Embracing the Pain of Freedom

I am currently reading The Road Less Travelled, slowly, a segment at a time, because there is so much to digest and reflect on. Its been a few weeks and I’m only on page 43. As part of my reading today I came across this passage, which is a lesson I learned about a month ago, which I was unable to express through my own writing, but it is so perfectly captured here. I really have a sense I am meant to post this today for some reason, and these days I always trust my gut instinct.

“…basically all patients come to psychiatrists with one common problem: the sense of helplessness, the fear and inner conviction of being unable to ‘cope’ and to change things. One of the roots of this ‘sense of impotence’ in the majority of patients is some desire to partially or totally escape the pain of freedom, and, therefore, some failure, partial or total, to accept responsibility for their problems and their lives. They feel impotent because they have, in fact, given their power away. Sooner or later, if they are to be healed, they must learn that the entirety of one’s adult life is a series of personal choices, decisions. If they can accept this totally, then they become free people. To the extent that they do not accept this they will forever feel themselves victims.“

Embracing this truth really hurt, realising I was suddenly living in the middle of the remotest desert on my own and completely responsible for my own survival scared the wits out of me. But the freedom I now feel after accepting it is immense. By giving into this truth I also had to let go of everything I had invested in that didn’t pan out, to acknowledge I made poor choices and that I had given my power away, over and over again in my life, in an attempt to escape being completely responsible for myself. I think this is something we all do to some extent – every time we leave a decision up to someone else, whether it be a partner, a boss, a guru, a parent, to escape ever being responsible for our destiny. And this is just one way. There are so many ways we give up our personal power without realising the huge cost.

I will never hand over my personal power again. I will never allow my fate to be in the hands of another. I have honestly never felt more powerful or more empowered in my life and I can truly say, I have never been happier.

This entry was posted by } bird { on Saturday, December 19th, 2009 at 5:14 pm and is filed under Food for thought, Personal, wildishheart. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.