A World Made New

Freedom is a foundational principle of aliveness. The ability to prioritize what matters most and base that decision on your internal knowing is a beautiful and evolutionary gift. If your stomach hurts, the ability to rest. If your mother needs help, the ability to go to her. If your faith is shaken, the ability to seek comfort in friends or family.

Problems always have solutions embedded. If you are hungry, the solution of eating is apparent. If you are scared, finding safety is obvious. If you are unwell, taking time to regain your sense of health and wellbeing is a no brainer.

In the optional, manmade world we find ourselves in today, the vast majority of beings do not have the freedom to take these self-evident measures toward wholeness, happiness and belonging. Many have to instead prioritize artificial needs like producing income, regardless of their health, the well-being of their family or community or their best instincts for what they and the world most need.

I became profoundly disconnected from my body and spirit in the workforce. I intentionally channeled my efforts into nonprofit work in the hopes of remaining as lodged in my soul knowing as possible, but it wasn’t enough. Nonprofit work is demanding, both physically and emotionally, as most organizations are continuously understaffed, on a shoe-string budget and always trying to do more with less to serve the mission. I realize now that there are many parallels to this in the for-profit world, with people working longer hours for less pay, less benefits and fewer vacation days.

What you are teaching your body and soul through the ceaseless externally enforced prioritization of manmade money over basic needs is that you cannot be trusted with your own well-being. You do not know best. Your stomach may hurt, but that is minor compared to the potential of losing your home, not having money for gas to go to work or being unable to afford a life-saving medication. We’ve created a system designed to put people into survival mode, and that’s not even touching on the many additional injustices and forms of oppression layered within.

It is not hopeless. You still know what’s best. Your body, your soul are still speaking to you. In fact, if you’ve ignored them long enough chances are they are crying out. So what can we do to turn the tide, and begin to move ourselves and this world toward a freedom that will allow us to embody love, dignity and joy?

The lowest cost, most attainable form of developing deeper awareness is journaling. You can pick up a journal with prompts, decide yourself that you’ll write the same few facets of your life down each day or completely wing it and write what feels good. Daily journaling will allow you to build up a record of who you are, what you’re experiencing, and how it’s influencing you over time.

It sounds so small, but this is a huge step forward in consciousness work. And being conscious – aware of yourself rather than running on autopilot – means that you are on the fast track toward healing, growth and self-love. Because once you make an issue, an idea, a thought loop conscious, it can no longer operate from the shadows and secretly control your life. Eventually, your frustration with repetitive problems will give you the energy, the strength, to move forward into new paths.

A second strategy, no-cost and absolutely life changing, is meditation. I recommend starting with one minute daily and every week adding one minute until you land at 15. 15 minutes of meditation a day, one minute of meditation a day, may seem like nothing. How is one minute of mindful breathing or listening to ambient sounds or enjoying a sound bath going to pay your overdue bills, help you raise your kids or end a longstanding tension with a narcissistic lover?

Because when you no longer identify with the thoughts and feelings of the person who is experiencing those things – when you let yourself be the beautiful, godly, aware container, you have just created the conditions for change. Being able to see thoughts arise, or have feelings bubble up and choose to focus on something else instead (tips for meditation below) makes you the master of your ship instead of the passenger of a life gone awry.

Breathing meditation where you focus on the inhale and exhale is the most common starter meditation. When I first began meditating, this format threw me into panic attacks because I had been dissociated long enough that entering my body, even to just focus on my lungs or throat or nose was horrifying. I was heading straight into the monster pit and I couldn’t do it.

So, if breath meditation is available to you, fantastic. If not, I highly recommend listening to ambient noises. Letting the sounds of cars driving by, birds chirping, dogs barking, wind blowing come and then following it until it’s gone. If that’s too unsteady and you need more rhythm and predictability to get started, Solfeggio tones are a great soundtrack you can focus on.

Mind too busy for those techniques? Many different mantras or chants are helpful to keep you focused while you perform your meditation. You can find many examples online, or you can just choose a word or phrase that feels good, inspiring, loving, and repeat it. I’ve even just repeated “God,” or “love.”

The goal isn’t to have a clear mind or to be free of all intrusive emotions. The goal is that when those things come up, because they will, to remember that you had a chosen focus before you started. The most important thing isn’t staying with that focus, it’s having the willingness to return to it, over and over again, when you lose it. What you’re proving to yourself and your nervous system is that you can focus on something on purpose, even when other things fight for your attention. When you can do that, you are creating a foundation of reliability and trust within yourself. You’d be amazed how far you can get in life when you know you can trust yourself.



My vision for the world is one where we can truly be guided by our inner light. And whether that light leads us to making shoes for people, healing, caretaking or working in nature, I believe we should be able to follow those lights and sustain our life forces in that pursuit. A life free of imaginary goals (money), where our very survival isn’t determined by luck or our ability to navigate oppressive regimes. When we can truly encounter this earth and each other as ourselves, the beauty and light of the world will shine so bright, we’ll know what is meant by Heaven on earth.