Adaptive Freedom

E. E. Cummings wrote, “To be nobody-but-yourself in a world which is doing its best, night and day, to make you everybody but yourself—means to fight the hardest battle which any human being can fight—and never stop fighting.” “Staying real” is one of the most courageous battles that we’ll ever fight.

You can get a very clear view of yourself through the helpful feedback of those who are close to you. Therefore, the hopes and vision you cherish for the growth of your authentic personality will be worked over and refined in the conscious and nonconscious interchange with your partner and theirs with you. But that vision must always be on your own terms, not theirs. 

Do you think you would notice if someone you were giving directions to was suddenly replaced by someone else? Yes? Perhaps not! 

If you doubted the power of mind imagery to change your physical state take a look at this report in Scientific American Mind (May 2012). Amputees who experience phantom limb pain can get relief from an optical illusion. This trick involves looking in a mirror at the reflection of a healthy limb from a certain angle, which causes it to appear where the missing limb should be. Seeing the limb move freely fools the brain into relieving the pain. 


Thinking of something else is a time-honored method for coping with pain. Indeed, psychologists have demonstrated repeatedly that what you think about can modulate the pain you experience. People using binoculars to view an injured hand reported greater pain in the hand when it was magnified and less when the binoculars were reversed and the hand was minimized. The size of the image affected the pain.


Until now scientists did not know how exactly that effect plays out in the body. In a study published in Current Biology, neuroscientists have found that distraction does more than merely divert your mind; it actually sends signals that bar pain from reaching the central nervous system. 


If we can control pain just by thinking differently then imagine what effective mental imaging can have in all areas of your life. The idea of visioning achieving your goals has been around for a long time but rarely has hard science been so precise in backing up these ideas.   

The modern world has a tendency to distrust the mystical or those who claim to have powerful spiritual or religious experiences. There is a view that science is a more secure basis on which to ground our view of the world. And yet one the greatest scientists of all time – Albert  Einstein – had a high opinion of things mystical. He wrote of the mystical experience as knowledge of the existence of something ‘we cannot penetrate, our perceptions of the profoundest reason and the most radiant beauty, which only in their most primitive forms are accessible to our minds.’ 

Others accept such experiences willingly seeing them as a natural unfolding of the underlying spiritual nature of the world.  God, religion and spirituality may be linked and may also exist separately, and of course you can have a spiritual life with or without a religious dimension to your life. In the 2nd Pillar of the Freedom Code: Alignment I suggest that spirituality is a deeper more profound nature to your being and your connection to the spirit may be understood as a connection to the divine, and/or to your inner nature or to what I call “Quintessence”—itself a sort of spirit of the universe. Whatever you call it or however you describe it my view is that your connection to this deeper more profound and primal connection is absolutely crucial in discovering your authentic nature – and more important – it provides you with the power and strength to fully realize it.

 
These words of Albert Einstein sum it up well: "The most beautiful experience we can have is the mysterious. It is the fundamental emotion that stands at the cradle of true art and true science. Whoever does not know it and can no longer wonder, no longer marvel, is as good as dead, and his eyes are dimmed.”

Purposive action is the daily expression of authenticity - action is part of what you are. You are always doing something: exploring, sorting, listening, talking, eating, looking, and playing. Your innate disposition is towards activity.  

Alignment is the key aid to living authentically and is the focus of the 2nd Pillar of the Freedom Code. It is about the ability to understand and utilize the positive forces that pervade your inner space and the world around you by accessing the powerful field of energy and information that pervades the universe. 

The life you experience is the aggregate of what you pay attention to. To live authentically is to live in complete awareness of the present moment—that slice of time which is your conscious existence. Authentic living is conscious living. 

The prevailing disposition of our human nature is essentially optimistic, directed towards harmony and a sense of internal unity, constantly seeking union or wholeness in and with other beings and the world. Despite the evidence of some human behavior, at the central core of our being is the desire to seek what is laudable, hopeful or “to the good” for ourselves and others. Our essential nature urges us to do what is pleasing, valuable or useful. As the Dutch philosopher Baruch Spinoza wrote “You neither want nor strive for anything because you judge it to be good. On the contrary, you consider something to be good because you strive for it, want it and desire it.”  What is good is right and what is right is good, and these constitute the essence of authenticity.

Many people are simply surviving: surviving work, surviving unemployment, surviving the weekend, surviving Monday, surviving relationships and breakups, surviving parents and children. When you start to live authentically you stop surviving and start thriving. You become honest with yourself about yourself – you get real about what works for you and what doesn’t. This requires getting a handle on what you value in life and what you are prepared to commit to. Because a coherent, authentic life involves commitment, control, compassion and connection with others. Authenticity is about making choices and far more about saying ‘yes’ to committed living than saying ‘no’ to what you don't want. To thrive is also to strive – to make an effort to live a better, richer, fuller life and in the process come into full possession of your unique authentic nature. And the wonderful thing is that just making the choice is often enough to get you there.