You Have The Power To Free Yourself

“Waking up to who you are requires letting go of who you imagine yourself to be”   – Alan Watts

You are on a spiritual journey of unlearning the fears created by your past life, and learning to accept yourself as who you really are.  At some point in your life, probably multiple times, you have let someone else tell us you were wrong to believe in the things you do.  They abandoned you.  They betrayed you.  They ridiculed you. They said and did hateful things.  They made you feel that you were not good enough, that you were stupid, a waste of space, not even useful as garbage.

“Whenever there is fear, there is opportunity.  When there is great fear, there is great opportunity”  – Andy Stanley

It may be that you didn’t live up to the expectations of your family, or at school or work, or with your so called friends.  So you became a victim and were abused, bullied, and treated disrespectfully.  Or it may be that they were so dysfunctional and unhappy that they didn’t know how else to treat you.  And you let it happen.  You believed them, you listened to them, and they shattered you.  Then in an act of self preservation you gathered up all of the broken pieces of yourself and put them deep inside a cage, so that no one could cause further destruction.

“To let go does not mean to get rid of. To let go means to let be. When we let be with compassion, things come and go on their own”  – Jack Kornfield

Then your negative mind talk took up where the others left off.  It seeks to keep you inside of that cage, because it thinks by doing so you won’t be hurt again.  That it will be able to keep you safe.  But at some point that small child inside the cage starts making some noise.  It wants to be free.  It wants to come back into the light and start pursuing your dreams again.  At some point you start becoming conscious of this desire that is building up inside your soul  You have to start taking some risks.  You come to know that you can change your life. That it is a possibility, and not as hard as your mind wants you to think it is.

“Being strong means rejoicing in who you are, complete with imperfections”  – Margaret Woodhouse

In order to trust in the dreams, you go on a spiritual pilgrimage. A spiritual journey of discovering a path to happiness.  Of creating new paths of your own, breaking your own trail.  Of making changes even though they terrify you.  You discover doors to open that you never saw before.  You set yourself free from those shackles.  You used your key to unlock the cage you had locked yourself into.  You know in your bones that you deserve to be free and happy.

“Survival mode is supposed to be a phase that helps save your life.  It is not meant to be how you live”  – Michele Rosenthal

With every choice, with every small change you will go on a new heroes journey.  You begin to discover the possibility of a new life.  You stop being who you were and start uncovering who you really are.  Hope begins to find a home inside your soul again.  You know why the caged bird sings – because it’s about to experience true freedom.  You begin to love yourself without boundaries or restrictions.  You open up to the possibility of being loved, and loving others without boundaries.

“Hope is the magic elixir that energizes dreams, fuels possibilities, and lets you live beyond the limits of your historical thinking.  It is not a promise that something you want will happen – it is an invitation to enjoy the possibility of what you want while you and life negotiate the eventual outcome.  There is never a good reason not to hope!”  – Michael Neill

This begins the life of taking second chances.  It is the most powerful gift you can give yourself.  The opportunity to amplify your love.  To see life from the place of your restored hope.  To live a life of value, redeeming those qualities and values you abandoned.  To be made whole again.  To change the story of your life.  To expand out past your comfort zone, (the cage you imprisoned yourself in) and begin living a life of potential and possibilities.

“The only way to make sense out of change is to plunge into it, move with it, and join the dance”  – Alan Watts

Close the chapter in the book that contains the story of your being a victim.  That might have been who you were when you lost your way.  But now with your transformational compass firmly in your hands you are navigating your way to start living a life of purpose and meaning.  You are climbing back up the mountain in your heroes journey, refined.  Like the phoenix rising from the ashes you take flight.  You are starting out on a new journey, a new sacred destination of fulfilling your destiny once again.

“Never be limited by other people’s limited imaginations.  If you adopt their attitudes, then the possibility won’t exist, because you’ll have already shut it out – you can hear other people’s wisdom, but you’ve got to re-evaluate the world for yourself”  – Mae Jemison

You look back at your life with gratitude, even for the stuff that was devastating.  You now see it was all a gift.  It bestows reverence on how God works with everything that happens, and turns it into something valuable.  It allows you to see the world through love, and creates these transcendent moments of awe that change you right down into the DNA of your cells.  You experience the world in a different way.  It becomes a daring adventure.  You become the brave hero exploring the new world.  Yes, you will fall down.  Yes, you will be hurt.  Yes, you will find yourself working to regain your vision.  But now you know that you can choose your thoughts.  That you can keep what brings you joy, peace, and happiness.  That never again will you find yourself having to imprison yourself to save yourself.  That you can release the things that make you suffer, let them take flight and be free.

“I wish for the same thing I’ve hoped for since the beginning.  I wish for a life so brave, so unpredictable, so full of unexpected joys and unforgettable love that no box could possibly contain all my memories.  Such a life won’t be perfect.  It’ll be something better.  It’ll be my own paradise”  – Patti Smith