Are you shackled to your beliefs?

July 11, 2021

I hope you enjoyed your holiday. I spent the past week with my family at our “covid”  lake house in Michigan. Our new house was one of the gifts of the pandemic. Without the pandemic we would never have considered a second house just 70 miles away in the same climate we live in. It has been an amazing gift that has surprised me in so many ways and I am incredibly grateful and it has been a deep practice in trust. More on that another time. Today I want to share my thoughts on freedom and independence for obvious reasons.

Freedom lives within each of us and that is the single biggest lesson I have learned in my 51 years on this planet.  But I can easily forget it as I go about my daily life which is why I practice everyday.

We are not truly free if we are attached to: outcomes, our beliefs, the approval of others, what our culture tells us about what is right or wrong and other opinions.

The first step to freeing ourselves from our attachments is awareness. If we are unaware we cannot properly care for the parts of us that are attached. Being attached is NOT the problem, it’s just part of being human. More often than not however we deny our attachments for fear of letting go. 

We need to attach to feel right, secure and connected to something. This is an  illusion.  

I can catch myself attached to so many things that I feel right about on a daily basis.

I am right that my kids should have summer jobs.
I am right that my husband should eat less sugar.
I am right that my kids should have a college degree.
I am right that I should work out more.

Freedom is  however a state of mind and the more attached I become to any of my beliefs the more struggle I create in my life and relationships.

Each one of those righteous beliefs is attached to some fear lurking in the corners of my consciousness and that too makes sense to me. I am human! My only job is to deepen my awareness.

For example: I am right that my kids should have summer jobs, because I am afraid others will judge me as a bad parent indulging and spoiling them. I am afraid I am not properly setting them up for ‘success’.  I am afraid they will become lazy adults.

I am right that my husband should eat less sugar, because I am afraid he will be unhealthy as we grow older.

I am right that my kids should have a college degree, because I am afraid that their lives will be hard if they don’t follow cultural norms.

I am right that I should work out more, because I am afraid I will be unhealthy as I grow older. 🙂 

Are we really free? 

Of course we are not free when we are rigidly attached to our beliefs. They hold us hostage in our minds, create us as control freaks and hijack our ability to truly stay open and connected to ourselves and the people we love.

When I believe my kids SHOULD have summer jobs, I get anxious and controlling and they feel it whether I am saying anything or not. I am either spending my energy reminding them to get a summer job, or I am spending my energy internally trying to quiet the voices of fear that are screaming at me in my head.

I bet as you are reading this, you can hear the part of you thinking, “well yeah, actually they should have summer jobs.  That’s just part of growing up!” 

I get you. That VOICE is loud and clear in me too. 

However, when I allow the scared, righteous, judgmental one in me (FEAR)  and surrender to what is actually happening (TRUST) I am more available to BEING present with my kids however they are. This is the jedi move.  From fear to trust.

The truth is I know I actually have NO idea if they should or should not have summer jobs. Deep down I know that I cannot know anything for sure. Who knows what learnings will arise for each of them in this free time. Who says they should have summer jobs anyway?  Why should they have summer jobs? When I start to ask these questions my mind becomes a bit more open and I can find myself letting go, relaxing and enjoying the moments just a bit more.  

Ironically, I am NOT free when I am lost in all these limiting beliefs and stories about what my kids, husband, myself or others should or shouldn’t be doing. I am caught up in a trance of judgments and lies I am telling myself in an effort to feel safe, secure, accepted and ‘good”. I am attached to an outcome so my ego can feel better and safe.

Learning to let go of my righteousness has been a deep and devoted practice and a muscle I build each and every day. The more I accept myself for just being a human being, the more freedom I actually experience in my life and my relationships. 

I’d love for you to feel more freedom in your life.

Try it for yourself. Take a moment to uncover a few of your righteous beliefs. Write them down and ask yourself what fear is lurking beneath them. Take a moment to BE with both your righteous beliefs and fears simultaneously. Let them both be here equally and watch all the thought trees grow. Here is a worksheet inspired by Little Seeds Journey to help you out.

Speaking of FREE…Are you interested in learning to move from fear to trust in your life?  Sign up here for your free 30 minute coaching session and begin to build your awareness muscle.

With love,

Annmarie Chereso
Author, Speaker, Coach, & Meditation Teacher

P.S. I think it’s important to point out that ironically, my kids do have summer internships.  However they don’t look and feel like “real” jobs in my mind. One is a part time unpaid internship and one is a low paid job done online. In my mind, I can find the part of me saying “it’s not enough.”  “they should be doing more!” etc. This can be a whole new blog entry on my conditioned mind 🙂 that I will share another time.