stress

TINY LITTLE PEACE DISRUPTERS

Dr. Amanda Love Leave a comment

TINY LITTLE PEACE DISRUPTERS 

Good days and bad days

Most all of us desire a state of inner peace.  That sustainably stable center of being, that remains undisturbed regardless of situation or circumstance.  I really don’t know anyone who isn’t in someway looking or desiring this for themselves.  Often times we taste peace.  For example we might wake up in the morning after a great night’s sleep feeling rested and fantastic.  Then we start our day and tiny little peace disrupters attempt to find their way inside of our experiences.  Maybe our partner is grouchy and that affects our state of joy a little bit.  Perhaps we don’t have the food in our refrigerator that we want to eat for breakfast because our kids ate it last night.  Possibly you receive a phone call from your doctor telling you they didn’t like the look of some your routine blood work that you did last week for your annual check up.  Then you get in your car, start it up and it’s making some strange noise.  You arrive at your scheduled lunch meeting only to find out the person you are meeting is running 40 minutes late.  You get the idea.  The list could go on and on and on endlessly forever.  

It’s really no wonder that we feel stressed out most of time and not really as present and centered as we’d like to be.  It seems to be that there are a thousand tiny, little (and sometimes big) peace disrupters that happen in a give day.  You can find them in nearly every moment it seems.  Little ways that life does not appear to run smoothly, where things are less desirable than we want them to be, and where life just doesn’t feel like we want it to feel.  We worry about the outcome of all the things and if everything will turn out alright.  We dread the hassle of taking care of things that we aren’t sometimes even sure how to take care of.  We live in this state of a sort of powerlessness to life and its occurrences, and we hold our breath while we are in the uncertainty of it all.  I’d say that this is a pretty regular experience of life for most.  

Days that we call “good days” are typically days where we either perceive that less peace disrupters are present or where they are present but don’t seem to effect us.  In these situations it is often that something that we perceive as really good happened in a day so we are less easily affected by the other going ons of life.  It can also be that we have more distance from the occurrences of life on a given day (i.e. less attachment to the outcome of things and more acceptance of what is) so the little things seem to grab us less.  Some things are easier for us to accept, others not as much.  The more we resistance we create, the less resourced and energized we are and the more those tiny little peace disrupters run the show. 

STABLE INNER CENTER 

Playing the game of challenge

All of those tiny little peace disrupters are really just little challengers in the game of life.  They are opportunities for you to learn greater and greater inner stability.  One of the things I hear most frequently from people whom I work with is that they want to have stability in feeling good, energized, joyful and in their center or truth.  They want to less taken by the circumstance of life and be in more choice about what and how they are feeling on a day to day basis.  So often people don’t feel in choice about how they are feeling and that is actually what feels bad, that is not being in choice and not necessarily the bad feeling itself.

One of the fundamental perspectives to take on this whole matter is that everything that happens is happening for you not to you.  If you make that shift in perspective than you can easily see that all of those tiny little peace disrupters (and even the big ones) are simply coming into your experience to help you learn how to have a stable inner center.  See we ask to have a stable inner center and yet when we are given a thousand opportunities a day to practice it we fail to see that we are being given exactly that which we need to learn exactly that which we desire to learn.  It’s tricky because when we see through the perspective that life is happening to us we feel powerless to circumstance and feel that we have no choice in the matter of how we feel about what is happening to us.  However if we pick up and put on a different pair of glasses for the day, glasses that see that every single occurrence inside of our experience is happening for us then we are much more readily available to learn from life rather than feel victim to it.  We can also more clearly see things as opportunities to learn and not as permanent, never ending states of being of which we will never escape.

Most people don’t realize how powerful they are.  In fact most don’t realize that they have any power at all.  Some level of denial, confusion and lack of awareness seems to be present for most people when it comes to knowing themselves as the all powerful creators that they are.  Yet the evidence is everywhere.  How you perceive everything that you perceive is evidence of your power.  How you perceive is how you will experience life.  What is more powerful than that?  How you perceive is how you create and thus how you will experience life.  At any moment your free will to perceive is intact.  Free will the first expression of creation.  It is what you are.  Free will itself.  You are free to perceive however it is you would like to, and you will thus create an experience of life based on your perception.  Perception is creation.  If you see things as bad or wrong, you will experience bad, wrong or the threat of bad/wrong.  If you see things as good, you will experience good and that life is working for you.  

