Audacious Freedom Live anywhere. Travel everywhere.

Your Mission

by Ellen M.H. Gates

If you cannot on the ocean
Sail among the swiftest fleet,
Rocking on the highest billows,
Laughing at the storms you meet;
You can stand among the sailors,
Anchored yet within the bay,
You can lend a hand to help them
As they launch their boats away.

If you are too weak to journey
Up the mountain, steep and high,
You can stand within the valley
While the multitudes go by;
You can chant in happy measure
As they slowly pass along–
Though they may forget the singer,
They will not forget the song.

If you cannot in the harvest
Garner up the richest sheaves,
Many a grain, both ripe and golden,
Oft the careless reaper leaves;
Go and glean among the briars
Growing rank against the wall,
For it may be that their shadow
Hides the heaviest grain of all.

If you cannot in the conflict
Prove yourself a soldier true;
If, where fire and smoke are thickest,
There’s no work for you to do;
When the battle field is silent,
You can go with careful tread;
You can bear away the wounded,
You can cover up the dead.

Do not then stand idly waiting
For some greater work to do;
Fortune is a lazy goddess,
She will never come to you;
Go and toil in any vineyard,
Do not fear to do and dare.
If you want a field of labor
You can find it anywhere.

Day 41 – 324 days to go!

We all have a dream. Some of us may have had the opportunity to fulfil that dream for others that dream was destroyed because of societies restrictions, beliefs, family expectations etc.

Inner mechanism of is curiosity

Can you imagine a time when life was about exploring and discovering before formal learning took the fun out of it? A time of curiosity at how the world works and we interact with it, before restrictions and expectations were placed on how we were supposed to respond and react?

There are many definitions of curiosity; however, I like to think of it as an inner motivating force. One thing all children have in common is curiosity. You don’t have to tell a baby or toddler to explore – they just do. They are motivated internally, compelled by something inside to learn about their environment and find out how it all works together. Left on their own children will naturally start exploring – sometimes to the exasperation of their parents. However, not all children are motivated to explore the same things! This means that not only is curiosity a motivating force but it is also a force that has its own driving agenda.

Even infants seem to express their individuality by responding to what attracts or repels them. It is almost like they have an inner guiding force which naturally directs their attention, a natural passion or a natural interest which guides them. This internal mechanism makes us naturally selective. We live in a vast and diverse world but this doesn’t mean we are interested in learning about everything in it – only that which interests us.

Inner passion and self expression

The things that hold our attention, that interest us and that we are passionate about seem to stem from somewhere deep inside of us. And can exist below the characteristics we acquire due to the upbringing we receive. It is at this deeper level that conflict arises. Often our personal conflict arises as a direct result of what we have been taught about what we are supposed to and the feelings that resonate deep down inside of us. On one hand we have these passions and on the other we have social acceptance.

If our passions are different to the expectations placed on us then, unless we come from a supportive family, we are forced to conform to the status quo. This forced conformity can come through peer pressure, constant comparison to others or even outright denial of self expression. An example of this could be a family that values hard work, logic and academics not supporting a desire to be a painter and a writer. What happens when this desire is denied?

An imbalance occurs between our inner mental environment and our outer environment where we experience life. In other words, our desires are generated by our inner world and expressed in our external environment. If these two worlds correspond ie we are living in harmony with our inner world then we are at peace, relaxed and able to progress. However, if these two worlds are in conflict then we will experience disappointment, dissatisfaction, frustration and emotional pain.

If we are unable to express our true inner self we will experience personal conflict.

Day 40 – 325 days to go!

Many of the typical reasons that we may take on an unsuitable opportunity ie trading, internet marketing, public speaking, a promotion, writing a book etc is for the attention we can draw to ourselves, the challenge, the action, the euphoria, the desire to be a hero or the sympathy for trying and not succeeding.

These emotions play a large role in motivating us to accept or reject opportunities that are presented to us. They have the power to distract us from overall success by inducing low quality decisions and poor performance. When we are motivated by our ego and not by our desired outcome it is easy to rush head long into something that will cause damage  to our relationships, our finances and our emotion.

And while this is true, I also think that there is something even more fundamental driving us to accept unsuitable opportunities – freedom. If there is the faintest possibility that this opportunity could bring about the freedom we so desperately desire then it is easy to get hyped up by all the positive excuses and justifications of why we need to accept it. Freedom is the number one universal driver for most people. Think about it – we all want to be free: free of worry, free of financial pressures, free to live like we want, free to enjoy life… freedom.

