well-being

BELIEVING IN MAGIC

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BELIEVING IN MAGIC 

Possibility, imagination & creation

Most of us love the idea of magic, but few of us actually believe in it.  It seems that magic is reserved only for small children.  Once we reach the age of “logical” brain development, magic becomes silly fantastical play that only little kids do and since we are becoming a “big” kid, magic goes out the window for us.  Why do we stop playing and believing in magic?  Why do we get so serious and realistic?  It’s really all about what we value as a society and what gets reinforced.  We get acknowledgment and praise for getting good grades, excelling at math and science, and for doing our school work well.  We don’t get acknowledgment for how well we play, the worlds we create with our imagination or how much we believed in magic today.  Since there is an innate human need to belong and be part of the group, we follow what the collective agrees to value even if it isn’t in alignment for us.  Despite our best efforts to stay connected to our steam of magic and all of its infinite possibilities, we often lose connection to it our mid-late childhood development.  

What is magic?  Magic is the space of possibility, imagination and creation.  What we often fail to realize is that we are imagining our entire reality.  We each are already master magicians (ie. creators).  The world we create/are creating is flat, mundane and logical because that is what has been reinforced to us as what’s real and important.  Therefore that is what we see and continue to create through our seeing.  In this way reality appears to be devoid of magic, but rather it’s that we’ve used our magical powers to create this seemingly ordinary experience.  Inside of this experience we pretend to know what is going to happen next, we create plans, schedules and routines that give us a sense of familiarity, and the world of infinite possibilities gets scaled down into just a few known potential outcomes for how things can be and operate.

You can see that regardless of whether or not you believe in magic, you are utilizing it everyday.  It’s simply a matter of tuning in, paying attention and inquiring into what it is you are creating.  We create with our imagination and our seeing.  Whatever you can imagine is possible you can create.  Again you are already doing it all of the time, it’s only that your range of what is possible is likely quite narrow and your active imaginative qualities are somewhat off line.  You keep creating the same reality because you aren’t conjuring up anything novel from the well of your creator powers.  The question then becomes how do you get yourself back on line, activating your imagination and making magic that makes your reality feel alive, invigorating, exciting, mysterious and blissful.  

GETTING TO THE HEART 

The well-spring of magic

The portal into our active imaginative qualities and creating a more magical reality experience for ourselves is finding our way into our heart.  We are born open and in the state of love.  This is why a young child’s heart is naturally open and why they have access to the world of their magic.  Even if you don’t perceive what they perceive or join them in their creations, they are in their own magically reality all of the time.  That is until they learn the seemingly “fixed and solid” natural of reality that we condition them with and they start to believe that they are a product of creation rather than the magician/creator of it.  This is when the world of infinite possibilities becomes only a small handful of options and we forget, lose touch or disconnect from the fact that we are the ones doing all of the creating.  

As time goes on, and we have more and more experiences of being human, we move further and further away from the source of ourselves.  This means we forget ourselves more and more with time.  In addition, many of the experiences that we have being human don’t feel good and we learn to protect ourselves from physical, emotional and mental pain.  Protection means that we shut down, close off and become less open and available to participate with creation.  Since we’ve forgotten that we are the magician/creator we feel powerless to the circumstances of life, and helpless to how we feel, sense and relate to life and others.  In essence it’s kind of big, confusing mess.  

Finding our way back into our heart often means feeling the things that shut it down in the first place.  When we feel the pain it breaks our hearts back open.  We move through the feelings rather than stay closed down and shut off.  We open into the pain rather than protect ourselves from it.  This is healing in a nutshell.  It’s not complicated, but it’s also not necessarily easy.  It takes quite a bit of courage and ginormous heap of trust in ourselves to reopen.  Well it might seem easier to stay closed and continue life as the mundane status quo, you will feel unsatisfied and non-magical.  Your experience of life will be functional, but it won’t necessarily be fun.  