It is really that simple folks.  You might like to insist that you don’t have any power, and that you can’t change how you perceive, but you’re the only one that can.  No one can give you a stable inner center.  Tools, techniques and programs can guide you towards it, but ultimately you must learn it through the opportunity of tiny little (and sometimes big) peace disrupters.  The gift of them is the re-remembering your power and your never ending free will to perceive/create as you’d like.

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

Body Intelligence

Dr. Amanda Love Leave a comment

Body Intelligence

Stress & Acceptance Physiology

There is a natural intelligence to our bodies.  It is clearly evident that our bodies know how to coordinate a zillion biochemical process each day without us even being aware of it.  Modern medicine has barely scratched the surface in understanding the complexity of the way that our body operates and functions.  While it has made advances in looking at the physical components and parts it almost never steps back to see what is the operating force for this physical body in the first place.  

It is obvious that when we cut or injure ourselves that our body initiates a sequence of events to heal the tissue.  Different tissues tend to repair at different rates.  Many of what we label disease processes are the body’s intelligence attempting to recalibrate or heal itself in the best way it can given the situation it finds itself within.  Even when things seem maladaptive to us, meaning producing some kind of symptoms, this is often an intelligent process that is initiated to help adapt and heal the body.  This is also why simply eliminating symptoms can be dangerous as the body created them for a purpose, which is to support homeostasis and healing.  The adaptability and capacity of this body intelligence is really quite astounding and one that we often don’t give much attention to unless it seems to not be working correctly.  

This begs the question as to why it seems that this intelligence fails us at times.  Why does the body not repair after injury or find that perfect balance in its internal processes that we maybe once experienced?  Why does the body’s intelligence sometimes need external or outside assistance?  Lets start with the most significant cases first and work our way backwards.  In the most significant of cases an injury or insult to the body structure is so great that the body’s intelligence can’t reconnect and revitalize that part of the body despite its best attempts to do so.  You might see this with a car accident where there is loss of a limb or a stroke when a portion of the brain dies.  Connection has been severed and the body’s intelligence simply can’t reach or reconnect to that part.  When a part of this body is disconnected from its intelligence source its energetic resource is limited and it eventually ceases to function.  This is what we would call a death process of that part.  When intelligence completely ceases to inform this body structure that is what we call a full or complete death of this physical form.  Again this is the most significant of cases. 

Now at the body level we experience death processes every minute and this does not mean that a portion of the body or the entire body dies.  Believe it or not millions of cells die each second and millions of new ones are born each second.  Unbelievable I know but look it up for yourself.  The death process is actually a very important part of the regulation and health of this body, so much so that I would say that our resistance to a death process occurring is one of the major factors that interferes with our ability to heal.  Wait, what did I just say?  Yep you read correctly.  Due to our often impatience, fear, loss of stability in our body of what once was and wanting to go back to how we felt in our body before a pain or symptom arose we tend not want to let go of what once was.  We thus create a state of resistance aka stress physiology in our body and we are attempting to live in the past which always creates suffering because its impossible to do so.  In this way we interfere with the emergence of the new (which is on the other side of every death) by holding onto the old with the grips of our current idea of life.  When we are unwilling to accept what is, including the potential or actual death of the way that things were, we get stuck.  When we are stuck we desperately seek for some answer or some clarity that will bring us back to the knowing we once knew rather than this new state of uncertainty and instability that we find ourselves in.   

Now back to the body’s intelligence.  The body’s intelligence is always programmed towards health, vitality and wholeness in its actions.  When communication between our body tissues and the intelligence that informs them are intact and not interfered with this information is effortlessly communicated behind the scenes of our conscious awareness and our body functions optimally.  However if this information cannot reach the tissues of the body for some reason then the communication cannot get relayed.  In my opinion and experience the number one thing that interferes with this communication process is us.  Meaning we create the interference in the system through the inner state of being that we are choosing.  Now are there other things that interfere with this communication besides our inner state of being?  The answer is most definitely yes.  Not creating a good physical environment for the body by consuming crappy foods, crappy thoughts and not taking care of the physical body in the ways it needs all interfere.  These things are vitally important to our physical health and vitality, but they are not the entire story.  

The good news is that in many cases reconnection can be re-established.  The sometimes hard to swallow news is that we first have to accept the current-present-now state of our body before that connection comes back to life and our tissues can be re-vitalized.  On a body level this means that we have drop resistance, drop fight/flight mode, drop stress physiology so that the body intelligence can reconnect.  The physiology of stress (aka resistance) blocks physical healing and blocks the communication of the intelligence of the body with the body tissues.  Stress and healing physiologically work in opposition.  On a mental-emotional level this often means we have to stop thinking and start feeling the loss of what was, feeling the pain of not being able to go back, and feeling all of the other difficult emotions that are connected to not feeling or experiencing how you want to be feeling and experiencing being in your body.  

