I was a Guest on A Podcast

I recently was a guest on my friend Rob Cook's podcast! It was so fun! We explored possibilities in life and health and many other topics of wonder.

 Here are the details:

 Ep 93 Sara O’Neill “Upstream Healing“

 Sara is a chiropractor, an Olympic-style weightlifter, and a new 3 Principles coach.  As she discovers more about the Truth of what a human being is, Sara sees more and more that what she learned in school as the truth about the human body, is not necessarily Truth. The deeper Truth that Sara now sees, is that the body heals as we drop thought, not as we control stressful thinking. The more Sara sees Truth, the more she sees that understanding who we are at our core is where True healing happens.

 The 3PGC’s podcast called “We’re Listening.  A Community Where All Voices Are Heard” hosted by Rob Cook. 

 Specific Episode Link:

 https://stream.redcircle.com/episodes/19eae1ef-60ba-4407-a95a-6b793c5fc809/stream.mp3

  The Podcast Link: 

https://redcircle.com/shows/we-re-listening

Transformative Coaching looks to transform a person's understanding of how life works. This allows for one's innate wisdom and wellbeing to express fully and easily. By extension, your life transforms effortlessly.

 A coaching session by its nature is a facilitated conversation of possibility and wonder. Exploring together the space within all of us that is the joy and essence of who we are.

 Some people work with a Transformative Coach to have a nicer experience of life or to improve a certain area of life such as relationships, money, anxiety or sports performance. A transformative coaching session is very different from other forms of coaching or counselling. We generally don't go into painful past events or relive traumas. The conversation is more of an exploration of what life looks like from our different perspectives. The results and change I've seen with people since looking in this direction are foundational, effortless and beautiful.

 If you or someone you know (anywhere in the world) would like to explore with me how this could help you, use this link to book a 30-minute exploratory session with her over Zoom or in person:

 Book now

 For more information check out our new website page about transformative coaching or email drsaraoneill@gmail.com.

New Possibilities

Our physical bodies are affected negatively by three things. These are called the three T's by the originator of chiropractic, D.D. Palmer.

 Trauma, Toxins and Thoughts.

 Trauma is anything physical from a car accident to working out at the gym. We generally heal from physical traumas quickly in a bell curve type pattern when the physical event is over. Initially, we are sore and then that tops out and we return down to feeling good.

 Toxins are anything chemical that comes into our bodies that takes extra effort by the body to process through. This can be medications, pesticides, cigarette smoke, alcohol. You get the picture. When we stop inputting the toxin and it clears from our system any negative effects also leave.

 Thoughts are similar yet an often overlooked category. We feel feelings in direct relation to the types or quality of our thoughts. Happy thoughts create happy feelings and sad thoughts create sad feelings. Both these categories of thought/feelings have an impact on the spine and the body via creating a posture and physiology to match.

 In the same way as the physical and chemical categories, when we stop inputting Thought we return to our factory default settings. This is a space within all of us deeper than either the feeling of happy or sad.

 Our innate peace and wellbeing that is at the core of who we all are.

  Transformative Coaching Announcement

In the last few years, I have really seen a need for people to experience and live from their deeper, natural state of wellbeing and peace. It just happens to be our default nature.

 I am pleased to announce that we are adding a new service to the office to meet this opportunity.

 Dr. Sara O'Neill is now offering Transformative Coaching. Transformative Coaching looks to transform a person's default understanding of how life works. This allows for one's innate wisdom and wellbeing to express fully and easily. By extension, your life transforms effortlessly.

 Some people work with a Transformative Coach to have a nicer experience of life or to improve a certain area of life such as relationships, money, anxiety, or sports performance. A transformative coaching session is very different from other forms of coaching or counselling. We generally don't go into painful past events or relive traumas.

 If you would like to explore with Dr. Sara how you could work with her in this capacity, use this link to book a 30 minute exploratory session with her over Zoom:  Book 30 minutes with Dr. Sara

Factory Defaults

Restoring the factory default settings is an analogy I use a lot in relation to getting a spinal entrainment. 

 With Network Spinal Care I coach and guide your nervous system to self-realize that it's built up un-useful tension patterns negatively affecting one's life experience on physical, emotional and spiritual levels. I see myself as a coach pointing you to your already whole state.

 The human nervous system, the brain and spinal cord, is elegantly designed to return to its original settings once handling a problem is done.

 We return to a state of wellbeing automatically.

 What happens if we think the "problem" is never done?

 Well, then the "problem handling" software keeps on going...and going...and going.

