wholeness

MAKING THE INNER MATTER

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MAKING THE INNER MATTER 

Inner states, projects & endeavors

We all have a collection of activities, projects, and things that we deem valuable and worth our time.  It’s easy to see what these things are, as they are the things we spend our time engaged in on a day to day basis.  It’s important to pause for a moment and recognize what exactly it is you spend your time and energy doing as this is what you are prioritizing as most important.  Often times we say that such and such thing matters to us, and yet we spend little to no time and energy focused on it.  We may not even be aware of the mismatch of what we say is important and what we spend our time doing, but when we pause and look at the reflection of our life as a mirror we can’t refute what we see.

We also tend to value the outer more than the inner.  What I mean by this is that we make external projects or activities that produce physical, tangible results superior to internal projects that create more depth and connection inside our inner experience.  The perspective of the outer as productive and worthwhile, and the inner as just a hobby or self-indulgent, keeps inner endeavors having seemingly less value to us in our own eyes.  Even though we might say that inner work matters, we spend minimal time cultivating our ideal inner state because we see it as not as important as the physical creations.

You might be wondering just exactly what inner projects and endeavors are.  Inner projects and endeavors all have to do with cultivating the state of being of where you come from.  There are infinite ways to cultivate our inner state, some of which may be external activities such as exercise, yoga, or coming in for your entrainments, but the focus is on producing or generating the state of being you desire to live as while you interact with your environment.  

Most desirable inner states often have to do with feeling a sense of stability, peace, joy, love and aliveness.  If this isn’t your ordinary state of being than there is inner work to be done and inner projects to initiate in order to find this as your foundation.  So many people desire their resting state of being to be joy and peace and yet they don’t put enough of their value on it.  Rather they value what they can produce and what they perceive needs to be done regardless of their inner state of being.  The result is a lack of presence and real engagement or participation with life.   

TAKE THE RISK 

Prioritize the inner

There may be some perceived risks in valuing the inner.  One of the most common scarcity beliefs that arises is that there is not enough time.  The mind will often create a story that if you focus on the inner than you won’t get all of the outer things done that you either want to or need to.  This can also be looped into the story that you won’t fulfill your purpose, be of enough service or maximize your intention for existing.  Our focus is so predominantly on the physical aspect of our world and the thinking that our service and purpose is only in what we create or produce.  This is a largely accepted perception, particular in spiritual groups and thinking.  It is also largely distorted.  

The way I see it is that where we come from (our inner state of operation) is way more important than anything we can or will ever produce.  I am not discounting the value on the external.  I see tremendous value in unleveling systems, creating new offerings for humanity, and sourcing novel ways to organize life that support others.  Supportive environments and systems matter, and can create a more fun, easeful and enjoyable experience of life.  Yet they will all come and go.  Systems and environments change, but we are what evolves and grows.  Our awareness, our consciousness, our state of being, we take with us inside of every new system and environment that we create.  Despite the obviousness of this, we still think that the production, the doing, and all the things we want to create and manifest matter more than the inner state.  

Where we create from, where do from, where we live from, is an endeavor worth taking the risk of investing our time and energy.  The only true thing lost is the illusion of the story that the external manifestation is most important.  What if you decided to shift your thinking and behavior, and place 90% of your focus on cultivating your inner state of being to be one of joy, peace, and love, and 10% focus on what you are physically creating or doing.  I imagine for most a sense of fear arises if they truly entertain this, as everything they have been placing their focus on crumbles out of view.  It is a death.  A death of placing our value on external manifestations.  A death of projecting our value and worth into things.  

Does it feel risky?  Yes it does.  It’s a giving of your life, your attention, your energy and your focus to your state of being rather than what you think you are creating.  It’s trusting that life will continue to create through you as you align your focus in this way.  It’s prioritizing your state of being over what you think you need to do.  What if you started by creating an inner project?  Perhaps you want to establish self-love.  Create a 12 week program for yourself to uncompromisingly love yourself.  Place this as your top value.  Put whatever into the program you think needs to be included.  Be creative.  Movement, activity and “life” will still occur, but your priority above all else is self-love.  When your program is done, then be done.  Receive that which you desire to be.  You can do this with any inner state quality you wish to cultivate.  The key is you can’t just kind of do this.  You can’t partially make it valuable.  It will take all of you to be on board.  Take the risk.  Test the results.  Experience the magic unfold.  

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

HEALING FROM WHOLENESS

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HEALING FROM WHOLENESS 

What is, is

Wholeness is the natural state that exists in each and every moment, yet most all of us are trying to get to it in some way or another.  We conceptually know the complete perfection that is and yet we don’t live from this knowing.  Rather we live from the belief that there is somewhere to get and when we arrive there then completion will be achieved.  Most don’t really know where this place of completion is, but have many ideas that it is in either the attainment or absence of something.  When attainment or absence of the “something” is achieved they think they’ve arrived.  Yet soon the realization of fleeting temporariness of their illusion of completion is revealed and they find themselves back on the search for completion again.

