The Fear of Pure Freedom
As an adult, I’m supposed to have things figured out, or at least that is the way it feels. I bought into the idea that I am supposed to take the weight of the world on my shoulders even though I still get lost and caught up in the interminable stream of thoughts that float around my brain. I don’t know if I am ever going to feel like an adult.
My youngest daughter just moved out and I still feel like a kid. Instead of having things figured out, I find myself seeking, looking, longing to feel secure. I crave the feeling of safety and security. I want to bask in it, soak in it, and revel in it. I yearn for it.
Because I am the one who can’t quite get it together. I am the one who falls apart at the seams. I am the one who can never get it right. I am the one who is never good enough. I am the outsider. I do not belong. I will never belong.
That is just how it is for me. It is not just the color of my skin that separates me. It runs deeper than that. The brand cuts through and sears itself onto my sofa. There is the scorch mark on the cushion that will never disappear. It is there for Shakespeare to see and to remark upon.
Friends, Romans, and countrymen see her failures. See how she is lacking. See the black mark that scars her soul. See the evil that underlies the pleasing exterior.
I am revealed. I am exposed. I cannot hide.
My fantasy is that I am invisible. I survive as an escape artist. That is my means of endurance.
I like to soften the edges of life and look on the bright side. I like to smile more than cry so having a selective viewfinder is very helpful. It ignores huge swathes of biology that are enough to make my snakes curl and hiss their songs of pirates into the froth of my macchiato latte that blooms into a disappearing lotus on the surface of my life.
Never mind, I’m just a kidder. You can’t trust a rascal like me. I’m a scallywag. I like to flit about hither and yon. Nothing is going to tie me down. Here’s the thing, I love life!
I love all of it! I love you! I love me! I love the parts that suck! I love the parts that are amazing! I love the variety. I love the change. I love that each moment is fresh and new and unpredictable.
It is a nail biter! Just a thrill seekin’, never-ending, drag race of sensations.
It’s a can of worms that has been opened. A Pandora’s box that won’t be shut. A miraculous genie who has magically appeared out of the golden lamp who never wants to return again to the cramped confines of infinite darkness.
But that is the destination for us all. Death awaits us. Death completes us. Death unites us. Yet I fight so valiantly to pretend it isn’t so, clinging to the known trying to figure it all out rather than risking letting go into the present moment of the unknown that is pure freedom but feared by the ego like death itself.
Rohini Ross is passionate about helping people wake up to their full potential. She is a transformative coach, leadership consultant, regular contributor to Thrive Global, and author of the short-read Marriage. You can get her free eBook Relationships here. Rohini has an international coaching and consulting practice based in Los Angeles helping individuals, couples, and professionals embrace all of who they are so they can experience greater levels of well-being, resiliency, and success. Rohini is the co-founder of The Rewilding Guide Training, The 29-Day Rewilding Experience, and The Rewilding Community. You can also subscribe to Rohini’s weekly blog on her website, rohiniross.com. You can also follow Rohini on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, and watch her Vlogs with her husband. To learn more about her work go to her website, rohiniross.com.
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Rohini Ross
Are you self-critical, hard on yourself, and constantly trying to “fix” whatever you think is wrong with you? Perhaps you have tried all kinds of different personal growth techniques and spiritual practices in the hope of solving all your problems. This cycle can be exhausting and never-ending, because there will always be something to improve about yourself, from that mindset. Sydney Banks’ teachings can help you to see how your humanness is normal and not something that needs fixing: as a spiritual person, you don’t need to change or eradicate your humanness! Seeing yourself as normal allows you to love and accept yourself exactly as you are—warts and all. Adopting this perspective naturally brings out the best in you and helps to find peace with your personality. Self-love and self-acceptance is your natural state, and any disconnection from your true nature is only temporary. What a relief!
In our culture, success is often associated with hard work and narrowly defined as material gain. However, authentic success, as shared by Sydney Banks, includes such intangibles as happiness, well-being, love, joy, compassion, and peace of mind that are innate in each one of us, along with outward goals and achievements. It honors the whole person in all walks of life, whether you are a professional, leader, executive, solopreneur, employee, mother, teacher or student. From this knowing and experience, you can access the infinite wellspring of love that is your essence, then share your gifts with the world from a place of fulfillment and meaning, through a profound understanding of the interaction between your psychological and spiritual natures. While conventional success can deplete you, authentic success only fills you up.
Your ability to enjoy life comes from being present in the moment rather than caught up in habitual, negative thoughts that take you out of the Now. Sydney Banks’ wisdom supports you in becoming aware of how you get seduced by your limited personal thinking and thus, create a painful reality of misunderstanding, fear and restriction. When you recognize how and why this happens, you can step free of the pattern. This understanding assists you to dismiss unhelpful thoughts and not take them seriously. Unlike traditional self-help or therapy, experiencing more psychological freedom and enjoyment does not rely on techniques. There are no magic bullets on the path of well-being. All you need to do is follow an internal compass that points to the truth of who you really are—beyond transient thoughts to your unchanging, formless essence.
Greater psychological freedom is the gift that keeps on giving. How grateful would you feel if you no longer had to listen to your negative, self-punishing and painful inner narrative, day in and day out? Understanding the role of thought and recognizing how it creates your feelings of insecurity and self-doubt is truly liberating! You will be better able to hear and heed your inner wisdom and become less driven by the noisy thoughts of fear and constriction. As an ongoing practice, this allows you to more fully experience your resilience and reach a greater sense of clarity about how you want to move forward in your life. As a result, you can live in a way that feels authentic and true in every area, including your career, family, home, creative expression, play, relationships and overall well-being.
When you no longer give authority to the fear-based thoughts in your consciousness, all you are left with is happiness. Through the teachings of Sydney Banks, you can see how your psychological functioning works, which makes you less compelled to follow those thoughts that do not serve you. Becoming more aware of the wholeness and integration of both your human and spiritual natures helps to ground you in the unchanging essence of who you are, and ride out the ups and downs of your emotional experience more gracefully. Accepting the normalcy of your humanness will naturally reduce your anxiety and fear and enhance your joy and happiness in each moment. By placing less pressure on yourself to feel a certain way or be hung up on self-improvement, you may find that low moods do not derail or debilitate you; instead, you will become much more attuned to your innate wellbeing and peace of mind and experience more happiness as a result.
One of the first areas people often experience profound transformation from the teachings of Sydney Banks is in their relationships, both personal and professional. While it often seems like another person’s irritation, anger, indifference, insensitivity, rudeness, etc., directly affects your experience, in reality your disturbance is a product of your own individual thinking. By making someone else responsible for how you feel, that person automatically becomes the cause of your suffering. Once you understand that you always have a place of well-being inside, independent of another’s behavior, it is easier to maintain equanimity through their changing moods and behaviors. Romantically, you may experience deeper love and intimacy with your partner, but the teachings benefit all relationships. This awareness supports more authentic connection and expression, while facilitating greater understanding, improved communication, reduced reactivity, more acceptance of self and others, and improved ability to work out differences and find common ground. Best of all, just one person shifting in a relationship is enough to transform it.
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Lisa Johnson
12.10.2020 at 06:26Wow Rohini! That is a beautiful and powerful piece.
Thank you. x
Rohini
12.10.2020 at 10:28Thank you, Lisa! I appreciate you letting me know. Love, Rohini
Linda Hummel
15.10.2020 at 19:45Fabulous piece Rohini – real and raw. I see you! ❤️
Rohini
16.10.2020 at 12:02Thank you so much for letting me know, Linda! Sending love! Rohini