The Evolution of Freedom

Memorial day is about honoring those who have died to give us our freedom.  And I don’t know about you, but personally, I have taken my freedom for granted.  I have not a clue what it would feel like to have another human claim me as their property or sell me away from my family because I am considered “good stock” or “bad stock.”  I have not a clue what it would feel like to be told I can’t vote because I am a female or have to use a separate restroom because of the color of my skin.  I don’t feel as if I’m at some kind of fault for not knowing what any of this feels like.  What I do feel is that to truly honor those who have sacrificed their life so that I could experience NOT having to know what any of those things feels like, I now have the responsibility to continue the evolution of freedom.  This evolution requires me to understand what it actually means to be free, with the assumption that I have now acquired my “Necessary Rights” as a human being of course.

So what is freedom?

The dictionary defines freedom as: the absence of necessity, coercion, or constraint in choice or action.

Wow.  When I read that, what I hear is that my work consists of freeing myself from those that are coercing me or constraining me in my choices and actions.  So who is coercing me and constraining me?…..I could point lots of fingers, but when I look past my finger, into the crowd of my scapegoats…the government, my parents, every relationship I have ever had, the media, other countries, religions….and I could go on and on….but when I truly look into that crowd with my arm extended and finger pointed….who I really see, if I’m being honest…is me.  I am staring into my own wide, deep, brown eyes.  I am literally the one who is coercing myself and constraining myself with my own inconsiderate and hateful self talk, with my own false beliefs and unexamined perceptions, with my own stifling addictions and behaviors or non behaviors.  IT IS ME.  

My friends, we are living in a time in human evolution where instead of having to step onto a bloody battlefield and kill or be killed by our very own human brothers and sisters, we can continue evolution by making it our responsibility to step into the bloody battlefields of our minds.  And I for one, am feeling especially grateful today, that the battle being fought on my battlefield consists of making sure that I am….. reading books, meditating, breathing, eating healthy foods, programming my mind with healthy thoughts, having a  dedicated yoga practice, singing mantra, and you get my drift.  I am not downplaying the difficulty of training our minds…not in the slightest, this is what I have dedicated my life to.  I am simply proposing that the next time if FEELS really difficult to get on your mat, or wake up early to meditate, that we REMEMBER, we REMEMBER that we don’t EVER have to pull a trigger, we can simply download an APP.

You are Beautiful.  Your are whole.  You are Enough.