service

WHAT DO YOU SERVE?

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WHAT DO YOU SERVE?

Living devoted

So much of our lives we live on automatic pilot.  We go through the motions of our days without much thought as to why we are doing what we are doing.  We simply do the things we think we need to do in order to make life happen.  By the end of our day we only hope that we got everything done just to wake up and do it all over again.  In this way we aren’t living intentionally, but rather only to survive.  While this is valid, it doesn’t do much for us in terms of feeling soulfully aligned, fulfilled and like we are completing the mission for our existence.  Instead we feel like we are on a treadmill that we can’t get off of because the stuff of life doesn’t stop happening.  Eventually we get tired, then exhausted, yet we continue to focus on the stuff of life rather than on why we even exist in the first place.

What we serve is what we focus our time, energy and attention on.  Most of us have aspirations to serve something great.  Examples of something great would be serving love, joy, freedom, truth, peace, or unity.  While many of us might have the aim to serve these things, what most of us end up of serving is our to do list, our emotional states, our frustrations, our limitations, our judgments, our preferences, and our pleasures or comforts.  We make these things primary in our life rather than what it is we say or think we desire to make primary or serve.  For example say we feel frustrated about something.  We tend to focus our energy on the state of being frustrated and what we are frustrated about, rather than on being or feeling peace, which is what we might ideally like to think that we serve.  Or say we have 30 things on our to do list for the day and feel overwhelmed.  We then keep our feelings of overwhelm in the forefront, rather than focusing on joy.  One more example is that we might lose ourselves inside of pleasurable sensations or comfort that may actually be limiting, rather than conjuring up the energy to focus on freedom.  

In order to live intentionally devoted to what it is you consciously want to serve requires that you give away your own personal life with all of your preferences and the ways you think/want life to be.  99%, or maybe even 100% of our frustrations have to do with life not looking, feeling or being the way we want it to look, feel or be.  However if it is no longer about us, but only about what we serve, it cuts out all the b.s. and confusion.  Life becomes very uncomplicated when it is no longer about all of your personal preferences and desires being met, but rather it’s about the reason why you exist, which for most people is lives along the lines of serving love, joy, freedom, truth, peace, or unity, and helping others know or experience this too. 

GIVING AWAY YOUR SELF

Moving beyond self-indulgence

In order to move beyond our constant self-indulgence in our own preferences, needs, wants, desires, emotional states and thoughts, something has to be even more important than us.  This isn’t to dismiss our own inherent value or worth, but rather to make it not so important.  There is a development move, stage or step so to speak, from making your self value important, to simply accepting it and understanding that it is.  See the paradox is that when we understand, know and accept our own inherent value or worth, all of our own “stuff” doesn’t really take up space inside of us anymore.  We don’t need to focus on ourselves.  This frees up our internal space to align with our mission, why we exist, and serving that which we desire to serve rather than our own little personal world stuff.  

Some people might call this ego death, but it really isn’t as dramatic as spiritual people tend to make it out to be.  It’s just a shift in focus.  That focus is from your personal life and all of its details and perceived demands being central, to making what you serve to be central.  It’s also easy to know your purpose, mission or what you really want to serve.  It’s not something that you do or even what you are doing now, but rather it’s what you want people to get by your existence.  It’s what you would want everyone in the world to know if you died tomorrow.  You can ask yourself the question, “If I died tomorrow what would I want every child, woman, man, animal, etc. to know, experience or feel?”  What imprint, information or feeling do you want every person that you interact with to get from you?  What quality or energetic vibration do you desire that everything in creation experiences?  What kind of world do you want to live in?  You must be what you want yourself and others to experience.  

In giving away yourself you might be a little cranky and put up a bit of fight.  You might feel sad or like a death of sorts, as the focus on your personal dreams perishes.  However you will open into something more magnificent that it will be easy to forget your crankiness.  Be clear though that what you open up into is not finally getting what you want, which is often what people think is the spiritual reward for surrendering the self.  Rather you open into the larger mission of which you are a part of and for which there is so much more support for, than whatever it is you are trying to do on your own, but again it’s not about you.  One more time be clear this is not a recipe for things happening how you prefer them to happen.  There will still be hard work and showing up, probably way more than you currently do.  It also doesn’t mean that your body changes, sensations go away, or that situations or people in your life change.  Those things might happen, but this isn’t about them happening.  It’s only about you aligning with why you exist and opening yourself to serve that.  While you still may not have what you want, living aligned and serving what you desire to serve is actually a 1000 times more rewarding than serving yourself, and a bit relieving because it’s finally not about you.  

There is a choice to make and it’s one that you must consciously choose, and continue to choose over and over again until you’ve got it.  That choice is what you serve.  This is what you focus on, what you tune your self to, what you put in the forefront over anything that appears in your experience.  That choice creates a developmental shift from what we might call a pseudo self-empowerment into the dissolution of self, and thus self-importance.  Said another way it’s simply growing up.  While it’s an important development step to become a self, it’s also important to realize that you’re not.