Some people may initially think that if wholeness, completion and perfection already is, then what is there to live for or do.  If you aren’t striving to get somewhere than what?  The thing is that most people ask this question from the place of scarcity or from the perspective of lack of wholeness.  No one asks that question from wholeness because it would be clear to them how to move, where to act, where to be still and how to focus their energy and awareness.  The doubt that they feel about life would be alleviated because they would already know all is well no matter what is done or not done.  

How do we play the game of life knowing that it doesn’t actually matter what happens?  How are we passionate and committed to play and yet simultaneously detached from any occurrence occurring?  How do we heal coming from or knowing that we are already whole?  The definition of healing is remembering or realizing our/the already whole state.  Despite people often believing that healing has something to do with absence or presence of certain sensations or feelings, it does not.  This is again rooted in the idea that there is somewhere else to get or arrive that would indicate completion.  The first thing to really understand is that no matter what the sensation or feeling is that is currently present in your experience, nothing is wrong or un-whole.  Nothing is out of place.  Everything is perfectly aligned including the sensation/feeling experience.  You liking or not liking, preferring or not preferring your experience is not an indication of lack of wholeness.  Yet this is how we base our judgments.  If we like our experience we say all is well and everything is perfect.  If we don’t like our experience we say something is off, we are unwell or things are out of place.  From our view we decide what is, yet what is doesn’t really care about our view.  What is, is, regardless of how we view it.  Is-ness is inherently neutral and complete.  

LEARNING TO PLAY THE GAME

Oh Santa Claus

When you already know wholeness is what is, yet you live in a world environment that still largely perceives that things are wrong, then you must learn to play the game of “wrongness”.  I call it playing a game because once you fully know/believe that nothing can be other than perfect, you see that all you can really do is play the game, because it is no longer real to you that wrong could be.  Let me use believing in Santa Claus when you are kid as an analogy.  As long as your parents played along with the story when you were a kid, then you really believed in Santa Claus.  You put out cookies, you waited for Santa to come and then you opened all the presents he left in the morning.  Nothing seemed unreal about it when you were a kid, that is until you were told the truth.  Once you were told the truth than you couldn’t go back to believing in Santa Claus.  You could only play the game that Santa exists.  You might dress up for the younger kids, help them make cookies and clear the chimney for Santa to come, but to you its just a fun game and there is  nothing serious about it.  There are still things to do, actions to take and ways to play, but you know it’s just for play and that it doesn’t really matter what does or doesn’t get done. All is well.

This is truly what its like to stop believing in un-healedness or wrongness.  What remains is simply the truth of perfection.  You can’t go back to seeing things as wrong, you can only play the game for others that still believe in it.  You take actions, you do things, you change and move things around, yet you know that it truly doesn’t matter because wholeness already is, no matter what you do or don’t do.  You may find that you enjoy certain activities or doing particular stuff so you choose those activities as your play.  Those activities may be doctor, lawyer, coach, therapist, healer, business person, CEO, mom, etc.  This is akin to choosing the activities of dressing up as Santa, versus baking the cookies or going to the store to get milk.  Pick what you prefer or enjoy more.

Similar to the way we wait for kids to grow up a little bit before telling them the truth about Santa, in a way there is also a waiting for people to grow up beyond the belief of imperfection.  There is a time on everyone’s timeline where they will outgrow it.  They can only be told when they are ready to hear it.  If you tell them too soon they might not believe you.  Attempting to get a child’s thoughts, feelings or sensations to change about Santa before they are ready is arduous and nonsensical.  That’s why we play the game instead.  Its fun, there’s joy, and even though it’s ultimately untrue there is still play and activity involved.  As with the belief in wrongness or lack of wholeness, you can attempt to change yours or another’s sensations, feelings and thoughts around it, but if you/they aren’t ready to hear that all is whole and complete, then play the game of imperfection.  Make sure to make it as fun and as ridiculously silly as possible.  Choose to take on doing activities you like doing.  Be free from knowing anything needs to happen or not happen, because after all, all is well, perfect and complete now.  There is no future and no destination where this will be more or less true. Its true now.  This is healing from wholeness, from the destination not towards a destination.  Its playing the game of healing while knowing everything is already whole.

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

Unwinding the Subtle Body

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Unwinding the Subtle Body 

Tension in our lighter bodies 

unwind subtle bodyMost of us are aware of tension in our physical body.  It is quite obvious when a part of our body feels constricted in its movement or a muscle feels tight. People however are less aware of tensions in their subtle body.  Your subtle body/bodies are those bodies that are less dense and therefore less physical.  For example your emotional body is a subtle body.  You can’t see your emotions (except as they express though your physical form) you can only feel them..  Your mental body is also a subtle body.  You can’t see your thoughts you can only think them.  Lastly your soul body is your most subtle body.  Again you can’t see your soul body you can only directly come to know it.  Each of these subtle bodies can hold tension or restriction. We are frequently less aware of our subtle bodies and even less aware of the ways in which we guard, protect, hold tight or resist within these aspects of ourselves.  