Acceptance physiology is radically different than stress physiology.  It’s the physiology of flowing, communicating, non-interfered with body intelligence.  When we quit holding onto what was, which is embracing the death of what we once knew, only then will we see the new that can emerge.  The clarity that we were so hungry for when we were feeling stuck begins to illuminate our experience.  We can see what needs to be done and take actions accordingly.  We become increasingly ready for whatever we need to do and be.  Our physical body may still be experiencing some symptoms but our relationship to their expression has dramatically changed such that we don’t even really mind that their present if they are.  This is the power of acceptance.  You have this power.  We all have this power.  

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

Group Consciousness

Dr. Amanda Love Leave a comment

Group Consciousness 

Group field effect

The atomic nucleus. Abstract representation. Image molecules and atomsWe are all impacted and influenced by one another.  Never is that more apparent then when collective instability arrives.  For example someone is scared or upset and we begin to notice how it rattles something inside of our being.  We can find ourselves listening to someone speak or reading a piece of news and find ourselves caught in a fear loop, when just 5 minutes earlier we were going along happily without a fear in the world.  The opposite of this is true as well, meaning we can hear someone speak something inspiring or motivational and shift into joy and bliss in a single moment.  This impact on us, dreadful or joyful, can spread if we let it and if it spreads enough, meaning impacts a certain number of people, it creates a group field or group consciousness.  The more energy that is given to a particular thing or idea the larger it grows and the more opportunity it has to impact and engage more consciousnesses into it.  Group fields make information more accessible to more people and with that more people being influenced by the information that is contained within that field.  

Due to the fact that we are all humans, experiencing this reality together, we each feel the effects of group fields to varying degrees.  Our beliefs and perceptions filter how we will experience the information that is contained within a group field.  If we have a belief or perception that is incompatible with the information in the field than that information will not really land anywhere in our system.  However if we have a belief that is compatible or in resonance with the information contained in that group field than we will be influenced by it.  This is neither bad nor good.  Its is inherently neutral.  It really is simply a resonance game.  We are energy beings, being impacted by larger energy fields (group consciousness) and energy either finds resonance and amplifies or finds dissonance and cancels itself out.  For those scientifically inclined we see this in physics with wave interference patterns that are either constructive (increase the amplitude of the wave) or destructive (cancel out the wave).  

When we are talking about group fields it really is about what do we want to amplify (bring more energy too) and what do we want to cancel out (i.e. not add energy too).  Each point within a collective field (being you or I) has an impact on the overall field and how much energy that field will contain.  We often don’t realize that we matter and make a difference to the collective overall experience, but indeed we do.  In fact it would be impossible for you not to have an effect, unless you had absolutely no energy to you at all, which would mean that you were not embodied.  But the hard cold fact is that you are indeed embodied, therefore you have energetic influence that is filtered and directed by your thoughts and beliefs.   

Collective purging 

Embracing instability

Office chaosThe energy with which we give things has an effect.  Not only a collective group field effect, but also a physiological effect on our own nervous system and thus the functioning of our body.  We are all familiar with this through the stress response.  When we perceive a threat, we go into “on-guard mode” also known as self-protection or stress, and our bodies produce chemicals aimed at immediate survival.  This is a healthy response when its warranted.  Its our body’s way to keep homeostasis, self-regulate and purge what is no longer needed or working for the system.  We typically don’t feel well when this response is activated.  Our perspective is also narrowed and focused only on immediate survival.  No energy is available for anything else.  This response is what most people call sickness, though its really just the body purging to keep itself well.  

Purging occurs at the collective level as well.  Times of collective instability such as wars, pandemics, economic crashes and like are the ways in which the larger societal or group system that are no longer working optimally deconstruct in order to reorganize into a more energy efficient configuration.  Nothing is more unstable than collective fear and chaos.  Almost no one would argue that our world is in need of some massive upgrades, that many of our systems need a complete reboot, yet when the waves of instability come crashing in we may not always have the insight to see how what is currently happening is part of what will enable necessary change to occur because we are fully in the “sick” phase where the energy for such insights is not available to us and our perspective is narrowed.  Also although most wouldn’t argue that world change is heavily needed, simultaneously people like their sameness, consistency, and external stability.   Most also dislike putting energy into rebuilding, so when the waves of instability come, we activate our stress response in attempt to keep everything the same and hopefully prevent “bad” change, and then add that energy of frozenness to the collective field.  A frozen collective field will need more waves of instability (meaning more chaotic events) to eventually allow reorganization and change to happen, as change will always happen.  

