Finding Complete Freedom in One Word

As a life coach and someone who writes a couple of newsletters a month, I stay open to receiving insights and revelations from every imaginable source … insights and revelations I hope will help guide and inspire.

I came to a revelation recently as the result of pondering the lyrics of the song, On My Way To You.

It’s a romantic song about finding love through it all … all the ups and downs … the pain and suffering … the wrong turns … the “mistakes.” But the message relates to life itself … your life … my life.

Here are the closing lines as penned by the brilliant Alan and Marilyn Bergman …

I relive the roles I’ve played
The tears I may have squandered
The many pipers I have paid
Along the roads I’ve wandered
Yet all the time I knew it
Love was somewhere out there waiting
Though I may regret a kiss or two
If I had changed a single day
What went amiss or went stray
I may have never found my way to you
…

I wouldn’t change a thing that happened
On my way to you

We’ve all taken some shots in our lives, made mistakes, done … or not done … things we regretted. There are probably plenty of events and episodes you look back on where you’d sincerely like to rewrite the script.

Imagine you had the power to do so. It’s an appealing prospect in many ways.

But while you might feel better as you white out the moments of pain and suffering, of worry, of kicking yourself in the rear for your perceived failures, you would lose something far more valuable.

You would lose what brought you to this moment … and what you’ve become in this moment.

Stronger … wiser … more humble … more loving and lovable … more aware of the beauty of simply being … all because you went through the wringer a few times … or several times. All because you went through the heartaches, the setbacks, the losses, the wrong turns, the crises.

Without those experiences, you would not be you … and you would not be standing here today on the threshold of a new birth of possibility, able to take advantage of your opportunities and love life in a way you’ve never been able to before.

That is a glorious thing.

But it’s only glorious if that’s the way you truly look at the trials and tribulations of your life … as a gift that allowed you to find your way to the true, wise, authentic you.

If you allow yourself to dwell in the swamp of blame, regret and self-flagellation, all that hard-won experience is wasted.

So how do you find complete emotional freedom and spiritual release from the bonds of anger, sadness, grief, and recrimination?

You do what it takes to get yourself to a point where you can look back, as a more objective observer might, able to see the value and the beauty and the rightness in the life you’ve led … to see the gift in it all.

And I’m not talking about appreciating it intellectually. That’s pretty easy. “Good thought,” you might think to yourself, but then you’ll likely let the thought slip away as you go back to re-visiting and re-living the drama of your past.

No, I’m talking about experiencing the impact of knowing your life unfolded the way it did for a reason!

When you do that … and cry a river for the release it brings … you will have found complete emotional freedom.

That one word … the key to completely changing your perspective on the past?

It comes spoken sincerely in answer to a question.

What would you change about your life to date?

Nothing.

Love,

Denise