Your heart is the well-spring of magic.  It makes everything come alive.  It allows all possibilities to emerge.  It activates your imagination and helps you remember that you are the magician of this creation.  The reward of feeling the pain becomes clearly evident as you embark on the journey.  Your commitment and devotion to the path is key.  Some days it will feel hard to find your heart, but your desire to do so will be your guiding light.  If your level of commitment or devotion is high then before you know it there will be nothing that doesn’t fit inside of your heart.  You will have engulfed all of creation in love.  This means you will undoubtedly experience magic as your lived reality moment to moment.  As always the choice lies in your hands, your heart and your desire.   

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

EVERYTHING IS MAGIC

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EVERYTHING IS MAGIC 

Waking up to reality

Most people are excitement chasers, chasing the next thing and the next thing and the next thing that seems to promise a sense of aliveness inside of it.  Little time do most people want to spend in the grunt work, or in what they perceive to be ordinary or dull.  Most people have a fundamental and often elusive belief that some things are magically and others aren’t.  Due to the fact that most people have this belief, they end up polarizing themselves inside of their experience and make the assumption that some experiences or states of being are better than others.  When they find themselves in an undesirable experience or state of being they attempt to find the quickest route out.  

The thing with attempting to find the quickest route out is that we don’t give ourselves the experience of going through.  Therefore when we find ourselves in a similar experience or state of being in the future we don’t have the capacity to be present inside of it and continue to find ways to escape or withdraw from it.   We then wonder why we aren’t stably rested and centered in ourselves and can’t figure out why we don’t seem to be in control of ourselves.  You can’t expect to be stably rested in yourself if you avoid, push away, judge or make wrong certain states of being, experiences or aspects of yourself.  Anything that is pushed away creates a ripple or distortion in the coherence of your beingness.  That distortion then becomes a filter through which you experience life.

Filters taint, dim, and skew what you see.  You see what you think rather than what is actually present.  You project an incomplete picture from a limited perspective.  You make judgements about what is rather than seeing what is.  Another way to say that is you experience your thoughts or your perspectives, and not what is really present.  See, what is present just is.  The present is inherently neutral and the substratum of presence is love or bliss.  This is the natural state of everything.  This is why everything is magic.  However when we place our judgments, ideas, and perspectives on top of what is, we get to experience life through the lenses that they are filtered by.  If instead we remove our filters (i.e. our judgments, beliefs and biases) then the lens gets cleared up and we perceive reality rather than our thoughts and perspectives of it.   

LIVING MAGIC  

Magic can’t not be

There is really two ways to approach living magic.  One is to stop giving anything labels, and with practice, start seeing the true nature of reality.  The other way is simply to decide with conviction to change your belief that some things are magical and others aren’t.  With as much conviction you have that some things are better than others, you can have as much conviction that they are not.  You really can in one full swift moment simply change your mind.  It doesn’t have to involve some big process, ah-ha or breakthrough.  You can just do it now.  Nothing is stopping you except you and your insistence to believe otherwise.

In this way the mud sparkles even if it remains looking like mud.  The uncomfortable conversation you need to have with your partner, friend, boss, parents or kids is complete with bliss even if it comes with uncomfortable sensations in your body.  Your emotions, even the ones you label as bad, are welcome because you understand that they don’t mean anything about you or anyone else.  They are just emotions, no more, no less.  The intense sensations that come at times from having a human nervous system are waves of energy organizing and moving themselves around, no more, no less. The grand significance you give some things diminishes and the grand insignificance you give other things also neutralizes, and it is anything but flat.  The dissolution of charge doesn’t equate to bland, nothingness, but rather total peace and presence.

While people desire peace and presence, they tend to desire their judgments more.  It is quite logical, the path to peace that is, but we are not logical nor do we decide from logic no matter how level headed we think we are.  We decide from our beliefs and conditions, and what we think is right, which is massively deluded.  Most of the time we don’t even know what the heck we believe or what conditions we live by and under.  So we are left with chasing what seems most magical and avoiding what doesn’t and holding our breath while hoping for the best.  This is circumstantial, disempowered “well-being”.