You can’t heal or change a holding pattern or a particular way that you are binding energy until you can see and feel what is going on.  Self-awareness is the number one primary ingredient as without that you are simply unconscious to yourself.  The second essential ingredient is your willingness to spontaneously and authentically feel your patterns once you can see them.  When you are authentically feeling there is an instantaneous opening of the heart.  This is what unbinds that pattern and your system.  Most people are really gifted in intellectualizing their awareness of themselves and also intellectualizing their feelings.  When we “intellectually” feel our feelings rather than authentically feel them we may feel a temporary release of energy but we will not feel a deeper connection and wholeness with self.

Probably the easiest way to increase your self-awareness is by slowing yourself down.  Sometimes this is a physical slowing down, but even beyond that is a slowing down of your emotional and mental bodies.  When our awareness is occupied with incessant mental chatter or is getting hijacked by emotional triggers it is very hard to notice our subtle bodies.  Even though we are thinking thoughts or having feelings we are often not really aware of what we are the thinker or feeler, we are instead merged with the feelings and thoughts.  Until you can recognize that you are thinking or that you are feeling you are simply fused with the thoughts or feelings and not really aware of yourself.   

Increasing your Openness & Receptivity 

Expanded states of being & knowing

Goddess eye and Color space background with stars.

Being aware of tension in your subtle bodies is important if you desire to increase your openness and receptivity to energy, information and life.  When we unconsciously bind energy in our subtle bodies we may think we are open and yet there are worlds of energy and information that we are not in direct communication with.  It may seem strange, paranormal or mystical when other people seem to be tapped into something that we are not aware of or can’t seem to track or access.  Again most people are not aware of how they are binding energy or holding tension in their more subtle bodies and thus keeping themselves separate from more expanded states of being and knowing.

Dismantling the tension bound in your more subtle bodies often comes with the experience of feeling exposed.  Exposed because you literally are dropping the energetic walls between you and seeming other so nothing is hidden.  When our minds still believe that there is “other” then we can feel a sense of risk or danger in dropping these more subtle resistances or defenses.  Also people can feel overwhelmed, violated, invaded or the like in becoming more all pervasive and less defended in their subtle bodies.  When this is the experience it simply means that there is some more fundamental work to do in regards to personal trust, safety and development of sense of self.  We must become a person before we can dismantle our personhood back into the one infinite source that we are.  This is the developmental progression and the evolution of it occurs in perfect timing.

Another aspect that often arises in dismantling the tension in our subtle bodies is our self-worth.  Due to the nature of the learning here on earth at this time many people have a fundamental belief that they are unworthy or unlovable.  This sense of unworthiness is in itself a resistance or tension in opening into the infinite intelligence and love that we are.  To feel unworthy of love makes it challenging to receive the love that we are and so we subtlety and unknowingly push it away.  Instead of opening more deeply towards it we keep it at bay as we feel undeserving of it.  This reinforces our experience of separation, otherness and limitation.

For many healing is what is required at this stage of the game.  Healing being a coming into wholeness and coherence.  Understand that healing does not mean that a part of us is different. Healing means that a part of us knows that it’s loved. Nothing changed, nothing given, nothing taken away, all forgiven.  It is when we arrive here that we can deepen more and more fully into letting go of even the most subtle threads of resistance and tension that keep us separate from our more expanded self.  In truth we are all love.  All resistance simply keeps us from this truth.  

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

Holding Your Breath

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Holding Your Breath 

Waiting for the shoe to drop

16854815 - funny young woman with colorful air balloons enjoyingSo many people are holding their breath, waiting for the next shoe to drop.  It seems to us that if we can just keep holding our breath then we won’t feel what is about to happen next.  Why is it that we don’t want to feel what will happen next when we don’t even know what will happen?  It is because our minds like to create the most potentially devastating stories about what things mean and how something that might occur might threaten us.  So we live with this lurking feeling of potential threat and we hold our breath in attempt to not feel it.

This holding of our breath is conscious for some people and unconscious for others, meaning you might be really aware that your breath is not fluid, rhythmic, deep, easeful or full or you may have no idea at all.  We often need contrast to become aware of ourselves and our patterns.  This applies to our breathing patterns as well.  If you’ve had experiences in your life where your breath was labored or challenged it becomes really easy to recognize when that is not the case because there is contrast.  However if your breathing has been relatively stable throughout your life you may not yet realize that more expansive or restful breath is possible because you have not yet experienced that something more is indeed possible.  

Breathing occurs naturally.  Air comes in and out of our lungs without us needing to think about it or make it happen.  Yet when this feels like it is not the case, for example if we feel short of breath or the breath feels shallow, there is quite naturally an added survival panic response that results.  It is like throwing more fuel on the fire.  As our anxiety heightens then our breath feels less and less full, the more resistance builds up in our body and the harder it feels to breathe.  Resistance is the primary ingredient that interferes with the natural process of breathing in the first place.  

This brings us back to the feeling sensation of waiting for the next shoe to drop.  When we clench or grip to protect ourselves from feeling something we put our body in a state of tension aka resistance.  Resistance makes everything more challenging including our breath.  Many people are not aware of how much they resist or attempt to prepare themselves against the impact of something potentially bad happening to them.  In fact it is this preparation or “on guard state of being” that is far more uncomfortable then simply feeling the impact of thing we are attempting to not feel the impact of.  