 A teacher of mine, Michael Neill, recently sent this email out from a book he wrote called "Supercoach":

 As I wrote in Supercoach: A quick look into a baby’s eyes will reveal that we are born at peace – in tune with the infinite, in touch with our bliss, resting in the well of our being. But even as babies, our very human needs from time to time interfere with our connection with this innate well-being. We experience physical discomfort and because we do not yet understand the source of that discomfort, we do the best we can – scream bloody murder! Then, to our delight and amazement, someone comes and ‘makes it better’ – they feed our hunger, dry our bottom, entertain our nascent brains with funny noises and rollercoaster type movements, and before we know it, we are nestled back into the bosom of our innate well-being.

 Over time, it is the most natural thing in the world for us to begin to connect and even attribute that return to well-being to the people or activities that seem to be causing it – we are OK because Mummy loves us, we are OK because Daddy protects us, we are OK because the people around us, for the most part, appear to have our well-being at heart. And then one day we do something in our joy that Mummy or Daddy doesn’t like – we splash colours on a wall, or cry when Daddy’s tired, and suddenly the ocean of love we are used to swimming in is filled with sharks and other monsters. Before long, we have bought into the myth of love and well-being being outside us, and the need for a persona is born.

 Well-being – happiness, connection, love, peace, spirit – is our essential nature. So, all our attempts to capture these feelings from out in the world, no matter how well intended and practically followed, are doomed to fail. Not because happiness and well-being are unattainable, but simply because it is impossible to find what has never been lost.

 So much of what we are striving for is there for the taking, it makes less and less sense to work so hard for what is already ours. When you don’t drink rat poison, you don’t need an antidote. And when planning and remembering your way out of the present moment, separating yourself out from the whole, and thinking your way out of well-being stops seeming like a good idea, you do it less and less.

 At some point, the system resets, and you get a fresh start.

 Will you get caught up again in the illusion?

 Experience promises us no less. But a part of the kindness of the design is that you don’t only get a second chance – you get a third, and a fourth, and a fortieth.

 And since presence, connectedness, and well-being are a part of the factory default, you’re only ever one insight away from everything you’ve been working so hard to achieve!

Happy Summer Holidays!

As we head into summer, I wanted to wish everyone happy summer holidays.

This Friday is Canada Day and I realized that to me, Canada Day is about togetherness and belonging as a nation. For everyone who wants to belong. By nation I don’t mean the country, the politics or the foreign policy. I mean the nation as the people. All the people. All the different people.

It's my neighbour who helped me find my wayward cat yesterday, it's the man who owns the local Halal butcher shop near me, it's the furnace repair guy who the whole neighbourhood shoveled his truck out, twice, on his way back to the main road in a blizzard, it's my daughters’ friend who wonders if she's a lesbian, it's the people 4 streets over who maintain the community skating rink. It's the people. It's all of us. It's the newest Canadian from India I met last week, while playing basketball, who is concerned about keeping warm this winter. It's the homeless people sleeping in the woods near my house.

All of us who are all different from each other. And yet we all have similar hopes and dreams. We all want to feel love. We all want to be warm and safe.

The nation is the people. As we evolve, we grow and learn. We make mistakes. We create community. We love our individuality.

I love my neighbours. I love all of our differences.

We are all Canadians. We are all human.

Happy Summertime!

With Love,

Dr. Sara

I Cannot Lose Myself

Anxiety and The Fear of Losing Yourself

I used to be afraid of my feelings. I would be caught up in fearful anxiousness to the point of severe panic attacks. I was also afraid of going into an attack. What if I didn't come out? What if I never feel good again? I thought that I was somehow broken and wrong.

I have found in practice that this is a fairly common misunderstanding of how feelings and thoughts work in our body-mind. Many people experience this. I can tell you it's no fun.

I came across this piece of writing by Jeff Foster recently and found that it encapsulated this phenomenon better than I've heard before and gives lovely direction as to the question everyone asks which is "What do I do about it?".

"I Cannot Lose Myself" by Jeff Foster, author and poet

I used to be terrified of feelings, my own feelings and the feelings of others.

I believed that if I went too deeply into feelings, if I let them exist for too long in me, if I allowed them to live in my body, I would go mad, or I would be destroyed by them somehow. Or they would never leave, and I would get “stuck” in them forever, sucked into their dark heart, no way out.

I feared “losing myself” in feelings.

I feared my own fear. I had anxiety about having anxiety. I was angry with my own anger. Like many, I believed that I had dark, sinful, dangerous energies inside of me, and that I had to avoid these ‘demons’ at all costs. This was all a child’s superstition, of course, totally reasonable conclusions for an innocent child to make.

But as I stepped into presence, into my adult and out of my trauma, I came to realise that ALL feelings are safe, even the super intense ones. They come and go in the body. They are not permanent, and they just want to be felt, blessed, loved, offered safe passage, and move on.

I did not have to fear or resist my feelings any longer, even the intense and uncomfortable ones. I could just relax, breathe, open, surrender, trust, and let them pass through.

I cannot lose myself for I am present even at the heart of loss.

