“Experience is not what happens to you, it’s what you do with what happens to you.” – Aldous Huxley

In the grand scheme of things, I would say I have had more than the average number of “experiences” for the typical white man from New York. I have done a lot in my life over four decades, from traveling within and without, education, work, relationships, bucket list cross-offs, etc. Yet, for a guy who has been so relatively busy for most of his life, my existence these days seems considerably more settled. And I have never been more content than I am today.

Here’s what I learned.

For a long while, I believed the goal of this whole life journey thing was to transcend the body. I figured I was supposed to meditate myself right out of my skin. I assumed it was all about leaving the old bad of bones behind and skipping my soul across the ethers into real freedom. The problem with that approach was that I lost perspective as to why I was actually placed here in my body in the first place. I was operating under the assumption that Human Life was really more of a cosmic reality show to see how long it takes humans to realize they are really spirits and get off the island!

It took me a number of years before I realized that I was missing this very important piece of perspective, but once I did acknowledge to myself that the point of the journey was not to eviscerate the body but to integrate the bag of bones with my spirit like a fine tuned piece of creation, it truly did recalibrate my experience. I have been far more at peace on both sides of the human experience ever since.

I now find myself in a far better position to integrate the spiritual and emotional discoveries I have with my bag of bones. In fact, I have even come to appreciate the body as not just flesh and bone but something to love and nurture in much the same way as I nurture my heart and soul. It’s all connected.

Even illusion is a creation and deserves to be loved!

So many of us live our lives in a state of reaction to Life.

Many of us tend to believe that life is happening to us and that our best chance at attaining happiness is to take our lumps as best we can and hope for the best. Maybe we’ll win the lottery and all will be well.

I believe that all of us, you and I, have an opportunity in this life to not only be free, but to be in a state of peace and joy as well. However, in order to get to that place of peace, we require liberation. Liberation not necessarily from the physical chains that bind us or prisons we occupy; liberation from the thoughts and ideas that keep us trapped in disappointment, resentment and sadness.

Victor Frankl was an Austrian Jewish psychiatrist who spent much of the Holocaust in a concentration camp. Upon his physical liberation from that veritable Hell, he wrote about the process that kept him alive all those years in captivity. More than anything, Frankl suggested, the realization that even locked away in a concentration camp was he free provided the greatest awareness that fed a deep sense of empowerment. He became clear that no matter what anyone does to us, no matter our external circumstances, we always have the ability to choose our attitude.

(T)here is also purpose in that life which is almost barren of both creation and enjoyment and which admits of but one possibility of high moral behavior: namely, in man’s attitude to his existence, and existence restricted by external forces…. Without suffering and death human life cannot be complete. (1963, Man’s Search For Meaning, p. 106)

This sense of choice when it comes to our state of mind, our affect, and our response to the world is, at its core, our Liberation. The manner in which we answer the beauties and the challenges of life is what sets us free to joyfully dance to the pulse of creation in each heartbeat.

At its core, it is this choice which liberates us to Life.

What liberates you to your life? What thought, opinion, or decision frees you to make love to life as the sky makes love to the earth?