If one is estranged from oneself, then one is estranged from others too. If one is out of touch with oneself, then one cannot touch others.
–Anne Morrow Lindbergh

The world we live in functions by using rules and laws and structure to control and manipulate our experience. Following a schedule and using clocks and calendars keep us bound to a consensus way of thinking and behaving that at first glance, appears to be serving us in that it makes order out of chaos. However, upon deeper examination, one soon sees this order comes at great cost: our freedom and autonomy. All these rules and laws ultimately make it nearly impossible to know how we really feel or what we really want at any given moment. Thereby the very thing that makes life feel safe and predictable, also become the greatest obstacle in self-awareness, imprisoning us in a mostly reactive daily grind.

What this comes down to is an outer directed life versus an inner directed one. To make the shift from outer directed to inner directed living requires nothing less than a monumental shaking up of one’s entire believe system — literally taking it apart piece by piece and essentially discarding almost all of it, only holding onto the basics required for engaging with others.

What is required is spiritual disobedience: a revolution of the self.

If you have any desire for freedom from the shackles of daily living dictated by the mass shared consciousness,  you will have to say no to anything and everything that is not an authentic expression of you. Anything that you do because someone else says you should has to be put aside.  I’m talking about shutting off the Greek Chorus (parents, teachers, friends, co-workers, the media) in your life, ceasing not only to listen to them but also act on what they tell you.

This is the way out.

The only place where real freedom exists is when you realign with yourself and let your heart lead. Trust ourselves? No easy task. The habits of doubt and second guessing and patterns of insecurity run deep and fast within us. We have been scrutinized and judged and micro-managed by the external world for so long, for many of us, our inner voice is an unknown.

Luckily, for some of us, self-denial seems to have an expiration date. There is only so long we can survive on a shallow scant diet of people pleasing motivations. We crave real food that will sustain us, and we can only discover what that is when we begin to listen to our own inner directed wants and needs. The more we shift to this inner directed place, the better our lives will flow. Sure, there may be fall out when we stop accommodating others. Relationships and situations may shift dramatically. But in order to really breathe again and feel at home in our own lives, we must heed our own directives.

For many people this happens in mid-life, a catalytic time when our bodies are changing as well as our circumstances. For others, it may be a car accident, a sudden illness, or the death of a loved one that opens them up to a new way of seeing the world. Regardless, the inner call for attention becomes impossible to ignore.

Disobeying the world and the people in it and heeding our own directive may feel foreign at first, especially if we built a life around avoiding confrontation and smoothing the edges over for others.  We may make messes and stumble around awkwardly until we find our rhythm. Others may not understand our radical behavior changes, as it looks like we’ve suddenly become selfish or narcissistic. We have. We’re talking revolution here. The pendulum has swung to the opposite end of the spectrum and it will come back into balance in time.

In the meantime, enjoy the new found freedom and while you’re transitioning, feel free to put up a temporary smoke screen by telling others you’re involved in a big project that is taking up a lot of your time and you’ll get back to them soon. Because for right now, the answer’s no.

The man who listens to Reason is lost. Reason enslaves all whose minds are not strong enough to master her.
–George Bernard Shaw

Each of us lives in our own self-prescribed little boxes defined by our ideas, beliefs and boundaries.  Each decision we make is made with the assumption it will provide comfort and safety and be the best option for our well being. Some of these decisions are made by default out of habit and due to very old constructs and ways of seeing the world.

One of the most powerful gifts you can give yourself, is to step off the merry-go-round and take a look at the boxes you live in to see if they’re still serving you (or if you’re bold – if they ever have). If they are, but you’re feeling stifled and confined, why not stir things up a bit by changing your routine or the people you spend time with.

If you see that the boxes are no longer working, make some new choices that break down those walls. Start by saying yes to new ideas and new ways of being and doing things and no to things that aren’t working.

It’s rejuvenating to open windows and doors and let fresh air and energy into your life. Taking down walls is far more radical, but the result is the same: life becomes more magical when the dimension of the unpredictable and mysterious is let in. You become teachable and open to the new and unknown and ready to receive the many gifts on the other side of those walls.

When you start saying yes to the whole that life has to offer rather than restricting the flow by your need for control, your world expands and unforeseen possibilities appear out of nowhere. It is then that we realize how much we were missing living inside of our small boxes with our endless filters refracting and distorting what was right in front of us, engaging instead with only our projections.

