Freedom

Freedom is something I think about quite a bit. As far back as I can remember I have always sought to be free – free to be who I am without rejection or judgement, free from illness or poverty, free to move about as I like, free to feel good in my own skin, free to love who I want, free to express myself in my own, unique way. I think freedom is a fundamental desire of all living beings. Freedom for humans though, is a more complex matter than in other living creatures because of our awareness of past and future. What is freedom?

When I Google “definition of freedom”, Dictionary defines freedom as: 1. the power or right to act, speak, or think as one wants without hindrance or restraint. 2. absence of subjection to foreign domination or despotic government. 3. the state of not being imprisoned or enslaved. 4. the state of being physically unrestricted and able to move easily. 5. the state of not being subject to or affected by (a particular undesirable thing). 6. the power of self-determination attributed to the will; the quality of being independent of fate or necessity. 7. unrestricted use of something. 8. familiarity or openness in speech or behavior.

In my ongoing search for freedom I have discovered a couple things that I think are true in regard to freedom: Each individual must define freedom for themself and Freedom can only be found within

The type of freedom I would like to explore is inner freedom. While our individual freedom is certainly affected by outside forces, I think we develop habits of thinking that inhibit our freedom in many ways. For example, I will often agree with someone to fit in and avoid the discomfort that comes with disagreement. I sometimes go with the group, even though I would prefer something else, just so I won’t be perceived as weird or “outside”.

Another example that I think most people can relate to is how we manage our health and body image. Our society and culture basically cages us into the idea that we need to be thin and fit to be worthy. We constantly torture ourselves about what to eat, what not to eat, how much, on and on and on. We diet and restrict, and perhaps beat ourselves up working out. Then we get tired and sore or really, really hungry and let it all go. Then we gain weight and start the cycle all over again. This is all so exhausting.

I want to be free from societally, culturally and self imposed torment. I want to feel good in my skin and good enough as I am. I don’t want to live in a state of “unless I am thin (or rich, or beautiful or fit or my house is clean or my kids are perfect) I’m not OK”. I want to feel OK no matter what. Even if shit is hitting the fan! All the things we are attempting to control are the very things keeping us locked up and unfree. The “I’ll only be OK when” mentality is the very thing making us not OK.

Another big freedom-sucker is judgement. When we judge, it takes away our freedom to fully love because we are seeing someone as less-than for the choices they make. When we judge, we are attempting to lift ourself up by bringing someone else down. We think our choices are better for everyone. It matters not whether we judge silently or outwardly. Either way, our freedom is limited because our narrow perception is that others` should not be free to make choices that don’t agree with ours. For sure, if someone is judgey with others, you can bet they judge themselves as well.

The truth is, there are 7.8 billion humans on this planet and 7.8 billion different perceptions of everything. There is no way we can see through someone else’s eyes. We all do the best we can with what we have in any given moment. On a deeper level, we are all the same. We all want safety, connection, freedom and love.

Inner freedom is a practice. Once we are aware that we are conditioned by our environment, we can practice freeing ourselves of the beliefs that do not support our well-being. And if there is one freedom we ALL have, it is that we can choose our beliefs.

Thoughts on Love

Some people are easy to love. Some people are not. They are the ones who annoy or anger us. The ones we judge most harshly.

But the difficult-to-love ones are actually a gift. They are some of our greatest teachers. They teach us about ourselves. When we work at loving the difficult ones we grow in ways we never imagined.

Practice loving the hard-to-love ones – they are the ones who need your love the most.

You are a lover by nature. Be the one who loves. It’s who you really are. Who all of us really are.

I am, therefore I love.

Purpose

Everyone talks about purpose. It’s natural to want our life to have meaning and purpose. After all, here we are on this rock, hurling through space at 67,000 miles per hour while spinning at approximately 1000 miles per hour. Wait, what? Is that even real? WTF is the purpose of that? Of me? Of anything?

I don’t claim to have the answers. But I’d like to believe I have purpose – that my existence it not completely meaningless and for no good reason other than I randomly showed up 13.8 billion years after the Big Bang.

Over many years of studying science and spirituality, I’ve come to believe the purpose of our existence is love. To love, to be loved, to learn to love more fully, to grow love, to be love.

Our body’s physiology is extremely responsive to our thoughts and emotions. When we are in a state of fear our body responds by producing adrenaline and cortisol. This physiologic state doesn’t support well-being long-term, but it sure does the job short-term when we need to fight, freeze, or flee to survive.

