self-love

INEXHAUSTIBLE SOURCE OF LOVE

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INEXHAUSTIBLE SOURCE OF LOVE  

Recognizing what is

What moves us?  What drives us?  What is our fuel source? What are we made of?  At the source of everything is love.  We know this, at least we know it conceptually, but how do we really grok this, get this and live this?  Love is boundless, infinite and inexhaustible, yet why does it seem scarce and limited inside of our experience?  Let’s first be clear on our definitions.  Love is not an emotion, but it is the source of all emotion.  Love is not a thought, but it is the source of all thought.  Love is not a sensation, but it is the source of all sensations.  Understand we often confuse love for its expressions rather than recognize it as the source of all expressions.  Love is the birthplace/birth space of all of creation.  It’s the very fabric of the universe, that which everything is made from.  

Love is exchanged or expressed when it is recognized, acknowledged or made aware of by you, by your awareness.  The primary reason that love seems to be limited or scare is because it remains largely unrecognized in our day to day life.  Whatever we tune our awareness to or focus on we see.  Sometimes, or rather oftentimes, we look out and we see our judgments, labels, stories and ideas about what we think we are seeing rather than seeing what is, which is love.  When our judgments, labels, stories and ideas dominate our awareness, which they do for most people, then our life experience is the fabrication of those things.  We see what we think rather than what actually is.   

You can see here that love is not what’s limited, but only our experience of it is limited based on what we choose to see.  To see all as love, as what it is, is a high ask of ourselves.  Our conditioning is such that to our mind’s stories and ideas this seems ridiculous.  We have a multitude of perspectives, experiences, situations and things that we do not, and often refuse to see as love.  For example things that have created physical, mental or emotional pain for ourselves or others we tend not to see as love.  Things that we don’t understand or that we disagree with we tend to leave out of love.   While some expressions of love may be sourced from a more distorted or confused perspective, at their core they are still love.  When love in its purity isn’t recognized as such then it continues to play out and create expressions of love that are more twisted or bent.  Not until the source of love can be looked upon and seen as what it is and have itself reflected back to it, can it come to see itself and unbind some of its bent or confused perspectives.  But we tend to not do this for ourselves or for others.  Rather we look at the confused expression of love and offer only our judgments, fears and condemnation.  Hence we live in a collective reality where love seems limited and scarce.   

KNOWING YOURSELF AS LOVE 

Seeing self as the source

In order to see all as love, and to recognize love at its source, you must first know yourself as the source of love.  You are not able to mirror or reflect love to other aspects of creation if you don’t first know yourself as it.  While this might seem obvious it’s a pretty big missing link for most.  The primary human wounding is unworthiness and unlovability, which is the opposite end of the spectrum of knowing yourself as love.  Knowing yourself as love is seeing yourself as it.  It’s beyond sensing, feeling or thinking of yourself as love.  Although those are great entry points they still don’t go direct to the source of love, but rather utilize expressions of it.  To be rested as love, to know it without doubt, to recognize yourself unequivocally as it, to no longer need to think, feel or sense yourself as it because you are it, is to know yourself as love.  

Why don’t we know it?  Primarily because we’ve agreed to forget for learning sake.  Also because there are not many pure mirrors available on this planet to reflect this knowing to us.  The result is that we don’t see ourselves very clearly.  It’s like we are constantly looking at reflections in the mirror that are bent, twisted and distorted, except they look “normal” to us.  They look like who we think we are and therefore we’ve come to identify with those reflections more and more as the years have gone by.  Just because something feels normal or has become familiar to us, such as our sense of identity, it doesn’t mean it’s accurate.  As we’ve come to believe and accept the reflections given to us from distorted mirrors about what/who we are, we’ve naturally created our life experiences based upon these beliefs and see life through our bent perspectives.  Hence again we experience a world scarce and limited in love and genuinely can’t figure out why because we don’t recognize the source of the reflections is our very own self, and how we see our very own being is what we experience life to be.  

If we are indeed love, then how do we know ourselves to be it?  The most direct path would be to simply accept it as fact.  This is however a radical shift for most people’s belief systems and therefore direct acceptance, while entirely possible, is not highly probable.  The more experiential way is to commit/devote to seeing yourself as love.  Multiple times a day reflect to yourself that you are love.  I suggest not focusing on your form when you do this.  Many times people will practice loving their form/body, or qualities they have, or things that they do for themselves or others.  Again those are expressions of love, but they are not recognizing the source of it.  Instead go to the source.  The essence of you is love.  It is what you are made of.  It is what/who you are.  Yes your body, your qualities  and all the things you do are expressions of love, but they aren’t the source of it.  Come to know yourself, your actual self, not the fabricated body-personality of you that is made up of thoughts, labels and ideas that have been conditioned.  As you get this, begin to see others as this same source, and all things/experiences as well.   It is not out of your hands/heart to shift this entire creation.  The change is and has always been with and inside of us.  As we insist on seeing ourselves as what we are, and including the rest of creation inside of that perspective, we live a very different reality where love is abundant and inexhaustible.

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

MAKING THE INNER MATTER

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MAKING THE INNER MATTER 

Inner states, projects & endeavors

We all have a collection of activities, projects, and things that we deem valuable and worth our time.  It’s easy to see what these things are, as they are the things we spend our time engaged in on a day to day basis.  It’s important to pause for a moment and recognize what exactly it is you spend your time and energy doing as this is what you are prioritizing as most important.  Often times we say that such and such thing matters to us, and yet we spend little to no time and energy focused on it.  We may not even be aware of the mismatch of what we say is important and what we spend our time doing, but when we pause and look at the reflection of our life as a mirror we can’t refute what we see.

