Not “Why?” But “WHAT?” ✨

 

 

Hi, good evening New Day sunshines! Thank you for taking the time to open this message.

 

I hope you are in the middle of savoring the last drops of this beautiful holiday weekend 🌅

 

What have I been up to this weekend? Well, watering the lawn first and foremost.

 

As I’ve mentioned previously, it turns out that having sod is a huge responsibility! 😂😱🙏

 

Other than that, I’ve mostly just hung around this weekend! Which has been nice.

 

My husband and I walked over to Sketchbook Brewing over on Main Street here in Skokie to enjoy some time outside last night 🍻

 

I also went downtown to spend a little time downtown on the Riverwalk with one of our brightest lights at New Day, and my good friend, Mila Apostolovic. 👯‍♀️

 

 

 

 

 

 

This past week before the holiday, Taylor and I were on a wild goose chase for something I was SURE I had written about one year ago 🪿🪿🪿

 

This was after I had one of our sunshines email me to ask me this question:

 

“I’ve been thinking about “WHY” I’m in “DISCOVER” again.  I don’t like it here LOL. Is it important to know why?”

 

Immediately upon reading this message I thought to myself, excitedly, “I WROTE ABOUT THIS EXACT TOPIC!” I recalled it being about a year ago.

 

Well, Taylor and I looked and looked. I found some things that were interesting and pertinent. But not what I was thinking of (I’ll include those other blogs below in case any of it speaks to you!)

 

Then today, out of seemingly nowhere, I remembered that I didn’t actually write about this topic. I foreshadowed it in a list of potential blog topics, but never got to it! 😂😂😂

 

Now it’s better late than never, I guess!

 

Here’s what I have so say today about this important topic 💥

 

First, I don’t believe in singular causes. True, there might be something way back, let’s say in childhood, that set the stage for what you are experiencing now.

 

But since then there has been layer upon layer of other events– physical, emotional, mental, internally generated, and seemingly “random” and externally generated.

 

There’s what happened to you. There’s how your nervous system and body reacted. There’s everything you’ve made it mean and then how you were then impacted by all of that!

 

Even in what you might think is a relatively straightforward situation, where let’s say you were hit by a car, it’s still not as simple as one might think.

 

There’s the state that your spine, nervous system, and body were in at the time that you were hit, and the state that they’ve been in since then, and how both of those set the stage for what happened and what continues to happen.

 

And there’s everything you’ve made it mean about yourself, and people, and life, and how all of that that has then impacted your ability to heal and grow past whatever happened 😮😮😮

 

There are some modalities out there, talk therapy being the main one I can think of, that can ascribe great importance to discovering the “why.”

 

 

 

 

You know who’s definitely NOT trying to figure out “why”? Andy! And he’s one of the most healed creatures I’ve ever met 😂

 

 

 

Sometimes determining the “why” could be healing and freeing.

 

Like let’s say, for example, you discovered that your longstanding issues with trust and giving of yourself to others all come back to a day when you were 4 years old and you handed your dad a pencil. And he rebuffed you, not wanting the pencil. And you felt hurt.

 

Let’s say you somehow realized this, perhaps through talk-therapy, perhaps in some other way, and then you were able to realize how a hurt 4 year old, with no sense of scale or proportion, has been running your life ever since then. And something about this realization changes everything for you. That could happen!

 

But how often does it happen instead, through therapy or through other exploratory processes, that you discover a potential “why” and it doesn’t help you at all? 🙋‍♀️

 

I meet new clients all the time who have a ton of reasons why they are having the problems they’re having.

 

Reasons a medical doctor or psychologist gave them. Reasons they discovered and figured out for themselves or by reading books. Even reasons that have to do with their nervous system being dysregulated and their need now to heal in their nervous systems!

 

And yet knowing “why” has not healed or changed their problems.

 

Knowing something in your brain is not at all the same as healing it through your nervous system and body.

 

Hence it is possible to have a huge story of what all happened to you and how it affected you over time, and instead of being freed from it, you’re now finding it more real and limiting than ever. That’s not helpful 🙏

 

Next time you find yourself asking any version of the following:

❓ Why do I have this pain (again)?
❓ Why is it on the left when it used to be on the right?
❓ Why aren’t I better yet?
❓ Why isn’t this working for me?

 

I want you to stop and 1) notice yourself in your energy state.

 

In order for you to be preoccupied with why something is happening, this is most likely a symptom that you are in an Energy Poor or low Energy Neutral state, and hence not being present with yourself in the moment 😰

 

You’re in your head. And you need to be in your body, in this present moment, for any possibility of change to occur ✨

 

 

 

2) Re-focus on WHAT.

 

What are you feeling that you don’t like? Is it a physical issue? If you can identify the area that is neurologically linked to the issue, start there.

