There is a song from the musical Shenandoah called “Freedom.” The message of the song is simply: there is no place or person that will give us freedom until we feel free mentally. “Freedom is a state of mind.”

This song perfectly articulates what we teach in the Science of Mind and Spirit. We are free beings. We are free to choose how we will live and what we will do with our life. We are free to create our own reality. However, this reality is created first mentally. We cannot have or be anything that we cannot become mentally. Why is this so? If you really think it through, it will make sense.

How can you create a life of prosperity while constantly dwelling on lack or all that you do not have? How can you create a loving partner for yourself if you are always lamenting that there is no one out there for you or all that all good people are taken, etc.? How can you claim to be healthy while at the same time you are constantly afraid of the next disease you might catch? The Master teacher stated it perfectly, “It is done unto you as you believe.”

This is a mental Universe. How do we know this? Because we prove it every day and usually to our detriment. We repeat the same negative patterns over and over expecting different results. We keep thinking the same thoughts and expect something different to show up. We fuel the fire of the negativity. However, there is hope. There is hope, and as Dr. Joe Dispenza stated once in a talk, “If our thoughts can make us sick, our thoughts can make us well.”

For me, the key to all of this is practice, consistency and making a decision. We have to make a decision before the Universe will answer yes to us. True Freedom to me means that I am free to choose how I will respond to everything. Dr. Petra from CSL Dallas said something that makes so much sense. “When something happens in our lives, never say that happened so I could learn a lesson, but instead ask, what can I learn from this? How can I grow?” Can you see the difference?

And, even truer freedom means that I can make an irrevocable decision, a true decision and manifest that decision. I know that when I make a decision everything shows up to support that decision. However, it doesn’t always show up as I expected.

I’m about to be part of a manifesting webinar with New Me Coach, Bonnie Pedersen. Why is this important? Because I made a decision that this book that I wrote would touch as many lives as it possibly could, more than I could even imagine. I claimed myself as an author. I opened up to it, made a decision and walked as if it were true. I didn’t tell myself how it would happen, only that it would happen. That it had already happened. This invitation to be part of an international webinar as an author is part of my manifestation. Is it the total answer? I’m not saying that. I’m saying that a door opened and that door leads to another and then another. This is how it works. You don’t know how things will happen. Outlining gets us nowhere. Stay open for your good and be ready.

This idea of making decisions and to acknowledge we are free to choose the life we desire is important right now. It is integral to our evolution as a species. We are not here to tell others what to do, we are here to live as examples of what is possible.

I read this from Mike Dooley this week and I really resonated with it for this idea of personal freedom being planted in mind first:

“…As old systems begin to fail, extraordinary opportunities for new ones arise, paving the way for the emergence of heaven on earth. We now stand on the precipice of either realizing this potential, individually and collectively, or losing it to repeat the lessons of those who’ve lived before us.

The choice before each of us is to:

• choose love over fear, power over force.
• face and release our ancient but limiting views of who we are.
• live with a greater spirit of cooperation over competition.
• awaken our own supernatural powers to live deliberately and create consciously.

Not everyone’s ready. Today we see fear and resistance everywhere. What’s less obvious, however, is the love that is also blooming around the world. Never before have we seen such inclusivity, transparency, compassion, and tolerance, exposing old wounds and buried emotions that have long needed to be acknowledged and expressed.”

Freedom is indeed a state of mind in that it doesn’t matter what is occurring in our outside world. We are free because we live from a higher point of view that includes knowing that there is one Power that is always right here where we are that guards, protects and guides our path. A belief in this Power lets me know that I am safe no matter what is occurring in my outer world.

This is the Law of Freedom: “We live in Mind and It can return to us only what we think into It. No matter what we do, Law will always obtain. If we are thinking of ourselves as poor and needy, then Mind has no choice but to return what we have thought into It. ‘It is done unto you as you believe.’ Thoughts of failure and limitation or poverty are negative and must be counted out of our lives for all time. God has given us a Power and we must use It. We can do more toward saving the world by proving this law than all that charity hs ever given to it.” Ernest Holmes

I invite us all to practice our mental freedom today and always.

Love and Aloha,

Rev. Rita Andriello-Feren, Co-Spiritual Director CSL Kaua`i, Spiritual Coach, Author of a new book: “What Do I Need to KNOW? available on AMAZON