On the other hand, when we are in a state of loving, our bodies produce dopamine, serotonin and oxytocin, which all feel great and support thriving. I don’t think anyone will disagree that love feels great! Other positive feelings such as appreciation, enthusiasm, warm-heartedness and joy have the same positive effects on our wellness. The more often we are in these positive states, the more well-being we experience.

So it is my chosen belief that we are here to love and share that love.

I was fortunate enough to grow up in a family that didn’t try to force me into any particular career or path. I was allowed to discover my own path – to go to college or not – to be whatever I wanted. I was encouraged to follow my bliss and was trusted to go my own direction.

I ended up in the fitness business – doing group exercise, private fitness training, and teaching anatomy and biomechanics at the university level. This has been an extremely fulfilling career for the last 35 years. My knowledge and the way I operate in my work have expanded and evolved over these decades.

When I started my fitness practice I saw my work as a way to “help” or “change” people by designing workouts and healthy eating programs. This was very satisfying when my clients or students would “comply” and get results. But when my programs didn’t work, it was frustrating for both client and myself. My client would feel like a failure and I’d feel like a fraud.

As time went by I realized that I can’t fix people. Most clients just want an expert to guide them as they embark on their fitness journey. I learned that my work is most effective when I encourage my clients without judgment. Now that I understand that I cannot fix or change another, I go into a training relationship with a different mindset.

My aim is to be on my client’s side no matter what. To be with them thorough the ups and downs of making hard changes without shaming along the way. To allow them to choose what is right and not force them into a way of being that doesn’t fit. To offer positive and encouraging guidance even when they don’t do what I prescribe. To not give up on them just because they are not perfect. Essentially, loving them unconditionally.

We all have the capacity to love. It doesn’t matter how you grow and give your love. The artist creates art. The musician creates music. The teacher shares knowledge. The engineer evolves technology. The parent cares for child. The farmer grows food. The trash collector keeps trash off our streets. The hair stylist helps us feel beautiful. These are all forms of sharing love. Whatever you do, make a conscious choice to do it from a position of love.

Love is in our DNA and hardwired into our neural network. Love supports the propagation and thriving of the species. Evolution promotes love and love promotes evolution. Everyone and everything benefits from love.

You might think that lovingness is an altruistic or selfless way of being, but it’s not. The one who will benefit most is you, the lover. Love will heal you.

The Mind

The mind is a powerful apparatus, the ramblings of which we are starting to understand in useful ways. We humans are thinkers. We think. A lot. What some may not be aware of is that thoughts elicit emotions in the body. The mind thinks and the body feels. According to Biologist and Epigeneticist Bruce Lipton, “Thoughts are the language of the brain, and feelings are the language of the body. The body responds to thoughts through emotions.” The feelings elicited by thoughts then complete a loop and affect thinking, resulting in a cycle that repeats: thoughts arouse emotions; emotions prompt thoughts.

Commonly its a shit show between mind and body. Through our experiences, and largely by the influence of others, we develop habits of thinking. These thought patterns or habits are stored in the brain’s neural network through practice, and neurons that fire together, eventually wire together. Over time, thought habits get recorded in our default mode network and replay automatically, perhaps without our awareness. This collection of our thoughts, beliefs, expectations and emotions shape our life experiences.

Thoughts arise from our own unique perspective of things. We perceive the world though our senses – sight, hearing, touch, taste and smell. The meaning we assign to things based on our perceptions shapes our thinking. That something is “good” or “bad” is only a result of our belief about it, not by the actual something we are observing. Our beliefs are simply thoughts we keep thinking. Things just are, and when we take away our judgement of things, the whole picture changes.

To demonstrate this, consider this scenario: you wake up at 3 am to pee, and when you get back to bed, you are awake. You toss and turn for some time, perhaps only reaching a light doze, but not the solid sleep you think you need. After an hour or two you start to agonize over how tired you’re going to be in the morning and all the things you need to get done in your day that will suffer as a result of your sleeplessness. You think and believe that your day is going to suck, and it probably will.

But it doesn’t have to be that way. You have a choice here. You may not be able to “choose” to fall back to sleep – you either will or you won’t. But you don’t have to mull over how bad it is. You can tell yourself, “perhaps I’ve had all the sleep I need”. I can use this time to think about all the good things in my life. “Perhaps I will be fine tomorrow.” Perhaps my day will be great and I will be full of energy and vitality. Practice this a few times and see how true it is. Then take other experiences in your life that you view as “bad” or “uncomfortable” or “tragic” or negative in some way, and practice changing your view by questioning whether it really is that bad.

Thoughts that elicit feelings such as hope, appreciation, passion, love and joy support the well being and balance of the body and mind. However, if dominant habitual thought patterns are fearful, tense, worried, angry, depressed, hopeless, or apathetic the body experiences tension, aches, pains, imbalance, fatigue, and eventually illness.

