The Blind Eye To Bondage

The Illusion

Is bondage physical, mental or emotional?

The short answer is bondage occurs in all three of these areas and not understanding how it shows up will confine you to a place of bondage that feels very difficult to escape.

But where and how does bondage begin?

The illusion will have us believe that bondage is more of a physical experience but every experience that we have begins within the mind, is felt within the emotions and experienced in the body.

Our emotional experiences and our physical experiences begin as a process within the mind.

The Mind is a Powerful Thing To Waste

Over the past two months I have taken to bike riding. It's an activity that I thoroughly enjoyed as a child and I enjoy it just as much today at the age of 52. I discovered that doing what you love truly feeds your soul.

I have been experiencing major life lessons on my bike rides that I am compelled to share with my audience. Today the lesson came through on bondage and liberation.

Seventeen months ago my husband left our home with no explanation. Two months after he left he returned with no explanation or conversation. When I confronted him verbally he attacked me physically which resulted in the police being called to my home at 2am in the morning.

I told the police that I didn't want him there and they asked him to leave for the night. He took a handful of his belongings with him and never returned.

That was fifteen months ago.

There is much mental processing that I have done since that day to now and have had to face some very difficult truths about myself and the relationship that was my marriage.

The first truth that I had to come face to face with was that, in both of my marriages, I entered into the relationship from a place of desperation. I had desperate thoughts as it pertained to the relationships with both spouses.

Any time you enter into an agreement from a place of desperation you are truly setting yourself up to be bound in something that is unhealthy. The foundation of a thing determines the structure of it.

My mind was not in a confident place and my thoughts were all over the place when I entered into marriage eleven years ago. I realize that my state of mind worked against me rather than for me. How can you truly be comfortable in something that was founded on desperation.

​Desperation is not comfortable or confident.

The Blind Eye

When you can't see clearly you can tend to make things up.

But I saw many things that I knew had an undertone of drama to them. From infidelity to insecurity to incapability to manipulation and control. But the truth is, as women, we have a tendency to pretend that we don't see what we see, excuse it, or convince ourselves that it's not as bad as it seems.

This is the first lie we tell ourselves and in turn we choose to turn a blind eye.

I'm a very strong personality (true Aires I am) and I can hold my own externally. However as an empath I feel emotions at a deep soul level and the feelings can never be denied. You can ignore others but you cannot ignore yourself.

As spiritual beings we are wired in such a way that gives us access to the truth. This shows up in what I call intuition. Our intuition is connected to our feeling sense and this is why it is so important that we DO NOT ignore our feelings. We have to feel what we feel and more importantly we need to understand what we feel and why we feel it.

The truth is... I felt. I felt much discomfort in the beginning emotionally but I was allowing myself to be driven physically.

He was good looking, he was tall, he was financially secure (or at least I thought he was), he was romantic, he was a great kisser. All external.

But he was also insecure, emotionally wounded, disconnected, dishonest, mean in how he spoke about others, negative, and a "victim". All internal.

He constantly talked about what everyone else did to him. That's the mentality of a victim. It's always about what someone else did.

And I was a victim to the story of what my father did to me or didn't do for me. So when you are blind to who you are you can't see clearly that you attract what you are. 

Facing Your Truth

I realized on my bike ride this morning how free I truly am now that I am truly free. 

I'm not just talking about physical freedom. Yes, I'm no longer in the relationship that I was really unhappy in for years. But the truth is that mentally and emotionally I was bound and didn't even realize it.

I went sky diving last year for my 51st birthday. I wanted to do it on my 50th birthday but he objected to it.

I now go bike riding through the forest, something that I know he would be opposed to.

I do the things that I love doing without the thought or worry about what someone else would think about it. It's such a liberating space to be in and I am so grateful.

But the truth is that he wasn't stopping me from being comfortable doing what I wanted to do. The truth is that I was allowing his comfort to be more important to me than my own. And deep down on the inside this was making me very uncomfortable.

A relationship that is healthy and functional is comfortable for all parties involved. This doesn't mean that you will always agree on everything but it does mean that even though I may not agree with your position, I honor the fact that you get to choose what is best for you. Once it is not diminishing what is best for me.

A relationship consists of two individuals... two INDIVIDUALS. Two people with different thoughts, different experiences, different understandings, different outlooks. And different is okay. Different is beautiful. Different is well... different.

Understanding differences, respecting and honoring them makes for healthier, more connected relationships. If you don't like it, you have the right to walk away from it. You do not however have the right to change it or insist that it change.

Escaping The Trap

Until you make the necessary steps to escape the mental trap, you will remain physically trapped. The entrapment to bondage always begins in the mind. Like the song says "Free your mind and the rest will follow."

Escaping emotional and physical bondage begins with a decision. It begins with coming face to face with those thoughts that you have allowed to occupy and consume your mind. If your thoughts are not free, you won't be free emotionally, mentally or physically.

I realized that I alone was keeping myself entrapped within the emotional bondage because I allowed fear of another failed marriage to keep me stuck in a place of discontentment and unfulfillment. I also realize though that deep down on the inside I had a desire to be free... to be happy and in a relationship that added to me rather than subtracted from me.

And the truth is that one door had to close... I had to walk out of the door (or in this case he had to walk out of the door) for me to be able to access the door that I deserve to walk through.

Life always presents you with opportunities to learn, to evolve and to grow. Your responsibility, and mine, is to learn, evolve and grow. Your present circumstances don't define you unless you allow them to. If your soul is calling you to it, know that you can connect with it.

Experiencing liberation requires three things...

• Face it so you can erase it
• Tell the truth about it
• Do what is necessary to achieve it

Pay attention to what you see but more importantly to what you feel. Your ability to create the life that you desire to live is, and always has been, within you.

​Here's to a liberated life! Cheers!
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