trust

Trusting Soul

Dr. Amanda Love 2 Comments

TRUSTING SOUL

Beyond the mind

Despite the fact that most of us like to think that we trust life and desire to go with the flow, the truth is that we mostly don’t.  We would rather be stressed, anxious and fearful than trust our soul, pretty much any day of the week.  Recognizing where you don’t choose trust may be a bit elusive to you.  You may think of yourself as a very trusting person and might even spout off to your friends how you are choosing to “surrender to life” and go with the flow.  Yet there is often a disconnect between what we think or say and how we feel and experience life.  The sensations in our body are more than willing to reveal the disconnect to us even if we can’t intellectually see it.  Trouble sleeping, difficulty digesting, tension, nervousness, fogginess and the like can be cues that we may be out of trust with life even if we don’t know that we are.

You may wonder why wouldn’t you trust?  There is a misconception that trusting feels good.  While it’s true that ultimately it does and that your body will relax in response to you trusting, getting to trusting and relaxing can be super uncomfortable.  Yes that’s right, relaxation can be incredibly uncomfortable to our mind.  When we choose trust we put the mind out of commission.  It’s vigilant job to avoid potential danger and threat around every corner gets temporarily laid to rest.  While the constant control mechanism that we call our mind is taking a nap, we get to experience the uncomfortableness of being open, relaxed and exposed to life.  In the middle of our ordinary daily life most people can only take this in, in short bursts, if at all.  

Our controller (i.e. our mind) is persistent and it’s strong.  After all its job is avoidance of pain whenever possible and survival in all the ways.  Physical, emotional, and social survival are its perceived responsibilities.  That’s a big job, bigger than the mind, but the mind only knows itself.  By definition the mind is egocentric.  It doesn’t recognize that there is anything beyond it or bigger than it, that it can rest into, so it goes about doing life in ignorance to the soul.  Rather it thinks it is the sole source of everything.  Yet somehow it knows it can’t manage everything, but that doesn’t stop it from trying at all costs.  It is kind of like a fish swimming in water.  It has no idea that it is fully submerged in the perfect environment needed for the survival of its body, yet it is.  The mind has no idea that it’s resting inside the soul that is the container for everything it needs.   

RELAXING INTO MORE 

Knowing all is well

What we don’t yet know we take on faith.  If we don’t choose faith then we are left only with our fears and uncertainties about what will be.  We regurgitate our anxieties around in our minds over and over until we can’t take it anymore, until our bodies start to breakdown, or until we can find a distraction or way to take the edge off.  This is the path of nagging misery.  A path that doesn’t really go anywhere even if we feel periodic relief from time to time.  There is dragon after dragon to slay on this path.  They never stop coming.  We hope that they will, but they don’t.  We are nearly always freezing, fighting, or fleeing from something, hoping to get out of this and arrive somewhere better.  While better does arrive, and we try our best to hold onto better when it’s here, it is soon followed by another sneaky little dragon. 

Faith ends this cycle.  Faith is the path to knowing.  It is also the prime learning or lesson of the human experience.  That which is unknown or un-perceivable to us in this moment, can become known and perceivable, but it takes faith.  It takes not knowing in order to know.  You can’t see more from the place you currently see.  You have to suspend what it is you currently think you see or know, to see beyond where you do now.  A fish can only see the water once he is no longer submerged in it.  The fish has to pop out and above the water in order to see it and likely the fish won’t initially know what it is seeing.  With more and more jumps above the water the fish will begin to recognize the life sustaining fluid it swims in all of the time.  Just like the fish we have to rise above our current perspectives in order to see beyond them and to begin to recognize the soul, which always exists and is tending to all of the needs of our life even when we don’t see it.  

It takes courage and faith to rise above the water, because for a moment it feels like you won’t be able to breathe.  You are in a new, uncharted environment where nothing is familiar to you and you have no idea what you are seeing.  This is the uncomfortableness of being open and in the unfamiliar.  Moving forward in faith, in the unknown, so that what is there can be revealed to you, can become known to you.  You want to relax, but can you trust it?  Can you trust that which you don’t yet know, so that you can come to know it?  Riding this edge is your growth and it is the soul’s journey into remembrance of itself.  