This is the world of delusion where many people reside because they truly believe that a constructed, controlled world is better (read safer) than the real world. It is a reactive, survivalist stance that instigates this limiting viewpoint, typically based on a deeply wounding heartbreak or disillusionment. I’m not suggesting that the need for withdrawing from the world and licking one’s wounds isn’t worthwhile, when needed. Rather, it’s when this temporary retreat becomes a habitual way of living that a refuge becomes a prison. The longer one resides there, the more difficult it becomes to leave, requiring something of a catalytic event to change things.

I have experienced all different degrees of walls coming down in my own life, some imposed by people and events outside of me and others initiated by me. Either way, it ain’t always easy to move out of our comfort zones, but it is almost always for the best.

Saying yes is another way of putting down our weapons of resistance and greeting what shows up in our lives with open arms. I used to joke with people that I’d rather raise my hand and volunteer for life’s lessons and tests than wait around until I hearing a loud banging on my door telling me I’ve been drafted.  What that means is that saying yes is akin to showing the universe that you’d like to take your medicine the easy way, not by having to be forced.

I know, sometimes the most direct route can be rough, but it’s usually so much less dramatic and time consuming. Go right up to your fears and issues and meet them halfway and ask them what they need from you. If you turn your back and run, they will follow you around making your life miserable. Plus, the idea of them is far more terrifying than the reality. I’ve found when I walk right up to the things in my life I’d rather avoid, they are so much smaller and easier to deal with than I expected.  I’ve also noticed that when I’m willing to face my demons, I score some pretty nice karmic points and I become aware of how life seems to be on my side a bit more and even conspiring to help me out.

Becoming aware of the boxes we’ve created can be done in a number of ways. One of my favorites and one I’ve used with my clients, is to look at the things we say we always do or never do. Start there and that will show you all kinds of things about yourself. These are the boundaries that we’ve erected around us. Look at them and see if they make sense anymore. Watch your habitual ways of thinking and behaving. Chances are there are some areas that really need updating.

If you feel stuck, it is up to you to see how small your world is and do whatever you can to break down the walls and live a bigger, more expansive life.

Saying yes works well if you need to push through your resistance to the unknown.

Saying no works well if you need to stop people pleasing and accommodating others’ needs instead of your own.

Only you know which one will shift things in your life.

Just think how happy you would be if you lost everything you have right now, and then got it back again.
–Frances Rodman

1.    What are you afraid of?
2.    What are you obsessed about?
3.    What/who are you attached to?
4.    What /who are you cut off from?
5.    What is necessary to have, do, be for you to feel happy?
6.    What must you do before you die?
7.    What limits, burdens and imprisons you?
8.    What is the biggest obstacle between you and your dreams?
9.    What is your biggest regret or failure?
10.    In what areas of your life are you living a lie?
11.    Do you feel that you are doing what you were born to do? Why? Why not?
12.    What is the greatest gift that you have to offer others?
13.    What is lacking the most in your life right now?
14.    In what area of your life are you thriving?
15.    If there was one thing you could change right now what would it be?

All is flux; nothing stays still.
–Heraclitus

According to Wikipedia, the illusion of control is “the tendency for human beings to believe they can control, or at least influence, outcomes that they demonstrably have no influence over”. This belief, I think, stems directly from how much our lives seem to support that illusion. In other words, when things are going well or going our way, it “appears” as though we are in command to some degree, bending life to our will.

However, when things begin to fall apart and our circumstances abruptly change, we usually feel as though we’ve somehow lost control. We throw around words like lucky or unlucky, depending on what happens to or around us. We talk about how certain things are “meant to be” or that there are no accidents.

The bigger the change, the more it becomes clear that we have much less control than we think we do. At any moment, without notice, our lives can change dramatically. We can have an accident, be involved in a natural disaster, get sick, lose a loved one, get fired, etc. We all know this; we have all experienced this, and yet we still behave as though we have control over our lives.

According to a recent study, the illusion of control is strongest when we are in a position of power.  From an article in Science Daily, called Power and The Illusion of Control:

CEOs of Fortune 500 companies routinely overestimate their capacity to turn mergers and acquisitions into huge profits, leading to financial losses for themselves, their companies, and their stockholders. Even ordinary people seem to take on an air of invincibility after being promoted to a more powerful position. The consequences of these tendencies, especially when present in the world’s most powerful leaders, can be devastating.