With Love

Dr. Sara

Experiencing Our Experience

"If the only thing people learned, was not to be afraid of their experience, that alone would change the world." - Sydney Banks

Many teachers talk about the need to be present with our experience of the world or our experience of our body.

The way you think of your body has a big effect on the actual health of your body. An uncomfortable sensation can turn into lasting chronic pain if you add a lot of negative emotion to it or continuously tell yourself that it shouldn't feel that way.

More than half of the experience of pain is from heightened emotions. If you can be present with your experience of your painful body part without any emotion or story about how it ought to be different or what it means, the actual sensation is much different and lessened in severity.

The same is true of how we talk about our bodies. One often hears people talking about their bad back or "oh, that's just my bum knee". It seems mild however we are dismissing our own bodies as bad and ignoring the message for change within the actual pain or sensation. Practice listening to your own language to see if you have body parts you don't value.

But what message is there in the pain or dysfunction? It just hurts and I don't like it.

When we can be fully present in a state of no thought with our body the sensation or pain transmutes. It can move to another spot. It can reduce or go away. It can change into pure emotion that you weren't allowing space for. It can intensify and then turn into joy or certainty. It can be the messenger for an insight about something in your life.

The wisdom of an insight can be literally anything. For example, it might be as simple as "oh wow, I need to stretch my arm" "Strengthening my body might help this, I wonder if there are any videos on YouTube" or so-called bigger things like "I need to quit my job". One of the most common things I hear from people is "well I know I should do..." We often know.

We suffer when we’re feeling powerless or helpless. Not from pain itself.

What do we do when we feel helpless or powerless? We may freeze up, withdraw or roll up into a ball. We may try to self-talk our way through it: “it’s gonna be alright, you’re going to get through this”. We may get angry or upset and lash out. We may develop a neurotic habit like an obsessive compulsion. This list is not exhaustive by any means.

When we suffer, we may actively deny/ignore/disconnect from the feeling of helplessness. Over time, this can become an unconscious habit or M.O. Which can further evolve into a part of our personality. This in turn can create more pain. So, while we suffer, we try to avoid feeling helpless.

The remedy for suffering is to acknowledge and accept in the moment that we are feeling helpless and that nothing is working. The more fully we can accept this, feeling it with our bodies, a transformation occurs. It’s as if a vortex opens up, our defences soften, energy can flow once again which leads us to our inner resourcefulness.

The antidote to feeling helpless is to reconnect to our inner resources such as peace, strength, patience, love and flow.

The Power of Subtlety

I am often asked "Why do you use such a light touch?" "Don't you need to use more force to create a structural change?" "Why so subtle?"

The power is in the subtlety or rather the depth of force, the lightness. More force doesn't result in more effectiveness. If you want your spouse or children to empty the dishwasher, for example, being more and more forceful with your request doesn't get them moving quicker.

If my contacts weren't so subtle, your brain wouldn’t know to pay attention to them. If the touch was more forceful or obvious, the brain would have a tendency to ignore it.

We live in a world of constant information flow and stimuli. Many people are not used to consciously paying attention to subtlety. It can take a lot to get our attention these days. When you start to notice the more subtle sensations in life, the world around us comes alive. Sunsets have brighter colours, food tastes more delicious, and the voice of a family member is sweeter.

From a neurological point of view, whenever something touches us, whether we bump into someone or we’re having a massage, we feel the touch and depth of touch because we have all kinds of receptors in our tissues: in the skin, in the muscles and in the connective tissue. These receptors send information to the brain when they’re stimulated. This is what gives us a sense of what is touching us, how deeply, and for how long. Different types of receptors are activated by different types of touch.

The human brain is estimated to use roughly 20% of the body’s energy. With information traveling at 260 mph, more than 100,000 chemical reactions occurring per second, 86 billion cells and over 10,000 types of neurons, the human brain is probably the most complex entity that is known.

With over 100,000 chemical reactions happening at any given time, how is it that we can pay attention to anything? Your brain has evolved to be able to parse and discern what is important to pay attention to and what’s not. It’s at this level of consciousness that a gentle touch is better able to get the brain’s attention.

Once the brain is aware, it’s able to set into motion changes in muscle tension, blood flow, breathing, heart rate, … and the healing begins.

If you’re still not convinced that a small stimulus can cause major change in the body, consider the gentle caress of a lover, or when you’ve had someone give you a look of judgement and shaming. In both cases your body is filled with emotion, tension and energy, albeit very different types of emotions, tensions and energy.

Have you ever been so angry or upset only to have someone lovingly put their hand on your shoulder? You can feel your body starting to calm down, slow down and your mind starts to settle.

A gentle subtle touch can have a huge impact on our bodies.

The gentle touches that I make along your spine are designed not only to get your brain’s attention; They are designed to create physical changes in structure, changes in how your energy flows, and changes in levels of consciousness; all of this gives your brain a chance to integrate information to allow for healing properties to evolve.

