With Independence Day here in the United States, I was reflecting on what the 4th of July means to me. What came up was having the ability to choose.
I remember an experience I had when I returned to western culture after spending 6-months in Africa. I was in London and headed to the supermarket to buy some basics. As I stood in the brightly lit and wide aisled store, looking at the enormous selection of cereals all I experienced was the feeling of being completely overwhelmed. There was just simply too much to choose from and my next reaction was to leave.
Yet at the same time, I was struck by how much we take for granted, particularly as it relates to the number of opportunities we have to choose from. In less fortunate countries, there may be only one cereal choice, if any at all. You might go for days and only subsist on bananas and maize meal. In the developed Western countries, we have created abundance and much of this began when people left their countries seeking other places in which they had more choice, more opportunity to live as they wanted and not as they were told.
The Fourth of July reminds us that we wanted to be able to create our own utopia with freedom to practice speaking, praying and expressing ourselves without oppressive censorship. It took a collective courage to realize the need and seek a path of creating a way of life that supported this ideal.
Our yoga practice is a way of seeking our own liberation and manifesting it into something that is greater than ourselves. But, we must first know what it is that we need to connect to, our own inner freedom and then trust the ancient methods that have been passed down through generations.
The Buddha said that suffering is a given in life and through making particular choices about how we undergo our daily existence we can move further away from this suffering to liberation. Brené Brown, Ph.D., L.M.S.W a research professor of Social Work (author of the book, “The Gifts of Imperfection”) found that we can only love others as much as we love ourselves. Thus, if we have difficulty in tapping into our own hearts, how can we fully connect into the heart of others? By uncovering our own deeper need, one of which is love, we can begin to not only better our own lives, but more fully engage in other peoples lives…you know…spread the love from the inside out.
As we engage in the process of discovering what we need more of in our lives (peace, knowledge, freedom or socks), we can then begin to set in motion our plan of striving to reach it. Just as our forefathers knew they were suffering and sought freedom, we too can look at our own lives from a similar perspective.
This brings me back to cereal. We have so much opportunity sitting within reach. We have so much (sometimes way too much) to choose from that we often forget that having choices is a result of having freedom. For those less fortunate, they can still find freedom in their hearts and spirits. For us, we have the chance to not only choose between the high fiber/gluten-free granola or Captain Crunch but also how we choose to be in a relationship with ourselves, other beings and our planet.
I am grateful for being able to live in a country where I have the power to choose. Happy Independence Day to all!