We also tend to value the outer more than the inner.  What I mean by this is that we make external projects or activities that produce physical, tangible results superior to internal projects that create more depth and connection inside our inner experience.  The perspective of the outer as productive and worthwhile, and the inner as just a hobby or self-indulgent, keeps inner endeavors having seemingly less value to us in our own eyes.  Even though we might say that inner work matters, we spend minimal time cultivating our ideal inner state because we see it as not as important as the physical creations.

You might be wondering just exactly what inner projects and endeavors are.  Inner projects and endeavors all have to do with cultivating the state of being of where you come from.  There are infinite ways to cultivate our inner state, some of which may be external activities such as exercise, yoga, or coming in for your entrainments, but the focus is on producing or generating the state of being you desire to live as while you interact with your environment.  

Most desirable inner states often have to do with feeling a sense of stability, peace, joy, love and aliveness.  If this isn’t your ordinary state of being than there is inner work to be done and inner projects to initiate in order to find this as your foundation.  So many people desire their resting state of being to be joy and peace and yet they don’t put enough of their value on it.  Rather they value what they can produce and what they perceive needs to be done regardless of their inner state of being.  The result is a lack of presence and real engagement or participation with life.   

TAKE THE RISK 

Prioritize the inner

There may be some perceived risks in valuing the inner.  One of the most common scarcity beliefs that arises is that there is not enough time.  The mind will often create a story that if you focus on the inner than you won’t get all of the outer things done that you either want to or need to.  This can also be looped into the story that you won’t fulfill your purpose, be of enough service or maximize your intention for existing.  Our focus is so predominantly on the physical aspect of our world and the thinking that our service and purpose is only in what we create or produce.  This is a largely accepted perception, particular in spiritual groups and thinking.  It is also largely distorted.  

The way I see it is that where we come from (our inner state of operation) is way more important than anything we can or will ever produce.  I am not discounting the value on the external.  I see tremendous value in unleveling systems, creating new offerings for humanity, and sourcing novel ways to organize life that support others.  Supportive environments and systems matter, and can create a more fun, easeful and enjoyable experience of life.  Yet they will all come and go.  Systems and environments change, but we are what evolves and grows.  Our awareness, our consciousness, our state of being, we take with us inside of every new system and environment that we create.  Despite the obviousness of this, we still think that the production, the doing, and all the things we want to create and manifest matter more than the inner state.  

Where we create from, where do from, where we live from, is an endeavor worth taking the risk of investing our time and energy.  The only true thing lost is the illusion of the story that the external manifestation is most important.  What if you decided to shift your thinking and behavior, and place 90% of your focus on cultivating your inner state of being to be one of joy, peace, and love, and 10% focus on what you are physically creating or doing.  I imagine for most a sense of fear arises if they truly entertain this, as everything they have been placing their focus on crumbles out of view.  It is a death.  A death of placing our value on external manifestations.  A death of projecting our value and worth into things.  

Does it feel risky?  Yes it does.  It’s a giving of your life, your attention, your energy and your focus to your state of being rather than what you think you are creating.  It’s trusting that life will continue to create through you as you align your focus in this way.  It’s prioritizing your state of being over what you think you need to do.  What if you started by creating an inner project?  Perhaps you want to establish self-love.  Create a 12 week program for yourself to uncompromisingly love yourself.  Place this as your top value.  Put whatever into the program you think needs to be included.  Be creative.  Movement, activity and “life” will still occur, but your priority above all else is self-love.  When your program is done, then be done.  Receive that which you desire to be.  You can do this with any inner state quality you wish to cultivate.  The key is you can’t just kind of do this.  You can’t partially make it valuable.  It will take all of you to be on board.  Take the risk.  Test the results.  Experience the magic unfold.  

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

LACK OF PERCEIVED SELF-WORTH

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LACK OF PERCEIVED  SELF-WORTH

Self-absorption & taking from the field

Not valuing ourselves is a rather common disposition among humans.  It tends to be more socially acceptable to share feelings of lack of self-worth than it is to share expressions of worthiness.  If someone is confident they are often viewed as arrogant or conceded, and if someone lacks self-worth they are viewed as altruistic or humble.  Due to this social conditioning many who are confident don’t share themselves fully for concern of not wanting to “make” others feel bad about themselves or appear non-caring or un-empathetic.  Meanwhile those that don’t value themselves set the social bar for the level of self-love that it’s ok to share and express.  

Not valuing one’s self is the lowest energy state.  It literally takes energy from everything that it interacts with because it never feels like it’s enough.  Not only does it perceive itself as not enough, but it views everything else from the same lens that it views itself.  It can’t not.  It does not give to the field, but rather takes from it.  It is the most self-absorbed state.  Some people may find this paradoxical because what is perceived as confident or arrogant is most commonly associated with self-absorption.  However this is opposite to the energetic dynamics that get played out.  

Understand that to not care for yourself or see value in who/what you are is not humble or altruistic.  You viewing yourself as less than does not make you more kind, loving or selfless.  Rather it makes you more selfish and more wrapped up in your own self-created delusion of inadequacy and lack.  This sucks the life out of you, and out of everything and everyone around you.  Lack of self-worth is like a black hole that absorbs all the light of the world into it and yet remains empty because there isn’t enough light in the entire universe to illuminate it.  