Making choices in the pursuit of freedom

How many times have you said yes to something and then been disappointed because it didn’t deliver what you expected? In fact not only didn’t it deliver, but you were unable to salvage anything or turn it around into a positive experience. Because we want, desire and crave freedom it means we don’t have the psychological resources to quickly spot opportunities that will deliver what we want.

Often we say that we have thought about something carefully and come to a solid conclusion from which we won’t be budged. But how often is that ‘solid’ conclusion based on really looking at the potential risks? Sure we look at cost in terms of financial outlay, time involvement and learning involved. But we don’t look at the deep risks – if I am spending 20 hours a week studying a new skill in order to eventually make a success what is that going to cost me in terms of my relationships and social circle? What is it going to cost in terms of discipline – month after month of no results? How long will I be willing to continue before admitting success or failure? What is my time worth? And if I am spending 20 hours a week on this, what does it mean I will not be able to do?

In order to weigh up any opportunity as being ‘good’ or ‘not good’ we need to make mental adjustments so that we can see past the hype being created and see the opportunity for what it really is. We need to have an internal process through which we are able to weigh each opportunity according to the potential freedom it can offer compared to the potential financial and psychological damage it can cause.

Day 38 – 327 days to go!

Stagnant water becomes the ideal breeding ground for bacteria and viruses. What makes water stagnant? Stagnant water is water that is motionless, that doesn’t move, except maybe a bit by wind or external forces. This water collects debris, often becomes foul smelling. Interestingly enough water that has a bit of algae growing is not said to be contaminated – this is the normal cycle of life. Overgrowth of algae and decay are the signs of contaminated and stagnant water.

This water is to be avoided!

Are you a stagnant mud pool to be avoided?

Muddy, murky thoughts following the same pathway as they always follow, flow unstopped through the mind. We are so accustomed to these thoughts that we let them go unchecked, unaware of the contamination they are spreading throughout our mental beings and the direct effect they are having on the quality of life we are experiencing.

When water becomes foul smelling as the result of bacteria and decay it is difficult to clean – possible but difficult and unpleasant. The same with our minds, it requires a lot of work to unlearn the habits of thoughts we have assimilated. It is an unpleasant and dirty job learning not to be unhappy.

We become so habituated in mental patterns that we don’t even realise we are doing it. We identify with these patterns of thinking, which cause our feelings, and think this is the only way it can be. It is just ‘the way I am’! We have put thousands of hours of effort into creating these thinking patterns which have created our reactions, responses and emotions. And these default thinking patterns that we have absorbed and accepted are like the foul smelling stagnant water.

You cannot smell the horrid reek but those around you can. You cannot see the murky colour but those around you aren’t blind. You may think that this is just the way it is, but those around experience the effect of being in contact with contaminated water. You may not see the way your thoughts are poisoning you and those around you, the effects are subtle but detrimental.

Starting the clean up

Starting the big unpleasant clean up, starts with awareness. How can you clean something that you don’t know is dirty? It starts with becoming aware of what you are saying, words like: ‘he hurt my feelings’, ‘traffic always makes me mad’ are strong indications that you are letting outside forces control you.

Cleaning up is more than just trying on a new thought, it takes determination to destroy every thought that creates unhappiness in your life. However, the effect is worth it. To think that you are the cause of all your unhappiness because of your habitual thought patterns might be a mind blowing notion.

Yet you are free to choose self fulfilling behaviour over self defeating behaviour if you want to.

Day 31 – 334 days to go!

I had a chat with a friend a couple a weeks ago about the fact that I had made a decision to stop drinking coffee and reduce my intake of sweet things. It turned out to be a very interesting discussion. Something that I have termed the ‘ostrich syndrome’. The ostrich syndrome is based on a myth that ostriches will bury their heads in the sand when there is danger – thereby not able to see what is threatening them. As humans we do the same thing when something threatens us physically, mentally or emotionally. We can somehow pretend that it doesn’t or won’t affect us.

This image stood out so clearly as we were discussing the issue of sugar. My friend said to me – don’t tell me what you have learnt I don’t want to know because I don’t want to give up sugar. That really slapped me in the face. How often had I refused to hear something, do something or read something because it might mean I would have to change or give something up?

I was acting like an ostrich with my head buried in the sand hoping that I wouldn’t be affected by the same laws and rules that govern the world. I was hoping that if I didn’t acknowledge that coffee made me sick then surely it wouldn’t even though I landed up lying in bed feeling awful.  And if I didn’t take control of my beliefs and allow them to be challenged then I would always be at the mercy of the ‘ostrich syndrome’. Pretending things won’t affect me, won’t harm me, won’t come near me, that I am above it, that I am untouchable – it might affect others but not me. Then get a huge shock when I am suddenly in a mess, hurt or feel betrayed and blame everybody and everything else except me for the position I am in.

