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The Freedom Paradigm

The Freedom Paradigm


A co-creation by Lisa and Stace

Published by:
Friday Hut Productions
PO Box 598,
Bangalow NSW 2479
ABN 28771775144

info@fridayhutproductions.com


http://www.thefreedomparadigm.com

Copyright 2014 Friday Hut Productions


AWG Registration Number: 13316
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-0-646-91824-2

Chapter One

CHAPTER ONE
How Did We Lose Our Freedom?
We stopped addressing our emotional world. By
addressing our emotional world, we create freedom.
Our authentic self expresses emotion all the time.
Emotion = Energy In Motion



N o t till w e a re lo st d o w e b e g in to fin d
o u rs e lv e s ...
HENRY DAVID THOREAU

WHY ARE WE SEARCHING?


I have come to realize the more that I was searching for, what I
sensed was missing, was the emotional world that feeds us and helps us
to know the full sense of who we are.
If you had told me ten years ago that I was a hostage, I
would have laughed at you. I could get in my car and go
where I wanted to, I worked and earned money so I
believed I was free. I had satisfactory material success and
had diligently worked on myself through workshops and
courses for around 20 years, so I felt a sense of confidence
in most areas.
However, the truth was that I was trapped in a roundabout
of unhealthy thinking that kept me in bondage with its
habitual ways of reacting to my lifes experiences. My
emotional world had not matured with my physical body otherwise I would have been experiencing a continued
sense of more (not less) freedom as the years rolled by.
I used to believe I was in touch with my emotional world,
because I cried when feelings would overwhelm me. While
this was definitely a relief, what I know now is that I was
operating my feelings through my head. I processed my
emotions by thinking rather than feeling. My mind would

Chapter One

describe, define, label and analyse everything that was going


on, so that I could feel okay again but the peace never
lasted.
I was always searching because inherently I knew there
must be something more than what I was experiencing in
my life I just didnt know what was missing! I remember
feeling like I was on Groundhog Day, living a life of
habitual action and reaction.
I have come to realize the more that I was searching for, is
the emotional world that feeds us and helps us to know the
full sense of who we are.
Our feeling world is a realm of experience so learning
more about it does not reclaim it. This aspect of our self
needs to be discovered and uncovered through action and
earnestness. Through letting go of the thinking process and
feeling life, we get connected to our emotional world and
begin to experience a freedom, a joy and an inner
empowerment that makes us feel we have come home.
There is nowhere else to go and no more searching
rather a deeper, richer experience of our lifes journey.
Most of us have been raised to process our lives through
our heads, in what I call the little me. When we are in the
little me, our emotional world may be mostly closed down
which makes it difficult for us to experience true
connection with each other and the world around us. We
may feel fearful, a sense of aloneness and a need to fight or
compete for survival. Our little me has no power apart
from what it can take from others in unhealthy ways. Our
relationship dynamics can reflect this - insecurity, anxiety,
stress, self-doubt and feelings of powerlessness are
significant aspects of our lives. It does not have to be like
this. This is not freedom.

In retrospect, I am still amazed at how unaware I was of the


emotional world that lay dormant within me. We lose our
freedom when we are not addressing this emotional world.
Over time as I began to reclaim this aspect of myself, I
became aware I had never really owned my feelings and
allowed myself to feel them fully. I was a fixer-upper; I
would write, cry, get busy, meditate or act differently,
anything to remove the pain. There was never a recognition,
an acceptance, an owning and I certainly would not just
sit in what I felt. When we feel vulnerable, it is a common
initial reaction to try to fix, persecute or blame. We often try
to hold someone else accountable because it is so painful.
Pain is inevitable, its part of life, but from my experience,
when we begin to embrace, own and reclaim our emotional
world then we remove ourselves from extended suffering
and increase the freedom we feel.
It takes practice to use the words of emotional maturity, to
work with the feelings of vulnerability, to resist pride and
the inclination to get defensive. These things dont just
happen because we decide we want them to. Being human,
means we can all slip up. It also means we have to take
action, on a consistent basis, to live consciously and be able
to respond rather than react to situations that cause us pain.
To help reclaim the parts of self that may have not been
operating for a long time, a physical process is necessary to
bring the experience of an emotional awakening into our
bodies. We cant change our thinking with our thinking.
This explains the disappointment I used to feel a week or so
after attending another personal growth workshop. I would
have great insights and feel amazing when I left, however I
would soon be trapped again within the old dynamics of my
life and wonder why things were really not that much
different. I had learnt more information, had more head
knowledge about how to live my life but had not entered

Chapter One

fully into my emotional world and pulled out what needed


to be corrected by its roots.
The knowledge we accumulate needs to be embodied
through a process of physical action and ongoing
maintenance until it becomes our natural way of living.
Through our actions, we support ourselves to take full
responsibility for our lives and re-engage our emotional
world in the process. As we do so, we are more inclined to
be led by our hearts and so experience a more permanent
sense of expanding freedom.

