IF YOU THINK YOU’RE FREE…
THINK AGAIN!

All of us have been taught from the time we were young to abhor slavery. Ask any person and they will tell you it is cruel, debasing and against human rights to do so. Yet – most of us participate in slavery every day without awareness of how we are doing so.
As students of spirituality it is critical that we expand our awareness to recognize when we are doing this and make the necessary changes to end the servitude.

I’d like to share several ways that we can enslave ourselves and others so our actions can become clear.
See if you resonate with any of these:

#1 – We are all aware of the incessant internal dialogue that goes on in our heads. But rarely do we realize how enslaved we are by our own thought-forms. For example, let’s say you have been working on a project and you are almost done but you realize you are starving and you need to eat. But your mind pipes in and says; “You can get something to eat as soon as you finish this last section of work.” So you finish your work with a headache and finally get something to eat.

Your mind, which has no idea what it is like to be hungry, just commanded your physical body to suffer in hunger because of some rule it has about finishing your work first. Your mind made the proposal and you said “Yes master.” If that is not slavery I don’t know what is! The way to love and respect our body is to attend to its needs like it is a treasured child. Not to disrespect it in favor of some thought-form about getting work done. Take a moment to see how many ways you engage in this kind of mental slavery:

• Do you over exercise because your mind says you must look a certain way?
• Do you work too much because your mind says you need respect and accolades?
• Do you always entertain others because your mind says you need to do so to be loved?
• Do you avoid actions that would lead to success because your mind says you’re not capable or deserving?
• Are you staying in unhealthy relationships or jobs because your mind is saying you can’t get anything better?

#2 – We often enslave the people we love by projecting onto them the judgments we hold regarding who they are and how they live their lives. For example; if your father was verbally and/or physically abusive to you when you were young, you probably are treating him in your adulthood in a way that reflects your inner child’s judgment of him.

In other words, without forgiveness we will talk to those who have hurt us in a tone and/or with an energy that carries our anger in it. In return, that person feels that energy and does not like feeling guilty – so they defend themselves in return and end up using that same tone and/or energy back to us. In this way we enslave our family and ourselves by not allowing them to be who they are now because we are forcing them to relive the past.

We cast the people we know into roles that we have assigned to them forcing them to behave in a particular way in our presence. Without awareness it is so easy to do – but once we have awareness we can change this kind of energetic co-dependency and free the people in our lives to be all they can be in our presence. We can give them a chance to grow, heal, and play new and different parts in our dream.

These examples are just two reasons why most spiritual paths talk about freedom so often. In the end, the only one who is creating hell in our lives is us and the rigid position of the human mind. Freedom is the ability to change our beliefs, let go of hard and fast points of view, and to be able see the world without predetermined socially domesticated mental concepts. I encourage you to challenge yourself to make a list of how you have been enslaving yourself and others so you can make another choice. Maybe next time you are playing that video game you will actually get up and allow yourself go to the bathroom!

With All my love & blessings.
Sheri Rosenthal

You are welcome to reprint this article with the following information at the conclusion of the text:
Sheri Rosenthal DPM is a master Toltec teacher and author of The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Toltec Wisdom and Banish Mind Spam!. Having trained with don Miguel Ruiz, author of The Four Agreements®, she currently takes students on spiritual journeys www.journeysofthespirit.com works with personal apprentices and enjoys being extremely happy. You can reach her at info@sherirosenthal.com or www.sherirosenthal.com and www.withforgiveness.com.