By now you get that is takes a ginormous dose of humility and a whole lot of courage to trust soul.  Oscillating in and out of being able to relax into more.  Popping out and seeing above and then landing back into the experience of your life.  Seems we must do this many times over until we finally accept what we see and come to know from above.  From here we no longer need to seek relief or find distraction from the dragons of life, because we become rested in the entire gamut of our experience.  There are no more dragons, but rather life all working seamlessly together.  We know all is taken care of because we know soul.  We see and know the water that we swim in.  No longer do we need to have faith or trust.  Faith and trust are just the path to knowing.  We need them only until we know.  To know soul is to know the divine order and perfect orchestration of every movement of life.  It is to know, without even the suspicion of doubt, that all is well.  

Dr. Amanda Love, Network Chiropractic & Somato-Respiratory Integration, Boulder, Colorado

COMING FROM ABUNDANCE

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COMING FROM ABUNDANCE 

Lessons in trust & faith

Abundance is the natural of being or is-ness.  Abundance is what is.  In truth lack does not exist because it would be impossible for existence to be lacking.  What is can’t not be.  What gives the appearance of lack is not the appearance itself, but our perception of what appears.  This may seem a bit tricky to understand, but if you sit with it for a few moments the truth of it will begin to reveal itself to you.  

We are conditioned in a perspective that says when I don’t have ‘xyz’, it means something is, or might be, lacking/missing from my experience.  This perspective of lacking/missing is what causes suffering or our sense of disconnection.  It also perpetuates the illusion of our separateness, or independence from the larger existence.  Viewing through the lens of lack means something is not enough, we might not have enough, and often we feel like we are alone in our quest to be enough or get enough of what we need or want, whether that be resources or experiences.  There is no trust in the orchestration of life, but instead fear of how we will make it work or get what we desire or need.  

Why do we so often blindly and unconsciously choose this lens of lack or scarcity?  What purpose does it serve us?  I think largely we choose it because it is the most accessible to us, to our psyche, and to the lessons we were born to learn.  One cannot learn faith and trust, which are the primary lessons of the human incarnation, if one sees the natural state of abundance.  For inside of abundance one knows entirely that they are supported so there is nothing to help us learn faith.  The conditions on this planet and the perspective of lack are prime for helping us learn trust and faith.  

For centuries we have been playing out the game of lack.  Fighting or attempting to manipulate life, ourselves or others, so that we have enough or more of what we want or need.  Manipulation that is often disguised in a multitude of ways, many of those being service or caring, but really its just about us doing and getting what we think we need or want.  Our lives for the most part are entirely self-centric and about gain even if they appear altruistic.  This isn’t bad or wrong.  It’s simply important to know where we are coming from and why we are coming from there.  With this understanding we can more consciously choose what serves now rather than sleep walk our way through our life.   

LIVING IN AGREEMENT  WITH LIFE

To know abundance

Part of viewing from the lens of scarcity means that we tend to not live in agreement with life, or with what is.  Rather we wish, dream, or envision it to be more luxurious, glorious, radiant or just better somehow.  We “miss” what’s here by wishing or hoping for something else to be here.  We fail to see abundance of what is because we are focused on something else being in our experience.  This is the recipe for living continually unsatisfied, unfulfilled, and chasing fulfillment inside of the promise of whatever is next.  I am not suggesting that you don’t dream or envision beauty, glory or your desires, but rather that you see it here now in your current moment experience rather than at some future date or time when things look different and there are different people, objects or experiences in your life.  To view this way would be to see the truth, which is abundance, rather than your perspective of not good enough somehow now.  This would be the equivalent of dreaming awake or seeing what is now.

