state of bliss

INTENTION & FOCUS

Dr. Amanda Love Leave a comment

INTENTION & FOCUS 

A dash of magic

Intention guides life.  Life follows focus.  To some degree we all know this yet most of us aren’t really utilizing the power of it in our day to day life.  Rather we are often unfocused, scattered and distracted.  We decide for a moment or maybe two, that we want to feel a certain way, walk in a particular direction, or take hold of our state of being, but in the next moment we forget it.  We then wonder why we can’t seem to have the healing, life or state of being that we desire.  Then, on top of it all, we have a long list of impossibility beliefs to add into the mix.  If we muster up our will and utilize our focus, then this or that impossibility belief rears its head.  Feeling overwhelmed by it all, we stop in our tracks and give up.  We return to distraction because we can’t seem to find a way through.  We find ourselves feeling stuck, like we (or things) will never change and we feel resigned to life the way it is.  

I think the prime difference between people who feel like they are living aligned and those that struggle to stay aligned is harnessing the power of intention and focus, along with not being afraid of a little magical thinking.  If you’ve ever spent any time around a baby you know that they see the world through the lens of magic.  Something appears in front of their visual field and they get absolutely ecstatic.  They have no idea how it arrived or even what it is.  They are simply enamored and in a state of bliss by whatever it is they see.  They attempt to interact with it however they can, having no idea at all what to do with it.  This is what we call playing.  Then due to the fact that they have no label, definition or meaning, all they experience is magic.  Magic being the essence of the thing and not the thing itself.  As soon as we give names to things we no longer see the magic, and rather see only what we’ve decided something is.  All other possibilities flatten.  

The other thing to notice is that when babies are playing they are totally focused.  They quite dislike it when you remove their “object of magic”, which they are entirely engrossed in.  Their attention might move from toy to toy, but they are just as present with the next non-labelled, no meaning magical thing that arrives into their sensory experience.  As we become toddlers and begin to develop our analytical thinking mind we want to know what everything is and what it all means.  We start to get lost in the world of concepts rather than in the pure potential of what is.  Our minds learn to multi-task and focus on facts, details and the like.  We lose connection to the essence of things and begin to focus on the things themselves.   We move out of present moment and into thought.  

IMAGINATION & REALITY 

Increasing will

And well who doesn’t love thinking?  To just let your mind wander from this thing to that thing.  To be lost in thought.  To contemplate.  To imagine.  It’s fun to imagine, yet for many it stops here.  You might think that imagination is just imagination, not reality.  You may even be very good at imagining, yet if you don’t have any intention or focus behind your imaginations they remain formless.  This is not a problem, again it’s great fun to imagine in our minds, it’s only that you will not have a different human world life experience.  You will be living in thought or concept.  There will be a disconnection between your imaginal world (you could also say your desired world) and what you actually experience.  We are at a stage of human development, in this space-time nexus, where there is massive disconnection between our desired realities and the ones we are living in.  It doesn’t need to be that way, however it does take a heap of intentional focus in order to bridge the seeming gap.

Intentional focus might not be as hard as it seems, but it may appear to come at some sacrifice.  See when we align ourselves with our intention and focus we have to let all of the other stuff go.  That other stuff consists of a lot.  It includes, but is not limited to all of our divergent or distracting thoughts, all of our tendencies to avoid what we think can or can’t be, our habits of comfort, our low demand energy states, our pictures or ideas of what our intention is supposed to look, be or feel like. We have so so so so many ideas, and while ideas are great for imagining possibilities, they can also get in the way of letting the picture of it all reveal itself to you.  Our desires or imaginations are like the seeds, our intention and focus the water, and the sprouting flower just sprouts as it does.  We don’t get to decide it’s appearance.  We can guide and set conditions for it, but we can determine its expression.  We can only nurture it’s becoming and then let it be what it will be. 

If we are too fixated in our analytical mind then we will overly focus on the form of what is.  We will perceive disappointment if the form doesn’t match our desire.  If we return to our infant pre-mind state, we can see only the essence, the magic, the seed, the desire and then accept the form, the picture, the image that is the result.  This acceptance is very different than resignation.  Acceptance sees the beauty in the appearance regardless, where resignation sees only what is doesn’t want in the appearance.  The distinction is the seer (ie. you).  From where do you see?  

Harnessing the power of intention and focus is learning to increase your will.  To be determined without attachment.  This is the dance of will and surrender.  Coming from and with everything you’ve got and then with full embrace letting it be as it is.  Giving or aligning your whole self to your intention in any given moment is magic.  Essence is seen and the forms naturally reconfigure in response.  This is not a forceful or manipulative will, but rather a sacrificial will of sorts.  A will that will give away all of its petty distractions, impossibility beliefs and preconceived ideas for its true desire or intention.  A will that aligns behinds itself and that is self-generative.  A will that takes all of you, but of which you can find absolutely nothing better to give yourself too.  A will that eventually becomes much bigger than you.