True well-being lives inside of your capacity to be willing to be present with whatever is present.  To not turn away.  To put your fingers in the mud and find how through doing so the mud turns into clay from which you create some piece of creation magic.  You can’t not create magic.  You can only think that it is possible to create something other than magic.  You also can’t not be or live magic.  You can only think you aren’t magical.  Your thoughts aren’t true.  What’s true is magic.  This can only be directly experienced to be known.  Dismantle your concepts, let go your judgments.  Nothing is better than the other.  No emotion or state of being is better than the other.  No appearance is better than the other.  It’s all magical creation created by a magical creator, which is you.  

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

GIVING YOUR LIFE OVER TO WHY YOU EXIST

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GIVING YOUR LIFE OVER TO WHY YOU EXIST 

Focused on the things of life

As human beings with faculties of mind and memory we create images, stories and ideas about our life. What it should look like, how it should feel, what should occur and not occur, and the like. We are nearly constantly investing our energy and attention into the things of life. This is so natural and second nature to us that we don’t question or entertain that any other way of being/doing would be possible. This investment of our resources (i.e. our energy and awareness) into the things of life creates a dynamic where our well-being is contingent upon those things. With this we become fused, merged and attached to the things of life, including our stories and ideas about them, and we lose touch with the essence of our nature and why we exist at all. This creates an inner experience of simply trying to get through life as if there is some destination to arrive at and we miss out on the experience of what it is to be living.

When our focus is on the things of life we create agendas and expect outcomes. No matter how agenda-less and detached from outcome you think you are, the truth is you probably aren’t. Most people still want things and perceive they need things and therefore subtly, or not so subtly, attempt to get those needs and wants met through their thoughts and actions. This is agenda. As long as you perceive lack, meaning you perceive that you don’t have something you need or want, you will attempt in whatever ways you can to get it. This is a survival strategy based in the perspective that something is missing right now and that somehow what is is not complete. This is the most pervasive perspective on planet Earth right now, however it’s pervasiveness does not make it accurate.

It is important to get that you are the creator of your experience.  What you think or believe to be true will generate the image that you see reality to be.  What you put your energy and awareness into will dominate your life.  This is not just a fancy new age concept.  This is how creation works.  Perception is creation.  What you perceive, meaning how you see, will dictate what you see.  Giving your life (ie. your energy and attention) over to things, images, ideas and stories about life generates a very physical experience of life where you believe that you are the physicality.  You suffer when the image doesn’t reflect what you desire because you think you are the image and don’t recognize that you are the creator of the image.  You feel powerless to the image that you have created because you don’t realize you created it.  In this way we are victims to our own selves, yet don’t see ourselves and therefore don’t realize how we victimize ourselves to ourselves.  If that confusing its because it is confusing.  We have confused ourselves to be things (which we are not) and therefore experience limitation, frustration, powerless and lack.   

THE ILLUSION OF SACRIFICE 

A soul-driven life

So if we don’t give our life over to our ideas, then what do we give it over too? If we stop focusing on getting the money, relationships, family, house, car, health, our next business idea, our next save the world idea, social status, validation, approval, and the like then what else is there? See all that is the stuff of life and none of it is why you exist. Sure you will use certain of those expressions to carry out the why of why you exist, but none of the things of life are why you exist. This is incredibly important to understand. Without this awareness you will live disconnected from why you are, from why your soul took on a body in the first place. I can guarantee you that it did not do so just to smell the flowers and get absorbed in the stuff of living on planet earth. There is a mission, a calling, a purpose for your being here in a body, and from what I have discovered it is the only worthwhile focal point for this incarnative experience. All else is just distractions.

To the you that you think you are, living in such a singularly focused way where your sole purpose is the only determiner for all of the stuff that you do through this body, will feel like a sacrifice. The one you think you are (i.e. your name, personality, profession and all the ways you identify yourself) will feel let down, discouraged, at times aimless, confused and destabilized by this shift in focus. Again no matter how agenda-less you think you are, you probably aren’t. Are you willing to let everything, and I mean everything go, and shift to your sole purpose or calling being the only determiner for you? I can promise you that if you are willing you will never feel purposeless again. You will never wonder if you are doing what you came here to do, you will stop experiencing self-doubt, and you won’t regret your life when you are on your death bed. However I can also promise you that your life may not look like or feel like you want it too. Your life will no longer be “your” own, meaning your body-mind-personality ideas of what your life is. The paradox however is that it will also be the first time your life is in alignment because you will be in full connection with yourself.