While we wait for life to look different so that we can say it’s better is to negate the abundance of this very moment.  That future moment where you perceive perfection or better-ness will simply be another moment of perfect abundance that will be followed by someone else who wants to make it better and on and on.  On and on that is until we stop projecting into the future what is already here now.  No matter how shitty it seems or appears to us, if we don’t see that it is currently abundant we suffer, and through our perception of suffering we continue to create it.  Through how we see, we create the very thing we are attempting to make better.  

We have responsibility of how we see.  I think this is our one and only true responsibility.  Though this might seem trivial or not really that impactful or important, I’d argue that nothing else is more important than this.  See no one can really see how we see.  There are no outward signs to cue others to the lens we look through.  Only we know how we see; what lens we choose.  There are no accolades or external praises for choosing the perspectives we choose.  They are silent, quiet and only those that are also silent and quiet can see where you come from.  To them there is simply an internal recognition and gratitude for where you come from.  Yet even though our lens are unseen by most, they create the entire world.  Everything that is, is born from this lens from which you choose to come from.

Coming from abundance won’t necessarily make you materially rich.  It won’t necessarily give you all the things you want or think you need.  It won’t always provide the picture of life that you hoped for, however there is a silver lining.  That lining is that you will now live in agreement with life.  You will experience the peace that passes all understanding.  Your being serves despite whatever it is you do or don’t do, or create/don’t create.  It also allows you to be a conduit for life to move through you rather than you being the chief decider of all things that the mind then tries to figure out, manipulate and grasp.  You are free to be and to allow all the experiences of life to be as they are.  It is the end of resistance and the end of suffering.  This is to live/know abundance.  

Dr. Amanda Love, Network Chiropractor Boulder Colorado

Network Spinal Analysis & Somato-Respiratory Integration

SECURE DESTRUCTION YOU CAN TRUST

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SECURE DESTRUCTION YOU  CAN TRUST

The healing shake up

Earlier this week I was sitting in my car while stopped at a traffic intersection.  There was a large cargo truck in front of me that had the words “secure destruction you can trust” written on it.  I found this to be a very interesting and slightly comical phrase.  As I further looked at the truck it became evident to me that this truck belonged to a document destruction company, which clearly is an appropriate tagline for such a business.  However I also thought what an appropriate slogan for the healing process!  Healing is indeed a process of secure destruction that must be navigated through trust.  

Many people in the general public don’t perceive the destructive or destabilizing aspect of healing.  In fact most look for “healing” because they want more stability or less perceived uncertainty.  Often what these people are really looking for is not healing, but instead something to return them to a previous state of being or functioning that has been disrupted by a set of conditions in their body or life.  Returning to a previous state of functioning is not healing, it is a temporary bandaid.  Its buys you time until you are ready to actually heal.  Healing is a deep remembering of self, of what you are beyond the conditioning, a return to unshakable and undeniable love.  What I have found is that when our life gets shook up in unfavorable ways (what we might term a crisis of sorts) this is prime fertile ground for healing.  In fact little to no healing happens without the shake up.  

You might wonder why do we need the shake up?  Why don’t we just heal without things, including our bodies or lives, needing to fall apart?  The reason is that most people are not motivated in comfort.  When we feel comfortably stable there often isn’t momentum to grow.  When we are in comfort we may not even recognize that there is more to explore, share and know about ourselves.  Also we may not be able to see some of our limiting patterns and beliefs that keep us trapped in boxes inside of our own minds without the shake up.  

So the shake up, the destabilization and destruction, serves.  It serves our remembrance of ourselves, which is our healing.   Its serves by breaking down that which no longer serves.  Even though we often don’t like it and would rather be anywhere else then inside of massive instability, it is required which is why it is present.   When it no longer serves it will no longer be necessary and therefore will not manifest itself, but until then it is part of the way we grow.  One of the main reasons that we suffer inside of the destruction phase of a healing process is because we don’t trust it.  We don’t trust the intelligent process of life and therefore attempt to fix it so that we can return to our previous sense of self and stability.  But what if you aren’t meant to go back to who you were before?  What if you are meant to instead recognize a new version of yourself entirely?  That is after all what healing, growth and evolution is all about.   