So what can we do?  Learn to ride the waves of instability rather than being submerged underneath them.  Embrace the constant ever present change that will never stop coming.  Relinquish your attachments to things having been a certain way and invite the novelty of what will arise on the other side.  Discern your fear from your intuition.  Follow your intuition in taking action in whatever ways you need to and that you feel will best support the collective field of humanity.  Meditate and activate love through your entire field adding that to the collective mix; it is more far reaching than you may know.  Realize that your energy will effect the outcome, as well as the learning and change that becomes available to humanity through this global destabilizing force we are collectively experiencing.  Allow any emotions that arise to be felt permissioning your heart to open even more deeply and transmuting fear into love.  Lastly Be well no matter what.  True well-being is independent of any and all circumstances.  It arises as a knowing in you that no matter what you and all are ok.  This knowing and the emanation to it through your field allows you to be a guiding light in the midst of darkness for many.  

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

Pain as sensation

Dr. Amanda Love Leave a comment

Pain as sensation

How physical is physical 

Female with pain back pain and neck painPain can be a very intense experience.  While there are many types of pain (i.e. emotional, mental and spiritual), what I want to address here is pain that we feel physically in our body as sensation.  If you have a body it is pretty much a given that you have experienced painful sensations. So what are painful sensations really about and why do some seem to bother us more than others?

Without any labels attached or meanings given to it pain is simply an uncomfortable sensation.  Say for example you stub your toe on the couch.  Nerves in your toe send messages up to brain that say “ouch” and with that a flood of information in the form of chemical messages gets sent back down from the brain to that part of your body to repair any damage that may have occurred.  This is all coordinated by the wisdom of your body.  You don’t have to think to make it happen.  It simply occurs as a natural response.

So how is it that pain turns into massive distress?  Pain turns into massive distress for us when we give meaning to it or resist its presence.  Lets say for example you have pain in your neck and its been there for 6 weeks.  You have a particular thought or judgment that the pain should not be there because its been 6 weeks now, you are tired of it and you start to get scared about why its there and that it may never go away.  This is the first layer of distress.  Often we feel powerless to the expression of pain when we go down this line of thinking and we mentally seek for reasons why the pain is there, search for a label for it and try to do and find things that will get rid of the pain.  Secondly there is also often a belief that this pain is interfering with something you want to do, or will interfere with something you think you want to do in the future, so you equate that “pain=not being able to do something that I want to do.”  You have now given meaning to your pain.  The flurry of distress and resistance arises.  

The tendency is to think that the pain is physical since its appearance seems to be coming from your body, so we think we must need something physical to fix it.  However if you really read the paragraph above you will see that the distress isn’t actually in the physical body, but instead its in the mental and emotional factors that we have created about the pain, not  the painful sensation itself.  If we are really experiencing pain simply as the sensation it is, without content and story about it, there is relatively little thought about it at all.  It is simply one of the thousand sensations we experience on a daily basis, and although it may still feel uncomfortable it won’t have any charge to it.  Its more like noticing the sensation that you’re hungry or that you have to go to the bathroom, you still feel the sensation and move towards taking actions that those sensations impel you to do, but there isn’t any question, doubt or uncertainty about what must be done, you simply know as you are tuned to your body.  Same thing occurs when you experience pain as sensation without meaning attached to it.  You simply know what you must do because you are listening to your body.  That may look like stopping and resting, holding the part that hurts, breathing into, etc.  Again you don’t have to figure it out and go through all the mental content about what that sensation means and what you have to do differently, because you are simply listening to the sensation.  

Most the time we are not listening but instead trying to “figure out” when pain arises.  Listening is allowing and taking action from that listening.  If we are trying to figure it out we are in resistance and fix it mode and never feel certain what the right action is.  Having a conversation with your body is like having a conversation with another person.  If you are really listening to them you don’t have to figure out what to say, it simply comes naturally because you are present and attuned to them.  

This is really a life lesson which pain can be one teacher of.  We are often trying to impart onto life what we think it should be and then we resist or try to manage and control everything so that life looks the way we think it should.  While simultaneously we often feel lost and uncertain and beg for guidance and can’t receive it as we don’t recognize it occurring because we are so stuck in our particular perspective of how it should be.  

