A Personal Declaration of Independence

[Guest guest]

---------- Forwarded message ----------From: Mandy <mandye@...>Date: Wed, Jul 2, 2008 at 9:12 AM

Subject: A Personal Declaration of Independencepivot.in.joy@...

The greatest independence is freedom from limiting,

self-defeating, or life-extinguishing beliefs.

We follow these faulty conclusions, misconceptions

and misperceptions every day of our lives until

we become aware of them.

Once we discover what they are we can challenge

them and eliminate them.

It is so very hard to create peace, love and prosperity

through the bars of a belief system that says:

NO!

You Cannot!

You Better Not!

It will only make things worse if you try!

You'll get hurt again!

It will be really bad this time!

Be angry!

Feel guilty!

Hold on to that fear!

Don't you dare reach for that!

I know. I've heard all of them and believed most of them.

I am fortunate to have spent most of my life helping people

to break out from beliefs that hold them back. My work

helps me to recognise and eliminate a lot of my own.

I still find them all the time on an infinite journey to truth and

clarity. But the trip is so exciting I wouldn't want it to end.

It is a blessing to travel a way with each of you.

In the USA we will celebrate our Independence as a country

this week. It's a fine time to reflect on your personal state of

independence in whatever part of the world your are.

There's an independence story about a bonfire, an angel

(a real one!) and a night that changed my life forever.

It's been reprinted, added to; it grew and grew until it

got too long to send out like this.

You can read it at http://mandyevans.com/declaration42.html.

To your freedom, happiness and success!

Love,

Mandy

PS: See more photos of Joe Vitale and me in San

and an update on prayers for Danny. Plus,

all the details for the live-and-in-person BREAKOUT

Weekend in charming Palm Springs, CA, October 24-26

at http://beliefbreakout.blogspot.com

PO Box 4517,Palm Springs, CA 92263

To unsubscribe or change subscriber options visit:

http://www.aweber.com/z/r/?LEysHKxstCzMTIzs7GzMtEa0zKzMHEzsDA==

[Guest guest]

http://mandyevans.com/declaration42.htmlA Personal Declaration of Independence

If you want freedom, sometimes you just have to take it. It's there for

all of us in so many ways, especially the freedom to be happy.

It's easy to get stuck in the prisons of our own limiting and

self-defeating beliefs though. Often we do not know how free we can be.

Sometimes we simply forget the boundless possibilities for happiness,

love and abundance that exist for all of us, whether we know how to

access those possibilities or not.

Here's how it works. Take a few moments and write at the top of a piece

of paper, " My Personal Declaration of Independence. " Begin with " I

declare my independence from... " and write away!

Here's the story of how this declaring business began.

I've never been the same since that bonfire on the 4th of July. An

angel gave me a precious gift -- really. Then I learned such a good

lesson that I sent an email about it to my friends. Like all good

lessons, this one kept on teaching. It still is. Here's what happened.

Several years ago I accepted an offer from a New England camp and

conference center to co-direct their first Recovery Camp for adults.

The center had offered a series of different one-week summer camp

experiences for young people and adults for many years, always keeping

abreast of the needs of the times. This week pledged to offer adults

who were recovering from abuse, addiction, alcoholic parents and

traumas of all kinds a chance to finally have a wonderful time at

summer camp.

My co-leader had directed other summer camp weeks there and I knew

going in that it was really his baby with me serving more as an

assistant. That part sounded good when I signed on. With his reputation

as a dynamic, innovative leader I figured I'd learn a lot and not have

to work as hard as I did when I was in charge. We did not get along.

Even though we both meant well, we strongly disagreed on important

issues. It got harder and harder to find a way through our conflicting

thoughts and feelings as the week went along. When I spoke up,

escalating conflict ensued. He was furious with me. When I kept quiet,

I felt like a hypocrite and a coward. The daily schedule was demanding.

The format was new. The material our campers had brought with them

proved intense. What a bunch of challenges for us all.

I am not wild about admitting this. After over thirty years of working

on my own emotional independence, I lost the vision. Though I wrote two

books on the subject, " Emotional Options " and " Travelling Free: How to

Recover From the Past by Changing Your Beliefs " and had taught

countless seminars on inner freedom, I was melting down. My whole body

hurt.

I once knew a little kid who used to say to his Daddy, " You hurt all my

feelings! " I knew what he meant. Most of my feelings hurt. I felt like

I had in grade school when kids teased me about being fat. As I

approached the morning staff meeting my most fervent desire was to make

it though without crying.

One of our last events was a big 4th of July bonfire and talent show. I

suggested that a Personal Declaration of Independence would be apt for

our 65 campers as they reclaimed their lives from all sorts of troubled

pasts. To my surprise, the man agreed. We decided that each camper who

wanted to would make a declaration and add a stick to the fire as a

symbol of new freedom.

I'm not sure how I would have made it through if it weren't for my guardian angel -- really.

One of the many delightful features at the Recovery Camp was our

guardian angels. At the beginning of the week, we each drew a name. We

became that person's secret guardian angel for the duration of camp.

The craft room buzzed with folks making treasures for the person they

" guarded " . My angel was truly heaven-sent. Each day she left special

messages or flowers or some other imaginative surprise in my cubby.

On the morning of the bonfire a large bunch of tied-together sticks

rested on the floor below my cubby. It was much too large to fit in the

cubicle. Someone had attached a note to it. A chill passed though me.

