Ana Vaquero

“You can never solve a problem at the same level at which it was created”, Einstein mentioned.

So to solve our problems, discomforts or suffering, we will have to learn to think differently. By doing so, we will change the way we feel and act; so we will change as well the consequences of our actions, and therefore, we will create another personal reality around us.

As you see, the path to Inner Freedom is a process. It’s not an event that occurs suddenly by practicing certain techniques, rituals or beliefs.

It’s not a change that is made overnight, but a set of small steps that culminate in a more notorious step.

It’s like to go to school: we learn small lessons that little by little make us level up and, one day, we find ourselves in a more advanced level course. And we continue, again, with other types of small lessons that will take us slowly to the next level. In this way we continue to progress and evolve.

When we are stuck in the same kind of situation over and over again it means that we have not learned the lesson we need to learn to progress and move to a more advanced level. For example, before you can have a satisfactory relationship, you must first learn to be happy when you are alone and commit when you are in a relationship.

And since each of us is in a different level, we can help each other and complement each other in our process. Seen in this way, each interaction with others and with the world is an exchange of information and an opportunity to learn and evolve.

In my experience, the path to Inner Freedom is an on-going active process of consciously learning from your life experiences that requires a focus in self-awareness and the will to change.

It’s a digging process into your entire personality, specially the darkest corners of it, the understanding of what doesn’t help you, the decision to change and the battle with yourself to get out of the deep trails where you have walked for so long.

It’s a process of learning from Life itself about how Life works to free yourself from your own suffering. And because your teacher is Life itself, the process is universal, always available to everyone, at all times and everywhere, unstoppable and inevitable.

There are many opportunities to learn, any time, form anyone and anything, if you are curious enough. Every moment of your life is an opportunity.

So, it does not matter what your life circumstances are: if you are a millionaire or struggling to get a job. In both cases, you will have different types of difficulties or problems, and therefore, the opportunity to learn something about yourself and how Life works.

And in doing so, you will realize that your greatest purpose in Life is the journey of your soul to learn and evolve.

Everyone tries to be healthier and happier. In this search, we find obstacles that we must understand, accept and transform to progress.

One of the difficulties along the process of conscious change to achieve inner freedom is that we focus on dealing with the symptoms, instead of investigating at the origin of our problems or challenges.

But how do we focus on the symptoms and not on the origin of the challenges? We focus on the consequences, how things go wrong and not on the causes, what is causing it to go wrong.

Let’s see three examples.

The first one: you get depressed during the winter.

You focus on the symptoms when you give importance to the feeling of discomfort because you wear a lot of clothes; or you stop running every day and you only do it on sunny noondays; or you try to look for things to do to entertain yourself at home although they do not help you to stay with energy, like watching television…

Instead, you focus on the origin of the problem if you review what winter can offer you and you have not yet discovered; what attitude do you have in front of it; and what you need to change from yourself to maintain your energy and not get depressed.

The second example: you can’t sleep well because your neighbour’s dog barks at night.

You focus on the symptoms when you talk to your neighbour and ask him to silence the dog; or when you go to buy pills for insomnia and ear plugs; or when you analyze how not sleeping is affecting your work and your relationships…

Instead, you focus on the origin of the problem if you pay attention to learn to relax in the middle of the noise, so you can fall asleep.

And the third example: you don’t talk to your mother, because she doesn’t understand you and she criticizes you.

You focus on the symptoms when you think about what will be the next thing she will criticize; or how your father is on her side and not yours; or how you do it so she can visit your children without you having to relate to her…

Instead, you focus on the origin of the problem when you pay attention to, for example, how you give her the opportunity to judge you; how you demonstrate confidence in your own decisions with integrity; or how you can help her understand that the decision you have made is your best option at the moment.

So, in my opinion, to change yourself consciously, the first thing is to have the curiosity to focus on the origin of your problems or challenges, not on the symptoms.

And why do we tend to focus on the symptoms and not on the origin of our problems? That is due, in short, to the very nature of what we can call Ego. But that will be another post…

When we have a problem, conflict or discomfort, we usually tend to look for the cause of it in the outside world. For example, have you ever heard these types of phrases?

“It’s winter, that’s why I’m low in energy”

“I have insomnia because my neighbour’s dog barks at night”

“I do not talk to my mother because she does not respect my decisions, she only criticizes me!”

We tend to blame other people or the circumstances of creating our discomfort or suffering.

 In this way we justify our reactions and look for excuses in the outside world to avoid having to change.

But something has to change so that the situation that creates us discomfort or that we perceive as conflictive or problematic changes, right? Albert Einstein already said: “madness is always doing the same thing and expecting a different result”.

So the first thing we try is for the outside world to change: we require the other person to act according to our needs (we go to the neighbour and we ask him to educate the dog or put him inside the house), or we try to change or avoid the environment and circumstances (we escape during the winter, if we can, to warmer places or we stop interacting with our mother). In short, we try to change what surrounds us and, if it does not, we avoid it, trying to get it out of our lives.

If you focus on the outside world, you are not directing your life, you are not the captain of your ship. Why? Because your happiness will depend on your ability to get others and circumstances to adapt to you, and to be as you want them to be.

In this way, you have become a slave of the weather, of the noises around you or of your mother’s level of understanding. And depending on how many days it has been dark and cold, how much will the dog bark tonight or if your mother is in a good mood today or not, you will suffer more or less.

To have the reins of your life and to end your suffering and discomfort, you must focus on changing yourself. Why? At least I can think of three important reasons:

1.  Because you cannot force someone who is not ready to change, to do it and, also, according to your needs. People change according to their needs, urgencies, abilities, will, intention, level of awareness … not according to yours. Each person has their own personal evolution, at their own pace.

This way, it does not matter, for example, how much you want your mother to stop criticizing you. She is where she is at this particular moment in her process of personal growth or evolution, and she has her reasons to be where she is, even if you do not understand them at the moment.

• Because you cannot continuously create the circumstances that you consider perfect around you, without limiting your life and your experiences, letting life touch you, influence you and transform you.

For example, by fleeing from winter or allowing it to influence you negatively losing your energy and depressing you, you will miss experiences that winter has for you: making sculptures in the snow; skiing down the hill; enjoying a sauna or hot tea with a friend; or go jogging early in the morning when the streets are still asleep and the cold air wakes you up faster than good coffee.

• Because if you do not change, your problems and discomforts will follow you, no matter what you do, with whom or where you are, waiting for the opportunity to show themselves in different ways or with different faces.

Following the example of insomnia due to the barking of your neighbour’s dog, you will probably still suffer from insomnia when you go on vacation and the neighbours of your hotel room turn on the television; or when you go all weekend to visit your brother and the radiator in the bedroom sounds like a hungry lion; or you go a few days of business trip to the city where cars circulate, brake and start all night without rest.

Therefore, it is about putting the focus on you, on your inner world, on how you create that problem or discomfort.

Only then you learn to become aware of thinking, emotional and behavioural patterns that affect the way you live, that they colour your reality and prevent you from Being Free.

It is possible to feel energetic living in the North Pole in winter, sleep well between barking and have a good relationship with your mother, even if she does not understand you and has a tendency to judge you.

That is, in my opinion, to Be Free: it does not matter what happens in the outside world, because you can understand it, accept it, be calm in the middle of it and even give the best of yourself at that moment, since you don’t react to it.

And for that, you will have to focus, first of all, on studying and exploring one thing: you and your inner world.

I invite you to do an experiment: observe during the next two days if you focus on the exterior more than on your interior. Are you blaming others or the circumstances? Are you letting Life touch you and transform you?