THE HUMAN EXPERIENCE


N o m a tte r h o w m u c h w e try to d e n y it, e v e ry
o n e o f u s is h u m a n
When we stop what we are doing and remain still, we may
notice that right here, right now, everything is okay. It is as
if in the centre of our being, there is a stillness of peace and
serenity. Meditation and spiritual practice can enhance this
experience.
When we are out in the world living our lives, situations
may trigger us and we can react, sometimes unconsciously
and unexpectedly, from places within us we didnt know we
had! Although this is a natural process that encourages us to
see what is hidden and bring it out into the light for healing,
many of us have been raised to resist and suppress these
reactions. This makes it challenging for us to be fully
accountable for what is going on in our emotional world.
Once the situation has passed, we may be able to use the
experience for emotional growth by processing our
emotions around the experience, so we do not carry
emotional residual with us as we move forward. That is, we
fully feel our experience in that moment and do not close

down that part of ourselves that is causing us pain. In


essence then, we are expanding our reality by allowing more
of ourselves to operate. Emotional experiences are part of
being human - by using these experiences to grow and learn
about each other, we hone our skills at living life in a more
natural and fulfilling way.

As we reclaim more of our emotional world we observe and own


the attitudes and feelings we have that took us out of our centre
in the first place. Our expanded emotional world is a world in
which our relationships with self and others can far surpass
anything we have ever dreamed of, if we are willing to take the
action!
In Section Two, are the pragmatic actions we implement in
our lives to awaken and support our emotional world. They
are the conduits through which we transform our lives,
from the level of our heads into the realm of our hearts.
Through them we learn how to empower ourselves in a
healthy way, deepening our understanding and acceptance
of all that we are.

RECLAIMING ASPECTS OF SELF


T h e re is so m u c h m o re to u s th a n w e k n o w
There are many parts of the self that we close down in
order to continue to operate within the environments and
relationships that exist in our lives. There are also aspects of
self, which have been split off and shut down because of
past trauma. As we learn to uncover these parts of self
within safe and loving parameters, we reclaim them. I
discovered the parts of me that I denied, resisted and
pushed away could add to who I was if I allowed it. More of
ourselves can be present, so we can get more out of the
things life brings us and we can add more to it. We are

Chapter One

more grounded and live more consciously, able to respond


rather than react to situations that throw us off centre.
To some extent, the systems we have all been responsible
for creating, have contributed to a society that is not
functioning successfully. Perhaps now more than ever, not
only to have a better life, but to have life at all, we need to
address the changes that need to be made. This comes
down to let it begin with me. It is up to us to do what we
can to right our own worlds and take responsibility for
making changes that will ripple out to all humanity. After
all, if nothing changes, nothing changes.

IT IS PROGRESS, NOT PERFECTION


A c c e p tin g o u r h u m a n ity
We are all having a human experience, and are therefore not
perfect. In fact I think it is part of the plan that we do veer
off track, as these are the very moments we have the
opportunity to grow emotionally and support others,
building unity and connection. Our conditioned need to be
perfect will undo us every time; thats why our aim should
always be progress, not perfection. We are releasing the
pressure not building it.
Accepting our own imperfection, not having to be an
expert, takes all the pressure off ourselves and releases the
pressure we place on others to be perfect. How often have
you expected perfection from your partner, while you
yourself have defects? We may get frustrated with others
when they dont do things right because we project our
own expectations to be perfect onto them.
I once placed a lot of pressure on myself to be perfect and
perhaps my life looked pretty good from the outside. I was
working from the outside in and it was requiring a lot of

effort (and control) to keep things how I thought they


should be. In not putting my sense of wellbeing first, I did
not have the feelings of freedom that I experience now. I
have found that if I am right on the inside, I can always
work with what is happening on the outside and my life
naturally becomes richer and more joyful.
I have learnt in my current relationship that my partner is
going to stuff up every now and then. It does not matter
how aware we become, we will still have our moments. This
is what it is to be human designed to keep us humble! If
we remind ourselves we do not have to be perfect, we can
then let ourselves and each other off the hook. We can have
a laugh and allow for the learning, which often happens
when we dont do things the best way first. We are all on a
journey in which we progress, not perfect. This attitude
helps us to make the most of the process we are in, and
encourages us to feel contentment with being right here,
right now.
We set ourselves up for disappointment (not freedom) if we
expect more of ourselves than to progress. Disappointment
can be another link in the chain of bondage.
This is important because as we grow there are times we
feel like we really are getting the hang of this thing called
living! There are many days I am so blissed out its amazing,
then one morning I wake up and Im not. For so many
reasons, I may just not be feeling good. If I can accept this
as part of being human, I can do what I need to do that day
to help me to feel ok (or at least keep the mantra this too
will pass in my head until it does!). It is always a daily
reprieve. By living a day at a time and letting go of having to
be perfect I can be free. A thread of contentment is
interwoven within the fabric of my daily existence that did
not previously exist.

