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Health & Fitness

Conscious Freedom

To be free we have to make conscious choices and how good things in life make us shine a little brighter - be conscious of them.

I am on the verge of staring a new job and this new opportunity has made me think a lot about freedom. The possibilities of an exciting new job make me feel like the spark of life that is me can really shine in this world. We live in a country where we are free to make our own decisions about what matters to us. Still, many people take for granted simply being conscious.

I was in the White Rabbit recently and a woman ran in asking about greeting cards by a certain person. I thought "Those must be great cards," but when I passed her, I could smell that she was really just drunk. On the way back home, I slowed down to let a nice looking man cross Alhambra Avenue. When he got next to my car he yelled “Don’t call me a cab, OK?” and there was the smell of alcohol. It’s not just the alcohol that I notice, but the putrid odor of its poison expelling from the person’s lungs. A person has to be in a lot of pain to put their body, mind, and spirit in the care of something so toxic. If those people are lucky, they’ll come to a point in life where they get help, but that takes consciousness.

In Deepak Chopra’s book, “The Book of Secrets” he says “Whatever is stored in darkness becomes distorted: Awareness like fresh water, is meant to flow, and when it can’t, it turns stagnant. In your inner world, there are countless memories and repressed impulses… It is the primary property of consciousness that it can organize itself into new patterns and designs. If you don’t allow consciousness to go where it needs to, however, disorganized energy is the result.”

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Our mind can be our greatest ally or our worst enemy. We complain about the world “out there”, but it’s the world inside us that also requires nurturing and attention. And in caring for ourselves, we find inner freedom.

For me the word “freedom” is intertwined with the word “America.” You can say what you will about our politics and health care, but it’s the human stories that remind me how lucky we are to live here.

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I Read recently about a campaign in Saudia Arabia allowing women to drive (Women2Drive), but only with their husbands or fathers. Another article I read was about a North Korean woman who finally escaped a prison camp where she and her family were forced to live after her Uncle escaped the country. The more I read about the first-hand accounts from the people who escaped these prison camps, I felt physically ill. One woman said even suicide isn’t an option, because the whole family will suffer if one of its own tries to kill themselves.

When I read things like that I have to stop and wonder what kind of life that would be? How would I survive? Of course, turn the page and you’ll read about another twenty-something girl ready to marry Hugh Hefner and how she gave him back the $90K engagement ring, for her own freedom.

That’s another thing about freedom, you can’t buy it. No one owns it. It too has to be nurtured, protected, and treasured. It’s always in danger, really. In our pursuit of happiness, it’s important to remember that some of the things we take for granted every day only exist because people put their lives on the line to preserve them. What we can do is remember, and be conscious of our choices. Make choices that honor those rights we hold dear. Make choices to remember those who helped protect those rights. Make choices that help us take care of ourselves and others and this world we live in.

Let the fireworks that you see on the Fourth of July remind you of the spark in yourself. The spark that shines a little brighter because you got that new job or you found the love of your life or when you are reminded that the life that you live is your own because you live here.

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