Simple - we can choose to love and value ourselves and create loving and valued relationships and circumstances in life. That is the simple part over. Now let’s get to the more difficult part, still simple cognitively, but not easy emotionally, physically or mentally and avoided by most people at high costs. It is time that we take an honest look at ourselves, as individuals and as a collective. It is time that we allow ourselves the gift of seeing what we have been choosing to believe in and what we have been creating in the world as a result of our choices. It is time that we accept the mess that we have made, how it got here and who is responsible - us. It is time that we celebrate what works and let go of everything else. Then and only then, can we start the process of truly cleaning up! Only then can we let go of beliefs and get on with new choices and simply living.
In reading this article, you are invited to apply any subject – self, family, work, politics or government; any area in life.
An Honest Look
Honesty with self is such a tough pill to swallow. It means that we have to be willing to give up so many opinions and ideas about ourselves, our families, society and the world. But then without our opinions who are we? So we march on, holding onto what we are thinking, projecting that into our relationships and circumstances to ensure that people around us and our circumstances agree with who we think we are. Of course we then often complain when a negative idea about ourselves comes back at us through those relationships or circumstances. It stings so much that rather than see that we created it, we blame the people and circumstance. Beautiful insane humanness we call it!
When someone does take responsibility for what they have created it is so refreshing that it either shocks us and we run a mile or we hold that person in such high esteem that what we could learn from them is avoided so we get to be undisturbed in our insanity. Perhaps if we were to allow ourselves to really experience our equality, we would start to relate with honesty, to each other, to our creations and to our desire to make new choices, new relationships and new circumstances. So let’s start by having a look at ourselves.
Individuals
We love our autonomy. We defend our right to choose freely what we believe in and how we see ourselves and others. We even inflict that right on others, whether they like it or not. We defend that right no matter the consequence. We are willing to go to war with friends and family to defend our right to have an opinion. We will break up relationships to feel righteous rather than be willing to find out what is true. We will tear apart anything that gets in our way of righteousness – isn’t that the Western way? We will terrorise our children because they might be right and we might be wrong. We abuse each other under the claim that we are free to do and defend what we like.
Yet, with all of that pushing, defending and abusing we are doing the opposite to what we say we are defending - we are not truly free. We are instead in all those relationships and circumstances, unconsciously but deliberately and sneakily attaching to each other through our lies, so that we can keep the lies alive. Because we have mistakenly believed that WE are those lies! We are so frightened of not being seen; of not living; of losing what we think is our freedom; that we create webs of lies and we hold onto them for dear life. What a life! We are a big ball of connections sending fearful messages to each other and we wonder why we so often feel exhausted, dis-eased, robotic and defensive. We wonder why we so often get that in return.
When are we going to have a look at our own choices and see what we are really doing rather than defend a position that keeps the status quo? Of course, we are free to never make that choice! Yippee! Let’s continue defending the right that a person has to suffer in their web of fear and the web of social fear – often called culture. Let’s defend our collective pain and suffering and ensure that nothing ever changes.
Collective
So we have a whole lot of individual webs, intermeshed with each other, showing our vulnerability and our interdependence. My web is connected to a whole lot of other webs and by supporting my own I am supporting others. If I dare to break free from my web and so cause a ripple in others, such that their web starts to shake, I am ganged up on and told that I am failing or disappointing or best one yet, deserting the troops!
We claim freedom yet what we do is everything in our power not to be free. We keep trying to design the world to be like us. We say that we want democracy in the world because that offers a protection of our freedom, yet we are not free and we abuse democracy by refusing to take responsibility for the freedom that it could truly offer. We go to war to defend our system for freedom, convincing and forcing others to adopt it, yet we are not willing to have a close look at what we are actually creating. We choose leaders to represent us but we will only vote for them if they keep “our patch” the way that we want it, undisturbed. Or we refuse to vote and call that our right “not to vote” but it is also us not taking responsibility for the web we are creating. If we are those leaders, we stay with the status quo only rocking the boat that we believe will bring more votes. We want national security enforced so that no one disturbs our web of fear! We want immigration closed down so that no one disturbs our way of life. We talk about the world getting smaller and yet we are not willing to admit that the smallness is our desire to get everyone to be the same so that we are not disturbed. To deal with what mess we are making, we defend our righteousness or beat ourselves up!