Knee pain, woman holding sore and painful legTo summarize here when we really listen we know and when we are not listening we always feel like we are searching for something we can’t find or don’t know.  On a body level to really listen we need to stop our stories and thoughts about  our sensations and simply be with the sensation.  One of the best ways I have found to do this is to put my hands on the particular part of my body that’s expressing the sensation and simply bring my awareness there.  I begin to acknowledge the sensations, without content or story, just sensation or feeling.  This allows me to drop the story and simply experience the sensation for what it is.  This often looks like really allowing myself to feel the discomfort rather than move away from it.  Through this process acceptance of the sensation and energy association with the sensation occurs.  Now nothing is interfering with the natural wisdom of the body to bring information in the form of those chemical messages to that part of the body to repair any damage that may need healed.   The biggest interference to healing is the stories we create about what things mean.  When those stories get suspended, even for a few moments, life flows in the way that life flows without us having to figure it out or do it.  

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

Future date syndrome

Dr. Amanda Love Leave a comment

Future date syndrome 

I’ll be complete when…

timelineHow many times today have you said to yourself in some overt or subtle way “I’ll be complete (or substitute the word can relax or be ok) when I achieve/do/finish xyz?”  Many of us have what I call the “future date syndrome.”  What this means is that when you accomplish or check off your external or internal to do list then you can actual stop and enjoy your life.  This way of thinking and being effects pretty much everything in your life from your day to day presence to who and where you feel you are at on your spiritual growth path.

I want to be clear that the “to do” list is not the problem.  There will always be things to do, achieve, and finish and new ways to grow.  Instead what I am pointing to is what your relationship is to yourself within what must be done and the underlying sense of lack that pervades and destroys your ability to show up and be presence.  

Take a moment and think about something that you desire to achieve today.  Maybe its as simple as going to the grocery store and picking your daughter up from dance class.  Its on your internal/external list.  It must be done or else “shit falls apart”, right?  People don’t eat, kids don’t get what they need, etc.  Now lets say that those are the only 2 things on your list.  Seems achievable for most people, but what if there are 6 other things on your list.  Now how do you feel?  The pressure starts to build.  You start to wonder how you can do it all.  Its a lot.  You begin to perceive a lack of time (or perhaps lack of ability to get it all done) and this lack starts to run you.  You start to feel anxious, restless, frantic or what most people label as stressed.  You have now officially lost presence, which means you are not conscious anymore.  You are on automatic pilot just trying to get through it so you can be done.  This unfortunately is not living.  This is being a machine and does not lead to the well-being that most of us desire.   

Beyond stress 

Living well-being

49160020 - businessman has no money. vector flat illustrationAnother way to define the word stress is a feeling of lack.  Lack of energy, time, resources, abilities, skills, money, access, etc.  Lack appears to motivate us as humans.  When we see or feel that we don’t have enough of something (or are not enough as person) it drives us to do shit.  But lack does not need to be our primary motivation, in fact, when it is no longer our primary motivation is exactly when we begin to enjoy ourselves and our life.  

So if lack does not drive us then what does?  What would it be like to be rested in total abundance (what most would describe as heaven on earth) and do from there?  What if you never worried again that you would not be ok or things that needed to be done wouldn’t get done?  What if you could navigate your life relaxed instead of tense?  What if you learned and grew spiritually from an “I’m enough” place inside yourself instead of not enoughness?  All of this is absolutely a possible reality but it takes awareness of yourself to get there.  

Recognizing where these stress/lack/not present pattens are running in your life is the first step.  Not just the recognition that you are stressed, but the bigger recognition of how you are relating to your life and what you are believing to be true that is creating the feelings that you are feeling inside.  You must start to destabilize your belief structures so that new possibilities can enter your awareness.  Sometimes we are very attached our lack beliefs and we will defend them to no end.  We will refuse to see that anything could be any other way.  We believe so strongly that it must be done the way it is and that we must continue to engage in the ways we engage and there are no other options.  Realize this as a part of you that is scared and doesn’t yet know another way and its ok.  Even just your capacity to see it as a part of you and not as all of you will begin to open your awareness to new possibilities.   

When you realize that you have already arrived and you stop waiting for yourself to arrive based on how much you have accomplished in a day or where you are on your life path presence prevails.  Presence is synonymous with abundance.  When you do life in presence, abundance and excitement is now motiving you instead of lack.  This is something that is hard to describe purely with words and must be experienced to be “gotten” and understood.  Start today by noticing when you start to feel stressed, pause and take a moment, notice what you are believing that is creating the stress for you.  Just this simple act will begin to bring you into more and more presence so that instead of future day syndrome you can live present day.  

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

Why is your nervous system important?