From the perspective of the person this will be a colossal and complete sacrifice in complete uncertainty.  From the perspective of the soul it will be a coming home.  The one constant is free will.  You get to decide how you participate with all of this.  If you decide to make the transition from a person-centered life to soul-centered life a tremendous amount of faith will be required of you.  Your person will not know.  It will perpetually feel like it doesn’t know.  This is just part of the territory.  This is an act of faith that you will take several times a day.  You can’t get the soul to fit inside of the personality and therefore the personality will not understand.  It has to surrender itself.  There is no other way.  

Giving your life over to why you exist instead of the stuff of life liberates and aligns you with you. It frees you to actually be of service to life in every single moment. To give to life rather than get from life. There is not a single moment where your purpose, your calling, cannot be executed. Until you arrive here and become agenda-less you cannot be of true service because there will always be some underlying sneaky agenda running the show. You being you, knowing you, sharing you is the service. You generate this world of your purpose by aligning yourself with it over and over and over again. You come to see the illusion of sacrifice is just that, an illusion, because there is nothing else worth living for. You detach from being the stuff and rest into your calling, into your soul, and experience inner stability despite the ever changing appearances of life.

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

Group Consciousness

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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

Healing through being

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Healing through being 

What healing is & how it occurs

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

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

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

Healing through being 

True health is a state of well-being

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

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

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

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

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

The stages of healing, transforming & awakening

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The stages of healing, transforming & awakening

Cliff notes version

Decorative mandala round pattern with sacred geometry element MeMost of you have heard me talk about the “12 stages of healing.”  The 12 stages of healing are what the structure of Somato-respiratory Integration (SRI) is built upon and represent stages of consciousness or awareness that a human experiences on their journey from separation to unity.  This particular structure of the 12 stages of healing was based upon the work of Dr. Donald Epstein, however these stages of consciousness are universal and you can find them named in many different traditions or schools.  

What is unique to them here is that their are paired somatic “exercise” that go along with each of the 12 stages and corresponds to a level of awareness.  The idea behind doing the exercises is to more fully “land” or be in the stage that you are in.  No stage is better or worse than another.  We all experience all of the stages at different times or rhythms of our lives.  Progression through stages is also not linear, meaning you don’t always go from stage 1 to 2 to 3, etc.  There is also no defined amount of time to be in a particular stage.  Some people may be in 3 different stages in a single day, where others may be in one or two particular stages for years.  

So what are the benefits of knowing the 12 stages?  Its helpful for many of us to have a roadmap or structure so that we can “know where we are”.  Knowing where you are helps you create more coherence within your experience because you can better align your perceptions to where were are at.  For example say that in your life you are behaving in ways that feel congruent to you, like maybe you are exercising or being helpful to others, meditating or eating healthy, but your perceptions (thoughts, emotions, sensations) you don’t really match it.  There is an incongruence between the actions you are taking and your perceptions of life.  This is where SRI can be helpful in bringing to light more of the perceptual consciousness shifts required to make your experience more congruent.  Ultimately meaning that the actions you take feel 100% aligned with your feeling and thoughts.   