The only thing that can shift this is if that which views itself changes its perspective of itself, meaning you change your perception of yourself.  If rather than seeing yourself as lack and valueless, you see yourself as you truly are, which is abundant, complete and full.  If that simple perception shift occurs, than no longer does one need to get from its environment or from other people in order to attempt to fill itself up.  Only then will you stop sucking energy out of the field and become a radiating stream that gives to the field by its very beingness.  Rather than being self-absorbing you become self-emitting, shining light wherever you go.  Many desire this, to be a light, and yet simultaneously don’t understand that their perception of themselves and their worth influences all of the energetic dynamics about them.   

FUELING YOUR BELIEF IN SELF

Prisoned disempowerment or free will

The larger truth is that its impossible to not be worthy.  You can only perceive yourself to be unworthy, and that perception creates the reality you experience, whether it’s true or not.  The only questions become, how do you want to participate with/play the game of life, and will you wake up to your choice?  See nothing in life happens to you unless you view it as such; unless you choose the victim position.  Most people unconsciously choose the victim position because the sea our consciousness swims in is filled with that programming.   The whole process and point of waking up is to consciously recognize that you are choosing and also then what you are choosing.  In this way you can consciously create your world rather than blindly accept the status quo.  Just because the large majority of people choose prisoned disempowerment as their story doesn’t mean that you must as well.   

The fuel of the reality of prisoned disempowerment is re-enforcing the belief of non-worth, non-value, and powerlessness.   In this reality some people have power and some don’t.  Some people matter and some don’t.  Some people are valuable and some aren’t.  You must ask yourself if that is the reality that you want to fuel, and also be willing to see how you do fuel it though the “innocent” interaction you have with how you see yourself as unworthy.   If you desire to create a different reality you will require a different fuel source.  The reality of free will is fueled by the belief of infinite value, inherent worth and powerfulness.  What is required for you to experience free will is the knowing of your worth.  Your power is your worth, your worth is your power.  In this reality all have power, all matter and all are valuable.

Its important to know what reality your energetic vote and perception of self, contribute to creating.  People tend not to know the power of their inner dialogue and the power of the lenses that they wear when they look at self or at the world.  How you view becomes your reality.  Even though your power could never be more or less than it is, which is synonymous with saying that your worth could never be more or less than it is, in this relative game we are playing there are two ways to increase power/worth/energy.  One way is to control others; the other way is to empower others.  If you control others you then gain/take their free will and it adds to your own.  You gain power.  If you empower others you give free will and it adds to the greater collective all of which you are included.  This is essentially your “how to” recipe: view yourself as valuable, help others view themselves as such through your capacity to view yourself as such, create a lived reality where free will is your direct experience.  

Understand that to view yourself as unworthy or not valuable is to disregard the beauty of God and it’s creation.  It’s to deny the perfection of the creator expressed through you.  It’s paradoxically the most self-absorbed perspective through its rejection of self.  Its the lowest energy state, which you then experience as your life.  Through viewing yourself as unworthy you create a disempowered reality and willingly give your free will, your energy and your power over to it.  When will you have had enough?  When will you decide you are more then you’ve been perceiving yourself to be?  What will it take for you to stop insisting that you aren’t worthy?  How much more suffering are you willing to create by holding onto your view of unworthiness?  

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

THE GIFT OF YOURSELF

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THE GIFT OF YOURSELF 

You are the gift you give

For many people there is an innate drive to give to others.  To serve, help, and support others generally generates good feelings inside of us as long as our giving comes from a place of true desire rather than obligation or agenda.  We are taught early on that we must learn skills, trades or other tools and means in order to have something to give.  Those things become our contribution to others.  This is the whole idea of work, and of trading services and resources.  

While our skills, services and abilities can add value to people’s lives and create ease, flow or greater efficiency in the world, they are not the gift that we give.  Two different people can have similar skills, services or abilities and yet they give an entirely different gift.  Sure on the surface it may seem that two architects can write up similar plans for a building, and yet they produce very different feels or results with their plans.  You may wonder why this is so.  It is so, because it is the energy of you that brings the gift of what gets produced.  It is the heart, the core of who you are, that is the actual gift you give.

Now this may seem very obvious to you conceptually.  Of course you understand that it’s you and the not the thing, but also notice how much of your mental and physical energy you spend on searching for the next cool thing you are going to create, the next career you will have, the next relationship you will start, all the while thinking that it will be your new purpose, the new thing that will define you and give you some sense of contribution.  It is very easy to pin the thing, meaning it is very easy for us to say “oh there is this thing that I can do or give to others and that makes my existence worthwhile.”  To say to yourself “I created this product, shared this service with others or did this thing and it changed people’s life, it’s so amazing!”  It is innocent enough and perhaps even true that your skill or ability did change their life and yet it is still not the gift you give.  

See in order to recognize the gift, you must be able to recognize and see yourself.  We are quite blind and distorted in our perspectives of how we view our own self.  We are not very clear mirrors for our own reflection.  We tend to not view ourselves as very worthwhile in general and therefore it’s easier to project our goodness on things we do rather than on our own selves.  We project our worth onto things.  Then to top it off the world reinforces all of our do-gooding all the while also telling us that if we think too highly of ourselves we are selfish and arrogant. Oh the conundrum! 

BEING WORTH 

Self-gratitude

Unless you know your worth you can’t give, because your giving is giving you.  If you see nothing of value in and of yourself, naked and without skills, abilities and stuff, then nothing will radiate out of you.  Sure you will still do stuff, create stuff and function in the world, but you will grow tired because you are running on empty inside trying to generate worth through what you do.  Until you know how worthy you are you will always have agenda, because you will always be trying to get love rather than realizing you are it.

