Over and over again I keep coming back to Acceptance. “Accept yourself the way you are!” the Universe tells me, “I’m trying” I respond. “Don’t try, do!” comes the response. Where is the miscommunication between me and the universe? And then I receive a sign…On the side of a truck, I see an advertisement that reads, ‘This book has no rules.’

I wouldn’t describe myself as someone who follows the ‘rules’. Over the course of living my life I have broken many over the years; like moving to a new city or country ‘on the fly’ (without a job or visa), I owned a shop and brought my kids to work everyday, when everyone told me I couldn’t do that, I married a man from outside my own culture and religion, and I am the bread winner in the family while my husband is the primary care taker. When someone tells me I have to do something, it immediately makes me want to do something else. I’m annoyed by people who have a lot of rules. However, it has been clearly pointed out to me today that I am a rule follower, and I’m not happy about that!

As I look back on my life, I see how much fear I had about breaking the rules. Growing up, I was such a goody-two-shoes, mainly because I was afraid of getting in trouble with my mother. But the crazy thing was, in my house there were no rules to follow to avoid ‘getting it’ from my mother. My mother’s outbursts had nothing to do with rules. Break a dish and get in trouble or break a dish and get a big hug. It didn’t matter, there was no rhyme or reason to how she might react. In the world outside I was afraid to do anything that would get me in trouble. But my fear was so intense that I sometimes endured the punishment without committing the crime. Like the time I went to a party with a friend where we knew there would be older kids drinking. I didn’t want to be there so I left, but on my way I spotted the police approaching. When I ran back to warn my friend, I ended up getting arrested, while the others who had been drinking, got away scott free!

I am confronted by these rules, and realize my desire to have rules is a desire for boundaries, to keep me safe, but my fear is so intense I have created a prison.  Today while shopping in Trader Joe’s (in my opinion the most laid back grocery store) I had my sleeping child in a stroller and couldn’t push a cart as well, so I just hung my shopping bag on the stroller handles and started putting groceries in the bag. Every time I put something in I felt like people were looking at me, thinking I was stealing. I could not get this feeling off of me. To be honest I have this feeling when I’m in any store and don’t buy something! As I walk out I feel like turning to the security guard and saying, “I didn’t steal anything! Stop looking at me!” Today was strange because I don’t normally get this feeling in the grocery store, probably because I always buy something there. Maybe the universe was trying to help me see something.

Last night I went to see a talk by a woman who wrote a book about mediation. I enjoyed the talk and thought how I would like to do something like this, and then I thought “but I don’t have a book, or a degree in healing or a this or a that and blah, blah, blah…” So today I must again face up to the fact that it’s me keeping myself locked in a pattern of failure, by following these crazy rules that I have created. I have been asked several times to teach or to speak, but each time I politely decline, making some excuse, all because I feel I do not have the right because of these rules. No-one but myself is preventing me from moving forward. I have to accept that these are my rules I’ve made up, not anyone else’s and by doing so, I already feel a great weight off of me. I feel free to rip the care labels off my clothes if I want to! Which up to now I could not do, even if they were irritating me or hanging off, I didn’t feel ‘I’ had the right to remove the manufacturers instructions. I didn’t feel I had the right to ‘own’ my life! It seems so crazy but it was so symbolic, I didn’t feel I had the right to take “the label” off of me! I was under the delusion that someone else had put a label on me but it was me. It was my label!!!

It’s hard to even describe how I feel right now, but it’s like I was walking with heavy chains shackled around my body and now I feel a lightness and deep sense of freedom. I want to share this with you. So I will put the energy of freedom into this blog. All you need to do to feel this freedom, is close you eyes and allow yourself to feel your rules slip away and then let go.

with much love,

Oskar