Your last true freedom on earth
Your get to choose how you think about people, situations and circumstances in your life. What will you choose?
"I am not what happened to me, I am what I choose to become." Carl Jung
photo Freepik
Welcome to the New Year!
Collectively, we’re going through a portal of change and uncertainty. My heart breaks for all the people who’ve lost their lives or homes in California from the high winds fueling the spread of the fires. Plus, we will go through a considerable transition with a new president in the U.S.
How will you maintain your sense of peace when the outside world challenges your values and sense of right and wrong?
How will you discern if you’re being controlled by fear that politicians fuel and threats of retribution so you can shift your thoughts from fear back to love? What would love do in that situation or circumstance?
In 2024, I decided to give up alcohol and join AA because there’s alcoholism in my family on my mother’s side that goes back generations. In addition, I wanted to experience a more profound spiritual practice, to get clear, and to belong to a community. But I had no idea I’d feel such love and support.
My story with alcohol was not a story of blackouts or DUIs. I drank a glass of wine with dinner every night. It became a habit to numb out from the pressures of work. When a trauma would strike, I’d sometimes have two glasses. It was hard for me to stop drinking a nice glass of wine with dinner, but I did it and have been sober for more than a year!
But my biggest aha in AA groups is the collective energy of love that’s felt in the rooms. I usually attend Zoom meetings but plan to attend two in-person groups each week this year. The in-person groups lift me when I feel low because of the consciousness in the room. The higher the consciousness, the higher the energy. It’s known in AA that when a person does all twelve steps with a sponsor, they have a spiritual awakening.
Before I joined, I felt lonely, but after nine months, I didn’t feel lonely anymore. Nothing changed except I went to meetings and started working on the steps with my sponsor. It was the effect of being in an all-women meeting with 35 to 45 women in attendance! Do not underestimate the power of women in a group!
At the end of last year, I decided to start offering small groups of Women’s Coaching Circles.
My first group of four women begins on Jan. 19. *Hurry, only two spots remain.
Women’s Group Coaching
Sundays, January 19, 26, Feb. 2, & 9th
Zoom from 10:00 - 11:30 am PT / 1:00 - 2:30 pm ET
Investment: $97. *Only two spots remain.
Carl Jung believed in free will and individual agency. He thought people could shape their lives through conscious choices and personal responsibility. Jung believed people could explore and integrate their unconscious aspects through self-reflection, self-awareness, and personal growth.
Jung believed people are connected through a collective unconscious, like a universal mind. He believed that if people don't connect with their core being (I call this the True Self) and realize that it’s continuous with a universal being, they will be ruled by instinct, cause, and effect.
"Freedom of will is the ability to gladly do what I must do." He also said, "I am not what happened to me, I am what I choose to become. You are what you do, not what you say you'll do."
You have free will – the right to choose what you think about anything.
Last fall, a few weeks after the U.S. election, I wanted to buy bulbs to plant. I stopped inside the nursery greenhouse to a little coffee cart to get a cup of coffee to warm me up.
While waiting, I heard the barista tell another nursery employee she wasn’t getting much sleep. She was distressed. They talked about their fears of what would happen to our country.
When it was my turn to order, I beamed love from my heart to her heart.
I told her I also felt fear and loss about the election results. “I have to bring my mind back to the present when it goes off on me and into a future full of fear, I told her. “It’s like watching a horror movie about nuclear war or threats of retribution to political opponents by the incoming President.”
“My task is to bring myself back home to the present moment, where everything is fine. You will notice when you're scaring yourself if you begin to observe your feelings, thoughts, and body sensations,” I told her.
“Stop and breathe and come back to the present moment. Notice your thoughts and feelings with curiosity, not judgment. All you have to do is return from your fear of outer world circumstances to return to your inner world and focus on the present moment.”
After I told her this, she took two steps backward as if I had whacked her on the side of the head.
“You don’t know how much you just helped me,” she said.
“I believe in each moment, we can choose to come from love or fear,” I said as she handed me my coffee. “I want to live the rest of my life from a place of love, not fear. It’s a daily practice I struggle with.”
When you’re in fear, you’re suffering emotionally, especially when you aren’t in real danger.
“You suffer when your mind creates a sh*t show in the future that scares the pants off you.
You have a choice of coming from a place of love or fear.
When your mind takes off with fear about “what might happen,” you’re in a future that hasn’t happened yet. Change the channel and stop future-tripping by watching a horror film.
Where the mind goes, the body follows. Your body is innocent.
Your poor body doesn’t know if you’re experiencing an actual life-threatening situation or if you’re imagining a fearful scenario in your mind.
We humans tend to operate from two primary emotions – love and fear.
You get to choose how you’ll live your life at each moment of each day.
One thing I know to be true is that you’re free to determine your attitude and spiritual well-being.
Viktor Frankl, an Austrian neurologist, psychologist, philosopher, and Holocaust survivor, said,
“The one thing you can’t take away from me is the way I choose to respond to what you do to me. The last of one’s freedoms is to choose one’s attitude in any given circumstance.”
When you notice your mind is wandering into the future and feel like you're watching a mental horror show, breathe and bring yourself back to the present moment.
The more you can observe what you’re thinking or notice how your body reacts when you’re thinking scary thoughts, the more quickly you’ll be able to bring yourself into the present.
Practicing this simple exercise will help you live more in the present and not from a place of fear.
In his book The First and Last Freedom, Krishnamurti said,
“In order to transform the world about us, with its misery, wars, unemployment, starvation, class divisions, and utter confusion, there must be a transformation in ourselves.
“The revolution must begin within oneself – but not according to any belief or ideology, because a revolution based on an idea or in conformity to a particular pattern is obviously no revolution at all,” Krishnamurti said.
“To bring about a fundamental revolution in oneself, one must understand the whole process of one’s thoughts and feelings in the relationship.“
That is the only solution to all our problems – not having more disciplines, beliefs, ideologies, and teachers.
Have you learned to discern whether you’re in fear or another negative emotion?
What are the ways you work to stay calm each day? I’d love to hear from you.
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