Your radiance is your gift.  How you shine is your gift. It is really, really simple.  You could never attain worth or get more worthy and valuable based on any skill or ability that you may have or acquire.  Again it doesn’t mean that your skills won’t help out the ease and flow of this human existence, but they are not your service.  You are your service independent of anything that is done.

Since it is impossible to increase our worth this begs the question of how do we elevate our sense of self-worth.  Our sense of self-worth and our actual self-worth are two very different things.  The journey is in how we bridge the seeming gap in between without it being based on things that we accomplish or do.  Since most of our confidence comes through feats of walking into the fire of our own fears and limitations it is based in accomplishment or doing.  

There is one fast and short easy way to elevate our sense of self-worth and that is gratitude.  Gratitude for ourselves just the way we are in any given moment.  Appreciating the quirks, oddities, subtleties, nuances, particularities, and the way that we are exactly as we are.  Ending the desire to change ourselves or make ourselves different in any way brings greater and greater self-acceptance.  

Anything other than total gratitude for self is self-absorption, self-denial, self-hatred and the true selfishness.  It’s the true selfishness because when we don’t feel amazing about ourselves then we focus on ourselves.  We focus on what’s wrong with us and how to be different or better.  When we are focused on ourselves our energy goes in rather than radiating out.  The result is that we feel depleted rather than energized.  Giving/being ourselves is energizing because it’s effortless.  It doesn’t need to be more or less.  It is complete in and off itself.  None of this means that we won’t grow or change, but instead simply that growth will come through acceptance of self rather than through non-acceptance.  

Develop a daily practice of self-gratitude, not for what you do, but for who you are.  Nothing added, nothing subtracted.  Just you as you are.  This will be your portal into a sense of stable, infinite self-worth where you will naturally radiate the gift that you are.   

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

PAIN OF NOT EMBRACING PERFECTION

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PAIN OF NOT EMBRACING  PERFECTION

Disagreeing with the universe

In the spiritual growth community we are all so busy working on ourselves.  Attempting to do it right by clearing our trauma, healing our wounds and purifying ourselves to ever more refined versions of ourselves.  While we are engaged in this journey towards our ultimate remembering and purest expression we often lose sight of the fact that we have never left the innate perfection that we are.  Though at times we seem to have disconnected or forgotten this, the truth remains that we could never not be what we are even if it has been temporarily placed out of our sight.  

To say or view from the perspective of imperfection creates all the suffering that we could ever imagine, and which we do imagine every single day.  Imperfection implies that the intelligence that organizes this universe, including your body, mind and every single little detail of creation, somewhere made a mistake.  This is the birthplace of the view of wrongness, error and separation.  For certain aspects of creation to be included and others not is an illusion that we perpetuate over and over again which lives inside the idea of imperfection.  

Imperfection is simply an idea, a view, a judgment, a perspective.  There is no actual truth to it.  It’s preference and bias.  What one person sees as perfection another sees as imperfect.  This occurs infinitely inside of this idea of imperfection.  See healing happens the moment that we remember that we are perfect and therefore so is everything else.  We may not like what shows up on the screen of life, but that doesn’t alter its perfection.  When we get this completely through and through the healing journey ceases because it’s no longer relevant.  What is true is remembered and evident is the nature of what is.  

This begs the question as to why we hold tight to the perspective of imperfection even when we “get” spiritually that we are perfect.  Why don’t we accept our total, complete and absolute perfection right now in this moment and every moment that will ever follow?  What exactly are we waiting for?  This is a really good question to ask yourself.  What stands in the way of you embracing every single aspect of yourself and this entire universe as innately perfect?  Do you still think some things are wrong?  If so what are those things, and what will it take shift your perspective of them?  Whatever it is that you don’t include will stay un-included until you directly and consciously include it.  How much longer do you want to wait?  How much more suffering do you want to endure?  When is it enough? Only you can determine and decide this for yourself.   

SELF & OTHER FORGIVENESS 

Courage and humility

If there is a tool that bridges this sometimes seemingly gaping gap between perfection and imperfection it is self and other forgiveness.  Forgiveness “corrects” the perspective, removes the hate, and ends the insistence on rightness and wrongness.  It softens the heart and drops the veil of separation that never was.  It ends the roles of victim and victor.  It doesn’t negate or say what happened did or didn’t happen, but it clears the slate.  No karmic charge, no battle to fight, no war to be won, nothing to prove or justify.  Inner & outer peace, harmony and resolution are the effects of forgiveness.  

Forgiveness requires courage.  Why?  Because to open our heart towards what feels hurtful often seems like the wrong direction to our minds.  Our minds want to protect us from all pain and that is why we build walls of separation inside of our experiences.  It takes bravery to move towards rather than away from these experiences.  To let down our walls and allow ourselves to feel instead of continuing to choose the path of self-protection.  This must be a very deliberate, conscious choosing on our part.  This will not just automatically happen because for most people the default mode is self-defense rather than self-love or other-love.  The seeming paradox is that love it the ultimate protector, and not the mind with its defenses which are wired to keep you separate from the rest of creation.  To love one’s self (or love other) is to bravely walk into the fire of our own mind and refuse to not allow light of our awareness to shine.  To see what we are trying to hold separate, and to feel how much more pain holding separate causes us rather then feeling the hurt that we are resisting.  To then choose to feel the pain so that the energy can move through our system and the charge can find its resolution.