That is the power of subtle touch.

Shared Humanity is Where It’s At

Out beyond the ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing, there is a field.

I will meet you there.

When the soul lies down in that grass,

the world is too full to talk about.

Ideas, language, even the phrase “each other” doesn’t make any sense

Rumi

---

I’ve recently been looking in the direction of differences and sameness, group vs individual, the body vs a relational person interacting and I keep coming back to the realization that it’s all one, we are all one or it’s all one solution.

Humans are all very different one of the other. And yet we are all humans. We have a shared humanity. Deep down all people have the same needs and wants. I might want chocolate and you might want vanilla but everybody wants ice cream. We want to feel safe and loved and warm at night.

What is the same between you and me and the guy down the street is that we all have our own inner wisdom. A knowing that feels expansive and is separate from any supposed rational explanation. Our bodies are the interface between this wisdom and the “real” world around us. Our spine and nervous system is the literal software/hardware that runs this interface between you and the world you perceive as real.

In waking up to this deeper aspect or dimension of ourselves we realize that life happens from inside of us outwards. Many teachers in the wellness field encourage us to “look within”. Most of us look within and see lots of habits of thought, judgmental thinking, and old programs. If you stay looking in that direction, you’ll find that who we are is beneath all this thinking. We are not our thinking. It’s not even real. It’s an illusion.

In the depths of who we are there is expanding joy, peace, compassion, infinite creativity and unconditional love. At this level or in this space within ourselves we realize that there is a oneness to all humans, a shared humanity.

This space is untouched by circumstance, past trauma, or current world stressful event. It’s always there, always who you are and always whole.

Spinal entrainments can guide you to the doorway or the gateway to this space and then it's up to you to step in and it's really up to you to learn to live from this space.

Lie Back

I recently was on a group Masterclass session with Dr. Dicken Bettinger, clinical psychologist and founder of 3 principles mentoring.

He read the most beautiful poem to us in his most relaxing beautiful voice. The poem is First Lesson by Philip Booth.

The author is teaching his little daughter to swim in the ocean and it’s a beautiful metaphor for learning to swim in the flow of life.

Here is the poem for your inspiration:

First Lesson

Lie back daughter, let your head
be tipped back in the cup of my hand.
Gently, and I will hold you. Spread
your arms wide, lie out on the stream
and look high at the gulls. A dead-
man's float is face down. You will dive
and swim soon enough where this tidewater
ebbs to the sea. Daughter, believe
me, when you tire on the long thrash
to your island, lie up, and survive.
As you float now, where I held you
and let go, remember when fear
cramps your heart what I told you:
lie gently and wide to the light-year
stars, lie back, and the sea will hold you.

~Philip Booth

Listening to Our Deeper Self

There are many ways or pathways to listening to ourselves

People talk about their own sense of themselves quite differently. Different types of spiritual teachers or mental health practitioners have different words and definitions for following your own wisdom.

I hear about listening to your heart, not your head. Listen to your gut. Sometimes these 3 different intelligences we have within us may be telling us 3 different things. Head, heart or gut? Who to listen to? What do I do? What choice do I make?

Our thoughts are very powerful in that they can take control of our neurology. Our brain and nervous system can’t tell the difference between the thought of a future negative event or the actual event itself. Both create stress. We are wired up to create emotions based on our thoughts. Your feelings in any given moment are a clue to your predominant thoughts. If you are scared; you are thinking scary thoughts. If you are angry; you are thinking angry thoughts.

Being aware of how thoughts and feelings or emotions work in our body is one step towards one type of listening. Practice this without judgement. Ok, I feel frustrated. I’m thinking frustrated thoughts. We then see pretty quick that we then have a choice. Do you want to feel frustrated? The answer might be yes. Maybe no. The one answering this is the deeper part of ourselves that is always at peace.

Then people often want to control their thoughts “Well I will only think joyful thoughts because I want to feel joyful.” Ok. This will work for a while. Then life happens and we might feel sad or angry or happy or whatever.

When we realize that we live in the feeling of our thoughts a magical space can open up. Things don’t look quite so solid anymore. It’s just a thought and I can turn around and think again, and again, and again as many times as I want. It’s like having a bright orange crayon and a blank sheet of paper to create over and over and over again.

And underneath it all, is who we really are, peaceful, loving, at rest. This is the part of you to listen to. It speaks most often when we feel good. You know it’s the ruth you are hearing when there is a beautiful feeling alongside. Some describe this as just knowing, feeling spaciousness, expansiveness, joy, calmness, or clarity. It might be an uncomfortable knowing but you are calm and you know what to do or what you want.

Entrainments help to clear your nervous system of built-up stress and the effects of our thinking so you can connect more easily with your own clarity and knowing. With who you really are.