While this all seems rational and we might get it conceptually, particularly if nothing feels super uncertain or turbulent in our life in the moment, allowing ourselves to get it physiologically is another thing entirely.  To convince ourselves to feel the thing that everything in our mind is telling us is unsafe to feel or that we don’t want to feel is the perpetual dance we do with our defenses.  See for most people their defenses are running the show pretty much all of the time.  We tend to not notice this and think that we are in charge and not our defenses if our life seems to be going relatively well and we are in agreement with what is showing up in our reality.  However when our life shakes up a little bit and something arrives in our experience that feels unknown or undesirable we get a front row show to just how much our defenses are really in charge. 

Story of our Defenses

Bridge from concept to direct physiological experience 

perspective of wood bridge in deep forest crossing water stream and glowing light at the end of wooden waysSo you might be asking what is the story with our defenses.  First of all it may be helpful to know we all have them and their job is to protect us from harm.  They develop as mechanisms of survival for this body-mind organism.  Some of our defenses develop when we are really young and are more primitive.  They are more easily recognized as they tend to be more reactionary, emotional or physical in nature.  Other defenses develop when we are a little bit older and are more sophisticated, rational and logical.  These more sophisticated defenses are much tricker because they are based on socially acceptable rules of engagement.  We often think that we are these defenses and it is more challenging to see that our defenses are running the show of our life because we just think it is who we are.  These defenses are also more thought based meaning they are activated in response to memories of past experiences and anticipation of future events.  

Though the job of our defenses is to protect us from harm this comes with a cost.  That cost is fragmentation, separation and disconnection.  We have quite normalized living disconnected partly because we haven’t had a ton of contrast as to what it is to live connected, so disconnection seems normal.  The long term effects of fragmentation, separation and disconnection are far more reaching then any of us might currently realize.  

Bringing this back to our body, physiology and breath we must ask ourselves how we bridge this gap between knowing conceptually about our defenses to being able to move through them and feel the experiences that they are attempting to push away.  The result of this being that we open our system, relax and allow breath to breathe in and out of this body in its full, rhythmic, expansive, vital and deeply nurturing ways.  

If for a moment you think of breath as life, as what you are, rather than all of the rest of the stuff that you identify with, how would that shift your focus and change your relationship to breath?  In seeing that when you create tension patterns based on unconscious and conscious stories created inside of your own mind, that interfere with the movement of breath in and out of your body, what you are really doing is resisting life.  Creating resistance to breath is the foundation for resisting life.  Life is a myriad of infinite expressions and comes with an entire gamut of sensations, feelings, emotions and experiences.  Some of these sensations, feelings, emotions and experiences will feel amazing and others will feel horrible.  There is no real way around this unless you completely 100% shift your perspective to seeing only divine perfection in everything making every experience blissful, which for most people at this stage in the game is not impossible but highly improbable.  Due to this improbability at this current time/space nexus we must cultivate another strategy that will open us to life rather than close us down to it.  That strategy is willingness, self-permission, allowing and inner invitation to feel, sense and experience the entire gamut of whatever experiences show up in our lives no matter how uncomfortable or undesirable they are for us.  

This is a tall order I know.  Yet the only way to the other side is through.  Going through means feeling and experiencing all of it so that none is left out, split or fragmented.  This is how we arrive at the experience of connectedness and wholeness.  We leave nothing out.  We reject nothing.  Through that we arrive at wholeness.  Breath, life, moves in and out of these bodies, free and unimpeded.  

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

Power of Love

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Power of Love 

Infinite Life Force

16152518 - beautiful lotus backgroundMost all of us make claims to the power of love.  On some level we know that love is the ultimate everything and yet when things get “serious” or when we get caught up in our emotional or thinking bodies the power of love is forgotten.  Why is it that we drop love or downplay its position as the grand orchestrator of all of life when things get messy, unclear or uncertain?  Why does our thinking mind along with its linearity and rationality become the prime ruler rather than the heart?  

First of all let me just say that love is the source of infinite life force.  Life force is love, love is life force.  Life force is what makes everything come alive.  It is the breath of the universe and everything within it.  This is why when we feel like we are in love we feel alive, awake, alert and juiced up, because we actually are.  Love, whether for self, other or just as a state of being, brings with it infinite, inexhaustible life force.  It can not because love and life force are one and the same.  

Life force, energy and love are terms that can be used interchangeably.  Life force is the quite literal energy source that powers everything in the universe including your physical body.  It is fairly common knowledge at this point that everything in the universe is energy.  When all matter is broken down into its most basic components all that remains is vibrating energy.  That vibrating energy is life force/love.  Patterns of thoughts, beliefs and perceptions then give shape to that energy and the world of forms that we see with our eyes.

As powerful as our thoughts are in their ability to bring forms to life, they are nothing without the energy source of love to back them up.  Pure, unconditioned love is the most coherent, whole energy source that there is.  When we have thoughts that are fueled by less coherent states of energy, such as fear, rage, or rationality, they are much less efficient or effective and therefore the forms they create are not as optimal, complex or productive.  Less coherent states of energy are simply states of energy that are not as aware of their inherent wholeness.  Love knows it wholeness which is where its extreme power arises.   