The seasons of well-being

12 stages grouped

The 12 stages are further grouped into what we call the seasons of well-being in Network Care.  To begin the 3 basic seasons are called Discover, Transform and Awaken.  It looks something like this:

Season of Discover: SRI stages 1, 2 & 3

Season of Transform: SRI stages 4, 5, 6 & 7

Season of Awaken: SRI stages 8, 9, 10, 11 & 12

So what are these seasons and why are they important?  The season of Discover is the self- discovery process of becoming aware of how you have kept parts of yourself separate from the whole of you.  Said another way you discover how you have protected yourself from experiencing painful feelings, thoughts and sensations.  Within this season the first 3 stages of SRI are included. Stage 1 (suffering) is the experience of discovering that you have been disconnected or at least a part of you has been disconnected.  When you discover this you realize that you have been living in some level of separation and the experience of that separation or disconnection is suffering.  In SRI stage 2 (polarities) you are aware that a part of yourself has been separated or disconnected, so you are not in full separation, but you resist this part of yourself.  It’s the experience of “disowning” or rejecting those parts of yourself that you don’t like or can’t be with.  Lastly SRI stage 3 (stuck in a perspective) is where you realize how you continually resist this part of yourself over and over and over and over again.

Next is the season of Transform.  Transformation is ultimately the refusal to keep any parts of self separate anymore.  It includes SRI stage 4, which is where you declare to include an aspect of self that’s not been included. It’s saying enough of separation of this part of you. No more are you going to not include this part. Enough of not including it.  SRI stage 5 is merging past the illusion that this part is really separate.  SRI stage 6 is a preparation into full self, absolutely nothing will ever keep this part separate again and stage 7 is the resolution of separation and a surrender of this part into all of you. It’s the full embodiment of self and realization that all parts of self must be included.  We essentially go through these various stages of 1-7 discovering and reclaiming all the various aspects of self until everything is included.  This is the healing/growth journey.

Lastly is the season of Awaken.  Awaken is the knowing that nothing ever left the whole, nothing was/is ever separate.  SRI stage 8-12 correspond to this knowing.  As you become more familiar with all of these stages of consciousness you can begin to integrate various stages with other stages to help support and resource you throughout this journey of separation to unity.

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

Future date syndrome

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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

The art of being real

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Hidden resistance  

Being with what is 

So often we want to feel, do or be something different than we are.  This is especially true when we don’t like what we are feeling, doing or being.  This is subtle and goes undetected by most.  It gets masked by saying things like “I’m feeling stressed” or by rushing through your day to get your “to-do” list done, or wanting to get rid of things that you don’t like the sensation of in your body.

42260416 - resistance. dirty male clenched fistNow there is nothing wrong with change and wanting to feel better.  Change is healthy.  It is the resistance we subtly create to where we are at that is unhealthy and what INHIBITS our ability to create the change we desire.  This seems contradictory to most everyone’s way of thinking, which is the paradox.  Only through being with can you truly move through.

Say for example you wake up one morning and just feel shitty.  You may feel frustrated, irritated, annoyed, in physical pain, stiff, tired, anxious, etc. and clearly you don’t want to feel this way.  So you may try to flat out ignore how you’re feeling or distract yourself, look for something to numb or dampen how you feel, you may tell yourself that you actually feel different with an affirmation, you may normalize how you feel and say “its fine or its ok”, you may put yourself in the mindset of “I just have to get through this day”, or you may go into anger or rage about how you feel.  These are all ok responses but none of them create any presence or acknowledgment with where you are at.  They are all strategies to avoid, ignore, jump over or dismiss the truth.

Unshakeable presence

The art of being real

You will be able to create some change through shifting your focus on what you want without really addressing where you are first, but your shift will not be sustainable.  You may successfully feel amazing some of the time, but the rest of  the time you are “checked out” and avoiding without being able to reset yourself and feeling powerless (consciously or unconsciously) over your state, whether physical, emotional, or mental in nature.  This is because you have not learned the art of being real.

So how do you get more real with yourself?  Notice for a moment your resistance to feeling certain things.  Maybe its low energy, or pain, anxiety, sadness, negativism, loneliness or failure.  This can be very subtle and tricky to see as there are often “superficial” feelings and stories sitting on top of what you are really feeling.  If you have trouble discovering notice what you are uncomfortable seeing other people express or what feels unacceptable to you.  That which does not have space (acceptance) gets repressed, hidden and stored in your body to later be revealed as sensations you don’t want, and the cycle continues, until you realize that even the “lower” states are divinely orchestrated.

