Breaking Free From Strongholds

“You must love in such a way that the person you love feels free.”

~Thich Nhat Hahn

Saying Goodbye To Your “I” and Hello To Your Freedom

You’re free to see a seemingly difficult situation as a challenge instead—an opportunity to transform it into something positive.

An audience is building. A tiny voice says, “Keep going.” It’s the voice of a different self. One who knows it’s all going to work out.

There’s another premise in Buddhism called patient acceptance. You can’t force life to change. You create the conditions for change to come about. Then you accept that it will come when its time has ripened. Not before.

Maybe you can’t always change a situation by just snapping your fingers and making it go away. But you can change your perception of it.

Change your perception and you change the world.

Literally.

If you’re free to realize that this self is just an idea, then you’re also free to let go of those selves that don’t serve you because they don’t produce a positive perception of events.

You can learn to recognize them when they crop up. You can even have some fun and give them names. When they show up you can just say, “Take a hike, Larry (or Mary)!”

Freedom

To laugh is to risk appearing a fool

To weep is to risk appearing sentimental

To reach out for another is to risk involvement

To expose feelings is to risk rejection

To place your dreams before the crowd is to risk ridicule

To love is to risk not being loved in return

To go forward in the face of overwhelming odds is to risk failure

But risks must be taken because the greatest hazard in life is to risk nothing. The person who risks nothing, has nothing, is nothing.

He may avoid suffering and sorrow, but he cannot learn, feel, change, grow or love. Chained by his certitudes, he is a slave. He has forfeited his freedom. Only a person who takes a risk is free.

“Freedom is instantaneous the moment we accept things as they are.” ~Karen Maezen Miller

Meditation

“True freedom is impossible without a mind made free by discipline.”
― Mortimer J. Adler

"Radicalism is a label that is always applied to the people who are endeavoring to get freedom."
--Marcus Garvey

“Letting go gives us freedom, and freedom is the only condition for happiness.”

~Thich Nhat Hanh

“There is a huge amount of freedom that comes to you when you take nothing personally.”
~Don Miguel Ruiz

And the root of my burdens is inside of me so I can't be free til I decide to be.

I Neva Said... Knobody

"Freedom and equality of opportunity are essential if we are to rescue democracy."

-Steve Honeyman

Love

Am I ready to give up my freedom?