Dr. Amanda Love Leave a comment

Why is your nervous system  important?

Nervous system 101 

33891023 - the human nervous system on a black backgroundMost people are vaguely familiar with the term nervous system.  Your nervous system consists of your brain, spinal cord and all of the nerves that come out from your spinal cord.  Those nerves extend out and connect to all of your organs, bones, muscles, and cells in your body.  Every single thing in your body is in communication with everything else thanks to your nervous system.

Your brain and spinal cord rest inside the bones of your skull and spine.  In their healthy state they rest in a relaxed position, with just the right amount of tone or tension.  Tone-tension is a very important concept.  Many people think that less  tone-tension is better but this is not the case.  If you don’t have enough tone-tension than you don’t have enough strength and stability, you are clumsier, floppier, slower and flatter.  If you have too much tone-tension you are tight, wound up, stiff and something could snap/break at any moment.  All tissues (spinal cord, muscles, organs, etc.) must have the “right” amount of tone in order to perform their functions appropriately.

Lets relate this to your spinal cord.  In its most optimal state of tone-tension it is able to relay messages back and forth between your brain and your body so that you can both receive necessary information from your environment and also take appropriate actions.  In essence so that you can be most responsive and adaptive.  Health is a state of responsiveness and adaptability.  In the case of either too much or not enough tone in your spinal cord, your nervous system cannot relay these messages appropriately, and thus your health begins to deteriorate.  As with all things when communication is impaired the system breaks down, so too with your body.

Getting the right tone in your  spinal cord

Stress, passion & life

So what creates too much tone or not enough tone in the spinal cord?

45856619 - portrait of stressed blond woman on white backgroundToo much tone is created when you can’t handle the circumstances of your life or you try to control-manage all of the details.  This is what people call stress and it creates hyper-vigilance.  These people often feel overly sensitive to life as they are in overwhelm.  They may feel everyone’s emotions, or only be able to eat certain foods, or need to be particular about their environments.  Sometimes they appear ultra functional.  Trust is  usually challenging for these folks and they may also use substances to calm down or “check out” so that they don’t have to feel as much.

bored ladyToo little tone is created when you lack passion and desire, or feel unworthy to be your unique expression of life.  These people often feel bored, like they aren’t enough and need to seek out more stimulus so that they can feel something, which makes them feel more alive.  Its hard for these people to take action, or have breakthroughs, they may feel awkward in movement, and their posture may be more collapsed and appear less confident.

I have found that most people have a combination of low and high tone in their systems.  Network Spinal Analysis specifically addresses spinal cord tension patterns in order to help create the most optimal tone in your spinal cord and nervous system.  It does this through gentle contacts that help your brain tune into your body and more efficiently regulate the flow of information throughout your system.  The benefits of optimal tone are an increase in presence, availability, communication, and health of your body-mind-spirit being.

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

Why stress keeps hijacking you

Dr. Amanda Love Leave a comment

Why stress keeps hijacking you

How to stop perceiving stress & free yourself 

What would your life be like if you stopped perceiving stress?  If you woke up today and said “I’m going to stop viewing anything in life as stressful”?  Sounds pretty damn liberating, eh?  So why do we continue to choose to perceive stress over and over and over again?  Well, hold onto your seat, I’m about to let the cat😸  out of the bag…

stressed manThe basic reason we perceive stress (aka fear) is because we believe in wrongness and lack.  Pick one thing, anything, that you perceive as stressful and put it in the forefront of your mind right now.  It could be the pressure of a deadline for work, the state of your health or a symptom in your body, a disagreement with a friend or spouse, a feeling of responsibility for someone else or a concern about your financial state.  In whatever situation you are currently thinking about notice what you think might not “go right”, be lacking in presence or that there will not be enough of.  In the examples of above they would be lack of time, health, relationship, resources or money.

When we go into “stress mode” we separate ourselves off from the larger rhythms of life, create a personal bubble, thinking we have to figure it all out on our own.  We also believe that there is potential for failure, screwing things up or things going horribly wrong.  Its enough to make us stop breathing, feel frozen or stuck and go into ultra control mode making sure nothing slips through the cracks.  Most people live like this every day.

Moving from stress to “ok-ness”

Finding your inner source of stability 

42377842 - zen-like, buddhism, balance.Finding your inner source of stability comes from embodying and knowing that no matter what you will be ok.  This is where safety to move forward, make new choices and live fully comes from.  You must know, feel (not just think) and accept yourself and life no matter what choices you make or don’t make.  You must quit judging yourself and life as “good-bad, right-wrong, this or that”.  You must be willing to change your perspective of wrongness to one of perfection, even if things don’t look like you want them too.  This will activate and stretch the muscle of “ok-ness” inside of yourself.  You will begin to relinquish control.