Forgiveness requires humility.  Why?  Because we must end our insistence on rightness/wrongness in order to forgive.  To arrive at the place of “I don’t know better than that which organizes this entire universe” is incredibly humbling to the personality we identify ourselves as.  People avoid and deny this level of humility at all costs because they want to be right and feel justified in their rightness.  What happened happened.  What I am I am.  No right and no wrong.  End of story.  End of all stories.  The mind hates this.  Some people feel this is a permission slip for people to do or get away with “bad” things or to ignore changes that need to be made.  I am suggesting neither, but instead to see what is possible through the power of forgiveness.  To see what naturally and organically organizes itself into different configurations without force, effort, punishment, or shaming when the true essence of what is is seen, reflected, and given.  I dare you.  

The power of the heart is stronger, more real and more palpable then any limiting perspective, including that of imperfection.  Choosing forgiveness opens the door directly into the heart.  Heart leads, mind follows.  This is what most all hunger for even if they can’t fully articulate it in this way yet.  The only thing standing in the way is your insistence on the idea of imperfection.  That’s it.  Imperfection really is just a thought and not an actual thing.  I know this may be hard for your mind to believe, but its worth investigating and changing this belief for yourself.  Your joy and freedom from suffering awaits on the other side of it.  

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

Never Leave Yourself Again

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Never Leave Yourself Again 

Staying connected

Nothing feels better than being rested in yourself.  In fact I’d venture to say that this is what we all desire.  To be home inside of ourselves and never leave ourselves again.  Being in eternal unity with our purest self, absent of anything illusionary or false.  No pretending.  No fronts.  No, stretched beyond ourselves, doing.  No appeasing.  No perceiving lack of anything. Only energized, alive, rested presence.  Some might call this being in their heart, others might call it the ground of being, being centered, inner stability, lived unification with all that there is, or knowing one’s self.  Regardless of the words that you might use to describe it, the essence is the same for all because all expressions have the same essence.  

So many things pull us out of ourselves and into this made up world of stuff and appearances.  In fact as I’ve written many, many times before most of us don’t even realize that we are completely fused/identified with the appearances of what is rather than with the essence of ourselves.  Some people, probably many people, have never even touched their essence during this incarnation in their human body as the focus most are taught is on the outer world rather than the inner world.  There is a combination of intense desire, seeking and grace that allows us to begin to know the world beyond the illusion of forms and appearances that presents itself to our physical senses.

A key piece in never leaving yourself again is the recognition of when you do leave.  If you are not aware of your leaving, of your disconnection from yourself, then you have no choice in the matter.  You simply must remain disconnected until something or someone can mirror back to you that you are not at home inside of yourself.  The other option is to cultivate the skills and practice of self-awareness.  This is simply the practice of pausing, quieting down and paying attention to yourself.  Inquiring as to what and why you are doing, saying, thinking or feeling whatever it is that you are.  So often we aren’t noticing ourselves.  We are just behaving and responding to scripts that we’ve learned.  In this way we are on automatic pilot, but we can put ourselves back into manual mode at any time.  It simply takes our focused attention and will to do so.    

Staying 

Active participation while inwardly rested

How do we stay in when so much pulls us out?  How do we still interact with the world of appearances while being self-rested?  The first thing that absolutely must be “done” or committed to is that you must prioritize staying inside of yourself (staying in self-connection), over everything else.  I mean everything.  More important than any preference, distraction or any other desire that you may feel that you have for anything.  This is so radical for most people that they simply won’t do it.  Instead they will pick and choose what it is that they are willing to stay rested inside of themselves for and then wonder why they don’t have sustainable, eternal awakening, bliss or effortless being and flow.  It is because they are allowing other desires and preferences to be in the number one spot.  

So what are these other desires that take preference over staying rested in yourself?  They are things like the need to feel loved, be important, have value, feel safe and secure, have people like you, be recognized or seen, feel accomplished, be validated and the list goes on.  The external forms that these desires end up taking are different for everyone.  They might come though relationships, family, friends, careers, house, cars, position or status where we attempt to get these needs/desires met in the physical.  Yet all of this is like trying to enter our inner house through the sideways back door rather than coming right inside.  Any time we externalize a need, or project it onto the physical, thinking that somehow the attainment of it in the physical will give us that which we desire, we are gone, disconnected from our essence.  In every single one of these examples or scenarios we are perceiving some type of inner lack and attempting to get in met out there somewhere because here in our present experience we feel it missing.  

One of the best practices that I’ve discovered in entering my inner house directly rather than sideways or from the back is by setting my internal space to not want or need anything from anyone or anything.  This practice will allow you to see where you are attached to people, outcomes or things in order to get something or fill a void inside of yourself where you perceive lack.  It will help you see when you leave that rested place of self-connection and go out towards something in the land of appearances to get your preferences, desires or needs met.  It is really only once you let go of getting something (connection, love, validation, security, etc.) from “out there” that you can know what it is to actively participate while being inwardly connected and rested.  

Action and doing naturally emerges from this place of self-connection.  Rather than the mental navigation and planning you are in touch with the natural rhythms and impulses to move and do.  In this way you are honoring that which is present rather than trying to impose your personal will on it.  This is true love. Again what is ultimately required is to make self-connection, or the choice to stay, as your #1 priority.  The truth is that you can never actually leave yourself.  Its impossible.  You can however create the story and therefore lived experiential reality of disconnection.  Your cultivation of re-prioritizing all your desires into just one, will set you on your path to true freedom and unity, rested in the source of all as yourself.  