Fall from Grace 

Perception of Wrongness

Spiritual conceptual image of a female angelWhen we think about the power of love without being connected with the knowingness of love our power is greatly diminished.  True power does not come from thought alone, but from the intimate acknowledging and resting into love so that its power naturally expresses.  The primarily perception that keeps us disconnected from knowing love intimately is the perception of wrongness.  

When we view through the perception of wrongness we create separation where there is none.  Separation creates a less coherent state of energy because within separation implies a lack of wholeness.  Wrongness means that something must be thrown out of the whole and when that occurs there is less energy/life force available to the system (individual or collective).  Say for example you (or your culture) judge multiple things about yourself, another person, or the environment as wrong.  The more you judge the more you shrink your perspective.  With this comes a sense of confinement and limitation.  Simultaneously the less innately good you feel and the less energy you have available to you.  Manifestation feels more effortful and there is greater disorganization in what gets created. This is a state of decreased coherency where your knowingness of love and ability to utilize the power of love is diminished.  This does not mean that love is actually diminished, but only your perception of it.  Again this happens at individual and collective system levels.  

Perceiving wrongness also brings on both sides of it righteousness and shame.  To defend one’s rightness or hide in one’s shame birth the entire gamut of defensive patterns of self-protection.  This is our fall from grace or love.  This is the imposition of limitation on life force.  This is the disconnection from our power, which is the power of love.   To restore connection and remember the power of love we must dismantle our belief in our own or others wrongness.  To know love rather than think love requires this.  

Love has no boundaries, it penetrates all.  Love brings light to even the darkest dark, to every recess of unconsciousness.  Nothing is brighter than love.  To stand in the radiance of love is to illuminate the entire world.  All healed, all whole, all intimately aware of itself.  From here the purest and most efficiently organized forms of creation are created.  Life force vitalizes all.  This doesn’t happen independently of you, it happens because of you.  At some point we must all surrender to love.  It is inevitable.  We must give away our addiction to less coherent thoughts of wrongness, missing and lack of wholeness, and open our system into greater coherency, full force life force and the power of love.  

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

Insisting on Non-wrongness

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Insisting on Non-wrongness 

Moving past regret, remorse, doubt and judgment

sprial fractalWhat would your life feel like if you insisted on non-wrongness rather than the perspective that things are wrong, that you’ve done something wrong or that there are mistakes that you or others have made?  We are so often tormented by our own inner voices that fight for the story of imperfection and wrongness.  The concept of wrongness is so engrained in our thought patterns that it completely filters and taints the way that we perceive the world.  Most do not even question their perspective of wrongness, they simple accept this perspective unconsciously and live feeling regret, remorse, doubt and in judgment of self or others.  

The perspective of wrongness creates immense suffering.  It kicks people out of the “kingdom of God” or said another way, out of the experience of heaven, bliss, and love at all times.  Rather than perceiving the divine orchestration of God/the universe being all pervasive, our story of wrongness kicks in and says “this is God” and “this is not God”.  Or this one thing is perfect, but this other thing is not perfect.  This is right, but this is wrong.  Hence duality and polarity are created and our experiences are of separation and suffering.  What we fail to realize is that this separation that we are experiencing is not outside of us.  It does not come from some random outer place.  It comes from within our own heads.  It is our mind that determines the story of wrongness and only you can change your mind.  Nothing outside of you can do that for you.  

Why is it that we have this inner judger of right and wrong, perfect and imperfect, and included and not included?  We have been born into and simultaneously have bought into a collective belief system that is driven by this very concept.  Get that wrongness is simply a concept, an idea, it has no real validity except that which have and continue to give to it.  What if you no longer gave any energy to the concept, idea and belief of wrongness?  What if when things arose within your experience of life you saw them as perfect no matter if you liked what was presenting itself or not?  This is the path to everlasting freedom, to perceiving the truth of perfection and the all pervasive intelligent design of every atom and galaxy of the universe.   

Choosing what you’ve chosen 

Beyond the personal

Night sky praiseDue to the fact that we have been submerged in this belief of wrongness for our entire human life there is some work to do in transitioning from perceiving wrongness to non-wrongness.  The first thing is to stop insisting that what is, is in any way wrong whatsoever.  This means everything.  From the thing that your partner said to you that you didn’t like, to the thing you did but regretted or questioned doing after you did it, to something your boss or parents did or didn’t do, to some bad feeling state or physical pain you are experiencing, or some “accident” that occurred that you are perceiving as bad or detrimental.  As you move out of the perspective of wrongness and choose non-wrongness you also no longer experience fear or doubt of any kind because you see more and more the pure perfection of how everything is rather than seeing mistakes or wrongness.  