Chapter One

As we reclaim more of ourselves through our emotional


world we feel more human. I definitely feel more solid and
grounded, more connected to life. When I am feeling things
fully, there is a very deep comfort in the emotion, almost as
if in the feeling I am closer to who I really am. My feelings
are from a deep heart and soul level, not from my ego,
personality or my head. They arise more spontaneously and
offer me true gifts to heal other aspects of myself. As I
accept them I become more aligned with my own truth, my
authentic self. I increasingly feel the fullness of who I am,
and my life feels more natural and effortless.
Taken on a consistent basis, the actions outlined in Section
2, are an effective way to aspire and maintain our wellbeing
in all areas of our lives. Without a program of action we can
learn and aspire, however, for the most part, the mind
remains unconnected to the heart. We may achieve
intellectual enlightenment (a concept of what we think truth
is) yet by applying a process of physical action that reclaims
our emotional world and uncovers the unconscious misuse
of power, we also awaken our heart. Why is this important?
When our heart has awoken, it becomes the parent and our
mind becomes the child. Through this connection, the mind
and the heart are then working in unison, and we create a
much better world. We operate through our true source of
power which means we no longer subconsciously seek to
obtain our power from others in any situation. It also
means we experience the infinite benefits of having our
emotional world operate more fully in our lives benefits
that often cannot be defined by our heads, as they are an
experience of living. We transform our knowledge into
wisdom, and experience a deeper, more integrated
wholeness, unbounded by concepts and guided by the
heart. We move into the freedom vibration.

RESPONDING RATHER THAN REACTING


It is the ongoing physical action that increases our ability to
act naturally with conscious awareness, allowing us to
respond and feel connected to people, places and situations
in our lives. If we are living unconsciously we often feel
powerless and fearful and find ourselves reacting to
situations, people and events.
I have a beautiful friend that has many spiritual gifts, being
quite psychic and sensitive to energies many of us are not as
conscious of. If she experiences emotional discomfort she
works with the energies in connection with her higher self.
She is an incredibly powerful healer, yet there were certain
relationship patterns that kept repeating in her life that she
was unable to clear permanently. On a spiritual level she
was fearless and incredibly powerful, yet within her
relationships there was a block of fear. In our
conversations, we recognized how the work she was doing
did not involve her physical body. Her work around this
was mostly at a head level, there was no physical process
that allowed her to really uncover, own and share the
deepest, darkest parts of her conditioned past. It was in
taking physical action, in this case, writing out all her past
resentments with rigorous honesty and detail, then taking
action she would not normally take, that would allow her to
own more of her emotional world and be able to reclaim
the strength, power and ability to apply her knowledge in
this area of her life also.
We have to be willing and open to integrate actions we
would not normally take into our living experiences even
though we may feel like we have a lot of knowledge and
expertise already. If nothing changes, nothing changes.
By acting on all aspects of self: mental, physical, emotional
and spiritual, we create a fully integrated and balanced life

Chapter One

experience. Without the development and maturation of


our emotional world, almost every interaction between
people is affected by the undealt with emotional
experiences of the individual. We may find ourselves
reacting often in similar ways over and over again. Our
perceptions and thinking can often be distorted and our
unconscious fears may determine our decisions. By
reclaiming our emotional world, we become selfempowered and can no longer be manipulated or
controlled, because we do not rely on anyone or anything
else for our power. Our heart is awakened and when it is
guiding our life from moment to moment, we cannot be
shut down or disempowered.
All this can unfold for us when we live our lives with the
right foundations. It is easy for us to recognize what serves
us and what is right for us, because it comes with a sense
of more freedom. Nasargadatta Maharaj, spiritual teacher,
put it beautifully by saying what is right will set us free, what
is wrong will keep us in bondage.

Working Section

1. Making our commitment
We will see positive changes in a short
space of time when we commit to
addressing our emotional world. Making
a commitment to our inner wellbeing and
working with The Freedom Paradigm for
12 months will support us to put enough
energy into the process to enable us to
see the incredible benefits in our life.
2. Getting prepared.
Do you have a journal? We suggest
keeping a hard cover lined page book
handy to write reflections, quotes and
statements you find meaningful and
recording inventories.
3. Writing out an inventory of our character.
In your journal, rule up two columns.
In the left column write down all the
things you can think of that you would
like to improve about your character.
These may be behaviours, attitudes,
regular patterns or thoughts you may
have that you are not comfortable with.
In the right column, write down all the
aspects of your character that you feel
good about. Include behaviours, thoughts
and attitudes.
When you finish you should have a fairly
detailed list of your assets and
liabilities!

Chapter One

Although we may be aware of these in our


heads, the emotional process is beyond
the knowledge stored in our mind.
Throughout the book we will undertake
actions that help us to apply what we
know it is this process that builds
wisdom.
Writing out our personal characteristics
helps us to see on paper both sides of the
slate. It is also an incredible feeling to
return to this original list over time and
see how we have changed!

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