I can't do that.

That's selfish.

That doesn't make sense.

It's not the right thing to do.

What will people think?

I feel guilty.

I can't afford it.

I don't have time.

I'm tired.

I'm anxious.

These are things I hear every day from people wanting to make changes in their lives. 

These phrases are indications of an internal conflict.

The person is attempting to live a life that is not theirs.

This person is at the cup of a big transition - one of the biggest.

It's the transition from living according to someone else's rules to living according to one's own.

Sometimes the transition comes through pain.  Sometimes through desire.

It's easy to spend a lot of time with these kinds of statements and so-called problems.  The ins and outs of relationships and practicalities.

What I find vastly more helpful, however, is to focus on what you do want.  To open to it, imagine it, embody it - have the feeling of it and follow that passion.  

As you do this the rest falls away.  It's not a quick process necessarily though it can be.  The speed of it is up to each person.  I've changed my thinking on this dramatically over the years.  When someone is ready massive transformation is possible.  And for the people who choose to take their time - that is a completely valid route.  Both paths are valid. 

The transformation requires a detaching from all the things - the rules, the views of others, everything we have including the 'good' things.  It doesn't mean we lose everything.  It means that our relationship to everything changes because we understand (we experience) that what we have in our lives is secondary to who we are.

And the transformation doesn't happen through reading, thinking and talking alone.  That is only a piece.  The transformation happens through experience - of emotion, of physical sensation, of the breath, of connection, of nature, of sexuality, of passion....

We have begun the season of obligations.  If you are on the cusp of this transition you will be feeling it keenly.  The old suit isn't fitting.  You are bracing yourself.  Counting days.

You have been brought up with a right way and a wrong way.

You know what is reasonable and what isn't.  You know what makes sense and what doesn't.

You are successful or unsuccessful.

And when you don't measure up or do what you think you are supposed to do you feel guilty.  Like there is something wrong with you.  You live with a lot of self doubt and anxiety.  You fear failure and embarrassment.  What people think matters a lot

And if you are honest you judge others pretty harshly too.  

You are constantly looking for security.  For the right answer.  

This  way of being can only go so far.  It cracks when you want things like freedom.  When you work for yourself.  When you can't seem to put up a good front anymore.  When you lose something or someone that you love.

This is  one of the biggest transitions we go through.  From a life determined by other people's ideas... chasing security and approval....  to freedom.  A life on our own terms.  

A life where you answer to no one.

You care but you do not bow.

You become stronger.  More uniquely you.  You live your gifts and speak the truth.  You love harder and cry more openly.

You know you are responsible for yourself and sometimes that means not making everyone happy.  You refuse to cross your own boundaries - boundaries you set with love.  

This transition is the transition that changes everything.

It requires physical fortitude to make the difficult decisions.

It requires emotional awareness and expression to let previously stuffed down emotions flow.

It requires mental equanimity to understand that you are choosing yourself regardless of the critical voices in your head.

It requires spiritual connection - a sense of yourself and your place here that is not defined by anything other than the fact of your aliveness.

It's one of those things that is difficult to describe until you are on the other side and your head isn't full of all the voices and self-questioning and you wake up in the morning free to do whatever it is you want to do.

You don't have to hold it up anymore.

You don't have to keep it together.

You don't have to play the role.

When you are ready to step into freedom all the structures will disintegrate and there you will be.  Free.

Free because you know your life is your own and you are responsible for everything in it.

Free because you define your life for yourself.  

As we head into the season that offers us everything and at the same time pressures us in every way let those of us who feel that tug step forward and choose freedom. 

Let us experience the relief of putting it all down.​​

Because each act we take on our own behalf we take for the world.

When we are relieved we relieve the world.​

When we are free we are creative. We can love where love is needed. See where seeing is needed.​Re-design where re-design is needed.

It can be a stormy passage there's no doubt. 

And the other side is a new land we can build together.