you are enough

You Don’t Need to Do More

Dr. Amanda Love 1 Comment

YOU DON’T NEED TO DO MORE

Be as you are

Nearly all of us have bought into the story that we need to do more and more and more.  It’s as though we could give everything we’ve got to give and somehow we still come up short in what we think we need to give.  The doing, and the thoughts of all the doing, are exhausting.  We then wonder why we are so tired and depleted, and yet we keep attempting to give more than we’ve got to give.  What happens when we run out of fuel, but we keep giving anyways?  Breakdown.  Breakdown of our body, our mind and our lives.  We see the breakdown and still we don’t stop trying to give more than we’ve got to give.  

Where does this insatiable need to do more come from?  It comes from a deep seated belief that we are not enough.  We think that if we can somehow give or do more, then we can bridge the gap between our not enoughness and what we think we need to give in order for it to be enough.  It’s as if all of our doing can somehow compensate for our sense of not being enough in/as our natural state of being.  As an extension of this, our sense of not enoughness often shows up as a feeling of lack in abundance of resources.  We give or do more, more, more so that we don’t feel this lack of enoughness.  We fear that if we don’t over-give or over-do then we won’t have what we need or we won’t be taken care of.  So we are like slaves to our avoidance of feeling the not enoughness that we fear we are.  

It’s an edge for many of us to simply be rested as ourselves without feeling the inner obligation, necessity, or burden to do or give more than is natural for us to give or do.  We hope that our doing will make us feel like we are enough.  We try to get to enough through our giving rather than simply being enough.  It’s a losing game, because we can never feel or experience what we don’t first become.  We must become enough before we will experience the feelings of enoughness.  Nothing we do can will ever sustainably get us to feeling complete.  We are attempting to do it backwards.  We somehow think that we have to prove, attain or show our worthiness in order to experience it.  Yet the recognition or realization of our enoughness, in our already state of being as we are, is the answer to the end of feeling not enough.  When we see ourselves and what we have to naturally give as enough in its expression, then so it is.  This doesn’t always mean that the people or things in our life will always get what they want from us, but it does mean that you will be alignment with yourself as you are.   

A WORLD OF ENOUGHNESS 

Abundant in abundance

A world of absolute and complete enoughness.  Can you even imagine what that would feel or be like?  Imagination is exactly what we need.  Imagination that is rooted in knowing that it is already so.  In this way our imaginations can create the playing field of experience to match what we are already convicted in to be true.  This is the way it works.  It’s already working this way.  It’s simply that what we are currently convicted in is lack of enoughness of self, and the projection of that is the experience of lack in this world.  One might say that we are abundant in lack.  There is no real lack, but only the perception of it.  That is true for how we view ourselves and the world.  We can see ourselves as not enough, but we can never actually be not enough.  This is not to say that other flavors, resources or beings might not be needed in certain situations in life, but just because something more or else is needed has nothing to do with our inherent enoughness.  

We don’t need to be everything, we just need to be ourselves.  Being ourselves is enough even if more is needed.  We don’t have be the more.  This is why there are billions of beings on this planet.  Each being has the responsibility to be itself, nothing more and nothing less.  Neither is even possible.  You can always and only be what you are.  You can try to be more, but this where burnout and breakdown occurs.  Give over trying to be it all in order to be enough, and let in all of the other beings in this life to support whatever is needed in each and every moment.  We are not designed to do it all or be it all rather we are designed to be who we are, just as we are.  

It takes courage to not take it all on as yours.  Courage to trust that you being you is enough.  That you can love yourself just as you are and you don’t have to first be more.  Give what you want to give.  Do what you want to do.  Let whatever your giving and doing is be enough.  It is.  Just because you think that other people, or the situations of your life, want or need more of you than you have capacity to give or be, it’s ok to let it be or let them want.  It’s ok if they are disappointed or upset and/or if you are disappointed in yourself.  Come back to knowing that you are enough in your current state of giving, being and doing.  Get more and more convicted in the knowing of your enoughness.  The paradox is that the less you attempt to be more than you are, the more of you that you’ll have to give.  

Knowing you are enough is the same as loving yourself.  Honor who you are.  Stop wishing you could somehow be different or more.  That’s unkind, and if you value kindness then start with yourself.  You will naturally grow, expand and develop as a being, but none of that growth makes you more than you already are in this moment.  You are complete and enough right now in exactly whatever it is you give and do.  More giving or doing doesn’t make you more. Recognize your enoughness now and you will experience a world of enough.  A world that is abundant in abundance rather than abundant in lack.  It all starts and ends in how you view it.  How you see, so it is.  