Tell life your preference.  Tell it what you want.  Show up for what you want.  Then let it go.  Release your mental constraint and concept of what you think it then has to look like.  Instead know that whatever then shows up in your life is exactly what you have been telling life you want.  Even if your mind cannot connect the dots of how when you asked for a Porsche you got a Ford, or when you asked for better health you got another ailment, learn to trust the process more than receiving the outcome you think you should be having.

We often hold ourselves or others hostage to life instead of living free by requiring that life looks a certain way.   The result of that is fear, scarcity, overwhelm, breakdown, strangulation, efforting, heaviness, seriousness and plain old not fun.  You will also feel on edge, not trusting and will not feel safe; safe to be in a body, safe to move forward or make changes, safe to be in relationship, safe to live your life.  The current of doubt and fear will submerse you under its tide, trapping you in the smallest version of yourself that’s possible.

The good news it that there is a choice that you can begin making today, and that is knowing no matter what you are ok & no matter what accepting yourself for whoever you think you are and whatever you do, have done or not done.  Feel this, believe this and start to know it.  I freaking promise you that you will develop your inner source of stability/ok-ness, stop perceiving stress (thus stop protecting yourself) and liberate yourself and the rest of life.  I encourage you trample any thoughts or beliefs that may get in your way and to be brave enough to be in this much service to humanity.

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

Tension is not your enemy

Dr. Amanda Love 1 Comment

15832931 - woman having headache isolated on blackTension is not your enemy… 

Its your protector

Have you ever been aware of tension in your body?  The type of tension I’m talking about here is an  underlying tension that is consistently present.  You might feel it predominantly in your legs, neck, back, head, belly, jaw, or maybe even your entire being.   Perhaps you became more aware of this tension after an injury, or a life change or challenge, or whenever you feel “stressed”.

Have you ever wondered why this tension is present and what purpose it serves you?  Typically we are so busy trying to “unwind” and “destress” our tension away that we never stop to wonder why its really there at all.

Tension is energy that is bound or held “in place” in the body.  It serves the purpose to hold reality “in place” for you so that you can function in your day to day life without feeling too much.  Essentially so that you can keep going despite what is happening inside or outside or you.  It’s your shield, your protection from things that might potentially hurt you.  Oddly enough holding tension makes you feel safe and secure and like you are in control of your life.

39405932 - outer space. meditation. woman silhouette. vector illustrationTension

The barrier between you & YOU

The intention of tension is to serve you by helping you feel less discomfort, but there are also drawbacks to its presence.  Tension puts your body in “on guard” mode and triggers something called your sympathetic nervous system.  This is also known as the fight or flight response. In this state your body can’t physically heal, its hard to think clearly and emotionally you feel either overwhelmed or completely numb.  Connection to yourself or others, which is one of our most basic human needs, is impossible when you feel tense.

Tension is also the biggest barrier between your little personality “you” and your bigger all knowing “YOU”.  You can think of this as your higher self, soul, spirit, purpose or passion.  This is experienced as dullness, flatness, mundane routines, and fatigue.

Pulling up tension gives the “illusionary” feeling of control and blocks you from feeling some discomfort, but it also disconnects you from the things that make your heart light up and make your life worth living.  Again tension is not the enemy, so trying to get rid of it by rubbing or stretching it out is only a temporary bandaid.  What is required is an ability to remain open (not tense) and drop into uncomfortable feelings and sensations when they arise.  Instead of guarding/protecting yourself, you move forward through whatever is happening without getting stuck inside of it.

One of the things that I help people achieve is an open nervous system so that the body can stay open  and feel life as it occurs.  Through having an open nervous system your body can heal quicker, function better and experience higher states of well-being.

Dr. Amanda Hessel, DC

Stop avoiding uncomfortable sensations

Dr. Amanda Love Leave a comment

28919296 - concept of fear with businessman like an ostrichStop avoiding uncomfortable sensations  

… and liberate yourself

Uncomfortable sensations make us panic, whether we are are aware of it or not.  It is a biological reaction that our nervous system has in response to discomfort.  We do everything we can to avoid uncomfortableness.  If something hurts (physically or emotionally) we tend to jump over it, around it or look the other way.  We see this in our over-medicated medical culture.  Every time an unpleasant sensation arises we try to find something to stop it and get it to go away.  This is incredibly unfortunate.  This pattern of avoiding and getting rid (though may produce temporary relief), overtime creates numbness, flatness and disconnection as we search for more methods, tools, or procedures to stop us from feeling  uncomfortable things.