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

Grace

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Grace

Resting in the heart

Young and beautiful ballerinaGrace.  Grace is the state of being that is revealed when all tensions have come to an end.  It is the space of the heart which remains when we are no longer trying to find, fix or figure things out.  Grace is empty and yet simultaneously full of love.  Grace is flow and synchronistic.  It is awareness aware of the divine timing of all occurrences.  It is not pressured.  It does not force.  It is peaceful and vitality alive.

Grace occurs or is, not by you giving up because you feel powerless or as a last stitch effort to try to impose your preference from a helpless state of being.  Instead grace is known through the complete ownership of your power in such that the only thing left is full relinquishment of that power into something beyond it.  Grace goes beyond the mind, beyond the person.  There is still a person/form and yet the reference point for knowing yourself is not the person/form.  Your reference point is something much more encompassing of which your mind-body is but a mere vehicle for.  

Being in a state of grace is being rested in the heart.  The heart is what is beyond the mind.  The heart can know the mind, but the mind cannot know the heart.  The mind can only respond to the felt effects of the heart.  Before we are ready to fully relinquish ourselves we will continually try to think or figure out what the heart is.  This is called thinking the heart, but the heart cannot be thought, it can only be experienced when we are ready to deeply surrender any and all resistance in which we have to it.   

Why would we resist the heart?  It seems contrary to what most of us think that our intentions are and yet ironically we live mostly in a state of perpetual resistance or disconnection from the heart.  This is called living in our heads and being consumed by our thoughts.  The most common reason for this, which underlies all other arising, is that we don’t feel worthy of love and we fear that we will be less than or insignificant if we fully surrender to the heart.  Our logical minds will try and reason their way into or out of the heart which is of no benefit.  You cannot prove your heart to your mind, you can only allow your mind to feel your heart.   

Resolving all tensions

Preparing yourself for the complete consumption by love 

soar like an eagleWhat is it to be all consumed by love, to only know love and no longer be identified as a separate mind-body person?  What does it take for this to be your everyday, every moment reality?  It takes everything and nothing less than that.  It takes all of you.  It requires that every morsel of your beingness be on board, be intentional, be devotional and directional into this single focus above every other focus.  You must want to be consumed by love more than you want anything else.  The entire process, the entirety of this so called spiritual journey, is all about the discovery of where you are not wholly devoted to this single focus.  

To prepare yourself for this final relinquishment of personal power and agenda into grace paradoxically takes all of your will.  We often don’t realize that our will drives the ship into surrender and grace.  Will and grace seem like opposite sides of the coin, but without your will and the realization that you can use your will, (which is self-empowerment0 you don’t have a chance.

The truth is that overtime everyone will naturally come to realize the state of grace and love, but it could take you eons and lifetimes rather than just this one lifetime if you don’t come to know your power and utilize your will.  Why most people feel stuck or frustrated in terms of their personal growth is because they are not harnessing, utilizing and realizing the power of themselves.  The ultimate self-empowerment ends in self-realization and self-realization is simply knowing the truth of who you are as love rather than as what you’ve learned yourself to be.

Preparation requires that we move forward and into tension, pushing ourselves beyond our perceived barriers of what we think is or what we know.  With this generation of tension and simultaneous forward momentum the gap between where we are and where we want to be gets bridged.  The tension/energy builds and builds and builds and builds until the only choice left is relinquishment into something bigger and beyond what we’ve known.  We come to edge of our own perceived limited threshold, stretch past our known container of self, and we go beyond it.  When we go beyond, all tensions discharge and we fall into the unknown, and here discover grace.  We come to know what it is to be rested in love because some new container that was previously unknown to us arrives and we are suspended it.  With deeper immersion and realization of self we merge and become one with this state of grace.  This is the all consumption of love and realization of the truth of what we are.

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

Lover & Loved

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Lover & Loved 

Lack and Abundance

Love Rose ConceptMost all of us have a hunger to be loved.  Some people seek for love through affection and relationships, and others through accomplishment, success and acknowledgment.  The largest wounding we have as humans is the feeling of being unlovable or like we are somehow not enough.  We are constantly trying to prove our enoughness to ourselves through external validation that can come either directly from another person, or indirectly through following all of the societal and cultural checkboxes and expectations for what it is to be a good and acceptable person.  

Your hunger to be loved might be hidden from your awareness.  Sometimes we are not fully aware of what is underneath all of the things we do or the ways we show up as we just assume it is just who we are.  However, upon deeper investigation we can often find that who we think we are and the things we think we want really come from a place of unlovability rather than true authentic desire.  So how do we discern if what motivates our desires is coming from lack (meaning trying to prove ourselves) or from abundance (a pure sharing, expressing and being of ourselves)?  It’s really quite easy, simply ask yourself if you are wanting something out of it.  Any time that we want something out of something that we are doing, rather than to purely give to what we are doing, we are coming from a place of lack.  Lack is always connected to not enoughness; not enoughness of self, not enoughness of resources, not enoughness of energy or opportunities.  No matter what the not enoughness is doesn’t really matter, it is all birthed from the same level of consciousness and is therefore the same.

You can equate lack to a state of unlovability, or a state of being that doesn’t know what it is.  When we don’t know what we are, meaning when we are not rested as love, then we will always feel some underlying hunger towards finding or getting it, because it seems to be missing.  This hunger towards finding or getting love is innate to us because in truth love is our natural state of being.  When we lose touch with love/ourselves (or perhaps have never known it) it is only natural that we will seek for it.  That seeking is often sought at first as something outside of us (relationships or accomplishments) and with greater experience, discovery (and disappointment), alas we being to look for that very love inside of us.   