It is time to be honest. We are not terrible people. We are simply refusing to learn our lessons. We are making the same choices that our forefathers made. We are together, supporting the choices that block us from admitting the truth, that we are so scared for our futures and so guilty for our past that we feel frozen with no freedom to choose anything else. That is the web that we have created. We have designed governments, organisations, businesses, structures and systems to support our web. Yet we still wonder why we are not truly experiencing freedom.
We have spent thousands of human hours on cognitively understanding human nature, psychology, behaviours, beliefs and why we react to situations the way we do, how our traumas attract to each other and so on. So isn’t it time now, that we went beyond the books, thinking that if we know information cognitively we will bring change? It is time that we turned inwards, were honest with ourselves and took steps and actions that aligned with our truth. Does honesty require a psychology degree? Isn’t it time that we gave up the “I don’t know” excuse and did what we know is necessary by taking our attention to what is really happening within us, forgive ourselves for our mistaken choices and then when we experience the softening of our defensiveness, allow our true freedom to arise and choose something new? Don’t we already know this from when we have an argument with a loved one and realise that the only way forward is to forgive ourselves and each other, let go of what we were defending and choose anew? We know what to do. It is time that we made the commitment and got on with doing it. It is time that we called on support in our relationships and circumstances to only do that.
What We Have Been Choosing To Believe In
So now we have made the commitment to let our defences down, to be honest with self as we have never been before and here we reach the biggest road block. If we have known what to do, what is it that gets in the way? What is blinding our view to what we know? What mountain sits in the middle of the road that we refuse to go around until we know what is on the other side?
Fear.
We want to know what will happen in the future before we take action right now. We are so blind to our usual way of doing things that we don’t even know we are doing them. Isn’t it beautiful how we say that we want change but only if it means that we stay the same or if we can be guaranteed that the change will be something that we already know? Isn’t that, by definition – more of the same?
We have been choosing fear, all of the time, and turning a blind eye to the actual available choice. Fearlessness is not even a choice in our minds. It is not even possible from where we sit – it is like some kind of state that you might achieve if you meditate on it for a few lifetimes or if you are born special! What about your life right now? What about your relationships right now to yourself and others? Don’t you want to know fearlessness in yourself now? Don’t you want to be that in all of your relationships and actions now? Don’t you want to stop giving your power and freedom away to fear? Don’t you want to value yourself? Don’t you want to experience access to true joy, which occurs only when we go beyond our beliefs, emotions and habitual behaviours?
Create Your Experience Right Now
What will it take to go from wanting to having and doing? If we take the time to ask what we want – which is a great first step – we often state that we want to experience freedom, value, bliss, joy, worth, passion and love in whatever we are doing moment to moment. The problem here is that we keep the list of what we want, in the “wanting” list and we don’t move it into the “doing” list. Again, that is choosing fear over fearlessness. We talk about dreams in aspirational terms. In our organisations we talk about values in aspirational terms. In our politics we talk about visions in hopeful future terms.
So who is taking the action right now that we need? Who is correcting within, releasing themselves from guilt and fear and getting on with creating joy, value and love right now? If you are, you will know because your experience of this article will have been a celebration filled with joy and delight. You will experience the juice of every moment as freedom, no matter the circumstance or relationship. You will have no self lies and your actions will align with your deep self worth and your acknowledgement that only you can impact your freedom to choose. If you have experienced other responses such as doubt, defensiveness, denial, judgement, boredom, frustration, fear and so on...take the leap.
Forgive yourself and cut the ties to your old ways. Call in support from your relationships and circumstances that will ensure that you dive as deeply as you can to the truth, to the unconditional love that is available to every person in every moment. Do not waste another moment choosing anything else. You have the freedom to choose, take responsibility for that freedom.