Permanent change!

To have permanent change you first have to decide: do you want to change? If you do great then you can. If you don’t then continue on as you are but don’t be shocked by the consequences.

1. Decide if you want to change and if you are really willing to hear things contrary to your beliefs.
2. Make a commitment to challenge your thinking – read and listen to information that is outside your comfort zone. This isn’t about believing what is being said. It is about hearing and then thinking about it. Does it fit in with your beliefs? Where are the differences? What makes you uncomfortable? Is there any truth in it? If there is some truth can you merge only that truth with what you believe?
3. Take action – raise your standards. If you know that eating fatty food is bad for you – then don’t accept the washed out excuses of failure. If you need to start exercising then set a standard within yourself that will motivate you. This is a standard not a goal. A standard is an expectation that you are more than mediocre, that you are world class and such behave like a world class person.

Have fun while becoming familiar with an uncertain environment. But stay safe – this isn’t permission to get involved in illegal or harmful activities. This is permission to let those barriers of do’s and don’ts down and find out what you will live by and what you going to turf. This about getting rid of those beliefs that have limited you, holding you back from achieving those things you desire and finding the beliefs that will empower you and take you to new heights.

Day 30 – 335 days to go!

Have you ever been entertained by a 5 year olds endless questions starting with ‘Why’? Their inquisitive nature leads them to question everything so that they can build a framework of reference. The question ‘why’ is the way they explore their world, try and work out relationships between objects, between people and between people and objects. Though it can be tiring for an adult to be bombarded with ‘why’ down to the tiniest, insignificant detail – this is the way children learn and grow.

Questions!

Starting questions with ‘why’ is a hotly debated topic. However, let us put aside the debate about whether asking why is empowering or not and instead look at the purpose of questions. Questions open up channels of exploration. If I tell you my house is white – that is an unchanging fact, and it is so. But if you ask me why it is white then I have to start looking at reasons why it is white. In the process I may discover that it is because of tradition, or because that is the way I bought the house etc. Questions allow me to start exploring things that have always stood ‘solid’.

I remember talking to a headmistress once about her experience with children. She said that she instituted a policy in her school. If the children asked a question about a rule that they as teachers could not answer then that rule needed to be looked at and changes made.

We live by rules

All of us have rules – rules that govern our lives. As adults we often stop asking whether those rules are necessary, why they are there in the first place and what effect they have on our lives.  We accept their limiting powers on us without even thinking about alternative possibilities.

Have fun asking yourself questions and see where it leads you… You may even find that some of things you solidly believed and have limited you can be chucked off and new beliefs created.

Day 28 – 337 days to go!

One of the reasons I started keeping this blog is to record my journey towards achieving the quality of life I want. Initially I wanted to set up time regimes to keep me on track – ie at 9am I go for a walk, at 10am I meditate for 5 min at 12pm I do 15 min Pilates etc. However, this seemed to contradict the whole experience of becoming free, less stressed and enjoying life.

Yet 28 days on and I feel like I am going round in a circle. Like a dog chasing its tail. I have to admit I don’t have the discipline to do what I know I need to do without a schedule. This isn’t due to laziness that much I have worked out, but due to focus, procrastination and lack of motivation.

So now I have the dilemma – do I continue as I am and hope that by setting my intentions I will start doing what needs to get done on a regular basis till it becomes a habit or do I set my self a schedule to keep me accountable for taking action?

Schedules mean discipline. Lack of a schedule means I can ‘wing’ it without making excuses if I don’t get round to doing what I need to do. A schedule means deadlines, timelines, ability to monitor while a lack of schedule means doing it when I can fit it in, flexibility and ?. A schedule means another thing added to my ‘to-do’ list while no schedule means less pressure and less ‘have-tos’.

The question is how do I mix what I have to do on a day to day basis, with what I want to do and what I need to be doing in order to achieve my goals. This is a question that each one of us have to answer whether we are CEO’s of a company or a mother of a two year old. Sometimes there just doesn’t seem to be enough hours in the day to accomplish everything. And truthfully sometimes we don’t have the energy to do what we need to do..

In order to progress on our journey we need to be able to answer these two dilemmas – what will it take for me to make continual improvements in every area of my life every day and how do I balance my day around my true priorities.

Day 26 – 339 days to go!

It is amazing how much you can discover about yourself when you keep a journal. Journaling means different things to different people. Some people love to spend hours writing, others prefer to write short pointed sentences. Either way writing down the highs and lows of the day are very revealing. It means you are faced with revelations that can be painful but very freeing. By keeping a record of what you achieve, what you didn’t, how you reacted, your intentions, your success and failures you will start to become aware of triggers and influencers that are stopping you or progressing you on your journey.

