I am a voracious reader and seeker of new information.  These days there are so many ways to do that, but for me there still is nothing like reading a book.  This week I came across a sentence in a book that I am reading, that summed up the experience I have always had in this life.  It was: "Beyond today your projections of life are conceptual."  I have known this was the truth for some time now, but I had not seen it so succinctly put.  What does this mean?

Well, it means that we love to run around our lives trying to control everyone and everything in order for us to feel better. To make all these plans for the future thinking we know how it is all going to turn out and create expectations around that. These expectations are created from our past experiences (specifically before the age of 8). We commit to these expectations and commit others to ours as well (all unconsciously). When people or circumstances do not show up how we like then we reserve the right to be upset, make up stories about why the person or thing is wrong and we are right (sorry, don't mean to be too harsh!), and then tell friends and family about it to prove our rightness and their wrongness. Maybe you can relate?

What I began to realize was that when something happened that I did not like or was not what I had hoped for, I would blame others and then reserve the right to be upset by their actions.  I was very good at this and I would make up all kinds of stories about why they did what they did and how what they did upset, offended, or angered me.  I went on like this for many years until I learned that me getting upset was giving up the only thing that I could control in my life, my emotions. It was giving my power to others by being in reaction to what they said or did or how something turned out.

Now, there are several other things going on here, and we don't have time to go into them right now.  What I wanted to share here is that when I discovered that I am in charge of my emotional experiences, and that is the only thing that I can control, I began to experience true freedom.  I no longer need to spend energy "projecting concepts into the future," I get to be free in the present moment and out of resistance to what is.  Would you like to learn strategies to experiencing freedom and enjoy your life now?  Let's hop on a chat and see what we can come up with!
Peace, Erin "here, now" Mac