It is entirely possible to undo negative cycles of thinking that make us sick and tired. Meditation is one of the most powerful tools for changing negative habitual thought patterns and replacing them with ways of thinking that foster well being and vitality.

Here are some examples of thoughts that are worth changing: I don’t deserve well being and vitality; my body is broken; I can’t trust my body to stay healthy; something is wrong with me; I’m okay ONLY if certain criteria are satisfied; I’m not lovable; nothing ever works for me; I’m not worthy of happiness. Do any of these thoughts hit home for you? Keep reading.

The body system most affected by meditation is the nervous system. The first objective of meditation is to relax the body, switching the physiology from sympathetic (fight, flight, or freeze) to the parasympathetic (rest, repair and digest) operation. When you get really relaxed, you are much more receptive to ideas. When you meditate you are relaxing the body and quieting the mind to get below the feedback loop and taking away its power. You can then reprogram or change the repetitive tapes that keep you stuck in your less-than-healthy thought patterns that make you sick and tired.

Many folks who are aware of the life changing benefits of meditation report that it is very difficult to quiet the mind. And it is! This is the main reason people stop meditating and give up on the practice, or don’t even try in the first place.

There is a simple antidote to the “can’t stop thinking” dilemma – use guided meditations. There are thousands of these precious jewels available at our fingertips, for free. YouTube and Insight Timer are great places to start. Choose a topic you want to improve such as body healing or more loving relationships or self love and find mediations you enjoy. Start with 5 minutes per day if that is all you are willing to invest. The key is to do it daily and be consistent with your practice.

Guided meditations coax you or talk you into elevated emotions (feelings) such as appreciation and love. The key here is feeling the emotions, not just thinking about topics of “appreciation” and “love”. You get the benefit when you FEEL those elevated emotions and not just think about them because feeling or experiencing positive emotions changes our physiology in profound ways. When you feel elevated emotions such as hopefulness, enthusiasm, gratitude, love, passion, joy, or even contentment, your body produces chemistry that supports vitality. The improved physiology then feeds back into more positive thoughts, which then complete the loop into more positive feelings.

By adopting a daily practice of meditation of any type, you are investing in your mental and physical well being. By doing this daily, you are basically practicing feeling good, or feeling nothing, as opposed to old habits of feeling sorta crappy a lot of the time. Like any activity or habit of value, it takes practice to get good at it. In time, you begin to develop the habit of feeling good. You’re just learning a new skill. Your body will heal. Your soul will heal. Your relationships will heal. Your clarity and creativity expands. You will have more energy to pursue things that make your life feel meaningful.

But YOU are the only one responsible for your thoughts and feelings and experiences. People and experiences certainly can uplift or bring us down, but we always have a choice to let go control, and with practice, we can choose our responses more mindfully. The only place we are going to build a solid foundation of well being is within. The moment you realize this, you stop hoping the outside world will change so you can finally be happy, and you start looking in the only place your happiness exists, inside yourself.

Grow Your Love

Love and knowledge. These are what I seek. Especially love. If you are looking to this blog for relationship advice, here it is: “The most important relationship you will ever have is with yourself”. Heal and nurture that one relationship, and the rest of your life will heal. Life gets better from here.

This blog is about expanding love and discovering your own magnificence. My insights come from my own endeavor for self love and well-being. Your journey will be unique to you, and I encourage you to embark. In doing so you will find the thriving you so desire – physically, mentally and spiritually. The way to thrive is to grow your love.

Most of us grow up in an environment that does not promote self love. We learn things backward. We learn that we are valuable and worthy only after we prove ourself. We grow up believing that our value comes from our accomplishments; from things outside ourself. In school we are judged, not only by our peers, but by the whole system. We are assigned grades based on our performance in absorbing and repeating the curriculum. The system puts us in value categories: “A” student, “B” student and so on. We acquire labels like “popular”, “unpopular”, “pretty”, “ugly”, “smart”, “stupid”, and we accept these labels rather than questioning them. Our well-meaning parents are generally in agreement with this culture. We learn by default that we will be worthy of happiness only after we get the grade, or the job, or degree, or income, lover, house, car, body shape, relationship, or whatever. We spend a great amount of energy fulfilling other’s wants and ignoring our own. We essentially learn that happiness comes from outside, not inside.

Self love IS the accomplishment. Once you set in motion the desire to love and appreciate yourself, everything else you want in life becomes more accessible. You discover new ways to care for yourself. You begin to convince yourself that you are worthy of the life you want and allow yourself to accomplish things that bring you joy. Your energy and creativity expands. You realize you are the master of your life, and your power resides in the degree to which you know your own goodness, worthiness, beauty and intelligence.