Awareness is the first step to correcting, changing or replacing a behaviour, thought or action.

Is there a right or wrong way to Journal?

I hesitate to answer this question with a definite yes or no. Journaling is personal to everyone, I may prefer recording the events of my day through a mind map, you may prefer to do cartoon illustrations,  your neighbour 5 doors down may like to use poetry and my neighbour may like to write a story. So in this sense there is no right or wrong.

The grey area comes in regards to what you write. Is your writing beneficial or negatively depressed? Is what you are recording helping you to see ways in which you can improve or is it reinforcing failure and worthlessness in you. These are very important questions to ask yourself.

Some benefits of journaling

• It reduces stress by tying up all those scattered thoughts and ideas.
• Disentangles thoughts and ideas – writing helps you put things in perspective.
• Releases pent up emotion.
• Once something is written it allows your mind to let go and relax.
• It is fun, playful, experimental allowing you to express yourself without criticism or critique.
• Allows you to explore the connection between your  outer and inner world.

Journaling allows you to exercise your mental muscles while developing awareness of your thoughts, emotions and feelings. By clarifying your thoughts the sense of confusion is reduced and you are in a better position to understand the relationship between your reactions and external triggers. What this means – is that you are put back in control of your life, which is a great feeling!

Day 24 – 341 days to go!

The more I think of it the more I realise how dangerous opinions can be. Not only can they bring isolation – who wants to keep hearing about my opinions all the time when they have their own. They also bring a narrow world. And I think there are two ways that my opinions can create a narrower world.

1)      It creates a narrower world because I won’t explore or experience something opposite to what I have taken a stance on whether I am right or wrong.

2)      It hinders me from reaching my full potential by keeping me believing incorrect things about myself and my world.

I have already spoken about point one in previous posts. It is point two that I want to explore today.

Here is fact: A friend of mine lost $200 000 in a business venture that went wrong
Here is opinion: My friend thinks that he is a looser, useless and dumb.
Here is fact: My friend looked at a business plan, did his due diligence and based on the results decided it was a good investment. It didn’t work out.
And here is another fact: My friend can believe he is a looser – and then he will be and will never try again. Or he can believe that he lost $200 000 in a business venture and do something about it.

It took a while for my friend to change his opinion of himself, but as his opinion changed so did his ability to succeed. Three years after that business failure he owned a very successful training business.

Here are some of the facts and opinions I have let stop me from reaching my full potential:

Fact: I failed a maths test
Opinion: I am stupid and can never do maths

Fact: I take time to understand written things if not presented with supporting imagery
Opinion: There must be something wrong with that I can’t learn as quickly as everyone else

Fact: I had to quit a race because I didn’t train correctly
Opinion: why bother trying to do anything – I am no good anyway

Can you see how these opinions of me will affect my life, my ability to try something new, to give a new venture a go? I may start – but do I have the belief that I will succeed or fail?

And will I succeed or fail? At least 90% I will not ever get to a point where I will fail or succeed – either because I won’t start it or I bail out just in case… Opinions can be very strong. I can see how they have stopped me, how they have shaped my life, how they have held me back.

What are your opinions doing to your quality of life? Are you reaching your full potential?

Day 23 – 342 days to go!

Last night I was watching a very interesting story by the BBC (UK) on India and its history.  As a country mixed with modern technology, history older than in the west, spirituality, rhinos and 1 billion or so people it does have a strange fascination for me. However, that does not really have anything to do with what I wanted to say.

The commentator made a very interesting remark. Round about 400 AD (or was that BC?) an Indian astrologist figured out that the earth moved around the sun. This is way before the western world in which Galileo discovered this and was called a heretic because it was completely against the church’s doctrine. Yet when the Indian astrologist discovered that the earth wasn’t the centre of the universe it was accepted as forward advancement of society.

This off handed remark that the commentator made struck me as very important. My topic the last two days has been about the strength and validity of opinions. It was only an opinion that the sun rotated round the earth – a very strong opinion and widely believed. Yet in one nation when the opinion is tested and found to be false they accept the test and take on the new belief. In another it causes wide spread problems and threat.

How do I react to the challenge of my opinions? How do I react to the challenge that my opinions are unnecessary, often judgemental and not wanted? How do I react to the knowledge that other worlds, other cultures can actually have a better way of being, believing and acting than I?

I am starting to realise that opinions can be so deep rooted that I treat them as gospel. And yet they are just opinions that I can take or leave, that you can take or leave.  They are just opinions, they don’t define me, they don’t describe me and they can change – if I let them change…