A Simple Message
Simple - we can choose to love and value ourselves and create loving and valued relationships and circumstances in life. That is the simple part over. Now let’s get to the more difficult part, still simple cognitively, but not easy emotionally, physically or mentally and avoided by most people at high costs. It is time that we take an honest look at ourselves, as individuals and as a collective. It is time that we allow ourselves the gift of seeing what we have been choosing to believe in and what we have been creating in the world as a result of our choices. It is time that we accept the mess that we have made, how it got here and who is responsible - us. It is time that we celebrate what works and let go of everything else. Then and only then, can we start the process of truly cleaning up! Only then can we let go of beliefs and get on with new choices and simply living.
In reading this article, you are invited to apply any subject – self, family, work, politics or government; any area in life.
An Honest Look
Honesty with self is such a tough pill to swallow. It means that we have to be willing to give up so many opinions and ideas about ourselves, our families, society and the world. But then without our opinions who are we? So we march on, holding onto what we are thinking, projecting that into our relationships and circumstances to ensure that people around us and our circumstances agree with who we think we are. Of course we then often complain when a negative idea about ourselves comes back at us through those relationships or circumstances. It stings so much that rather than see that we created it, we blame the people and circumstance. Beautiful insane humanness we call it!
When someone does take responsibility for what they have created it is so refreshing that it either shocks us and we run a mile or we hold that person in such high esteem that what we could learn from them is avoided so we get to be undisturbed in our insanity. Perhaps if we were to allow ourselves to really experience our equality, we would start to relate with honesty, to each other, to our creations and to our desire to make new choices, new relationships and new circumstances. So let’s start by having a look at ourselves.
Individuals
We love our autonomy. We defend our right to choose freely what we believe in and how we see ourselves and others. We even inflict that right on others, whether they like it or not. We defend that right no matter the consequence. We are willing to go to war with friends and family to defend our right to have an opinion. We will break up relationships to feel righteous rather than be willing to find out what is true. We will tear apart anything that gets in our way of righteousness – isn’t that the Western way? We will terrorise our children because they might be right and we might be wrong. We abuse each other under the claim that we are free to do and defend what we like.
Yet, with all of that pushing, defending and abusing we are doing the opposite to what we say we are defending - we are not truly free. We are instead in all those relationships and circumstances, unconsciously but deliberately and sneakily attaching to each other through our lies, so that we can keep the lies alive. Because we have mistakenly believed that WE are those lies! We are so frightened of not being seen; of not living; of losing what we think is our freedom; that we create webs of lies and we hold onto them for dear life. What a life! We are a big ball of connections sending fearful messages to each other and we wonder why we so often feel exhausted, dis-eased, robotic and defensive. We wonder why we so often get that in return.
When are we going to have a look at our own choices and see what we are really doing rather than defend a position that keeps the status quo? Of course, we are free to never make that choice! Yippee! Let’s continue defending the right that a person has to suffer in their web of fear and the web of social fear – often called culture. Let’s defend our collective pain and suffering and ensure that nothing ever changes.
Collective
So we have a whole lot of individual webs, intermeshed with each other, showing our vulnerability and our interdependence. My web is connected to a whole lot of other webs and by supporting my own I am supporting others. If I dare to break free from my web and so cause a ripple in others, such that their web starts to shake, I am ganged up on and told that I am failing or disappointing or best one yet, deserting the troops!
We claim freedom yet what we do is everything in our power not to be free. We keep trying to design the world to be like us. We say that we want democracy in the world because that offers a protection of our freedom, yet we are not free and we abuse democracy by refusing to take responsibility for the freedom that it could truly offer. We go to war to defend our system for freedom, convincing and forcing others to adopt it, yet we are not willing to have a close look at what we are actually creating. We choose leaders to represent us but we will only vote for them if they keep “our patch” the way that we want it, undisturbed. Or we refuse to vote and call that our right “not to vote” but it is also us not taking responsibility for the web we are creating. If we are those leaders, we stay with the status quo only rocking the boat that we believe will bring more votes. We want national security enforced so that no one disturbs our web of fear! We want immigration closed down so that no one disturbs our way of life. We talk about the world getting smaller and yet we are not willing to admit that the smallness is our desire to get everyone to be the same so that we are not disturbed. To deal with what mess we are making, we defend our righteousness or beat ourselves up!