If you are like me you may like to intentionally set each morning how you want to feel and show up.  Maybe today you want to have high energy, be positive and feel joyful (and that is great), but instead you wake up feeling like the example above (shitty).  As you try and focus more and more on feeling amazing (instead of what you are actually feeling) notice the tension that arises in your body.  The gap between where you are and where you want to be gets bigger and bigger and that creates a lot of tension.  There will also be an underlying feeling of trying to maintain this state of being that you want to be in rather than just being this state of being, which feels effortful instead of easeful.  What is required in this moment is to stop and get real with yourself.  Feel what you are feeling instead of what you want to be feeling.  When you do this notice what happens to the tension in your body.  If you’re being honest the tension will decrease and you will become clearer.  If instead you continue to resist and try to feel something else other than what you truly feel the tension will escalate and mental clarity diminish.

Through learning the art of being real you learn how to create change through acceptance instead of resistance and force.  Ironically, and again paradoxically, one of the reasons that people avoid feeling what they’re feeling (often unconsciously) is that when they do then something must change.  The purpose of emotions is to create energy for change.  Instead of  just thinking about the change you want to create, you will have to create it.

SRI stage 2

SRI Stage 2

Somato-Respiratory Integration helps you become aware, acknowledge and accept where you are at in any given moment.  Through this you become unshakably present, meaning that no matter what you are feeling, doing or being, you have the capacity to be fully with your experience and embody the art of being real.  When you are authentically you, life and action flows effortlessly and you are in ultimate service with all.

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

Well-being is not a luxury, its a must!

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Well-being is not a luxury, it’s a must! 

Feeling great is your birthright 

There has been a surge in wellness services in the last 10 years.  The intention of these services is not to fix a pain or problem, but instead of help people feel great in body-mind-spirit.  A portion of the population utilizes such services because they have an inherent value around feeling amazing in their body and life.  A larger portion of the population doesn’t seem to value such services, typically reporting that such services are a luxury and not a necessity in their life because there is not an imminent life threatening problem staring at them in the face.

Kevin Trudeau quoteThe other conundrum is that when people feel relatively good they often don’t realize that they can feel even better.  They create a ceiling for themselves that looks like “I’m doing good and this is as good as it gets.”  This may be an unconscious script running in their mind as a result of perceived limitations of how good a person can feel.  There may also be underlying beliefs about how good they can allow themselves to feel.  Some older belief systems conditioned people that it was bad to feel too good, thus capping what feels permissible.

I’m about to tell you what nobody may have told you before – It is your birthright to feel amazing.  Not only that, but your body is meant to express full health and you are supposed to feel energized and alive, no matter your age.  I’ve met plenty of vibrantly alive 90 year olds in my time.

Lifting your ceiling 

From feeling Good to feeling Amazing

raise ceilingIf we want to claim our birthright we need to raise our standards on what is possible for our well-being and place greater value of feeling great.  Being pain or symptom free does not mean your are well.  Having only positive emotions or thoughts does not mean your well.  Being well means you experience a sense of joy and bliss being alive in your body and you are actively finding ways to increase your capacity to feel even more amazing.  

Why is well-being and feeling amazing so important and not a luxury?  One, because when you feel amazing it rubs off on everyone you meet.  They start to get a taste of it and start to feel better themselves.  By allowing yourself to feel better and better, you heal, and so do others.  Two, the energy state that is created in your body when you feel amazing is incompatible with the energy state that creates disease and ill health.  Disease thrives is a poor/low energy state.  Health thrives in a rich/high energy state.

So you see well-being is not a luxury.  We must begin to reframe our thinking and choose better.  Instead of focusing on eliminating the “bad” stuff in order to maintain a neutral “baseline” state, we must focus on how we can feel even better (despite the perceived bad stuff), in order to get to a richer, juicier, more alive state.  When you prioritize feeling amazing and take action steps towards greater well-being you will begin to see the limitations of your previously perceived ceiling and experience more aliveness and feel great-ness.

Dr. Amanda Hessel, DC, Network Spinal Analysis & Somatorespiratory Integration, Boulder, Colorado