CONSCIOUSNESS & PHYSICAL HEALING 

Spirit-matter

Consciousness is a state of wakefulness or awareness.  The brighter your wakefulness or awareness is the more you recognize yourself.  This is healing.  It’s healing because to see, recognize, or remember ourselves aligns our individual perspective with the larger, more encompassing perspective that we are.  We are often looking through this tiny pinhole perspective and extrapolating it to be the ultimate truth of all that we are, when in actuality we are much, much, much more then what we see through our tiny little viewpoint.  The wider our lens becomes, the more inclusive it becomes, the more allowing we are of life and the less we attempt to control and manipulate it.  We learn to love and accept what is just as it is.  This means accepting what we don’t understand, what we don’t agree with, often what we don’t want and discovering that this is what heals us.

One might say that everything in the universe is consciousness.  That all forms that you see, feel and touch are simply awareness.  I find it interesting that there is still a deep non-recognition of this.  We attempt to manipulate forms while not paying any attention to that which is awake, alive and the essence of the form.  We are deeply unaware of ourselves.  Even when we do begin to recognize and metaphorically taste, touch and smell ourselves beyond the forms we tend to externalize or make our essence other.  In fact we put it into this fancy category that we call “spirituality”.  Spirituality or spirit is none other than you.  It is inescapable as you cannot be other than you.  Spirituality is not reserved for some people or some times or places.  It is all that there is.  You could never leave it.  You can only not recognize it.  

Consciousness is not separate from matter.  It is matter.  It is simply vibrating at a slower wavelength than say thoughts or emotions.  Other words for consciousness are awareness, intelligence or information.  Awareness is intelligent.  The more your individual awareness recognizes itself the more intelligent you become.  I don’t mean the kind of mental intelligence that most of us think about as intelligence, though that is included as well, but instead I’m talking about self-organizing, self-healing, self-knowing intelligence.  This is the intelligence that organizes every single detail and moment in the universe.  Call it universal intelligence if you prefer.  This universal intelligence is in total and complete charge.  This intelligence is you.  

This is why all healing is remembering.  A remembering that you are this intelligence.  The focus on consciousness knowing itself turns the brightness knob up.  More brightness means more resourcefulness, more knowing, more intelligent navigating, and better listening and attuning to self.  Seeing and hearing the lessons you are learning more clearly and feeling less like a passive victim of circumstances and conditions.  At first you become co-creator, an active participant in the unfolding of each lesson and moment, until ultimately separation ceases to be perceived and you recognize the one creator as your true identity.  

Forms (including your body) are simply mirrors, pictures, reflections of consciousness, of you.  When you realize this inseparable nature you stop seeking outside of you for a magical pill or answer.  You are the magical pill and answer.  That doesn’t mean that there aren’t elements inside the seeming form mirage that will be supportive to you, as there most likely will be.  But do recognize their function as consciousness illuminators, permission slips or pathways that carve the way inside your own awareness to more deeply know itself and it’s inherent self-healing, self-organizing and self-knowing power.  

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

Trusting Others

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Trusting Others 

Fear, betrayal & mistrust

Men's hands hold the female palms.

Relationships with others are key to life.  It is nearly impossible to have zero relationships with others as our world is interconnected and inter-reliant.  We rely on others to support us in various ways as they symbiotically rely on us.  Relationships can be causal such as the the one you have with the person who checks out your groceries or they can be more intimate such as that which you have with your family or significant others.  

