If you asked me the theme of my life this time around
in Earth School, I would say it's Freedom.
(for those who know me well, stop laughing... because yes,
control has also been a major theme, but it's related).
What does true Freedom mean?
Is Freedom the ability to...
Do and live however you want to?
Go wherever you please, whenever you want?
Have whatever you desire, as often and much as you wish?
Express whatever you feel, think and believe without apology?
Be your own boss with no one ever telling you what to do?
For many years I thought that freedom was all of the above.
I was bound and determined NOT to be controlled, manipulated, or
wrongly influenced by others, which shaped my (often unconscious)
need to be alpha leader, on guard and in control.
My quest for freedom has kept me out of romantic relationships.
It put me in group therapy much more than one-on-one therapy (too much potential of domination/influence with one person). It kept me continually changing religions, lest I become too comfortable and crystalized by one particular dogma. It prompted relentless investigation of belief systems.
One might think I wasn't free in all of these quests and rigidities.
And to some degree that is accurate because if nothing and
no one could be trusted, where did that leave me?
It left me with myself (or my selfs).
What an amazing and intricate world... to explore inside.
by Levi Dowling. There are juicy Truths in there like this:
If you would ask me what to study I would say, yourselfs;
and when you well had studied them, and then would ask me
what to study next, I would reply, yourselfs.
He who knows well his lower self, knows the illusions of the world,
knows of the things that pass away; and he who knows his higher self,
knows God; knows well the things that cannot pass away.
BINGO!
Knowing my selfs intimately and up close has revealed so much.
And this knowing is what truly set me free... eventually.
I spent my first 40 years of life in my lower self seeking freedom.
Trying desperately to get MY WAY.
Doing WHAT I WANTED.
Demanding the world conform to MY WISHES.
Chasing after MY DESIRES and IDEALS.
Never finding satisfaction, but instead only more desire
And entanglement, attachment and disappointment.
It was an endless loop of suffering and chasing, grasping and losing,
riding the emotional roller-coaster of frustration, drama and heartbreak.
Until one day, my lower self (ego) gave up... a little
and let the Higher Self become an active part of the conversation.
I don't have a clear-cut answer for what freedom is because it's not
scripted or defined like the ego (lower self) wants it to be.
But I know for sure what freedom is not.
It is not getting whatever you want when you want it.
It is not being able to do whatever you want.
It is not any of those things that I listed above.
(Tip: Watch the 2 minute video directly below)
Freedom is presence. Freedom is space.
Freedom is loving. Freedom is grace.
Freedom is the ability to choose
one's attitude and altitude moment to moment.
Freedom is knowing and living WHAT you are.
Not who, for that is a trap of identification and attachment too.
Freedom is Being.
I AM the Beloved
And so are You!
Joyfully,
Teri Jo