It is time to be honest. We are not terrible people. We are simply refusing to learn our lessons. We are making the same choices that our forefathers made. We are together, supporting the choices that block us from admitting the truth, that we are so scared for our futures and so guilty for our past that we feel frozen with no freedom to choose anything else. That is the web that we have created. We have designed governments, organisations, businesses, structures and systems to support our web. Yet we still wonder why we are not truly experiencing freedom.
We have spent thousands of human hours on cognitively understanding human nature, psychology, behaviours, beliefs and why we react to situations the way we do, how our traumas attract to each other and so on. So isn’t it time now, that we went beyond the books, thinking that if we know information cognitively we will bring change? It is time that we turned inwards, were honest with ourselves and took steps and actions that aligned with our truth. Does honesty require a psychology degree? Isn’t it time that we gave up the “I don’t know” excuse and did what we know is necessary by taking our attention to what is really happening within us, forgive ourselves for our mistaken choices and then when we experience the softening of our defensiveness, allow our true freedom to arise and choose something new? Don’t we already know this from when we have an argument with a loved one and realise that the only way forward is to forgive ourselves and each other, let go of what we were defending and choose anew? We know what to do. It is time that we made the commitment and got on with doing it. It is time that we called on support in our relationships and circumstances to only do that.
What We Have Been Choosing To Believe In
So now we have made the commitment to let our defences down, to be honest with self as we have never been before and here we reach the biggest road block. If we have known what to do, what is it that gets in the way? What is blinding our view to what we know? What mountain sits in the middle of the road that we refuse to go around until we know what is on the other side?
Fear.
We want to know what will happen in the future before we take action right now. We are so blind to our usual way of doing things that we don’t even know we are doing them. Isn’t it beautiful how we say that we want change but only if it means that we stay the same or if we can be guaranteed that the change will be something that we already know? Isn’t that, by definition – more of the same?
We have been choosing fear, all of the time, and turning a blind eye to the actual available choice. Fearlessness is not even a choice in our minds. It is not even possible from where we sit – it is like some kind of state that you might achieve if you meditate on it for a few lifetimes or if you are born special! What about your life right now? What about your relationships right now to yourself and others? Don’t you want to know fearlessness in yourself now? Don’t you want to be that in all of your relationships and actions now? Don’t you want to stop giving your power and freedom away to fear? Don’t you want to value yourself? Don’t you want to experience access to true joy, which occurs only when we go beyond our beliefs, emotions and habitual behaviours?
Create Your Experience Right Now
What will it take to go from wanting to having and doing? If we take the time to ask what we want – which is a great first step – we often state that we want to experience freedom, value, bliss, joy, worth, passion and love in whatever we are doing moment to moment. The problem here is that we keep the list of what we want, in the “wanting” list and we don’t move it into the “doing” list. Again, that is choosing fear over fearlessness. We talk about dreams in aspirational terms. In our organisations we talk about values in aspirational terms. In our politics we talk about visions in hopeful future terms.
So who is taking the action right now that we need? Who is correcting within, releasing themselves from guilt and fear and getting on with creating joy, value and love right now? If you are, you will know because your experience of this article will have been a celebration filled with joy and delight. You will experience the juice of every moment as freedom, no matter the circumstance or relationship. You will have no self lies and your actions will align with your deep self worth and your acknowledgement that only you can impact your freedom to choose. If you have experienced other responses such as doubt, defensiveness, denial, judgement, boredom, frustration, fear and so on...take the leap.
Forgive yourself and cut the ties to your old ways. Call in support from your relationships and circumstances that will ensure that you dive as deeply as you can to the truth, to the unconditional love that is available to every person in every moment. Do not waste another moment choosing anything else. You have the freedom to choose, take responsibility for that freedom.