When it comes to living a joyful life we often hear “Its an inside job”. But what the heck does that mean? How do I get the job? And what is my position in this work? How much will I earn? Where do I begin?

There is a voice inside of you
That whispers all day long,
“I feel this is right for me,
I know that this is wrong.”
No teacher, preacher, parent, friend
Or wise man can decide
What’s right for you–just listen to
The voice that speaks inside.” 
― Shel Silverstein

Everything you want is already inside you – all your answers, all your well-being, all your peace, all your success, all your prosperity, all your joy, all your love – they already exist in you. When you take steps to get to know yourself and learn to listen to the voice inside, you find the clarity you seek. The depth of your beauty, brilliance, and greatness becomes certain to you. There is a greater sense of ease and okay-ness more of the time.

Growing self love is not selfless – it is self-focused – and is THE most generous gift you can give the world.

Self love is a practice, which means, like anything you want to get good at, you have to practice. It begins with awareness – awareness of how you see yourself, of the habitual thought processes you have acquired about yourself. You ARE your physical body and thinking mind, but there is a bit more to you. You are the consciousness that is aware you have a body and thinking mind. YOU are the part that is willing to observe and question your thoughts. Most thinking involves repetitive, habitual thoughts or thought patterns (beliefs) that you pick up along the way starting from childhood. By default, your life unfolds based on those learned beliefs. YOU are the consciousness that can take a step back and see how you’ve created your life. While there are many thoughts and beliefs that support your well-being, self love involves freeing yourself from thought patterns that do not serve you. By first becoming aware, then practicing changes in thought process, you can stop believing in barriers and begin to grow beliefs that generate thriving. Meditation is how you grow that awareness.

I’m not sure we can really “define” love with words, but here are some definitions of “love” from Dictionary.com:

  1. a profoundly tender, passionate affection for another person.
  2. a feeling of warm personal attachment or deep affection, as for a parent, child, or friend.
  3. sexual passion or desire.
  4. a person toward whom love is felt; beloved person; sweetheart.

Notice how the dictionary definitions involve feelings of love for another.

My description includes love as both feeling and behavior:

  1. Appreciation
  2. Trust
  3. Compassion
  4. Kindness
  5. Respect
  6. Forgiveness
  7. Acceptance
  8. Mindfulness
  9. Presence

A body in a state of love relaxes, heals, repairs, and thrives. When you are experiencing love (or appreciation or gratitude or fun or laughter or joy or serenity or awe or inspiration) your immune system is strengthening and your energy is increasing. The more often you are in a state of love, the faster this process occurs. It doesn’t matter what you are using as your object of love or appreciation – your pet, a family member, a sunset, or the magnificent meal you just prepared. Just practice feeling those positive emotions more frequently. Seek and find ways to feel good. Just like muscle strengthening, the more you practice, the easier it gets.

Everything you desire from this life experience resides in loving and appreciating the person that is you. You are the most important person in your life and your relationship with yourself defines all other relationships. As you learn to love yourself, you begin to realize your tremendous power in shaping how you see yourself and the world. You feel connected, not separate, and your love for others and relationships will evolve in wonderful and unexpected ways.

Introduce Yourself

My name is Elizabeth Likes, seeker of love and knowledge and a joyful life. I have an insatiable thirst for knowledge and the more I learn, the more I realize how important it is to keep learning and expanding.

My life’s work is helping other’s improve physical well-being through self care, and this blog is simply an additional setting in which I can share my dedication to this work.

A few years back I found myself in a body that felt devoid of energy much of the time. I was going through menopause and my body no longer felt like mine. I felt alienated and disappointed by my body. I was ashamed of feeling thicker. I was trying to keep up with the workout schedule I did in my 30s and 40s and continued getting thicker and more exhausted. I was desperate to take off the layer that seemed to want to stay on my body since my early fifties. I was tired and worried about being tired. I didn’t trust my body. I went through various aches and pains, digestive issues, and a back injury that took about a year to heal. And lots of fatigue.

This blog is about how I found my way back to a healthy, happy body full of energy and vitality. I offer my words as both method and inspiration. My writings reflect various components of how I healed and maintain my vitality.

I am not here to sell you anything such as a diet or workout program. The intent of this blog is to share various processes and practices that led to my healing with the hope that one or more will work for you. I am certain that anyone can achieve physical and emotional well being if that is the deep desire. I am also certain that one can return to vitality only by a commitment to self discovery.

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