Lover & Loved Become One 

The One who Loves the Loved 

17540280 - atomic love concept illustration design over a white backgroundWhen our outward search becomes less and less fulfilling and we realize the temporariness or inconsistency of love from “out there” which is dependent on people or circumstances doesn’t equal being rested as Love within ourselves, a new path must be sought.  While receiving love and allowing ourselves to feel the love that we are which comes through the  mirroring of things or other people is an important step, it is not the final destination. It’s not the final destination because when those people or things go away then our source of love/lovability goes away as well.  We find ourselves back at square one not knowing what we are again as our source/reflection of love has gone away.  We see this when relationships end or life circumstances change that disrupt our sense of self dramatically.  We feel a sense of deep loss of self, aimless and not knowing who we are anymore because who we thought we were was entirely wrapped up in those external situations and relationships.  

The only way to sustainably know yourself, to be centered and always connected to yourself is not only through being loved and feeling loved; you must also realize yourself as the Lover.  Not just lover to others, but lover to your own loved self.  The source from which love is created and flows.  The one who loves the loved.  Lover and loved are one.  They are complementary pairs, which are always united, one does not exist without the other.  To find that ultimate unity which we all crave, which is underneath all of our desires, which is the blueprint impulse of all of creation, can only be found in this pair of lover and loved, and reconnection with ourselves as both in one.  

Disconnection from ourselves as Lover is why we feel so powerless, lost, and don’t know who we are.  We keep thinking that Lover is found in people, things or in some aspect of creation, but it is not.  Instead it is the source of all of creation.  Looking outward to creation for the source of creation will never result in the creator being found.  It must be found inside of you.  Loved does not exist without Lover.  We have been confused in knowing ourselves only as loved, only as expressions of creation and not as the source of it.  You are the generator, the knower, the creator, the lover, not merely the expressions of such.  When you see this truth and finally recognize yourself you will never again feel like you are unlovable because you will know that you are the lover, the generator of the loved, and thus so love is implied, inherent, and literally cannot be.

The Lover is not another object, thing or person.  It is you.  Its not the stuff or ideas that you call and identify as you, but the you that is the real you.  We have been in the dark as to our true nature as lover.  We have not been able to see how we can love this expression of love that we call ourselves due to this darkness.  We are not victim to the darkness.  We must simply turn our seeking direction around and stop looking out into creation for what which we seek.  Instead we must become silent and turn our seeking inside, towards us, a direction we may have never looked before, and simply ask that the truth of ourselves be revealed to us.  We must put on our big boy and girl pants and become accountable, disciplined and devoted to knowing ourselves as the Lover.  Your full devotion to knowing yourself will reveal yourself to you.  Nothing else will.  Lover and loved reunite, become one, and never fall out of love again.  

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

Healing through being

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Healing through being 

What healing is & how it occurs

Old vintage oval mirror standing on wooden tableThe cultural belief is that one person must do something to another person often via some tool, technique or device, in order for the person to heal from what is seemingly ailing them.  Everything from our modern medical establishment to the plethora of healers with their healing modalities reinforces this belief.  There are ever so few people out there including healers, no matter how alternative they are in their thinking or methods, that really understand what healing is and how it occurs.  

Healing is 100% an inside job.  It is all about your perception and relationship to what is.  Tools, techniques, devices, healers, etc are all simply permission slips for the already whole state to be mirrored to you and accepted by you.  The reason why some methods or healers seem to be better or more effective than others is because the mode of presentation of the method or the person is more acceptable to you.  Meaning you feel some resonance with either the person/healer or the tool and therefore it is a better permission slip for you; you more easily accept that it will work for you and therefore it does.  This is why some things or healers appear to work for some people and not for others.  It is really never about the thing/healer, as the thing or person is inherently neutral.  Instead it is all about what lands for you and gives you a sense of an inner “yes”.  You must follow that inner yes as it will guide you to those things which will work best for you and which your being is most receptive too.  Until you are fully rested in the knowingness of your wholeness having mirrors and permission slips is vitally important.  

It is my experience and understanding that the true role of the healer is not to “do” anything.  Instead the role is simply that of a mirror that reflects the true, whole essence.  Call that reflection love if you will.  A healer simply reflects love so that when you are in the presence of such healer you see your true self, which is love.  Love is perfection, completion, and wholeness so therefore when you see yourself as this everything in your seeming external environment (including your body) becomes that.  Everything follows your perception.  When your perception sees love, knows love, then everything becomes love.   Seeing through the lens of love or wholeness is what healing is and how it occurs.   

Healing through being 

True health is a state of well-being

Attractive young woman in white meditating at lake.Due to the fact that we are largely focused on doing, rather than being, our focus is almost perpetually on what is being done rather than the state of presence or being itself.  If enough has been done, changed or accomplished than we feel successful.  We almost never gauge our success on how well we “be-ed” today.  This is also true when we look at our own healing.  We tend to focus on what has physically changed as a measure of success, meaning did the symptoms go away.  Symptoms going away actually has relatively little to do with healing.  A person can be symptom free and not be healthy.  A person can have multiple symptoms but be in a state of pure presence, love and grace (state of being rather than doing).   To be healthy is to be in a state of well-being.  The mere presence or absence of symptoms is a crappy indicator of a state of health despite what we have been brainwashed to believe.

