This post is a follow-up to Hope's Wisdom Dialogues Episode Called "How the Ego Controls our Minds", written by Gail Florence.
What is the essence of choice, love and food? What does it mean to choose, love and eat? Are we just going thru life believing in ideas that seem true? This blog shares some insight in the freedom of choice, love and food. Read more and find out their spiritual importance.
Freedom of Choice
One of the most debatable issues more than politics (maybe) is the human being’s freedom. When we realize we have so much freedom, every kind of possibility pops in our minds like mushrooms. It feels like we are standing in front of a buffet table that offers every dish of each country. The numerous choices leaves us confused rather than joyful even if we are ‘free’.
Our minds are full of choices offered by two special voices – the ego and the spirit. The ego lays out thoughts that seem to be natural happenings in the real world while the spirit taps for the human being to just accept feelings. The ego will give meaning to every thought we linger in. The spirit will comfort and relieve the mind from such meanings. The ego will make us think that it is better to feel guilt, fearful, anxious, and upset because everybody else are doing so, they are the norm. The spirit, on the other hand, will just allow our minds to feel a sense of peace until we can laugh off negativity.
In Hope Johnson’s Wisdom Dialogues episode, the ego constantly convinces us of illusions that seem to be truth. For example, when we surrender to the pressure and accept a job which we are hesitant and not ready for, we just work our butts off in the company and just believe it is the most stressful activity in the world. Then, we quit, look for another job and accept another ordinary one. However, we do this because we don’t want to feel the anxiety and fear of unemployment. The cycle goes on and on without allowing ourselves to fully relish joy, gratitude, contentment and peace-of-mind. We deny ourselves of what makes us truly happy because we are afraid. By listening to the ego, whose claim is we are doing the right thing because we feel guilty if we don’t, positive feelings don’t stand a chance.
The ego convinces us that our negative thoughts are natural. However, our mind has the room for the spirit voice. When we start accepting its message, we allow situations to flow naturally. We release our control of things and simply flow through life. We take our minds to thoughts that are happy, comforting, relieving and innocent. We choose what doesn’t constricts us or scare us.
Freedom of choice comes in when deciding which guide to listen to. Hope Johnson says, “You have two guides in your mind, which thought feels better? There's options, there's always options. You get to decide which thought feels better. You're not going to get it wrong. …You don't have to go with the more fearful one. You don't have to go with the one that feels more constrictive,” (Johnson, 2019).
It is up to us where we believe in or which we allow to flow.
Love and Forgiveness
When we allow ourselves to obey the recurring devices of ego, it affects our view and experience of love. Hope Johnson puts it as, “…love is also eternal life. Eternal life is the same thing as love.” When we separate ourselves from reality by believing the conniving and illusions of ego, we go further from love. We need to recognize that there is no separation from love and it is better for our well-being to release ourselves from believing in worldly thoughts. Hope Johnson adds, “We have to be willing to make a choice. Once we're willing to make a choice, then we're shortening time and we're shortening the time it takes for this illusion to be undone and for us to finally not need the dream because we don't want it anymore. We realize we don't need something to substitute for reality,” (Johnson, 2019)
So, the ego projects to us illusions of fear, anxiety, being taken advantage of, guilt and so on to our own permission. Starting to recognize which you believe in – truth or illusion, you become alert on what you allow in your mind. Noticing this is an important step to welcome the voice of the spirit. It is also important to allow forgiveness. It is the kind of forgiveness where nothing happened. Hope Johnson says, “In that, you keep on getting uplifted. You become up lifted basically. You keep on getting uplifted because it's revealed to you that you're not anything that could be held guilty or accountable or anything like that for anything that occurs in the world, in your mind, anywhere. You just can't get it wrong,” (Johnson, 2019).
Food
Sometimes, when we are so caught up by the stressful moments in our lives, we automatically turn to objects or activities that we assume can uplift our spirits. As humans, we consider food as a tool, somehow, to make us happy. Of course, it necessary to nourish our body. However, when we consume, for example, an entire box of chocolate because we are depressed, we are denying ourselves of reality. Though we know it is unnecessary to finish up all the chocolates in one go, we listen to the ego who says, “Finish it up because it will make you forget your pain”. We know relief was only a momentary effect because after finishing all the chocolates, we feel bloated. It is how the ego protects. It just showers us with defensive mechanisms that just makes us escape reality. So, we need to accept that our pain stops when we face it and resolve it.
We are also controlled by the idea that we need to maintain a healthy body. We pressure ourselves to fit to the ideal body type. Hope Johnson shares her personal experience and says, “When I was a little kid, it was always taught to me that in order to be thin, fit and have a good body, you basically have to eat food you don't like… It occurred to me when I was a kid, “I bet you can eat, always eat, food that you like and still have a fit body”. And just in that, there was an energy shift and that's why I could still recall that moment because it was such a shift. It was just like opening up to another way. It's not taking on worldly beliefs and what's being presented to you as if it's true,” (Johnson, 2019).
Skinny, obese, or a healthy body are not real. They are just illusions that give room to prejudice. We need to remember that the belief of an ideal body type or size is simply to make us feel guilty when we can’t achieve it. So, let food be just food. Relish it as a gift from nature. Believe too, that, “Your mind already knows what you want, the body that you want. Even from the eagle's perspective, the buyer, your mind already knows what you want,” (Johnson, 2019).