My first thoughts were of " sticks and stones " and " switches and ashes "

my grandfather said his brother got one Christmas morning. Was the

staff conflict even worse than I thought? Hoping it wasn't for me, I

bent down and picked it up. The note said " These sticks are so I can

see your beautiful face glow even more brightly at the campfire tonight

when you declare your independence. " Surely the best angel a mortal

ever had watched over me that week.

Night falls. As we file along the dark woodsy path, the bonfire lights

up the clearing ahead. A staff member hands each of us a small twig,

about six inches long, to throw on the fire as we make our

declarations. I, of course, have brought my own wood, thank you. Not

one piece, but a bundle. Not small, but large no-fooling-around

firewood.

The show proceeds with a rich assortment of sublime and absurd

performances. As it comes to an end with roaring applause, two desires

dwell in my heart; I want to be somewhere else and I want to fit in,

just like a million shy campers before me. Neither choice seems

available.

My bundle rests beside me. My big bunch of big branches. One by one

people stand up. They step forward. They make heart touching

declarations of independence and add their small twigs to the fire. The

moment is magical.

Across the campfire, the leader and the loyal staff beam at the

campers. They really like this guy. I am not the favorite camp leader's

favorite anything. In staff meetings, he has by now, accused me of

undermining him and of betraying him like no other person in all of his

long life.

I feel icily alone. But I know that somewhere in the circle a guardian

angel who gathered branches just for tonight waits. Person after person

adds a twig to the blaze. The last call comes. One or two stragglers

summon the courage to share their declarations and burn their twigs. A

silent pause follows.

I stand up. My voice trembles, " I have something to say. " The

co-director and several of the staff members roll their eyes and make

big " Oh, damn, now what? " faces. The director frowns at me and moves

his hand in quick circles with that speed-it-up gesture.

Gathering courage from the campers who went before me, I say, " I have

always dreaded standing out in an inappropriate way. " I hear a murmur

of recognition, of 'me too.' " But I have the most wonderful guardian

angel in the world who gave me this big bunch of sticks to burn at the

fire tonight. " I raise my bundle high and say, with tears in my voice,

but loudly, " So I'm declaring my independence from fear of your

judgments and I'm burning my big bunch of sticks that aren't like

anybody else's. Thank you Guardian Angel! " Cheers rang out from my

fellow campers.

It was a good lesson for me. And like all good lessons, it kept on teaching. I've thought of my angel and that day often.

Last year I sent a short version of this story out with the following

suggestion: " As we approach this Independence Day celebration I

encourage you to throw a declaration on the barbie or write one down

and burn it with a candle, or just take a moment to consider freedom

and independence. What do you declare your independence from? "

A surprising number of people, almost everyone, responded. Some were

touched, some inspired, but just as many people wrote to say they

couldn't do it. They told me about things they knew they wanted to be

free from but explained what prevented them from doing it.

Remembering that night and my own fear, I wondered what the big deal

was. It was just a campfire gathering at a wonderful place in the

Berkshires. But my own inner tyrant had tied me up in knots, inflicted

my muscles with tension and pain, filled my heart with dread and pretty

much paralyzed me. I looked at my own fear again. I asked myself the

questions I've taught people to use for all of these years.

What about those judgments was scary?

It wasn't just any old judgments. The thought of impending ridicule and scorn sent those shivers down my spine.

" What about ridicule and scorn involves fear? " I asked myself. The

sound of my mother's voice came to mind and a scathing kind of

irritation she expressed when I " got in her way. " The way I seemed to

be in the way that summer in the mountains.

" What about that sound? " I asked. I followed that fear to see where it

led. Then I knew; I dreaded total demoralization, succumbing to jeers

and taunts and giving up. In order to avoid that final defeat, I had

skirted many issues and pulled many a creative punch. I was afraid I

would lose my will to live.

I had felt so unwanted as a child, so perpetually in the way that my

desire for life was very weak for a long time. I dreaded a return to

that feeling. I guarded against it in many, ways, most of them

unconscious, all of them limiting.

If it were not for my guardian angel and that bonfire, indeed were it

not for my co-director and every single person there that night would I

have had to courage to declare my independence from that particular

tyrant within, even for one moment? I don't think so.

Think about our founding fathers. They didn't know what it would take

either or how to gain independence from the British Empire. They

eloquently and oh, so powerfully declared their independence from an

oppressive tyrant and began. Then they fought for years to win their

freedom and ours.

Imagine the courage! Today we celebrate the declaration, not the

victory which came 7 long years later. We celebrate the vision and

enjoy the freedom.

What is your Declaration of Independence today? Do you need to win your

freedom from an oppressive employer, an addictive substance, an abusive

relationship? Or is yours a tyrant within? Does a critical voice in

your mind nag at you continually? Does explosive anger destroy

important relationships?

As we celebrate our country's Declaration of Independence please take

some time to reflect on the state of your personal independence. Choose

something to tackle and write it down. Toss a twig on the barbie with

the burgers and send it into the cosmos. Or frame it to read every day.

Keep it to yourself or share it with everyone you know.

I'm imagining a world filled with people independent and free from

hate, violence, revenge and war. And I know I have more work to do on

that scorn stuff because I just caught myself wondering if you'll think

this is too mushy.

To your happiness, and independence!

Mandy

© 2007 Mandy . All rights reserved.