RESET YOUR INNER COMPASS AND FIND A NEW PATHWAY
Over the years, truly living these pillars has been my greatest challenge and my greatest freedom. They have enabled me to live a life where I am guided, directed and motivated by my principles and not my emotions. They are not always easy to live but they are absolutely worth the challenge.
These principles have become my inner compass and when faced with my biggest decisions they have allowed me to not be distracted by fear or anxiety, not be distracted by other people or other people’s opinions, but instead stay focused on my own power, stay true to my own dreams and step bravely into the unknown, somehow knowing that everything will work out in a way that makes perfect sense.
They are the principles that enable me to accept the things that happen unexpectedly or in ways that I didn’t want or predict and not get overwhelmed by them but instead successfully navigate my way through them, enabling me to rise and thrive in challenge and change. I work on these pillars of emotional freedom all the time to help me stay emotionally connected to what is important and to emotionally release myself from all that no longer serves me.
All of these pillars are habits. We can choose to develop the habit of comparison or the habit of non-comparison, of forgiving or non-forgiving, of gratitude or non-gratitude. Once we develop the habit, we are likely to perpetuate it over and over regardless of our external world, and it is these internal emotional habits, and not our external situations, that are actually the predictor of how happy we will be.
Here are my pillars of emotional freedom:
1 NON-RESISTANCE
Very often the biggest cause of our suffering is not actually the external event but our anticipation, our expectation, our internal experience and our reaction to the external event. When we can accept the things that are outside of our control, outside of what we expected, we can attach our energy and focus onto the things we can control.
Non-resistance means that we can accept what is, without judgement. This allows us to flow more easily with life and to live more in an inner state of ease and grace.
2 NON-JUDGEMENT
One of the greatest lessons I’ve learned is that at times we need to be patient. We need to fact-check the stories that are building in our head. We need to check the emotions we are holding and building and perpetuating and ask if they are helpful or hurtful. And we need to listen to the judgements in our head and ask if we are judging people or situations unfairly.
Are we judging them too quickly? Non-judgement means not getting caught up in our own ideas and opinions, likes and dislikes, in our own ego, to the point where we condemn all that is different to our own likes, expectations and opinions or where we label as wrong all that exists outside our own definitions of truth.
3 NON-ATTACHMENT
Non-attachment, or detachment, allows us to experience all emotions and with conscious awareness select the ones that are helpful and remove the others. The things we emotionally attach our energy and attention to are either magnifying the problem or magnifying the solution and either enabling or disabling us.
4 NON-STRIVING
Think of striving as a strong inner desire to reach a particular outcome such as a relationship, a job, a salary, an accomplishment. We must be aware that our desires can also change us at a chemical and neurobiological level, which is a really important aspect when we begin to observe and understand not just the desire but the impacts and consequences that desire has on our health and happiness. Non-striving is about focusing less on chasing our goals and more on creating and maintaining the mindset and the emotional conditions that will enable us to achieve them.
5 FORGIVENESS
Is a conscious and voluntary internal process of letting go of thoughts and emotions such as anger, resentment and bitterness. True forgiveness involves accepting that our mistakes matter but that so too does our suffering our health and our happiness.
Forgiveness, of self, of others or of the universe, is first and foremost for our own growth and happiness.
6 NON-COMPARISON
Two people can be in completely different places in life and both can be in the right place. The right place is not an objective place, but a subjective place that has to be right for the person that is in it.
Non-comparison is also about not comparing ourselves to the person we think we should be or the person we used to be.
Very often we compare ourselves to a fictional character that we create in our head or that someone has created in their head, and we spend our lives comparing the person we are to the fictional person someone influenced us into thinking we should be. The ability to accept ourselves exactly as we are in this moment without judgement or resistance is another vital part of non-comparison and emotional freedom.
7 TRUST
Trust means that even when life is happening in a way that is unexpected or unwanted, we have an inner knowing that there is a reason and a meaning for why it is happening the way it is, and this enables us to respond to what is happening with an open mind and a sense of curiosity instead of resistance and judgement.
8 GRATITUDE
Many of us are told to constantly set targets and goals and chase new things, and while this can be exciting and motivating, it can mean that we are always looking towards the thing we want to manifest, which also means we are focusing on what we don’t have and we lose sight of the many great things we have right now. The more we focus on things we don’t have, the more we generate and start to live from an energy of lack or limitation. Gratitude enables us to become more aware of all the things we have right now. It allows us to let go of the need for constant striving and chasing and replaces it with an ability to extract the most amount of joy out of each and every moment as it unfolds.
9
THE EMOTIONAL POWER OF WHY
We are all realising as we awaken to a new level of human consciousness that each and every one of us has a responsibility to bring our own meaning to life. We need to ask: ‘Who am I? Why am I here? What is the purpose of my life?’ When we begin to give something a new meaning, just like in life and sport, we begin to embrace it in a whole new way. What we do in life doesn’t matter as much as why we do it.
10 SURRENDER
Surrendering is an act of immense strength and courage. I believe surrender is an invitation to freedom, growth and transformation. Surrendering doesn’t mean we’re weak; it means we’re strong enough to let go of our attachments, fears and expectations. It’s about recognising that there are forces greater than ourselves at play and understanding that we can’t always control every outcome.