In a new study, Nathanael Fast and Deborah Gruenfeld at Stanford Graduate School of Business, Niro Sivanathan at the London Business School and Adam Galinsky at the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University, show that power can literally “go to one’s head,” causing individuals to think they have more personal control over outcomes than they, in fact, do.

“We conducted four experiments exploring the relationship between power and illusory control – the belief that one has the ability to influence outcomes that are largely determined by chance,” said Galinksy, “In each experiment, whether the participant recalled power by an experience of holding power or it was manipulated by randomly assigning participants to Manager-Subordinate roles, it led to perceived control over outcomes that were beyond the reach of the individual. Furthermore, the notion of being able to control a ‘chance’ result led to unrealistic optimism and inflated self-esteem.”

If control is an illusion, then why do we hold onto it so tightly? My guess is that we need this illusion in order to suspend our disbelief long enough to fully engage in our lives. Without it, we’d be paralyzed with fear, looking over our shoulders wondering when something bad might happen. Our illusion of control gives us a feeling of being able to do the impossible, transcend limitations and create new opportunities. Our greatest inventions come from the belief that we can create something out of nothing. If we simply resigned ourselves to our mortality or the fragility of human life, we would never attempt to do anything.

Problems arise when this belief in our ability to control things goes too far. People with lots of power and/or lots of money often fall prey to this because their lives are buffered by the ability to manipulate or buy their way out of problems and suffering. This option is not available to people without authority or means.

What fascinates me is that those without power or money often turn to each other to solve problems. Or to the divine, in whatever way they understand that. They use inner resources rather than outer resources. Of course, not all. Some take a negative approach and manipulate others by stealing or simply escape altogether through addiction. But for the most part, those without power or means  tend to live life with a greater awareness of change and death, and therefore approach life with respect and humility.

As evidenced by our failing economy, the illusion of control at its extreme can extract a tremendous price (there are endless examples throughout history that reveal the same thing). Life is not a casino, and when it is seen as fodder for manipulation to be used for personal gain, the illusion falls down hard and fast. Life has, and always will have, the upper hand, and it has some not so subtle ways of reminding us of that.

Anything that flies high eventually has to come down. Like it or not, there’s no way to outsmart change or death. They’re inevitable. We can only pretend they’re not, but sooner or later, they’ll come knocking at our door.

Is it not better then to meet life as it is and stop the pretending? To some extent yes, as long as we learn to accept change and death without fear.  Nothing wrong with wrapping a bit of illusion around us for comfort. The trick is to not to buy into it too deeply or get too attached to things staying the same. This is where a bit of Zen acceptance and surrender comes in handy.

There is some freedom in letting go of the illusion of control. We can relax our vigilance and begin to allow it all to unfold, as we would a movie. However, life is not a spectator sport. For as long as we live, we are players on the field, engaging in the game. What we think, say and do matters, but not in the personal way we typically think of it, but rather in a big picture kind of way.

To get a glimpse of that you’ll need to speak with the director.

Do as the heavens have done, forget your evil;
With them forgive yourself.
–William Shakespeare

Yesterday, I was listening to a talk by Iyanla Vanzant and in it she spoke about something she called The Forgiveness Diet. It resonated with me deeply. She also referred to it as “70 in 7″ (seventy times seven is, of course, how many times Christ said we need to forgive).  How it works is this:

35 times in the morning
35 times in the evening
For 7 days, you make the statement,

“I forgive myself totally and unconditionally for all judgments I have held about and against (name of person here).”

If you miss one time, you have to start again. You do this until you have done it for 7 days.

Notice this is not about forgiving others, but rather forgiving ourselves for judging others. Because who does that hurt? It hurts us. Iyanla calls forgiveness soul food. This diet is to heal and soothe your soul and relieve you of the burden of all those negative thoughts you carry around with you. Consider it a detox or cleansing diet for the soul. The intention is to give ourselves a fresh start, flushing those resentments out of our systems, and opening our hearts to love.

Everyone deserves the right to be loved and accepted for who they are. Judgment closes that flow of love. But in the area of forgiveness, we need to start with ourselves. Often our judgments of others are in essence simply a projection of our judgment of ourselves. Healing ourselves, heals our relationships.

The Forgiveness Diet is similar to the 7 Day Mental Fast written about by New Thought teacher, Emmet Fox. It’s a similar plan in that you are to give up all negative thoughts for a week. My guess is that there is something powerful about committing to change a destructive habit for 7 days.

As Iyanla said, “It can’t hurt, and it’s free.”