Get Out of Jail Free

Get Out of Jail Free

Have you ever had one of those days when you felt really free? Expansive, light, with your heart as open as the sky. At least that’s how I feel when I am feeling free.

Freedom is a funny thing. We talk about it a lot. We fight and kill in freedom’s name. We have made laws about how it will look, what it means. We lock each other up to take it away.

While incarceration is often a crummy thing, it by itself doesn’t take away our freedom. No more than the horrible job we say we can’t quit, the abusive relationship, the poverty, or whatever it is that seems like our prison.

Where we lose our freedom is in our minds. One negative notion, one bit of mislearning, one limiting idea at a time we extrude our bars of thought, stronger than any titanium prison could be. We set them up around us, some nearer, some farther, and then, when we perceive that we can’t get past them, we look out between the bars to find someone or something to blame.

One notion, one mislearning, one idea at a time.

We have ourselves convinced that we are trapped. So we become reactive, and scared, and angry, and our behavior stems from this jangly place, and we argue pointlessly, treat each other cruelly, and throw our fists and shoot our guns to protect the cell we created.

So what do we do? Choose. One choice at a time, we can find our sense of freedom, we can find our joy, we can live our natural life.

What am I choosing unconsciously? How do I know what I’m choosing? All I have to do is look at my life. Is my life full of joy and easy, prosperity, health, and satisfaction? Or not? When I see the places where my life is not quite there, I see where I’ve placed my bars.

And that let’s me know where I am holding on, clenching, full of fear, or anger, or something else. that let’s me know where I can relax. As I relax, I can integrate my old experiences, I can change my mislearning, I can choose what I want to believe.

I can choose.

This is one of the most powerful things we can ever do, to choose with awareness, with clarity, with self-respect and love.  When I make my choices from this place, I am choosing from my natural life, and choice from this place is effortless. Life from this place is easy and fun. Life from this place is free, regardless of where I am.

How do I feel when I am free? How do you feel when you are free?

How do I feel when I choose? How do I know I can choose?

By making the choice to actively choose to move forward, by actively choosing to release the thoughts that create my bars, by choosing to relax into my natural life, I am choosing to grow up, to evolve. By choosing to evolve, I am, in my one-person way, making the work a better place, for me, for you, for all of us.

How have I changed from reacting from my prison to choosing to be free?

(c) Pam Guthrie 2013 all rights reserved 06022103