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

Bliss

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Bliss

Ecstasy of being

Who doesn’t desire more bliss? The pure joy and ecstasy of simply being.  Whether we seek bliss through objects, relationships, service work, recreation, nature, food or other means, we all hunger for it.  Its at the root of what drives all of our meditation, personal growth work and willingness to dismantle our programmed sense of self.  Ironically bliss, which is very thing that we are, which we claim to desire more than anything else, is the very thing that we give away a million times a day.  

Why is it that we give bliss, which again is our essential nature or self, away so often?  Why is it that other things seem more important than bliss and therefore reign as primary in our day to day experience.  To begin many people do not realize that they are in charge of themselves.  What I mean by this is that most people are significantly disempowered and are unaware that they are deciding their life.  They believe that life is random, including their emotional states, and they just hope that they wake up on any given day and feel good.  With this lack of awareness of self there is the appearance that circumstances decide for you and that there really is nothing you can do about it.  When we disown our power in this way we fail to see any responsibility or accountability that we have for our self and our state of being.  We therefore hope for something great, magical, or some object/person that we desire to come along and fix us or make things perfect and right, and we become part of the circumstance rather than the creator of it.

Outside of lack of awareness of self and the disownment of our power what things interfere with us choosing bliss moment to moment?  One of the prime things that interferes is our minds need to know what’s happening or where things are going and our attachment to things or outcomes.  When we desire a thing or outcome more than we desire bliss, then the thing or outcome is what is in charge and no longer is bliss center stage.  Often we fear loss of an object/outcome or even loss of the thought of an object/outcome, because we have confused the object/outcome with our state of bliss.  

If bliss had an enemy, which it doesn’t, but if it did, its enemy would be certainty.  Nothing compresses, flattens, and attempts to put bliss in a box more than the our mind’s perceived need for certainty.  Uncertainty is bliss’s playground while certainty is the mind’s.  Nothing is certain until you decide on it.  Take great care and attention to what it is you decide on as that will be your experience. 

Bliss Beyond Beliefs 

Allowing bliss to reign

There are umpteen million beliefs that interfere with bliss.  They are along the lines of thinking you don’t deserve it, can’t have/be it, impossible to live in at all times, its not real, bliss is only for some people, its not enough, its impractical, its more important to be right, tragedy can’t be blissful, bliss is not sustainable, too many things are wrong in me, too many things are wrong in the world, bliss is circumstantial, it’s only for sometimes, can’t be blissful for no reason, can’t be blissful if other people aren’t… and the list goes on and on.  These are our roadblocks in bliss.  Imagine a road that is made of pure bliss that goes on forever and ever.  Now imagine that every 10 feet there is red light.  All of those red lights are your interfering beliefs that arise and pause your experience of bliss.  The more red lights on your road the less you get to experience the road.  

When we do the work of investigating our beliefs we have fewer and fewer red lights on our road.  This is a worthwhile journey, though arduous and seemingly unending at times.  This begs the question as to if there is a more accelerated way to reclaiming bliss.  Can we in one full swoop be fully rested as bliss here and now in this human experience?  The short answer is absolutely yes.  What’s required is to see bliss inside of every single face, circumstance and experience no matter what is appearing.  In essence replacing everything you perceive with its actual true state, which is bliss.  This brings you into correct seeing, and it is a tall order for most people.  Hence the arduous path of self-inquiry and investigation is often needed.  

Why bliss you might ask?  Well outside the fact that it’s your natural state, it is also what makes things come alive, organizes and reorganizes forms, is self-intelligent, and not to mention feels A-MA-ZING!  There has never been a moment when I regretted being rested and moved by and as bliss.  It is the dismantler of all untruth, the dissolver of all inauthenticity, the lover all expressions, the breaker of chains, the wise one, the mover, the knower.  It’s the portal into your most absolute self.  So really a better question to ask is why not bliss?  

When you give away all of your insistences, biases, and attachments to people, objects, and outcomes, bliss is more and more revealed to you and becomes more and more your direct experience of reality.  The greater your willingness to give away your roadblocks and red lights and give into the bliss that is already here the more you will enjoy your human experience.  The more purposeful you will feel even if you “do” nothing.  The ease with which you will be able to engage on relational levels with other people will increase.  The fears and thoughts that once crippled you will be no more.  Everything you perceive will look more inviting to you.  Truly when you give everything over to bliss is the first time that you can genuinely serve or care.  To be without agenda or attachment to outcome is to allow love to simply be and move as it so intelligently is organized to do.

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