Jul 2, 2021
“Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.”
- Victor Frankl, Man's Search for Meaning
From June 11 to September 2nd of this year, I am essentially on the road.
June in Minnesota for Modern Mystery School International programs to learn to teach new classes, to recertify as a life activation practitioner, and to study hermetic astrology and learn new healing modalities. July, I will spend in Michigan to visit family and then I have 2 vacations scheduled to New Mexico and Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula. For me, this massive amount of travel, with the ability to take my career with me as I go, doing my job from the road is the epitome of freedom and independence. I’m completely free as I make my own schedule, money and decisions with regards to time, when I used to have to bargain for time.
The Sunday after his podcast posts is the 4th of July - US Independence Day and throughout the country we are opening up to be a post Covid world. As in post lockdown, Covid will likely be with us for a long time.
In light of this, I’m here thinking about what true freedom & independence really are and how understanding that is a key to unlocking abundance in our life. As I write this I’m in Day 4 of 10 in classes deeply ensconced in metaphysical topics, yet we learn very practical things like Responsibility = simply the ability to respond. I.e. to be a responsible person is a person who is capable of doing something about the thing where a response is required. As in if I am responsible for something I have the ability to change it.
And free will - free will always exists, even if we are facing two icky choices. We still always have a choice. And even if you are in a situation where you are court ordered to do something - you always have a choice about how you choose to react to that thing you are ordered to do. You can choose to be angry about it or choose to find the opportunity in it - or even choose to face the thing with enjoyment. We always have a choice even if the only choice we have is how we react to the stimulus situation or challenge presented. Many stories of surviving harrowing experiences of things even as awful as Nazi concentration camps prove this principal again and again. It is the individual human’s choice on how to react and be in the moment that impacts their experience.
When I spend time studying magick and metaphysics I am reminded how much our own mind can free us or keep us enslaved - how much our subconscious pattern can keep us imprisoned and unaware of the box we have put ourselves in. I mentioned briefly in my podcast last week that I spent 15 years in a job I only liked 50% of the time, primarily because I believed I could not do better for myself. I believed I could not bring in the clients I needed to do well as a lawyer or as healer & guide to be a financially independent business woman who made her own schedule. I made my own prison with my thoughts. And the stress I created for myself in the process was almost unbearable at times. But it was finally my choice to change my narrative and just step out and put my law degree to use full time in a way that served me and my clients just as its my choice to serve humanity publicly by providing tools from an ancient spiritual lineage that help us tap into our true self, our life purpose and actualize our joy. I have learned how to live my passion. And I choose to share this with others. If someone judges me for using “alternative methods” that is their choice. I am still happy to sit, completely fulfilled, and show them how I did it.
These things are all part of true freedom and independence, choosing to invest in ourselves, choosing to take responsibility for those things we can influence in our lives. Choosing love over judgement. Choosing to invest in yourself so you can have more time $ and energy ultimately for those we love.
There is an epidemic of victim and anxiety in the world today. Anxiety comes from stress and stuckness. The belief that you don’t have the power, ability or responsibility to change your situation. But it is rare, actually, that someone has no ability to respond. And in all situations we have a choice in how we react to that which faces us.
So today’s law of abundance is an examination of true freedom. If we are willing to look at ourselves, tell ourselves the truth about our patterns and our choices, our ability to choose our reactions, not be a victim to our own unwillingness to take responsibility for our reactions to things. Or our lack of reactions to stressors or cause & effect in our lives. We can see how free or unfree we might truly be. So much wasted energy goes into anger & anxiety against things that if we just choose to react differently wouldn’t even be a thing. Further - if we embraced responsibility for our life a.k.a. the ability to respond - so much opens up for us. We leave the passenger's seat and become the driver. We stop being an extra on the set and become the director. We change the narrative to superhero of our own life versus bystander.
We give ourselves the ability to respond when we take responsibility and then we start creating our reality with clear thoughts and actions. Then with this ability to respond we choose and when we choose and we are free, we are capable of independence from attachment to circumstance & other peoples actions. We don’t have to have shame/blame/or be victims because we are completely free to choose our reaction, our response. Thus freeing so much energy to be a creator. And when you have more energy to create you can start putting it towards your passions and start living your life from a place of authenticity, integrity and joy. There you will feel the flow and abundance will come in with it. Because you have removed constriction and the belief that you do not have the power or freedom to choose.
With that happy true Independence Day y’all! The day you start recognizing choice in all aspects of your life!