When I am working with someone no matter what tool, form or technique that I am using, my focus is not on what is being done, but instead on the nature of existence or awareness.  It is a focus on beingness and the perfected acceptance of all that is, including you.  When that reflection of perfection is received by you the effects of that are frequently that something seems to have changed or been done.  This can be noticed by changes in your physical form, such as how a place in your body is opening or shifting, or some movement of energy, but a change in the physical is not a requirement for healing to occur.  You can still have symptoms, but be in a state of pure, perfected, bliss and oneness, where the presence or absence of symptoms doesn’t even touch you because you are so rested in perfected love.

It is when we develop resistance to what is that our state of being (aka health) declines.  Resistance is the state of being that equals ill health.  Just how many people are fighting or trying to change the appearance of what is, thinking that the harder they fight and the more seemingly unflawed the appearance (aka body), the more healed they will become?  I’d say just about pretty much everyone thinks this way.  We resist because our mind tells us that we don’t like what is, or that what is is bad or wrong, or that it means something negative, but what if through acceptance of what is (rather than the fight to fix or conquer it) we found all the healing that we are seeking for so badly.  What if it has never been about what is done to you, but instead your relationship to what is, which by the way is 100% in your control.  What if your healing has been within your power all along.  I’m here to tell you confidently that is has, its just that the path has seemed a bit cloudy.  I’m here to help clear the clouds so that that which already is can be seen and accepted by you.  

Acceptance doesn’t mean that things don’t still occur or aren’t seemingly still done.  Things occur.  Movement happens. Appearances, including your body and symptoms, change.  Your life can be undergoing major transitions and transformations.  Its simply that your well-being isn’t dependent on what is occurring anymore.  You’ve transcended the need to control circumstances, again including your body, and you now allow and move with whatever arises within your experience, all the while learning and growing and being rested in knowing that all is perfectly well.

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

Loving yourself

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Loving yourself 

Unlocking the door to being alive

11613435 - abstract background with hearts.Loving yourself is the answer to every single question you’ve ever asked.  How do I get more energy, how do I have less pain, how do I feel more, how do I heal, how do I experience my soul, how do I know bliss, how do I know what to do, how do I trust, how do I make more money, how do I have the relationship that I want, how do I have more confidence, how do I serve…?   The list goes on.  Every single question that you have ever, ever, ever had comes back to this very easily understood yet less easily applied way of being and existing.  

Why is it so hard to love ourselves?  Why do we feel such unworthiness in our existence?  We fundamentally know that we “should” love ourselves and that loving ourselves is the key that unlocks the door to being alive and yet we don’t choose it.  We judge ourselves, blame ourselves, think we should be different than we are, worry that we are imperfect, that we’ve said or done the wrong thing or that we will, that we won’t be enough.  This can come out directly towards ourselves or we can direct/project this onto others or onto our situations and circumstances in life.  Either way the root is the same.  Something about us (or existence) is unlovable.  

Most of us have become masters at trying to get love and then pushing it away once we begin to taste it.  Personal relationships are a fertile ground for this type of behavior.  We so badly want love from another and yet simultaneously can’t receive it when its given.  This can also show up in wanting acknowledgement or reception by others of our work or something that we create.  We want the reflection of love through receiving attention yet when we get the slightest amount of that attention we feel uncomfortable, like we don’t want to be seen.  So this is the paradox of wanting to be seen and yet not wanting to be seen.  Wanting to be loved yet not feeling worthy of it.   

Return to Love 

Unloved to Loved

12635267 - hart graphic backgroundUnlovability is the root of all pain and suffering.  I believe it to be the primary root of most all sickness as well.  This is good news because if being unlovable is the root then the cure is evident and found in your return to love.  How do you return to love?  It begins with the seeing of how it is you have not been able to love yourself.  You must turn and look towards your unlovability.  Acknowledge just how hard it is to fully and unconditionally love yourself.  Looking at where you push love away in everyday situations.  Perhaps you can’t accept a compliment, maybe nothing you do is ever enough even if it was done well, maybe you don’t let yourself stop and rest because people “need you” so you must show up or you won’t have or accomplish enough, perhaps you can give love but feeling it directed towards you creates a feeling of shutdown or separation.  

Rather than keeping yourself in the dark be willing to look at how you push away and resist love.  It takes courage and yet you can do it.  The amount of light you can emit into this world is directly correlated with how much love you can receive and know yourself to be.  When you know yourself as love it is the end of figuring anything out.  There really are no more questions at this point, at least questions that come from lack and unknowing.  The only questions that seem to arise are those that are in direct connection with your already knowing state of self.  Its like asking a question but already knowing the answer simultaneously.  

When you know that you are love you can serve no matter what.  No insecurity or doubt in self arises about what you are capable of or what you should do.  You become a pure vessel and transmission of God/light and true giving arises.  You are no longer giving to others or creating out of lack of worth of self and trying to prove your worthiness to get validated or your safety needs met.  Instead you simple give because that is what you are.  There is no agenda.  It is not about self-sacrifice or being a martyr as those things come from the perception of lack, but instead about simply giving as the abundance that you know yourself to be.  Nothing is unsolvable and everything is seen as love.

Being rested as love is the most energizing and alive state of being.  The boundless freedom of you is experienced.  You no longer need anything from anyone or anything.  You know yourself, accept yourself and realize that you are love.  You can’t not see everything else as that for love is the fabric, the substratum and the essence of all of creation.  You included.  You are loved.  You are love. 

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