{"id":598,"date":"2012-07-10T10:54:54","date_gmt":"2012-07-10T15:54:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/allisonwatts.com\/blog\/?p=598"},"modified":"2020-12-26T00:58:00","modified_gmt":"2020-12-26T06:58:00","slug":"achieve-feeling-freedom","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/allisonwatts.com\/achieve-feeling-freedom\/","title":{"rendered":"How Can We Achieve A Feeling Of Freedom?"},"content":{"rendered":"
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How Can We Achieve A Feeling Of Freedom? <\/strong><\/span><\/span><\/div>\n
by Allison Watts, DDS<\/strong>
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I’m back and recovered from my move. I’ve been thinking about something I want to share with you. I believe we all value freedom. I know I’ve valued freedom since I was a child, but I wasn’t careful to define it. I realized a few years ago that my definition of freedom wasn’t serving me. I defined freedom as being able to do whatever I want, whenever I want — this meant no rules. It was a way of avoiding responsibility and my definition of responsibility wasn’t an empowering one, either. Responsibility meant someone is at fault or to blame; they did something wrong and they were bad! <\/span><\/span><\/div>\n

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I am out to redefine freedom and responsibility<\/strong> because I do believe with freedom comes responsibility.  Otto Rank states that “the degree to which a person is unaware of those forces which influence us, they are controlled by them”.<\/em> So what forces are influencing us — is it the outside world or our own thoughts, feelings and beliefs? I believe it’s both. Are we a victim to outside influences or do we have power and choice? I definitely believe we have some power, but I don’t always live that way.  Sometimes I feel and act like a victim. Or maybe I have choices, but I don’t like any of them… <\/span><\/span><\/span><\/div>\n

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So how does this work?<\/strong> Something happens (we may not have a choice about what happens) and then we have a thought, feeling or opinion about it and respond. I love to think about it in this formula: <\/span><\/span><\/span><\/div>\n

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EVENT+ ASSUMPTIONS (based on beliefs) + RESPONSE (based on emotions) = OUTCOME<\/strong><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/div>\n

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THOUGHTS + FEELINGS + ACTIONS = RESULTS<\/strong><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/div>\n

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Truly all events are neutral. We are the ones who give them meaning.<\/strong> Each of us gives the same event a slightly different meaning. Assuming you cannot change the events and you are not satisfied with the outcome, you must change your assumptions, beliefs and responses. We have control over these and there is value in at least questioning our beliefs and assumptions to see if they are the only truth we can come up with and\/or consider a different response to produce an outcome that is more to our liking…<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n

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Another way to think of it is Event + Meaning = Outcome.<\/strong>  Mastery of our life is in choosing the meaning !!!!<\/em> This is constant work for me, but I will become a master — it is my quest!   Do you believe you can choose the meaning of things? It seems automatic because we believe those meanings are the truth. Something happened, we experienced it through our own lens and made it mean something. For example, if someone’s parents were abusive, one child could make it mean that they deserved it and become an abuser themselves; while the other sibling knows it’s not right and vows never to be that way and becomes an advocate for abused children. <\/span><\/span><\/div>\n

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Once we’ve believed a meaning\/story for a while, we can even go back and change it by questioning it and developing other possible meanings. When we do this, we see that the other meanings are just as likely true as the one we have believed all this time. Doing this helps open us up to other possibilities and see things differently. It gives us choice and power. We can choose whatever story we want, it’s just that some of them have deeply engrained neural pathways, so we have to work at ingraining the new one instead of believing the old one…. Ponder this and we’ll talk about some how’s next time. <\/em><\/span><\/span><\/div>\n

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Good luck on your quest for joy and freedom.<\/strong> I’d love to hear how you are doing at this or other ways that you have found to create a life you love.<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n
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Feel free to share this with your friends!<\/span><\/span><\/strong><\/div>\n

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Allison
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  How Can We Achieve A Feeling Of Freedom? by Allison Watts, DDS I’m back and recovered from my move. I’ve been thinking about something I want to share with you. I believe we all value freedom. I know I’ve valued freedom since I was a child, but I wasn’t careful to define it. I realized a few years […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":600,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_cloudinary_featured_overwrite":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[310,25,4,24,3],"tags":[12,226,225,217,222,216,224,199,223],"yoast_head":"\nHow Can We Achieve A Feeling Of Freedom?<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"I am out to redefine freedom and responsibility. Are we a victim to outside influences or do we have power and choice? 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