Dr. Amanda Love, Network Spinal Analysis Chiropractor, Boulder, Colorado

Breaking Up with Shame

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BREAKING UP WITH SHAME 

Exposing our hidden selves

Shame, which is an underlying sense that we ourselves are somehow bad or wrong, is a well grooved inner pathway for most.  Some people might first default to blame, which is simply shame projected outwards onto others.  Why do we carry around with us this sense that we are, or could be, bad or wrong?  Why is it that when other people disagree with how we are, or have opinions about how we should be, that we nearly immediately go into self-defense in the form of hatred or rejection of ourselves?  Shame is one of the most pervasive and debilitating feeling states.  When we feel it we tend to freeze, withdraw and judge ourselves.  We think thoughts along the lines of “if only I could be better or different than I am, then I wouldn’t be deficient, or bad or wrong, and people would love and include me.”  Talk about one of the most painful states of being in which there seems to be no good way out.  From the perspective of shame the only answer is for you to be different or better than you are in order to be loved and accepted.  This is battle that you will always end up losing.  You will lose because your sense of being loved and included is outside of you, and you will forever be chasing it because being loved and included is the most primary of all human needs and wants.  

We have endless strategies to avoid feeling shame.  One of the most primary ones is to stay hidden, to not allow others to see who we are, to put up fronts and be inauthentic so that people won’t judge us.  If we don’t let people see us then they can’t reject us or tell us that we are wrong.  If there is no one “real” at home inside of us for people to see then we can’t be accountable to being “wrong”.  If we just stay quiet enough, keep the peace, pretend to not know much including knowing who we are or what value we have to contribute or share, then we can avoid the painstaking judgment of others.  That is until we can’t.  There will be a time when someone judges us, when they disagree with us, when they perceive some kind of insufficiency in our actions or beingness.  There is no hiding then.  The cloak is off and we are exposed.  This is when the shame gets in.  We might react in anger, recoil in self-defense, or completely cut ourselves off from our own heart.  We are left with the feeling that we are bad and wrong, and often beating ourselves up about it or lashing out at others.  

You might be wondering where does shame come from.  It’s simple really.  It comes from a belief that you are bad or wrong.  Where did the belief come from?  The belief in badness or wrongness is such a pervasive societal belief that you would be hard pressed not to have pick it up somewhere along your human journey.  Maybe someone told you were bad or wrong when you were growing up.  Perhaps you learned it socially through peers groups, in school, or in your family.  It’s actually not so important where you picked up the belief, rather what is important is that you identify the belief living inside of yourself.  That you see it and recognize that you are now the source of it.  You are the one that keeps that belief alive, active, and true for you in your own psyche. 

NEVER BEEN WRONG 

Graceful learning

What if you’ve never ever been wrong?  Seems like a bold question, eh?  Would you believe it if I told you that you never have been?  For a moment you might feel some relief at that thought, but most people will go on to validate for themselves how it’s not true.  They will conjure up all of the times they’ve been bad or wrong in the past.  They will reinforce the belief in their wrongness or badness for themselves.  Most people don’t really want to believe that they are right and good.  When I speak about right and wrong as it relates to us as beings, I am not talking about detailed or factual information.  Yes you can be inaccurate about facts, or in recalling certain details, or about information.  What I am pointing to rather is who you are, including the things that you do and say.  If someone is frequently found to be insisting on their rightness by needing to be right about facts and information it’s often because they feel deeply wrong inside as to who they are.  It’s simply another shame avoidance strategy.  

Imagine for a minute if you could really embrace non-badness and non-wrongness.  If that could really be a reality for you.  How would you feel?  For most I would imagine that you would feel some sense of freedom.  It would be the end of self-doubt, the end of self-hatred and the beginning of an availability to life that you might have never experienced before.  See most of what we believe to be bad/good or wrong/right is based on what other people think or what culture/society says we should be like.  It’s not based on our own knowing.  If it was we would all just be being ourselves and wouldn’t think twice about it.  But almost no one is being fully and authentically who they are all of the time.  

Let’s talk about actions and things we say.  First of all people who love themselves and know that they are right and good don’t harm other people.  There simply isn’t motivation for it.  Doing harm to others is an outward expression that comes from a deep sense of self-hatred and self-rejection (i.e. shame).  Believe it or not, and it’s of course up to you to choose for yourself, but there are no actions or words that are bad or wrong.  Yikes.  You might disagree and you are more than welcome too, however the shame cycle never ends for you then.  You perceive some action or word as wrong in another.  You project that wrongness onto that person who now feels shame from your projection regarding their words or actions.  In response they act in some distorted fashion in order to not feel the shame.  Same goes for your own words and actions. What we perceive and feel we create.  The cycle continues unchecked into infinity.  

So then what about learning?  How do we learn if we don’t feel shame?  How do we up level and become more refined, loving and aware creatures towards ourselves and others?  Well again believe it or not, we don’t have to be bad or wrong in order to learn, and learning doesn’t mean that we are/were bad or wrong.  People can give their opinion to us, of something we did or shared, without us going into shame.  We can both stay open to the feedback and then decide what we want to do with that information.  Is there something constructive that we could learn from that person’s information without going into wrongness?  Could we just receive that information and note it or integrate it.  Perhaps there is nothing bad or wrong about what we did or didn’t do, but only learning to be had.  Also what if when you shared your experience of others with them you simply shared impact rather than judgment.  What if you took accountability for how you feel about what occurred while still providing information to another person about how their words/behaviors impacted you.  This is a high level skill yet it is learnable.  