To choose what you’ve consciously or unconsciously chosen, which is to accept what is, frees you from all self hate and other hate.  To judge as wrong and resist what you’ve chosen is to create separation where there is no separation and it always feels bad.  It leaves you feeling restless, resistant, angry, anxious, annoyed, wounded or hurt.  It creates a state of dis-“ease” and supports separation rather than wholeness.  When you decide to accept your experiences, seeing yourself as the chooser of all of your experiences, whether or not you can see from your current perspective that you’ve chosen what you are experiencing, you experience a coming together and eventual complete unification with all of life.  

Sometimes it is hard for us to see how/why we have chosen certain experiences, particularly painful ones.  What I can say is that someway, somehow we are the ultimate chooser of it all.  Sometimes we choose experiences for our own personal growth and expansion and at other times we choose experiences to help others with their lessons.  Still beyond that we choose experiences to support the collective human species and beyond that the universe at large to expand, evolve and grow.  Our lives are much more than the small personal lives we tend to perceive on a day to day basis.  We are part of much larger and larger bodies that are more inclusive than just our individual lives.  

We are not always aware of what level our choice in experience is supporting.  Whether its just personal, or for other self, the collective or universal, but knowing this and have this perspective that you are bigger than your individual person can help you shift from the question of “why is this happening to me?” and perceiving a sense of alienation or wrongness, into a perspective of seeing the larger orchestration of life of which your person is a part of.  In this larger perspective our individual person often doesn’t know what it is supporting, but it is rested in knowing the non-wrongness that is inherent from this larger perspective.   

Doing the work to choose non-wrongness will open you up more and more to larger perspectives and aspects of your collective and universal being from where you will be able to experience more consistent bliss and love no matter what seems to be occurring in your personal life experience.  

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

Being with physical pain

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Being with physical pain 

Types of pain

There are four primary types of pain each having their own flavor of expression. Physical pain is the most obvious being that of the production of unpleasant sensations in the the body.  It often deeply activates our survival mechanisms and more primitive, reactive brain structures.  Emotional pain is experienced when our feelings get hurt or we feel unloved or unloveable.  This is less connected with our immediate survival and more with our sense of a personal self and inherent worthiness.  Mental pain is the experience we have when we’re trying to force or insist that life to be a particular way,  when we argue with what is and can’t see outside of a limited perspective.  This is often connected with who we are in the world, what we want to accomplish and how we are perceived by others.  Lastly spiritual pain is that which we feel when we tap into the collective at large and feel the suffering of a group or community.  Spiritual pain is the least personal of all the experiences of pain, but it tends to invoke a high desire towards service towards others when felt.

Though none of the pains that we experience are necessarily easy to be with I find that physical pain can sometimes be the most challenging for us. Our relationship with physical pain is such that we feel the threat to our survival through its expression.  Most of us have subtle, or not so subtle, beliefs in place that to allow ourselves to feel physical pain may ensue our demise. Even if our higher brain centers know this is not necessarily the case, the lower primitive survival structures take precedence and rule our reactions.  

Due to the perceived threat to our survival that physical pain activates inside of our psyche we have a higher tendency to protect or guard ourselves from this type of pain.  This creates a hyper-vigilance which activates our sympathetic (fight/flight) nervous system, creates massive amounts of tension and hijacks our awareness.  In this state of being our capacity to recognize that we are not the pain and that the pain does not control us is quite limited.  We feel consumed by it and have lost awareness of anything else.   

Mastering the primitive nervous system

Coming back into connection with yourself

separated by wallUltimately we must become the master of this primitive survival response of our nervous system so that we can learn to be present with physical pain rather than consumed by it.  When we guard against physical pain we wall off our awareness from  that particular location within our body.  Walling off awareness creates a sense of disconnection from that expression.  When we perceive disconnection we feel powerless because the expression is something other than us. When something seems other than us the mind perceives it to be an external problem and often goes into trying to figure out the solution to that problem. This is a rabbit hole without resolve. You will constantly be looking for and trying the next best magical cure.  

When instead you begin to create a connection with this aspect of your self that’s expressing as a painful sensation you begin to realize your power again.  You realize that you can be with this expression too. That you can even move into and towards it rather than away from it.  That you don’t have to protect yourself from it, but rather that you can experience it. 

It is through this and through realizing your power and thus your capacity to work with these sensations that you can come back into oneness with yourself and with that which was previously perceived to be other than you.  This is how all healing happens in every category of pain.  In this way you begin to master those primitive survival responses of your nervous system.  Rather than letting them run the show of your life you develop greater awareness of your self beyond them and with that new options for how you can engage with these painful sensations begins to open up.  With that you stop seeing pain as the enemy that’s overtaking you and you discover how you can work with whatever sensation arises.  In this working together communication happens.  Vital communication.  Communication that is required for all systems to function and work coherently towards a common vision, in this case a physical vehicle that moves with ease.  

All healing happens through connection and coming back into oneness with yourself.  When we forget our wholeness we appear to ourselves to be broken. From the perception of brokenness no healing arises, only further brokenness.  To join with what’s present (even physical pain), rather wall yourself off from it, creates balance, harmony and an optimal environment for you to thrive within. 

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

Coherency: Personal & Collective

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Coherency: Personal & Collective 

Our individuated field & healing

StarCoherency is a state of unified wholeness.  When something is coherent it is a reflection of it knowing its wholeness.  In essence coherency is a result of knowing your unified nature.  