The foundation that underlies all relationships is our capacity to trust others.  If we’ve had experiences of betrayal, being hurt, left or not seen/heard by others than our capacity to willing trust other people can be diminished.  We may find it challenging to open our selves up to others and trust that we won’t feel hurt by them.  At the extreme end of mistrust of others we may isolate ourselves as much as possible from other people and minimize relational interactions, even ones that support our basic needs.  We may feel skeptical of everyone and vigilant to their behaviors as we look for any subtle sign that we might get hurt, disappointed, or let down by them.  At the most extreme end there is simply the assumption that we will get hurt no matter what and we therefore completely close off ourselves to other people even if we have to interact them.  We don’t allow for an energetic exchange to occur between ourselves and others and therefore our experience is quite lonely, sometimes cynical, and we can come off as harsh, cold or mean to others.

When we lack trust in others we will often find reasons why we can’t trust based upon another person’s actions or lack of actions. We will use their actions/non-actions as a justification to ourselves as to why we can/can’t trust.  In this way our capacity to trust will seem external to us and dependent on the person(s) rather than the recognition of our internal choice to trust.  When we don’t recognize our internal choice to trust or not trust we will feel powerless and like it is not up to us, but instead up to them.  Often we will expect them to somehow change so that we can trust them.  This is the disownment of our power and the projection of that internal disowned state onto other people.  

Its important to recognize that this pattern of behaviors of mistrust is not us.  It is not who we are even if we are engaging in it.  Instead it is simply a protective pattern/mechanism which we have learned in order to protect ourselves from getting hurt.  As long as we keep the pattern going then we can keep people at a distance and the fear we have of feeling hurt by them is diminished.  The down side of this is that we don’t get to develop the level of closeness, intimacy and joy of being with others that most of us crave.   

Divine Relating 

Courage & resolution

divine relatingWe are all familiar with the phrase “divine timing”, which implies the resting into the perfect unfolding and sequencing of life events.  This capacity to rest into divine timing is birthed from our willingness to trust the timing of life.  This means being ok with not knowing for certain at what pace things will unfold but knowing that however they unfold will be perfect and that it will all work out in the right timing.  This same trusting which we can do with timing also occurs in relationship to others.  I like to call it “divine relating”.  

What is divine relating?  Divine relating is birthed from an internal state of trust of others.  It has nothing to do with the other person, but only with you and your willingness to trust others.  Trust always implies not knowing for certain what the outcome of any moment, situation, interaction or relationship will be.  Simultaneously with that uncertainty is an inner knowingness that however it turns out it will be ok, even if that means that at some point you feel hurt by another.  Its the willingness to stay open and feel the hurt rather than close yourself off from other people altogether.  There are no guarantees as to how we will feel at some moment in the future and living trying to protect ourselves from never feeling hurt, disappointed, unseen or unheard is a very lonely life.  

So is there some kind of perceived risk in trusting others?  From our mind’s perspective absolutely.  Our minds and their patterns are all about minimizing risk and protecting us from pain.  If we solely listen and abide by our mind’s protective patterns then we will live the experience of a very limited life where things will be mostly flat/neutral.  Well this will be ok for many people and is the life that most people live, for those that want to experience a greater range of life experience and ultimately freedom, they will need to learn a different way.  The entry point or metaphorical door to that different way is trust.  

When we have the courage to choose trust and not base our current experience on our past experiences we can create a new pathway for ourselves that is empowering.  One where we see that it is up to us to choose trust and that it is not dependent on others.  One where we can create empowering boundaries for ourselves based on our preferences and standards for what we want and deserve.  

When we completely resolve the pattern of mistrust of others we realize that our soul, essence, true self has never been hurt or harmed.  Though our body or mind may have experienced hurt we realize that we are not our body or mind and that ultimately there is no other.  To love other is to love self.  To love self is to love other.  Through choosing trust we breakdown the walls of separation and experience the unity that always has been and is.  We end the internal fight.  We feel what it is to rest.  We directly experience connectedness and stop creating separation.  

Unity is inescapable.  We cannot keep anything or anyone separate from it no matter how hard we insist on trying.  It is all inclusive.  On the other side of mistrust is immense love and compassion for self, other and all.  This love dissolves the bars around our heart and reunites it with the one heart of all.  

Dr. Amanda Hessel, 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