This will probably not be a surprise to you, but as you numb away the uncomfortable sensations, you also numb away the range of pleasant and blissful sensations that you can feel.  You narrow your range of feeling.  Because the mind and body are connected I see this mirrored in the body as people experiencing a limited range of motion in their body.  This can manifest as decreased flexibility in the spine or decreased motion in a specific joint such as the knee, shoulder, hip, wrist or hand.

Learning to be with uncomfortable sensations is a skill

You can do it in 1, 2, 3

Because we spend so much energy and time trying to avoid what is present (especially when its uncomfortable) we often feel exhausted.  Then when we finally hit a crisis point we look for the easiest method to restore us back to at least a functional level again because we don’t have much energy left for anything else.  This is the primary reason most people never fully heal.  They get themselves back to functioning and forget to address the underlying causes that got them into crisis in the first place.  Then 6 months down the road they find themselves in a new or similar crisis.  Its a vicious cycle.

The good news is that you can learn to be with uncomfortable sensations.  You can even start today!  Here are 3 easy steps to get started.

  1. Next time you have an uncomfortable sensation, either in your body or mind (feelings/thoughts), stop doing whatever your doing.
  2. Put your hand on the sensation if its in your body, or place your focus on it if it a feeling/thought
  3. Instead of trying to wish it away, slowly sink into the sensation/feeling as much as you can allow yourself too

As you make this a daily practice you will being to notice that you can go a little bit deeper into uncomfortableness each time.  If you do this you will begin to notice changes in your sensations and feelings without having to “fix them”.  You will also notice that your biological tendency to run from or need to try and change them lessens.  With this you will being to realize how powerful you are.

Dr. Amanda Hessel, DC

Posture & Joint Health: Don’t’ let Gravity Get the Best of You!

Dr. Amanda Love Leave a comment

Have you ever been told you have poor posture?

Do you experience pain in your back, hips, knees or shoulders?

Have you noticed that your head is forward of your body?

Posture is more than standing or sitting up straight. Posture has to do with how well your body can work with stress, recover from injury or illness, heal, and function optimally. Imbalanced posture leads to numerous health concerns, including problems with your joints and even your internal organs.

Gravity can wreak havoc on your joints if your posture is not in the best alignment. This creates pain and poor biomechanics that can lead to early degeneration. A common sign of this is when people’s head come forward of their shoulders and body. This condition is called “Forward Head Carriage” and is epidemic in our society. Forward head carriage puts abnormal stress on different areas of the mid-back and low back creating pain, discomfort, muscle tension and sometimes even numbness and tingling down the arms or legs.

“Forward head posture leads to long-term muscle strain, disc herniations, arthritis and pinched nerves.” ~Mayo Clinic

Forward head posture also puts significant stress on your spinal cord. The spinal cord is the bundle of nerves that connects your brain to your body. When there is stress on the spinal cord it tightens and begins to physically fray. That means that messages that travel down that cord from your brain to body (and back up) get distorted and sometimes even lost. Imagine the significance of this if one of those messages that gets lost tells your heart to beat rhythmically or your lungs to breath.

 

Dr. Alf Breig, neurosurgeon & Noble Prize recipient, did extensive research in the area of spinal cord tension and found that, “Loss of the cervical (neck) curve stretches the spinal cord 5-7 cm and causes disease.” Loss of the neck curve occurs when the head comes forward of the body. Below is a list of causes of imbalanced posture and potential effects on your body.

What causes Imbalanced Posture? Imbalanced Posture contributes to:
·         Physical trauma & repetitive motions

·         Emotional & mental stress

·         Chemical toxins in foods & the environment

·         Spinal cord irritation & pull

·         Inflammation in your body

 

 ·         Wear and tear on your joints leading to degenerative arthritis

·         Muscular imbalances creating tightness in some muscles and weakness in others

·         Increased pain & chronic pain

·         Nerve irritation

·         Decreased blood flow to the brain and other vital organs

·         Poor adaptability

August is “Posture Awareness Month” at BodyMind Alchemy. I invite you to check out our free classes that we are providing to raise awareness of the importance of posture and its implications on your health. Please visit: https://bodymindalchemyboulder.com/events-calendar/in-office-talks/ to find out how to register. Anyone who comes to our talks this month will receive a free postural screening and computerized assessment!

Dr. Amanda Hessel, DC, MS, L.Ac