Lets take just your individuated self for a moment.  To know yourself as whole is to be coherent within yourself and to generate a vibrational field within and around your body that is energized and balanced.  If we view this in relationship to the body we have what we call health.  Each part within the body organism knowing the one larger whole system that it is part of and inseparable with, therefore everything functions in an organized or self-organizing manner.  Intelligence, in this case body intelligence, is expressed through appropriate functioning of the body system.  When one aspect, say an organ, gland, or even a cell,  reflects instead a state of disconnection, it loses its knowingness of its inherent wholeness, and this is what we call this disease.  Then we give it a bunch of fancy names depending on what areas/locations are reflecting this state of disconnection of lack of knowing wholeness.  

We can extrapolate that same idea of coherency to not only our physical bodies, but our emotional and mental bodies as well.  When any aspect of our individuated self doesn’t know itself it can manifest that disconnection within our body, emotions or mind, creating a state of disorganization in whatever aspect of individuated self is affected.  

What we call illness, manifesting in the physical, emotional or mental body, is an attempt at survival of a disconnected aspect of self.  When described in this light illness can be seen as the inherently intelligent response it is, however maladaptive it seems.  It is nevertheless only taking into consideration itself and not the whole because it doesn’t know the whole of which it is a part of.  It’s lost connection to its state of unification and is therefore doing the best it can to survive on its own because it doesn’t know anything else.  Sound familiar? This is the state of being that most of us are living within.  

To bring our bodies, emotions and minds back into health we must become coherent again.  No matter what quick fixes we attempt to use to get ourselves out of crisis, if we don’t address the disconnection of our self from our unified whole nature, then our quick fix attempts will eventually fail, as coherency has not been re-established.  This is the major pitfall of our current health/sick care system.   

Collective coherency 

Group fields & awakening

Mitosis of plasma field with particlesOur planet and the human species is currently in a time of massive transition.  We are shifting from being aware of self as an individuated being into a knowing of our interconnected nature, non-separate from all others.  This transition, and awakening if you will, is bursting our bubbles, ideas, concepts and beliefs about what this human experience and journey is all about.  It is awakening us to our soul body, which is that level of ourselves that is beyond our mental body, that inherently knows its wholeness and interconnectedness.  It has not forgotten nor is it disconnected from itself.  

With this the energies that are awakening are moving us from our current person-centered life, where the focus is about remembering our worth and achieving our dreams and aspirations, into a dimension of experiencing that is about what best serves the collective.  Rather than the individual being the center of our universe, the group or collective becomes the center.  We are just beginning to wake up and realize the strength and power that is found through coming into community and merging our awareness with an entire collective of beings, having access to all the learnings of each being that comprises the group.  This expansion of ourselves from individuated beings into collective beings comes forth through the process of the individual surrendering personal self, through faith and trust, into the mysterious unknown self.  Through this your personal awareness expands into a larger field of self and this is where the creation of coherent group fields comes alive.  

Group fields, such as what gets created during entrainment sessions, give you access to more of yourself.  If there is an aspect of yourself that is disconnected, your awareness of that is more readily available because that which is not in coherence with the larger whole at that level will be more easily seen when the contrast is greater.  Also energy inherently always wants to organize to the most coherent state, so simply being in a more energized, coherent field will amplify and organize your own field.  It is easier in a way to come into individual coherency through the group field effect as long as the group field is coherent.  

This is the next level of our evolution.  Knowing ourselves at the group level and generating coherent collective fields together.  At this point transparency is complete.  Nothing is hidden for there is nothing to hide.  All is known as the love that it is.  Self-protection, under our current understanding of it, is obsolete.  At this point our systems are open to that free exchange of energy and information between beings within the collective of which we are a part.  We recognize our wholeness as the collective, each being knowing its inherent unified state just as the cells of our physical body know this at their level of awareness.  We are no longer identified with the body, emotions or mind.  Our identity shifts to that of the larger, the soul/collective level.  This level of identity is highly impersonal and simply detects benefits and expresses itself as all of creation.  It sees creation as a mirror of itself, no longer separate from anything.  

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

You’ve never been broken

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You’ve never been broken 

Dissolving the story

Colorful infinity signIt is so engrained in our everyday ordinary consciousness to believe that we are somehow and in someway broken.  We often don’t even realize that we are believing this story because it is so all pervasive.  We simply live it and in that way don’t see it.  It is similar to how we don’t see how we believe that we are a body, we just assume it to be that way and don’t realize that we are believing it to be so.  

There are so many basic assumptions that we all have and in this way we live blindly not really recognizing what we are believing to be true.  Then when other people reinforce those assumptions we find ourselves in a box, created in our own mind, of what we believe to be possible.  This box becomes what we call our life.  Often it can feel quite limited and confining, yet we can’t see our way beyond the box because we can’t yet see our assumptions about what we believe to be true.  

