present moment nothing is known and everything is revealed.  Our minds tend not to easily surrender themselves because the job of our mind is to maintain “known-ness”, identity and separation.  To give away what we think we know renders our mind useless and minds like to be used.  From the perspective of our mind “unknown” equals the experience of confusion.  This is one of our least favorite states of being, however learning to be good with confusion without attempting to get rid of it by making something certain again, is the gateway into now and to going with life.

To go with life is to know your freedom and experience it.  It’s to no longer be at odds with anything.  It’s to no longer perceive separation.  It’s to no longer control the happenings of life.  It’s to no longer insist that anything, including yourself, be any certain way other than what it is.  The experience of this is rested while awake.  The experience of this is peace.  It is not an outside job, it’s an inner one.  It’s not far fetched or out of reach, it’s all already here.  There is no distance to traverse, no progress that needs to be made, and there’s nothing more that you need to get or figure out first.  Available in this moment is liberation.  It requires nothing to be different than it is right now.  You don’t need to be more worthy than you already are.  You don’t need to love yourself more first.  Stop trying to get somewhere so that you can arrive and be where you are already.  You will not recognize wholeness and perfection somewhere out there at a future date if you don’t recognize it now.  Liberation is available, “achievable” and is the natural state.  It requires nothing to be done in order to “get” it.  The only sacrifice, if you want to call it that, is giving away your current state of everything you think you know.  What we think we know is actually confusion and what we perceive to be unknown and therefore confusing is truth and freedom.  

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

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

LET EVERYTHING HAVE IT’S EXPERIENCE

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LET EVERYTHING HAVE IT’S EXPERIENCE 

Ending the battle of proving your worth

Imagine what it would be like to not interfere with experience whatsoever.  What I mean by this is to allow whatever shows up to show up without you medleying, intervening, changing, or improving it at all.  Having zero thoughts about it and instead just simply experiencing it.  For some of you this might feel impossible, like a fantastical dream that no one can possible live in.  You might also notice that you have judgments or stories about what living in such a way would mean about you, such as that perhaps you don’t care, you’re lazy, you’re not in reality, too many things need you to show up in a certain way, nothing will get done, no progress will be made, etc.  

The truth is that until you can get to the point where you can simply allow everything to have its experience, even if it feels devastating or someone is freaking out about something, you don’t actually know what its like to be present and truly be of service which is a natural expression of presence.  It is not until you get to this place that you know what rested freedom is and the awareness that you know everything you need to in any moment reveals itself.  It is also through landing here that you are finally rested in your own self-worth which arrives through the humility of ending your projected agenda onto experience.  

If this is all indeed the case then why do we not end our efforting with experience right now.  Why do we continue to feel that we must do something to what already is?  The number one culprit is our feelings of lack of self-worth which come with attempts to prove our worth through shifting experience.  Due to the fact that putting on the cloak of perceived lack of self-worth is one of the human garments we tend to cloth ourselves with when we incarnate, we find strategies (consciously or not) to prove that we are worthy and to have personal purpose, value or meaning.  This most often comes through accomplishing something, making something different, or getting someone to feel a certain way in which they approve of or like us for.  Through this we give ourselves the permission slip to feel good about ourselves and we get a sense of individual value or worth.  The downfall of this strategy is that when we don’t accomplish, make different, or people don’t feel good in their interactions with us or we perceive we can’t make them feel a certain way, then our self-worth again plummets.  True self worth cannot be found through interfering with or manipulating experience no matter how well intentioned it may be.  It can only be derived through the full acceptance of the experience just as it is and the recognition that what you think about it doesn’t matter one bit.  This opens you into humility where you can actually see what is rather than your projection of what you think is.  This enables you to be of true service, and the humility that is a natural effect of suspending the significance of your own thought projections is the birthplace of unconditional, inherent worth that requires nothing of you.   

SURRENDERING TO NOT ENOUGH 

Death of the ego

How ok are you with not needing to do anything, or be anything in particular, or having any particular outcome appear?  Most people are not very comfortable with this, with simply being without agenda.  Though they might enjoy it for a weekend retreat or workshop, when they come back to their everyday life, being is viewed as a luxury and not a priority.  And truth be told even if we are at a weekend workshop or retreat we are often trying to get something out of the experience rather than simply be and experience.  We compartmentalize doing from being because it comes back to this fundamental issue of self-worth and feeling like we have to earn our keep somehow.  Deserving to be without anything, without progress, without accomplishing, without change, is simply not in our vernacular.  

I have found that there is no real way to get the ego to accept its worth.  Even all of the achieving, production and glorification in the world won’t do it.  Its entire premise is built upon this core underlying lack belief, that somehow it is not enough.  When we misidentify as the ego it then means that we perceive we are not enough and hence the strategy of not allowing experience to be as it arrives on the scene and we can only feel good if we are doing something about it.  The only way to end this battle of lack of self-worth and resistance to certain experiences is by surrendering to your own feeling of lack of self-worth.  Accepting that this is so, that you feel like you are not enough.  It is the only way to get over yourself.  If you do not accept this you will continue to attempt to fight it by finding all the ways to prove that you are worthy through manipulating experiences (which includes other people’s reactions to you), while underneath it all continuing to feel unworthy, and your life will feel effortful as you swim upstream.  

I will just say that your ego will hate this like nothing else because it means game over for it.  To surrender to not enough means that most everything you think is so important is not and every way that you derive self-worth from your experiences comes to a screeching halt.  In accepting your own sense of unworthiness you’ve taken away the fuel source for the ego to perpetuate itself along with all of its compulsory actions to prove itself.  The more identified you are as your ego-personality the more this will feel painful and like you are dying, because in a way you are.  However do not fear as it is only the illusionary self that is dying and through this death process you come to know the real you that is beyond this made up you.  The real you is the you that is inherent worth in and of itself.  With nothing any longer to prove, you are free to just be.  To just be you without having to make anything different.  You are free to be present to experience just as it is.  Now you are in true service, true alignment, with everything that is and with the creator, God, Source, Love.  

No longer perceiving error, wrongness or lack is now the natural way that you see when die to trying to make experience different than it is.  Your vision opens for the first time and everything looks glorious even if the same appearances are in your visual field.  Action still arises, naturally, organically and effortlessly.  Each movement, behavior, thought, feeling, sensation and impulse being informed as directly from God, Source, Love.  There is seamlessness.  No you and other, just one continuous awareness.  One indivisible, unified is-ness, beingness.  Your experience is simply beingness in action and you find there is nothing to do about it, but only to be and play within it.  Play in the natural expression and reflection of Love in its infinite myriad of forms.  

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