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

BEING DIRECT

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BEING DIRECT 

Showing up for what you want

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

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

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

LETTING OUTCOME GO 

Desiring & not expecting

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

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

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

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

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

Authentic Caring

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Caring Disguised as Agenda 

How do we care without agenda?

man manipulated by cunning woman to make a proposalWhether we want to admit it or not most of us have an agenda to the things that we do and the ways we behave, particularly when it comes to other people.  Agenda can be tricky for us to see in ourselves.  Often it is disguised as caring, but when we dissect it out further we frequently find that our caring isn’t pure.  We discover that we really want something in return for the things we do or the ways that we behave, even if its simply to be talked to, treated or touched a certain way, or to have others love us or show up in a way that we are more comfortable with or desire to be around.  

Anytime we want anything in return for the way that we show up, the things we say or ways we behave, our caring is tainted with agenda.  Though wanting something in return may seem very normal or innocent to us, or even like we are entitled to it, it creates immense underlying and unnecessary suffering for us which we are often not really aware of.  It also creates a situation where we not truly being ourselves.  It pulls us out of our authentic self and we become some semblance of “ourselves” that we’ve learned to be and which we think gets us what we want from others.  Often these ways of being that we’ve learned are so engrained in us that we actually think we are them, when in truth they are just strategies and ways we’ve learned to navigate this world to feel internally safe and comfortable.

There is also often this inherent thing that happens when we care.  Its as though caring activates something inside of us that makes us want to control or manipulate the outcome or circumstances of our caring.  This can be seen in anything from a project you are working on, a business venture, the creation of a family, a book you’re writing, a relationship that you are in, etc.  As soon as we “care” there is this gripping that comes along with our caring.  We unconsciously hold our breath, tense up, and can’t stop thinking about how it will turn out, as if any of those actions will help our caring or the outcome.  This is where our initial excitement or care for something turns into manipulation, control and ultimately agenda.   

Authentic Caring 

Service vs. Slave

little girl bubbleBeing of service is true caring and that doesn’t arrive until you are completely without personal agendas.  This is how you can see/know exactly what will support life rather than trying to “figure it all out”.  Whenever there is a personal agenda you will find yourself feeling like a slave rather than feeling like you are being in service.  Service is simply being yourself completely and participating with life from the fullness of being yourself; sharing/expressing whatever excitement or thing naturally arises.  Service feels effortless and organic even though there is still work and activity involved.  Where being a slave is feeling like you have to do something, make something in particular happen, or showing up in ways that are not authentic to you.  Slavery feels effortful, disempowering and like something that you have to do or else you won’t be taken care of or things won’t work out for you or others.  

Rather than the focus being on what you care about, try shifting your focus onto simply being yourself.  For example say you are starting a project or a new relationship and you feel excitement being engaged within it.  The excitement is evident, but then the idea of the “future” comes in.  What will happen in the future?  What will be the future of this project or relationship?  We often get so ahead of where we are at that we lose contact with the present moment.  We begin to live in a future “idea” rather than where we are now.  Most people are living this way.  This makes us feel heavy, like things are effortful or hard, when really the effort or hardness is just our own manipulation or control of what is.  Things aren’t hard or heavy in and of themselves, its simply our relationship with what is that makes it seem so. We say to ourselves that our caring is motivating us, but really what is motivating us is a particular, hopeful outcome that we have for the project or relationship.  With this we begin to feel like a victim to our own desires and like we aren’t in control, which is why we attempt to control and manipulate everything.  Our focus is not on being ourselves, but instead on what we think we “care” about.  We’ve actually lost touch with caring because we’ve lost touch with ourselves.  

This is also where we drop out of being in service and into being a slave.  We are really being a slave to ourselves yet we think its to our circumstances and situations.  A slave to our own ideas, hopes, dreams and perceived needs to be comfortable and have the illusion of external safety,  security and love.  We give away being our true selves in exchange for our ideas and with this deep down we feel that we are out of touch with true caring.  We may become aloof or feel that its hard to connect with our heart.  We see that most of our “caring” is really an attempt to manage and control life.  We can even give the illusion that we are “on purpose” because we are doing all the right things yet we feel exhausted and unfulfilled.  We are only fooling ourselves. 

True caring is being connected to our hearts.  This is also how we are most authentically ourselves.  With that we no longer need to behave in ways that have underlying self-protective or self-assuring agendas because we know we (and all) are already taken care of and there is no thing we need to manipulate or control, even that which we seem to care about the most.  Trust arrives.  We can then be truly self-less (which is loving self) and truly without agenda (which is loving other) and experience true caring.  

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