The story that you are broken, that something is missing from you or wrong with you, or that there is some kind of problem with you is one of the biggest myths of all times, yet nearly all of us believe it.  Say something starts working differently in your body so you go to someone to tell you what’s wrong with you, to reinforce what you are already believing (that something is wrong) and give you a label or “reason” for it.  Or perhaps something in your life isn’t going as you like it to so you dissect what is wrong with you in attempt to fix the problem.  Or some part of you expresses or behaves differently than others and you try to hide it so people don’t see your “malfunction.”  We are doing this all of the time.  Viewing ourselves from the perspective of “what’s wrong with me” and how do I figure it out, fix it or hide it.

All of these examples are simply stories that either we have told ourselves or that others have told us.  None of them have ever been the truth.  Just a narrative that someone thought made sense and we adopted that belief for ourselves.   

Resting into unbrokenness  

Aligned in your wholeness

mandala fractal.jpgIf everything has been a story then where do we go from here?  This is a great place to arrive.  Once you can see the stories you’ve been believing you can begin to rewrite them.  This is to become the author of your own life and to realize the power you have to write a story that you desire to live.  

To write your story of unbrokenness you must believe that you have never been broken.  This means that you must erase in your own mind any idea of lack, missing, impaired, un-whole, broken, dysfunctional, inept, or malfunctioning idea you have of yourself.  You must stop insisting that you are, or ever have been any of those ideas, even when others have told you that you are.  As soon as you stop insisting that you are any of those things than you will also simultaneously stop creating those ideas in your external reality.  

Due to the fact that most of us have had these ideas of brokenness reinforced to us by authority figures, parents, doctors, teachers, friends and the media it can be challenging to remain aligned in our knowingness otherwise.  When the consciousness of the entire culture and environment within which you live seems to continue to insist on the theory of brokenness it requires that you nearly continually remind yourself of your innate already whole nature, as the tendency to conform to the cultural beliefs/myths is strong.  

The more aligned you become in this knowingness of your wholeness, the less you believe what the culture believes.  As this occurs you will still see others playing out this story of brokenness in their own mind bubbles and creating stories that feel bad to them, but you will no longer believe it to be the truth.  In that way you can be a source of illumination for those that are finding their way beyond the bubble of the story of brokenness.  They may not be able to fully embrace the light of awareness that your knowingness offers, but some of the light of a that larger truth of unbrokenness will shine through and to whatever degree they are ready they will receive it.  

The biggest gift you can give is to know yourself and be yourself.  In this way you are a guiding light and reflective mirror for others to see their true selves.  This is how we support other selves in waking up to seeing and being more of the truth of who they are so that the collective juice within which we all swim is that of our innate wholeness.  

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

The many parts of you

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The many parts of you 

All of your facets 

facesWe tend to identify with certain aspects of ourselves.  Perhaps you see yourself as kind, gentle, fiery, accommodating, wise, giving, helpful, stern, dedicated, anxious, angry, hard working, nurturing, caring, etc.  These are the aspects you most see in yourself in every day life so you believe that they are all of who you are.

The truth is that in each of us lies a little bit of everything.  For everything you can identify yourself as being the opposite (or polarity) of that exists and lives inside of you too.  Some people find this impossible to believe, however in order to have one side of the polarity you must have the other as well.  Meaning if you are kind, you also have mean parts, if you are giving, you also have parts that take, if you are hard working, you also have lazy parts, if you are anxious, you also have calm parts and if you are angry, you also have gentle parts.

The tendency is to only look at one end of the spectrum, that being the end in which you are more comfortable in knowing yourself as.  If the polarity or opposite part arises in your experience of yourself it tends to come along with judgment, shame and blame.  For example say you see yourself mostly as kind and helpful, however a situation arises where you say something you perceive as mean or you choose to not help someone.  What typically happens is that you begin to feel bad about yourself, or go into blame of others.  This is because you reject this opposite part of yourself and  deem it as unacceptable.  You in essence alienate a part of yourself and perpetuate separation (aka suffering).

Learning to live with all of your parts

Parts become a whole

So how do you learn to live with all of your parts, not just the ones you most identify yourself as?  You must recognize your tendency to judge yourself and others.  When judgment arises it’s a sure sign that you have gone into polarity and are seeing from a single perspective.  Once you recognize that you are in polarity bring in the opposite part.  Acknowledge that you are both what you believe yourself to be and also the opposite of it.  You are what you are judging; kind and mean, gentle and harsh, calm and anxious, right and wrong.

Once you acknowledge and accept both of these parts of yourself you can relax into a larger perspective of yourself and life.  A lightness comes into your experience as opposed to the harsh, heavy, serious judger.  Being able to see from an expanded perspective always brings with it more options.  You begin to get to choose which parts get to play and participate, and rather than being reactive your ability to respond develops.

SRI stage 2

SRI Stage 2

The more quickly you can embrace all of your parts the more empowered and free you will feel and be.  Stage 2 of Somato-Respiratory Integration (SRI) teaches you how to recognize, acknowledge and eventually accept all of your many parts.  Learning how to be relationship with all of the parts of you is vital to your health, personal growth and evolution.  Through embracing the parts you move into wholeness.  Just like each piece of the pie is required to make a whole pie, so to all of the parts of you must be included in order to embrace and realize your wholeness.

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