We are all constantly learning and it doesn’t mean we are bad or wrong.  When you get this you can break up with shame.  While at one stage of your development perhaps shame was a good learning strategy for you, it’s also one that at some point quits serving you.  It limits your growth and keeps you disconnected from yourself, which in turn helps and serves no one. 

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

THE GIFT OF YOURSELF

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THE GIFT OF YOURSELF 

You are the gift you give

For many people there is an innate drive to give to others.  To serve, help, and support others generally generates good feelings inside of us as long as our giving comes from a place of true desire rather than obligation or agenda.  We are taught early on that we must learn skills, trades or other tools and means in order to have something to give.  Those things become our contribution to others.  This is the whole idea of work, and of trading services and resources.  

While our skills, services and abilities can add value to people’s lives and create ease, flow or greater efficiency in the world, they are not the gift that we give.  Two different people can have similar skills, services or abilities and yet they give an entirely different gift.  Sure on the surface it may seem that two architects can write up similar plans for a building, and yet they produce very different feels or results with their plans.  You may wonder why this is so.  It is so, because it is the energy of you that brings the gift of what gets produced.  It is the heart, the core of who you are, that is the actual gift you give.

Now this may seem very obvious to you conceptually.  Of course you understand that it’s you and the not the thing, but also notice how much of your mental and physical energy you spend on searching for the next cool thing you are going to create, the next career you will have, the next relationship you will start, all the while thinking that it will be your new purpose, the new thing that will define you and give you some sense of contribution.  It is very easy to pin the thing, meaning it is very easy for us to say “oh there is this thing that I can do or give to others and that makes my existence worthwhile.”  To say to yourself “I created this product, shared this service with others or did this thing and it changed people’s life, it’s so amazing!”  It is innocent enough and perhaps even true that your skill or ability did change their life and yet it is still not the gift you give.  

See in order to recognize the gift, you must be able to recognize and see yourself.  We are quite blind and distorted in our perspectives of how we view our own self.  We are not very clear mirrors for our own reflection.  We tend to not view ourselves as very worthwhile in general and therefore it’s easier to project our goodness on things we do rather than on our own selves.  We project our worth onto things.  Then to top it off the world reinforces all of our do-gooding all the while also telling us that if we think too highly of ourselves we are selfish and arrogant. Oh the conundrum! 

BEING WORTH 

Self-gratitude

Unless you know your worth you can’t give, because your giving is giving you.  If you see nothing of value in and of yourself, naked and without skills, abilities and stuff, then nothing will radiate out of you.  Sure you will still do stuff, create stuff and function in the world, but you will grow tired because you are running on empty inside trying to generate worth through what you do.  Until you know how worthy you are you will always have agenda, because you will always be trying to get love rather than realizing you are it.

Your radiance is your gift.  How you shine is your gift. It is really, really simple.  You could never attain worth or get more worthy and valuable based on any skill or ability that you may have or acquire.  Again it doesn’t mean that your skills won’t help out the ease and flow of this human existence, but they are not your service.  You are your service independent of anything that is done.

Since it is impossible to increase our worth this begs the question of how do we elevate our sense of self-worth.  Our sense of self-worth and our actual self-worth are two very different things.  The journey is in how we bridge the seeming gap in between without it being based on things that we accomplish or do.  Since most of our confidence comes through feats of walking into the fire of our own fears and limitations it is based in accomplishment or doing.  

There is one fast and short easy way to elevate our sense of self-worth and that is gratitude.  Gratitude for ourselves just the way we are in any given moment.  Appreciating the quirks, oddities, subtleties, nuances, particularities, and the way that we are exactly as we are.  Ending the desire to change ourselves or make ourselves different in any way brings greater and greater self-acceptance.  

Anything other than total gratitude for self is self-absorption, self-denial, self-hatred and the true selfishness.  It’s the true selfishness because when we don’t feel amazing about ourselves then we focus on ourselves.  We focus on what’s wrong with us and how to be different or better.  When we are focused on ourselves our energy goes in rather than radiating out.  The result is that we feel depleted rather than energized.  Giving/being ourselves is energizing because it’s effortless.  It doesn’t need to be more or less.  It is complete in and off itself.  None of this means that we won’t grow or change, but instead simply that growth will come through acceptance of self rather than through non-acceptance.  

Develop a daily practice of self-gratitude, not for what you do, but for who you are.  Nothing added, nothing subtracted.  Just you as you are.  This will be your portal into a sense of stable, infinite self-worth where you will naturally radiate the gift that you are.   

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