 

And/or is it your disappointment, resentment, upset, “anxiety”? These are also physical (and your thoughts that these are separate issues or that these issues live in your brain, or somewhere else, and are not in fact playing through your nervous system into the body is NOT helping you either!) 💥

 

When we focus on “what” IS happening (not your thoughts about it or reactions to it, or you trying to “figure it out”) I want us to focus on breath, sensation, access to awareness, and access to movement.

 

“Pain” is not a sensation. Burning, heat, tinging, aching, electricity are all examples of sensations. Pain is your (not very detailed) awareness of a sensation, combined with your (stress inducing) conviction that “this shouldn’t be happening.” 💥💥💥

 

(By the way, I’ve got another great idea for a future blog called, “The pain game is the blame game. (And the blame game sucks– let’s play Hungry Hungry Hippos!)) 😂

 

If you can’t get to a sensation with your focus and all you sense is pain, that’s ok for now. It’s a start. I’d still rather have you doing that than remaining in your Energy Poor, fight-or-flight-based, tunnel vision that has you thinking “why?”.

 

3) Focus on WHAT, and breathe to it, and see if you can keep your focus on it for a few minutes WITHOUT the desire to change it, reduce it, OR even understand it.

 

I often say, “Imagine you were going to write a report about it and you needed to observe it fully” (and NOT change it because you need all the observations!)

 

In Donny Epstein’s work, of which Network Spinal care is a part of the bigger picture The 12 Stages of Healing, only full AAA (Awareness, Acknowledgement, and Acceptance) will transform how this issue is occurring for you through your nervous system.

 

AAA is NOT a mental process! If you start trying to “figure out” I want you to go right back to Step 1! 😂 #happenstothebestofus

 

Rather, AAA is a response in your nervous system.

 

4) Notice your nervous system in it’s unique way of responding when AAA is happening ✨✨✨

 

Did your breath get deeper or change? Did heat release or move? Did you suddenly get a new or different awareness of the physical area or how it occurs for you?

 

Get to know yourself anew through the way your nervous system responds when you give your full presence to the WHAT. That’s what’s going to heal you, and that is the nervous system retraining we are doing here as part of your care!

 

Some would also argue that the response, the alchemy through your nervous system that is occurring and that you will become aware of in the form of breath, sensation, changed awareness, and/or access to movement, is actually THE REAL YOU (spoiler: it’s not all these pains, problems, and traumas you’ve been trying to figure out and get rid of!) ✨☀️💥💗🌍🌀

 

So after all that you might still be wondering what about WHY. Will you ever know “why”?

 

Donny says that if you need to know why, it will come to you only AFTER getting present with WHAT and having your Awareness, Acknowledgement, and Acceptance of the energetic through your presence ✨

 

Trust that if you don’t know now, you don’t need to know 🌀

 

Thank you for co-creating our experience for the week with me, sunshine☀️

 

I look forward to seeing you tomorrow, Wednesday, Thursday, and Saturday (and beyond) ✨

 

 

Here are those other past messages that might speak to you and have you have the best experience possible in your are with me this week.

 

 

We can’t solve the problem from the level of consciousness that created the problem. . .

 

Excerpt:  

Do you ever wake up in the morning having had a stressful dream?

In your dream you were running around, trying to get somewhere and get something done, but more and more complicated and distracting things keep coming up, continually throwing you off course?

In this dream you kept trying to refocus and regroup on your mission or task, but somehow the goal seemed to keep getting further and further away from you the harder you tried 

If I were to name this type of dream, I would call it “hurrying and thwarted.” 

 

Read the rest BY CLICKING HERE

 

Open up to “aha!”

 

Excerpt:

When I’m adjusting you, I’m not standing there putting something into you that then just gradually depletes in the days after your adjustment 

I’m also not standing there taking something out of you (something bad) that gradually comes creeping back in the days after your adjustment 

Rather, I am helping you find the “aha” moments when you gain access to a new perspective and a new way of feeling and functioning through your nervous system.

No one is having an “aha” every moment of every day of their lives (unless you’re Jesus or Eckhart Tolle or something!) 

 

Read the rest BY CLICKING HERE

 

It’s supposed to be an interruption 💥

 

Excerpt:

So it does make sense when a newer client at New Day expresses a sense of stress and fear about the idea of coming to see me for care. They’re already feeling tight on time– how will they fit this in? 

“And now she’s telling me to come to Intro to Care?!”  It can be overwhelming sometimes.

On another level though, I see this perception of scarcity around time and energy as a symptom, indicative of just how much the person can benefit from Network Spinal care.

The care you receive from me isn’t a battering ram that we use to force you to get better (whether you like it or not) 

It’s a PATTERN INTERRUPTION 

 

Read the rest BY CLICKING HERE