There’s hope for everyone
Some people are natural free spirits. They seem to have a knack for going with the flow and rarely get caught swimming up-stream. Unfortunately, I don’t fall into that enviable category. I’m tightly wound, more likely to be found clinging to a tree on side of the river while my free-spirited friends gleefully float by. Despite my uptight tendencies, I do believe there’s hope. I’m going to share two techniques that promise to free anyone’s spirit – perfectionists and control freaks included.
Give yourself what you want and you may get it from others.
Okay, let’s be clear. I’m not talking about a box of pastries here. I’m referring to the things we really need but sometimes depend on others to provide. For example, love. I know it sounds syrupy but stick with me here. We all know that like attracts like, therefore, if we are steeped in self-judgment and self-rejection it only makes sense that we will attract those who also have a tendency to judge and reject.
It might help to visualize self-rejection as a vortex in your energy field that is impossible to fill from the outside. But just because it doesn’t work, doesn’t mean we don’t try to get others to give us what we’re not giving ourselves. Granted, a kind word can make us feel better temporarily, but eventually the vortex sucks it up and you’re empty again. No one else’s energy can fill you up – period. We have to do that for ourselves.
Only when we love and appreciate ourselves do we become energetically fulfilled, no longer requiring others to pour their vital energy into one of our sink holes. It is from this place that we are able to attract partners and friends who love and appreciate us most of the time. And when they do have a “human moment” and act less than loving, it’s no big deal because you’re already full! We’ve all heard this message a thousand times, Love yourself first, but the bigger picture is this: when we try to control another’s behavior to ease our own insecurities, we lose energy and it is only through reclaiming that energy can our spirit be free.
Regularly shed that which no longer serves you.
I’m going to keep this simple: You are not a city dump. I know that’s obvious, but, how many of us are comfortable storing physical and emotional garbage in our bodies? We are not meant to store anything! Food and feelings alike are meant to flow through us as if we were a tube. When we fill our bodies with more than we need or consume more toxins than our bodies can eliminate, we become sticky. Being sticky, we attract more of the same. Ultimately, we forget that our primary function is self-expression, and instead, move toward chronic over-consumption. This is true with emotions as well. Think of a small child who cries when she is sad then laughs in the very next moment. Children don’t hold on to their emotions, they express them and move on! We need to be more like children and process our feelings rather than store them. A free spirit requires that it be unburdened by physical and emotional toxins so that it can flow with ease.
I wish I could say that I love myself all the time and depend on no one to fill me up and that I never over-eat as not to get sticky and forget my function… The truth is I’m still a work in progress, and always will be. The above tips do work though, first, by reclaiming your spirit and then by setting it free. Free, by the way, is how we are meant to be.
